Ken Perlin demonstrates the unmouse Pad during the ninth annual microsoft Research
faculty summit at the microsoft headquarters in Remond, Wa.
engine with only his or her hands. rable, socially positive, and robust for
As humans get their hands and bothnoviceandexpertuse.
fingers into the act of manipulating “The way it will end up is we will
everything, they must be careful in get better, as a species, for having
their expectations of how novel the our computer interfaces match the
actions are as new expressive multi- richness that is already built into our
touch, gestural, and bimanual inter- brains and body,” Perlin says. “You
faces are developed. And researchers watch people use sign language, ges-must learn from Apple that it chose a turing, manipulating tools, or playing
set of multifinger tracking techniques guitar in the real world. We have the
for the iPhone; its interface makes the potential of writing software that cap-act of showing a photo to another per- tures the richness of human interac-son into a visual spectacle. Research- tion that has evolved over millions of
ers must develop scenarios of use that years. When it becomes successful, it
people want to perform, and scenarios won’t seem exotic. It will be as aston-can be better than simple, ergonomic, ishing to people that they used to rely
and productive; they can be memo- on a mouse and keyboard as it was to
people when they used to program
through punch cards.”
Hands and eyes are the special connections that the human brain has
to the physical world. In the next few
years, many great advances are possible, such as 3D multitouch interfaces. Three dimensions can make a
huge difference. For instance, George
Miller’s famous paper about short-term
memory holding seven, plus or minus
two things demonstrated that people remember many more items in a random
list of numbers, letters, and words in 3D
than in 2D.
Although coordinated multitouch
input, such as a two-handed, chordic
stenographer keyboard, might be
great for words—and words are powerful—a picture is truly worth a thousand words. Multitouch interfaces
offer more exciting ways to search for
and display images. They might also
drive faster use of information. These
interfaces are demonstrating natural
3D metaphors, allowing coordinated
manipulation to replace what would
be multiple actions with a cursor control. In the near future humans can
look forward to merging simple hand
gestures with rich feedback in a 3D
interface to create display and control surfaces that are simple to use,
increase productivity, and produce
more socially positive experiences.
formerly an associate professor at the mi T media
Laboratory, Ted Selker develops and tests new user
experiences in Palo alto, ca. saratoga, ca-based
author and technology writer Wylie Wong provided
additional reporting.
Quantum Cryptography
Quantum-Encrypted Network Debuts in Vienna
a team of international researchers and siemens austria
unveiled the first commercial
network protected by quantum
encryption at a Development
of a global Network for secure
communication based on
Quantum cryptography
(secoQc) conference in vienna,
bbc radio reports. The network
connected six different locations
in vienna and one in the
neighboring town of st. poelten,
and involved nearly 125 miles of
fiber-optic cable.
While standard network
security encryption is based
on complex mathematical
equations that are extremely
difficult to crack, it is vulnerable
to parties who possess sufficient
computing resources and
time. The promise of quantum
encryption is its reliance on the
laws of quantum theory, which
has been shown to be inherently
unbreakable.
“all quantum security
schemes are based on the
heisenberg uncertainty
principle, on the fact that you
cannot measure quantum
information without disturbing
it,” gilles brassard, a computer
scientist at Montreal university
and a pioneer of quantum
cryptography, told bbc radio.
“because of that, one can have
a communications channel
between two users on which
it’s impossible to eavesdrop
without creating a disturbance.
an eavesdropper would create
a mark on it. That was the key
idea.”
The vienna network used
extremely faint beams of
light, equal to single photons
being fired a million times a
second, which raced between
the nodes. When an intruder
tried to eavesdrop on the
quantum exchange, the photons
scrambled, and the rise in the
error rate at the node detectors
announced the attack. The
network shut down without being
compromised, and the network
connections were rerouted
via other nodes without any
interruption in connectivity.
The secoQc researchers
believe a business-viable network
is possible in three years.