[danblick]

Not to be cynical, but this reminds me a little of Alan Kay's comment:

""" By the way, Sketchpad was the first system where it was discovered that the light pen was a very bad input device. The blood runs out of your hand in about 20 seconds, and leaves it numb. And in spite of that it’s been re-invented at least 90 times in the last 25 years. """

from http://archive.org/details/AlanKeyD1987 around 7:10

[JackC]

I think there will be some things it's great at and some it's terrible at. Here's one for free: how about using this to create the Rosetta Stone of sign language? Or a portable sign-to-speech translator? (These are hard problems for other reasons, but this thing brings you a lot closer.)

Think of it like this: Alan Kay isn't wrong, but you could say the same thing about any input. The mouse is a very bad input device. It takes forever to use it for on-screen typing. The keyboard is a very bad input device. It can't tell how hard you're hitting each key when you do musical typing in GarageBand. The microphone is a very bad input device. Voice control is way slower than just clicking the menu item you want ...

If this thing is real, then within a couple of years there will be a dozen reasons to refuse to buy a computer without one.

[cturner]

(I like the idea of a pressure-sensitive keyboard. Could be useful for music. Probably hard to engineer in a way that would be useful and which wouldn't compromise button input. Blue-switch cherry keyboards are annoying to type on. Still, interesting idea.)

You're papering over the problems with relativism.

The keyboard is rapid to use and flexible. Although it has the possibility of physical health problems with RSI, with light pen interaction you have the certainty of pain and fatigue. Sign speakers don't need sign-to-speech - there are keyboards already. There's been multiple attempts at text to speech as well, and the result is more fiddly, less flexible and less rapid than you can get with a keyboard.

There could be an argument that keyboards are complicated and have a learning curve. But computers are the super-tool of our age. Why would you not learn use of a tool that gives you combines great power with flexibility.

I think we still have discussions about alternative user interfaces that hark back to the way humans interact with each other because most of the population are not yet expert keyboard users. This will change. Once the developed world is flush with expert keyboard users, user interfaces will go back to putting greater emphasis on them.

[egypturnash]

I don't think it's one or the other. Has the mouse replaced the keyboard? It's an additional way to interact.

Hell, I could have used it a little earlier today - I was bleaching my hair and realized my machine wasn't playing any music. Currently my options for remedying this are (1) poking at the media keys on my keyboard (and getting bleach all over them), or (2) picking up my Wacom stylus, going to the Dock to bring up iTunes, and hitting its play button, thus smearing bleach EVERYWHERE. With one of these sitting on my desk and wired into some global hotkeys, I'd have had the additional option of waving my hand in a particular way.

I'm also thinking I totally want to incorporate one of these into the media PC I'm working on based on a Raspberry Pi, a pico projector, and half of a rubber cat[1]. Slouch on the couch, wave my hands in precise gestures to control it instead of having to bring up a mouse somehow.

Using it for long, sustained periods? Nah. Using it now and they? Oh yeah.

[1] the whole thing is disguised as Nyan Cat, with the projector poking out of its snarling mouth and the plaque it's mounted on painted like a Pop-tart.

[Someone]

One change since that time is that there is way more flexibility in the placement of displays.

This also isn't a light pen. You do not need to hold it close to the display.

Finally, there is way more casual computer interaction. A light pen could be fine for short interactions (especially if you do not have to search for the pen first)

[bakedbeing]

Painters are able to operate a brush for full working days in the studio without the elbow support that a desk supplies here. It seems if the benefit is great enough people can work up the supporting muscles through repetition.

[muraiki]

In fact, if a painter (or user of Leap) were to continually rest their elbow on some support, they could compress the ulnar nerve and cause cubital tunnel syndrome. If you've ever hit your "funny bone," that's the ulnar nerve.

Heck, consider how light a painter's brush is in comparison to a fencer's epee (which only weighs about 1 lb at the most, but still, try holding one for an hour without having any experience!)

[kemiller]

These devices should be used with the monitor turned into a drafting-table like angled work surface instead of mounted vertically in the usual way. If you can work touch/resting into the screen, you have a much more humane setup.

[mortenjorck]

This will take off once the user can rest his hands on the desk and gesture with his fingers. But not before.

[TeMPOraL]

Shouldn't this be a problem with whiteboards/blackboards as well?

[jamesbritt]

It seems to take less effort to press lightly against a surface than to keep your hand in relatively fixed, but unsupported, area.

(sample size of one: myself)