Monday, November 2, 2009

The Computer at Play



It is easy to think, in this era of short attention spans, that modern technologies such as motion- and touch-sensitive screens and networked gaming are new innovations. In fact, they have been around for more than 40 years. In this video, interface pioneer Myron Krueger demos his Videoplace system, which prefaced many other forms of creative interaction with computers.


As Myron says, most uses of personal computers are utilitarian, and many people experience significant difficulty interfacing with them due to a lack of emotional, visceral connection with the machine. Videoplace provides a truly creative sandbox experience, allowing two people to play intuitively using a shared space.

The recent announcement of Google Wave gives me great hope that these innovations will continue to bring intuitive communication and play to people of the future.

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