Translating the Physical Into the Virtual
Since Apple introduced the Sudden Motion Sensor, there has been an array of all kinds of funny applications, hijacking its functions and using it as an additional input device. They mostly consisted of small games.
This movie demonstrates how the Sudden Motion Sensor's use could be extended and employed as a way to manipulate data in an everyday manner. The most stunning thing about the example is the way the physical move translates into an action in a virtual space, thus connecting both in an almost playful way.
Just as pointing with your fingers on the actual display and moving things around there is a more natural and intuitive approach than doing so using a mouse1, hitting your screen on the side to switch desktops is equally more obvious than moving your mouse to the side of the screen (which is halfway intuitive) or even hitting a shortcut (which is the ultimate abstraction -- hit a button and somewhere else something happens, even if there is no obvious connection between those two objects).
[thanks to and via Tobi's Weblog]
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I bet that whenever kids encounter a computer for the first time in their lives they will try to manipulate the objects directly on the screen -- and why should they expect otherwise? ↩
