this topic follows much of the research i have been doing for a couple of years now, so i’m definitely excited to see it become more mainstream. here are some videos demonstrating how awesome this type of interaction truly is:

perceptive pixel (some of the developers behind the technology)
ted talks: jeff han
jeff han again
popular mechanics: microsoft surface

this notion is referred to as ubiquitous, or pervasive, computing–the idea that digital technologies and computers embed themselves into our physical environments for us to interact with them on a more natural level beyond a mouse and a keyboard though gestures and speech-recognition. also, tagging becomes important which is similar to the idea of tagging on the internet today. for example, flickr is a prime example in which you can tag a photo with relative words that allows for easier, more efficient searching and findability. you can even tag a photo with its exact GPS location (latitude and longitude) in order to plot that location on a map. soon, RFID tagging will perform much of the same functionality… allowing all of our everyday objects to be searched for and located more efficiently and much more quickly.

the beginning of this is taking place already, especially in eastern asia where the technology is more advanced than here in the states. an article in the nytimes this morning, ‘new barcodes can talk with your cellphone‘, described a new type of barcode that can be read by software on your cellphone simply by taking a photo of it:

In much the same way that Web publishing took off because of the ability to link to other people’s sites, cellphone technologies linking everyday objects with the Web would reveal the digitally encoded attributes of tangible things on grocery shelves or newsstands…
The most promising way to link cellphones with physical objects is a new generation of bar codes: square-shaped mosaics of black and white boxes that can hold much more information than traditional bar codes. The cameras on cellphones scan the codes, and then the codes are translated into videos, music or text on the phone screens.

such barcodes will essentially become ‘physical hyperlinks’ that function similarly to hyperlinks on web pages… linking you to additional information related to a word or phrase. the primary challenge, of course, is developing the technology in order to be useful and functional so that people will have a need for it and thus adopt it. additionally, it should not interfere with how we normally perform on a daily basis nor should it be more of a burden to use.

capping literally years of speculation on perhaps the most intensely followed unconfirmed product in apple’s history — and that’s saying a lot — the iphone has been announced today. yeah, i said it: “iphone,” the name the entire free world had all but unanimously christened it from the time it’d been nothing more than a twinkle in stevie j’s eye (comments, cisco?). sweet, glorious specs of the 11.6 millimeter device (that’s frickin’ thin, by the way) include a 3.5-inch 480 x 320 touchscreen display with multi-touch support and a proximity sensor to turn off the screen when it’s close to your face, 2 megapixel cam, 4gb or 8gb of storage, bluetooth 2.0 with EDR and A2DP, WiFi that automatically engages when in range, and quad-band GSM radio with EDGE. perhaps most amazingly, though, it somehow runs OSX with support for widgets, google maps, and safari, and itunes (of course) with coverflow out of the gate. a partnership with yahoo will allow all iphone customers to hook up with free push IMAP email. apple quotes 5 hours of battery life for talk or video, with a full 16 hours in music mode — no word on standby time yet. in a twisted way, this is one rumor mill we’re almost sad to see grind to a halt; after all, when is the next time we’re going to have an opportunity to run this picture? the 4gb iphone will go out the door in the US as a cingular exclusive for $499 on a two-year contract, 8gb for $599. ships stateside in june, europe in fourth quarter, asia in 2008.