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From: meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc,comp.sys.next,comp.sys.mac,comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: replacing the desktop metaphor
Message-ID: <2412@stiatl.UUCP>
Date: 27 Dec 88 15:30:02 GMT
Organization: Sales Technologies Inc., Atlanta, GA
Lines: 31

In article <4479@xenna.Encore.COM> bzs@Encore.COM (Barry Shein) writes:
>As you turn your head the scene changes to match. You can use the
>gloves for several types of input, grabbing things in the environment
>and moving them about (one of the video tapes showed someone grabbing
>menus and rearranging them in space), a simple sign language to do
>things like change your perspective (a fist with the index finger
>motioning upward started you moving up above the "room"), etc. The
>gloves can also be visually replaced with a robot arm or any other
>object so it corresponds with your motions.
>
>A version of the data glove is currently available from the same
>company which has been working with the NASA/AMES group (I didn't
>catch the name.) The helmet is still under devpt but Scott Fisher
...
>Graphics were all wire-frame for now.

"The Glove", as it is known around here, was at SIGGRAPH this year
in Atlanta. It was easily the neatest thing at the show, from a new
development standpoint. The hand's location in 3-d space is detected
either acoustically or magnetically (I forget which), but the neat
thing is the hand motion; fiber optic pipes sans outer shield run along
the wrist and fingers; the variable impedance of each pipe as it bends
with the hand determines the hand motion. An on-screen hand followed
The Glove perfectly. The wearer could grab the objects on-screen by
moving the hand appropriately, and manipulate them. These were simple
graphics, but were 3-d, shaded sloid object, not wire frame, and they
moved in real-time, tracking the hand motion wonderfully!

-Miles O'Neal
Sales Technologies, Inc.
gatech!stiatl!meo