I find it wonderful (and a little scary) that stuff we see in the movies and think are so unbelievable become possible in our lifetime.

In this case, if you remember the Steven Spielberg movie – Minority Report, the future technology that was showcased was the computer that was controlled using hand gestures in 3-dimensional space. The character played by Tom Cruise could manipulate and analyze terabytes of data in real time to find the location of would be criminals before they committed the crime.

Well John Underkoffler was the technology adviser to Steven Spielberg at the time and he recently showed off this “hand gesture” computer user interface at TED.

As you can see from the video, the system works very well and is very impressive. However, it does look like it requires quite a lot of setup with all the projectors and sensors around the stage. But what I find amazing is Mr. Underkoffler’s prediction that this technology will become widely available in the next 5 years!

Is that ambitious? A part of my brain finds it hard to believe that this level of technology can become mainstream in 5 or even 10 years. But I will be cheering him on as I do want to see this kind of massive leap in technology within my lifetime!

Tags: john underkoffler, minority report, ted