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G-Speak Operating System is Minority Report Fully Realized

Posted 11/21/08 at 08:40:03 AM  by Paul Lilly

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A common trait among many sci-fi movies is the depiction of outlandish technologies that, while they may appear to be badass concepts (some are just hokey), they end up scoffed at by geeks due to the impracticality of trying to implement them. The computer used in Minority Report falls into this category, or at least we thought it did until we saw Oblong's G-Speak spatial operating system. And there's a good reason for the similarity.

"Some of the SOE's core ideas are already familiar from the film Minority Report, whose characters performed forensic analysis using massive, gesturally driven displays," Oblong states on its website. "The similarity is no coincidence: one of Oblong's founders served as science adviser to Minority Report and based the design of those scenes directly on his earlier work at MIT."

Oblong's website hosts a video showing the new OS in action. A demonstrator wearing special gloves performs a variety of gestures that manipulate content on multiple screens. At one point in the video, a second demonstrator steps into the scene to show how more than one user can interact with the OS at the same time. What's really amazing is how smoothly everything works with real-time responses to hand gestures, a result of G-Speak being optimized for massive data sets and time-critical work, the developers say.

While it's far too early to tell what long-term implications G-Speak might have on mainstream computing, we can't help but think of the possibilities, both in productivity apps and videogames.

 

COMMENTS:8
TAGS: operating system, Software, Minority Report, oblong, g-speak
COMMENTS
avatarI've got 2 words for you: 

Submitted by sirphunkee on Sun, 11/23/2008 - 10:13am

I've got 2 words for you:  p-o-r-n

who says that arms and hands are the only "appendage" you can use to manipulate data with this thing??

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avatarLCARS is way better than

Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Fri, 11/21/2008 - 10:00am

LCARS is way better than this. 

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avatarIt's Magic

Submitted by Sovereign on Fri, 11/21/2008 - 9:38am

Let me put it this way: Sufficiently advanced (i.e. beyond our technology of today) technology is basically indistinguishable from "magic" or "witchcraft."  Think about what would happen if you gave the Founding Fathers a basic laptop to type the Constitution on.  They'd be able to use it easily, but they couldn't make sense of transistors, capacitors or CPUs.

Trying to predict the future is folly; it's fun but our track record has been horrible.  Look at what the citizens of the '60s envisioned the year 2000 would be like and look what we actually have.

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avatarOh ye of little faith

Submitted by bloodgain on Fri, 11/21/2008 - 7:41am

The type of geek that scoffs at the "impracticality" of implementing such sci-fi systems are about as closed-minded as they come.  Just because current technology makes it difficult or even impossible to implement doesn't mean that the technology won't catch up to the concept eventually.  It wasn't so long ago that people wouldn't have found "multi-touch" screens and pseudo-3D environments unbelievably advanced.  For that matter, it wasn't much longer ago that most computer experts assumed that computers would never get any smaller than your average modern server room.

As a person who makes his living writing computer software and tries to stay informed on the current research, I am often surprised to find that something new has been discovered or created that I didn't even know anybody was working toward.  Thankfully, we have a rich group of researchers around the world that never assume anything is "impractical" just because current trends in technology make it seem that way.

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avatarETA

Submitted by One4yu2c on Fri, 11/21/2008 - 8:50am

So how much longer until Scotty can beam me up? ;)

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avatarFirst he has to break you down...

Submitted by bloodgain on Fri, 11/21/2008 - 11:37am

Newer theories say that it is, in fact, possible to "beam someone up".  However, while Star Trek doesn't always explain the theories behind how people are transported, it is a little unclear how you would rebuild a body on the other end without a transporter module to do the processing and building.

Here's the catch: In order to "beam someone up", you first have to scatter their molecules and/or atoms and process them into a data stream.  This takes a great deal of energy (more than we can currently support), and it would still be easier to transmit the data (NOT the matter/energy) to the other end where another transporter would use raw materials (possibly harvested from previous transportees) to rebuild you from the data.  In essence, the theory is that you would be prefectly cloned (brain patterns and all), and the original destroyed.

The next issue is "entropy" in the system, particularly in the human body.  Quantum mechanics tells us that observing your particles could affect them, leading to uncertainty and degraded cloning/rebuilding on the receiving.  Star Trek covered this with a "Heisenberg Compensator", which they don't even attempt to explain.  Also, this is only possible in the Star Trek world due to the vast amounts of energy that the advanced power generators can produce.

What, you didn't think some geek would know how a simple old transporter would work? Don't you know anybody from the future? ;-)

Oh, and on another note, the brilliant theoretical physicist Michio Kaku believes that we could create a "Star Trek-style" transporter in the next 100 years.  Or so he told Discover Magazine, according to Wikipedia (I had to go double check the "Heisenberg Compensator" thing).

----

On yet another note, I appear to be fond of parentheticals.  I should work on that.

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avatar100 Years?

Submitted by One4yu2c on Fri, 11/21/2008 - 7:28pm

I was hoping for sooner - I might not be around by then. :P

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avatarDr. Kaku also believes that

Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Fri, 11/21/2008 - 1:09pm

Dr. Kaku also believes that we can one day replace the human brain with silicon. You would cut out a piece of the brain and replace it with silicon. After that heals you cut out another chunk of brain and keep doing this over a long period of time and eventually the brain will be entirely made of silicon circuits. Then onto the rest of the body. In fact new bodies could be grown for that natural feel and your silicon brain can be installed into the new body. This way we can live forever.  Or at least a very very long time.

I've read Dr. Kaku's books... He's very good at getting the lay person excited about physics. Perhaps not the math but just the current knowledge. He truly is a great guy. 

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