Moving towards natural interaction with computers- gesture-based computing

The New Media Consortium 2012 Horizon Report lists gesture-based computing as one of the top trends expected to affect the teaching and learning environment over the next four to five years (Johnson, Adams, and Cummins 2012).  This trend will allow teachers and students to interact with virtual objects in a natural manner.  The interaction with the virtual environment will be intuitive and potentially decrease the amount of time for student mastery of content.  Gesture-based computing is becoming more and more accessible with the gaming industry taking the lead in research and development with such products as the  Nintendo Wii, and more to the point, Microsoft XBox Kinect.  The popularity of these gaming platforms and the potential integration of voice recognition software may increase the rate of adoption for this technology.

There are numerous other applications involving gesture-based computing listed in the Horizon Report.  One of the listed technologies is LG TV support for voice and gesture control (Wilcox 2012).  As part of this integration effort, LG is adding native support for GoogleTV to some television models this year.  The LG user interface is integrating Magic Motion into the remote controls for the TV platform.  As the gesture-based computing and voice interfaces mature it will create a new market for advanced applications available for use on television sets and mobile devices.

Ultimately this trend is worth watching as I believe over the next 15 to 20 years the human computer interaction will be much more than gesture or voice control.  I believe we will be part of the web and the interface will be controlled within ourselves  I plan to explore this idea more over the next few months as part of a futuring intitiative.

References:

Johnson, L, S Adams, and M Cummins. "The NMC Horizon Report: 2012 Higher Education Edition." New Media Consortium (2012).

Wilcox, James K.. "CES 2012: LG adds Google TVs, Smart TVs get voice and gesture control." http://go.nmc.org/eilfc (accessed July 28, 2012)