Elon Musk took the futuristic gesture interface from Iron Man and made it real
thenextweb.com
thenextweb.com
It's good that there are people with the disposable income, and the engineering resources, to tinker with stuff like this.
This particular iteration may not be interesting to you, but we're stuck with WIMP (or WIMP-lite) environments very similar to the 40 year old versions. (More colours, more animation, bigger icons, but little actual change).
Kludging together desktop and mobile interfaces is being attempted (with a variety of horrible unpopular results) by many people, so it's great that other people are experimenting with other paradigms.
Particularly the part about how it's from the Iron Man movie is silly, because it's not like this is some futuristic interface that previously only existed in films. It's been done, in real life, a number of times. The hard problem is making it usable, not just demoing its mere existence yet again.
Does it translate out to most people surfing the internet and jockeying Excel all day? No. But in the field of designing 3D mechanical things, 2D mice are not the norm right now.
At the end, he makes the statement that this will revolutionize design and manufacturing, but I don't think that's pretty reasonable, given that Space X is in the business of design and manufacturing, not VR research.
Well, more colours, more animation, more GPU power, etc are enablers of very important stuff that was impossible back in the day. For example, you didn't edit live video streams, with filters applied in real time, on those 40 year old version. We also have multi-touch now.
I'n not sure about the "we're stuck" meme. It's like taking for granted that there is something entirely different for UI interaction (as opposed to incrementally better).
Well, 3D interfaces are about as old as the WIMP. And what experience has showed as those 20-30 years we experiment with them is they are not really better for a lot of stuff.
Some things are just better in a specific way -- in the way that, say, reading gives us more information density than speach or watching a video, so those can never replace it and still have that.
Or in the way that speech recognition is a nice novelty, and perhaps essential for people with hand inpedements (or with hands engaged in another activity), but it's extremely tiring for writing a blog post or input of large-ish amounts of text (as anyone who had to talk for a presentation or a class of students for an hour or more already knows).
Agreed. I feel like any time I read a Tesla article on HN, people feel the need to criticize it for the sake of "balancing the debate". I recommend just not reading the article if you're really that biased against Tesla, and not taking part in the discussion. It doesn't add anything more than a few flame wars.
Besides, isn't it nice to see something that doesn't look like Bootstrap, Foundation, etc. (name one)? I feel like if anything doesn't follow certain unspoken laws of minimalism decided by the startup gods, the UI becomes terrible by default. I've seen Heroku's redesign praised by many people on HN, but to me it just seems like a factory-stamped Bootstrap print-out. If all this "Iron Man" stuff is "been there, done that", then what about all the same sort of criticism for the umpteenth Bootstrap clone?
"At this point, when someone comes to us with something that users like but that we could envision forum trolls dismissing as a toy, it makes us especially likely to invest."
And turned it into:
"Most things dismissed as toys are worth investing in."
Here's the thing, from where I'm sitting this is Light Pen Redux 2.0, as other commentators have pointed out, the system looks like a great way to induce the gorilla arm effect. Maybe there are aspects of this that SpaceX has a real use for, I'm not a rocket engineer. But I don't think it's out of line to call this what it appears to be, a PR piece.
You are right that examining pr tactics is useful and important. It's true that some groups use PR to pump out information about the same vapourware for years.
He and his team are trying out some really cool ideas. While most of us work on apps that involve displaying text and pictures, this guy has the good fortune to be able to play with rockets and cars etc. Good for the World that not everybody is working on another app.
Couldn't agree more with that.
I'm just explaining the reason you are seeing this is primarily for PR purposes -- which is a huge part of his job. HN should be able to tell the difference between good PR and good tech.
The two are not mutually exclusive. This is as valid a tech demo as, say, some esoteric ECMAScript 6 feature no one can yet use.
You know what? I make an exception to that in Elons case. There are plenty of people who do that and who leave us pretty much where we were before. Think of the tons of Microsoft Research projects that are mighty cool and are thrown in our face every half year or so... but never go anywhere expect right in the basket of "well, I guess Microsoft isn't entirely dead, yet" PR.
Is this extremely exciting stuff in itself? No. But it is still exciting to me because I know if Elon does it, he will follow up and make the best of the opportunity. It is the marriage between the person and the project - in the Microsoft example, some, probably mostly PR, division comes up with "oh, I suppose that's neat" on a regular basis, but what they do has no direct link to any real life implementation. What you need is that connection of being able to dream big and execute big - and for that, the impulse has to come from engineering, not PR.
It's like knowing that Carmack is hooked on VR goggles. For some things, the person doing the thing really makes all the difference in the world.
