In 1981, Xerox released the first recognisable graphical user interface that adopted the metaphor of the office - files, folders, waste bin etc. It was called the Xerox 8010 Star:
(Xerox 8010 Star, from here)
One of the best stories from Steve Job's biography was Jobs getting into a lather about Microsoft 'stealing' the graphical user interface from Apple, only for Bill Gates to reply:
Well, Steve, I think there’s more than one way of looking at it. I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbour named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.
Both Apple and Microsoft used the office metaphor to govern the way people interacted with their computers for years afterwards; both still do with the latest versions of their operating systems. Windows 7 and OSX Lion are direct descendants of the Xerox 8010 OS.
More recently, in summer 2007, Microsoft released Surface and Apple launched the first iPhone. Both used a different GUI - multitouch - with much more intuitive information organisation and retrieval (think of all those videos of 2 yr olds / 95 yr olds picking up an iPhone and figuring it out instantly). We all know which business won this battle, so here's the MS Surface launch video for people who missed it - most of us by the looks of it.
The next stage in the evolution of UI is looking increasingly like gesture. This isn't new news; we've been able to do Minority Report UIs for a while now with projectors and motion-tracking sensors (I pitched an interactive mobile phone picker for retail in 2006), but the kit was never very robust and the costs were high; around $15k per week to lease.
The Nintendo Wii made the gestural UI mainstream. 90 million have sold so far, and smart hackers quickly figured out that you could do a lot more with the Wii sensor than go virtual bowling.
You need a spare hacker though, and your hacks are constrained by the need for a trigger of some sort, either a Wii controller or some sort of infrared reflector.
When Xbox launched the Kinect in November 2010 they did away with the need for the trigger. The Kinect's motion-sensing engine simply picks up on body movement and translates it directly into game action. I've written before about how awesome this is. As with the Wii though, Kinect hacks still require a hacker; someone who can write the software that takes Kinect's capability away from the console and into the wider world via the PC.
Microsoft have now removed this final barrier. They've created a software development kit (SDK) for coders to write applications that connect Kinect's motion-sensing ability with any computer running Windows. So, instantly, Kinect can plug into the most popular OS in the world, and this potential market will attract developers. And the more people that can develop for a platform the more likely that platform is to become a success, or as Microsoft puts it:
The world is starting to imagine things we never thought of.
Interestingly, Apple aren't in this game. They bet - and won - on touch, and will continue to make a ton of money with OSX (keyboard plus mouse) as well as iOS for iPhone / iPad / iPod Touch. As hardware diversifies away from the PC and laptop therefore, Apple are well positioned. Microsoft on the other hand need to explore other platforms, and by opening up the platform and leveraging the vast installed base of Windows devices they have a good chance with Kinect.
In the last 30 years of user interface evolution we've had 26 years of mouse + keyboard alone, 4 years of touch, and just over 2 years of gesture. At this rate of change we'll see the next thing any day now. I think we may need a bit of time to figure gesture out before we move on, but I'm betting we'll see some really scifi stuff sooner than we might imagine.
Watch this between 3'35" and 6'10". it's amazing.
Comments