Minority technology to kill mouse

John Underkoffler, the founder and chief scientist of Oblong Industries, is developing an operating system based on human-hand gesturing that could soon replace the mouse.

Underkoffler gave a talk called ‘Cinema, Science and Innovation’ at the Museum of Science in Boston, in which he said “the mouse has had a good run but its time to say good-bye”.

Inspired by his work as the science and technology advisor to Steven Spielberg for the film Minority Report, Underkoffler has taken ideas portrayed in the film and created an operating system, based on human-hand gesturing, that allows the user to explore in a 3D plane.

He has developed technology which responds to the pitch, roll and yaw movements created by a human hand, and works with cameras that track the positions of targets placed on gloves.

His aim is to get the technology on every desktop, making the mouse a thing of the past.