A prominent quote from the article with links to both LEAP and Oculus Rift. I'm not sure
Which futuristic gesture interface did he create exactly? I am sorry I missed this in the article. He used the LEAP motion device to interact with a 3D software.
The truth here is nothing has been created, new use cases have not been thought up, actually there is very little news contained within the article. Yet we have a sensational headline at the top of hacker news simply because it is Elon Musk.
If you look at things like z-brush, that are modelling for things where precision isn't as important, generally organic/character modelling, they do tend to work better in perspective and come up set up that way by default. But anything that needs precision, which engineering does...
He's got 7 billion dollars and a lot of resources that he can bring to bear. If he continues to take a deeper dive into its uses he could help spur further development. Either by creating the products with his team, or by purchasing third party solutions, thereby "investing" in other companies.
Now Elon needs to figure out how to incorporate an exoskeleton suit into one of his companies.
The Leap has been around for a good while, the Occulus Rift has been around for a good while, and 3D Laser Sintering has been around for a while, along with every other technology they're using for this application.
Also, I believe they're the wrong people to use it. Making the feedback involved visual instead of mathematical/geometrical has it's applications (quickly looking through the design), but it'll still have to be made to precise tolerances, and that's an engineers job, not a sculptors.
On the other hand, it's perfect for sculptors and designers. If their setup is considerably improved in resolution, designers can get very fast visual feedback, and trying out things suddenly becomes very cheap. Architects can mold parts of their buildings, your furniture can get those last brushes before it's milled out, and your phone can be molded to "just perfect".
But this isn't a Musk thing, nor is it an Iron Man thing, the idea has been floating around for a good while, the tech is there, they just went ahead and made it. That's not groundbreaking, and it isn't revolutionizing manufacturing.
And that's where we disagree.
To me that's the very definition of groundbreaking.
Robert Tiltons application is almost everything Musk seems to have done, except the lack of interfacing with CAD software (for example gesture based modification).
The other 2 links are, whilst only tangentially related, really cool, so I thought I'd post them as well.
So really, the question isn't "Why didn't it exist yet?" it's "Why was Elon's system featured on thenextweb, and Roberts wasn't?"
* tcp/ip and the internet had been around for a good while
* client/server document browsing had been around for a good while and
* hypertext documents with clickable links generated from markup
had been around for while (microsoft help viewer)
[1] http://www.yuiblog.com/blog/2009/08/11/video-crockford-json/
Upon such things, many successes are based :)
I don't do 3D modelling so I'm not sure if this would actually be an improvement, but getting the other hand into play seems like a good jump from regular one-handed mouse-intensive work.
You're missing the point. Musk's life is actually an elaborate experiment to see what would happen if you took a very smart 11 year-old and gave him a billion dollars to build toys.
But the glass projection looked fascinating.
http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/paych...
Why overselling? Because the precision provided by that tool (as shown in the video) is surely not enough to achieve anything other than reviewing CAD models.
Oculus Rift / or a normal Display and MS Kinnect make it obviously usable for a mass of users.
Only the Software has to support the kind of IO.
Impressive, only because they added hardware such as the Oculus Rift, but it's almost the same as the DNA demo for Leap Motion.
Folks, "there's nothing new", until there is. At some point, new tech is a toy and dismissed because of its limitations. The whole idea is to identify those limitations and push through them.
SpaceX actually has some use for new ways to interact with virtual 3D objects. Everyone is focusing on modelling, but there's also the visualization. Which can be more important than the modelling itself. For comparison, think about how much time you spend writing code, vs reading and debugging code.
Technologies like these enables us to get new ways of looking at things. We are focusing on rotation and panning, but gesture-based interfaces can provide so much more.
Also, we are thinking about people sitting at desks, where other input devices might be more desirable. But what about gesture-based screens in other environments. Say, at the factories themselves? We are visual beings and we like to point at stuff (and talk about stuff). Maybe a combination of speech recognition and gestures would enable new interactions with machines?
Yeah, comparing to Iron Man is silly, but it is amusing. And easy for the average Joe to understand. That is PR, and NASA could learn from it.
Anyone involved in using 3D CAD and component design, including using Siemens NX which he refers to in the video will have seen or used a six axis Space mouse controller by 3D connexion which costs a few hundred bucks and is massively more precise than using a leap motion.
These space mice have been available for well over a decade and use simple optical encoders to derive translation and rotation.
No doubt the leap motion has uses at and beyond the desktop but it has a way to go yet to overcome the problems in the algorithms for interpreting gestures at a distance.
Also, I've seen people working in SolidWorks. They were far more impressive than this!
