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State of the art user interfaces are now front page news. Be thrilled. And worried. [interfaces]

It says a lot about the increasing awareness of interface design when the headline of a major news site says 'NUI Technology' (NUI = natural user interfaces).

That was the leading story earlier today on smh.com.au (pictured), which links to a feature article on Microsoft innovation (and, incidentally, how it's not dead).

Further down the homepage are stories relating to augmented reality (AR), Microsoft Surface and Playstation Move. All technologies noted not for their computing technology as such, but for the user interfaces that drive that technology.

User interfaces are now mainstream news. OK, so is the story of a pro athlete and his fiancee splitting up, but let's not worry too much about that. The point here is that cutting edge user interfaces are of so much interest they're garnering top-level publicity. In turn, this means usage, awareness, and expectations of and for such interfaces is soaring. For anyone involved in intranet/applicationand broader web design, this may be thrilling and terrifying in equal measures.

With all of us now using such sophisticated interfaces day in, day out - from iPhones to Windows 7 benchtop touch screen PCs, to the Nintendo Wii (I recently became addicted to Wii Tennis and am pretty excited about Microsoft's Project Natal) and at a push even the iMeh - the light it shines on business software and system interface design - from CRM to intranet - will increasingly show them to be what they almost universally are: awful. And I do mean AWFUL.

This isn't to to say businesses across the world immediately need to redesign their intranet to suit a four-foot touch-screen table (although that would be very cool, admittedly), but I've seen too many sites of late where one has to consider how far behind they are from simply being 'average', let alone 'great'. 'State of the art' doesn't come into it enough, and with the broader pace of development being what it is, this is becoming more than just a point of consideration, the lack of quality in business system design is going to cause increasingly serious problems.

Two insights on augmented reality [Interfaces]

Robert Scoble and Neville Hobson have both posted updates on augmented reality. Scoble says 'It's the latest way to look like a complete dork'.

Neville comments on the point that augmented reality has made it into Gartner's 2009 Hype Cycle (kind of like the technology world's OK! magazine?).

It's definitely a technology to watch, and with the number of AR-capable phones being sold (iPhone, Dream, Magic, Hero etc.), I think there'll be plenty of people soon 'looking like dorks' in public.

Sixth sense technology at TED [Interfaces]

In the comments to yesterday's post on augmented reality, Jason Buck pointed me towards this TED video about "Sixth Sense technology".

Sixth Sense is a mini projector coupled with a camera and a mobile phone, which in turn acts as a computer and the connection to the Web. It augments reality by adding data over items you pick up, takes pictures with gesture commands such as creating a "frame" with your two thumbs and forefingers,  you can even draw a watch on your arm if you need the time.

Things begin to get interesting around 4.20, although you need to see the intro to make sense. Then we see informed purchases, Harry Potter-style moving newspapers and a person's personal info beamed onto them as you meet them (at an event like TED), plus many more possibilities.

The 3D gesture interface demo'd with finger capture is similar to G-Speak (below).

And G-speak is of course highly reminiscent of the legendary touch interface in the Tom Cruise film, Minority report:

Sixth Sense is pretty amazing. Sure it's a little clunky at the moment, but it's early days and, as the Presenter says, in 10 years, maybe this will all be done by brain implant(!).

(Thanks for the link, Jason)

Augmenting your life [Interfaces]

augment: verb |ôgˈment| [ trans. ] - make (something) greater by adding to it; increase

Until recently, the most typical scenario for hearing the words "augment", "augmentation" or "augmented", would have been switching on the TV and being  confronted with a ghastly docu-show about plastic surgery. But not anymore.

Technology firms the world over are about to hijack "augment" and its variations and the reason is 'augmented reality' - as in augmented web browsers, augmented GPS, augmented Twitter apps and more. 

What is this, exactly?

Augmented reality, recently described as a nascent industry by VentureBeat is (according to Wikipedia):

A field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data (virtual reality), where computer graphics objects are blended into real footage in real time. The term is believed to have been coined in 1990 by Thomas Caudell, an employee of Boeing at the time.

There's potential for many a device to be augmented by further services that bridge the gap between screens and virtual interfaces, to the real world.

Layar
One of the first widespread stories to gain traction was of Layar - an 'augmented reality web browser' that overlays data on images or video being picked up with the in-built camera. Here's a Layar video that explains AR far better than I can (seen running on an HTC Dream/Google G1 phone). It's clever stuff.

When this video came out in June, Layar was described as the "world's first AR browser". Of course, claiming a "first" is always risky and since then it's become clear there are lots of companies producing such tools, such as Wikitude with their "camera view":

A few weeks later and we're hearing about augmented apps on the iPhone and others that include road maps, tube maps, places of interest... even air quality, with 'Pachube' (see video below).

Our lives are about to be "augmented". Watch out.

[Interfaces]