:: Perceptive Pixel :: - The future for GIS visualization

:: Perceptive Pixel :: Remember Tom Cruise in Minority Report and the way in which he navigated his data-base. Now there is a company that makes a monitor that allows the user to directly to interact with the monitor. Jeff Han, a researcher with NYU's computer science department is the brains behind this technology. First check out this video: (http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid271543545/bctid422563006) Impressed, you can read more about the technology behind this technology at http://multi-touchscreen.com/ For the GIS world, I think for some uses this setup would make it tons more easier for users to work with their data. For example, for military commanders to quickly look their battelfield, visualizing it in 3D, 2D and from different perspectives, without using cummbersome mice and pucks, this would be the perfect technology. Also this type of a screen would be useful for law enforcement folks who have little familiarity with computer programming and sql statements, could make it easier for them to see and navigate complex relationships between data and entities to find out subtle connections in their data. Finally in a hospital, it could allow nurses and doctors to quickly move between data for different patients as well as quickly pull up research, etc. Lots and lots of good uses for such technology. Jeff Han calls it "Low-cost multi-touch sensing through frustrated total internal reflection" and the paper is available from ACM's portal. And here is a link to Jeff Han's website: http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/