If such a beast does exist I'd be even more amazed than the leapmotion controller. But I have a nagging feeling the author doesn't know what they are talking about.
milling =/= printing
Edit: Well then, I stand corrected. I wasn't even aware there were 3D metal printers available.
It is an additive 3d printing process based on atomic diffusion.
I believe I saw an advertisement (possibly for an eos model) where they 3d printed titanium parts for surgical replacement.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_metal_laser_sintering
But without any kind of force feedback, manipulating images using the Leap is neither simple nor easy.
You must become like a good mime, and that takes a lot of practice and is very counter-intuitive.
What is new is the Leap Motion device Elon plugged into the workstation. All of the fanciness of this UI can be attributed to the Leap Motion, which has generally been available for about a month.
So Elon plugged in a Leap Motion into software which is already programmed to use a Space Mouse, which took all of about ten seconds, then made a video and published it. What a publicity whore.
He should refrain from stunts like this, lest people get the impression that every advance at Tesla and SpaceX is, in fact, something invented elsewhere and opportunistically seized upon with as little effort as this took.
Having said that, it is cool...
I will say this, despite my disappointment, I'm very happy that Elon continues to push our imaginations and encourage us to believe that fantasy and sci-fi can become reality. As others have said, there are enough schmucks working on more apps (myself included) that it's refreshing to witness someone building something greater.
3D design tries to work around the problem of working with 2D screens by showing multiple sides at once (Front/Left/Top/Perspective). You have to adjust objects in at least 2 screens to get it right, which isn't a perfect solution as well.
It's not the next Tesla, but I'm glad to see someone taking these technologies seriously, even when they have some work ahead of them.
However, seeing it all combined like this using a 3D printer in the end is really inspiring, it just sparks so many ideas in my head immediatly :)
Nothing revolutionary though he just put the pieces together. It needs more tweaking before it can be very useful.
Also, roughly everything that is amazing about this interface is the Leap Motion Controller. They're not getting enough press from this.
Congratulations! You are a special little snowflake. This was the first time I've seen this posted and I found it cool so I appreciate the post.
Better not let new people see stuff you personally have seen before! What would the world come to if that was allowed?
Silly of me to consider it useful for people to check if things have been submitted before re-submitting them to the same listing/news source.
Also, way to ignore my point, this article NOT cool. It's Elon Musk propoganda (and I think the guy is awesome) -- the real hero here is the Leap Motion controller, and not enough is being said about it.
I don't think the idea of holding my arms out for interacting with the computer is a good idea, no matter who builds it.
He feels to me like he's really pushing the boundaries of human innovation.
I must also note that Musk is a deity on HN and, therefore, anyone posting anything counter to what he says is often met with negative reactions. In general terms one is labeled a hater and things go downhill from there.
I straddle the software, electronics and mechanical design worlds and have devoted a significant amount of time and effort to mastering the tools of each discipline. In mechanical design my tool of choice these days is Solidworks. I have also used AutoCAD and ProE extensively.
I would never, ever, in a million years, want to spend eight or more hours a day moving my hands around in the air to design mechanical parts. It would be a horrible productivity sapping experience. A trackball and keyboard, once you've learned the interface, form an effortless man-machine interface to design parts with software such as Solidworks. My preference is for trackballs. When using one, in a very real sense, you are touching, grabbing and interacting with the objects on your screen. It feels very natural. More importantly, it is fast, accurate and ergonomically sustainable for long hours.
I realize I need to provide context for someone who comes from pure CS to get a grip on what I am saying here. Here it is: Imagine someone came along and suggested that instead of using VIM, your favorite editor or IDE you consider using this new interface that requires you having your hands in the air all day to manipulate graphical objects that, when linked together, create programs.
It would look very slick. Perhaps they'd even make a reference to a similar concept see in a movie. You would probably recoil at the very idea and post negative comments on HN. Those outside the CS world would see it as an incredible potential advance in the field and call you haters for not praising an attempt to advance the art.
That's exactly what we are looking at here. I can't think of many people who do MCAD for a living who would think this is actually useful at any level except for one: It might be cool to have as a presentation tool. It would be neat to allow anyone to feel like they are touching and manipulating objects in free space in an intuitive fashion. That's it.
The other more subjective point I'd like to make is that I find myself wondering why Musk/Tesla/SpaceX are burning clock cycles working on anything outside of their core missions. The fact that he had engineers spend time on the Hyperloop and this doesn't sit well with me. I could be wrong, of course, and I am sure there are plenty who will point that out. I just don't think these companies are mature enough to engage in such pointless distractions.