MIT’s Project T(ether) reminds us of Minority Report

We’re sure that most of you guys have probably seen the movie Minority Report with Tom Cruise. If you have, then you’re probably familiar with the scene where Tom Cruise’s character interacts with the computer screen by putting on a pair of gloves and manipulates the data on the screen through a series of gestures. Pretty cool, huh? Well if you enjoyed that display of technology, it looks like we might not be too far off as the folks at MIT are working on a project dubbed T(ether).

Using a motion tracked glove and Apple’s iPad, the team has managed to come up with some pretty impressive demonstrations, such as drawing 3D objects in real time and moving them about. Based on the video it appears to be pretty smooth and responsive. According to the folks at Cult of Mac who reached out to one of the project’s researchers, David Lakatos, he was quoted as saying:

“The iPad is running an app compiled with the Cinder library, which is a C++ wrapper for openGL. We are not using the camera on the iPad – we use a Vicon motion-capture system (used in the film industry) to track the iPads location and orientation. The attached rectangle is what the motion-capture system tracks. By constantly tracking the 5 retroreflective dots on it, we can reconstruct the correct pose (position + orientation) of the iPad. We track the gloves with the same system.”

No word on when we can see such a system make its way onto our shelves, but it’s good to know that such technology is already out there! In the meantime be sure to check out the video embedded above to catch a demonstration of T(ether) in action!

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Tablets
Tags: iPad, tether