After years of research on touch-driven computer displays, Jeff Han has created a simple, multi-touch, multi-user screen interface that just might herald the end of the point-and-click era.
Why you should listen to him:
Jeff Han’s intuitive "interface-free" computer displays -- controlled by the touch of fingertips -- will change forever the way you think about computers. At TED 2006, the audience whistled, clapped and gasped audibly as Han demoed (for the first time publicly) his prototype drafting table-cum-touch display, developed at NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. The demo included a virtual lightbox, where he moved photos by fingertip -- as if they were paper on a desk -- flicking them across the screen and zooming in and out by pinching two fingers together, as well as a Google Earth-like map that he tilted and flew over with simple moves.
When the demo hit the web, bloggers and YouTubers made him a bit of a megastar. (His video has been watched more than 600,000 times on YouTube alone; "Amazing," "Incredible" and "Freaking awesome" are the typical responses there. Also: "When can I buy one?") After this legendary demo, Han launched a startup called Perceptive Pixel -- and when he came back to TED2007, he and his team brought an entire interactive wall, where TEDsters lined up to play virtual guitars.
"Working all but alone from his hardware-strewn office, Jeff Han is about to change the face of computing. Not even the big boys are likely to catch him."Fast Company
Blog Posts on TED
-
Speaker updates: Craig Venter, Jeff Han – October 8, 2007
Updates from TED speakers: After a whirlwind of media speculation over the weekend following a story by The Guardian, biologist Craig Venter (watch his TED2005 speech) will announce today at the annual meeting of his institute in San Diego that his team has built a synthetic chromosome, using lab chemicals. "A giant leap forward in the development of designer genomes", writes the newspaper. Mr Venter's autobiography, "A Life Decoded: My Genome, My Life" is scheduled to be published in two weeks. At TED2006 computer scientist Jeff Han demonstrated his prototype of a revolutionary multitouch screen (watch video). At TED2007 he brought along a larger, wall-size version that TEDsters could try out. The interactive media wall, built by Han's company Perceptive Pixel, will be sold by Nieman Marcus in the US. Price tag: $100,000 USD.
-
Jeff Han on TEDTalks – August 1, 2006
Jeff Han is a research scientist for New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences . Here, he demonstrates — for the first time publicly — his intuitive, "interface-free," touch-driven computer screen, which can be manipulated intuitively with the fingertips, and responds to varying levels of pressure. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 09:32)
Download this talk: Video (MP4)
More TEDTalks: TEDTalks website | iTunes (audio) | iTunes (video)
Blog this video: Use this code to run the video on your own site:
Subscribe to TEDTalks for free, automatic updates.
-
TED2007 Day One: things that knocked my hat in the creek – March 8, 2007
I had my mind blown in a thousand different directions by TED2007 today. My big impression was having felt the future, in myriad ways. From hallway conversations to the content of speaker presentations to the feeling of just being a part of it all, it was a fabulous first day.
My assignment, as handed down by the head office of TED, is to tell you about the thing which blew my mind the most. However, I'm going to take the easy route and talk about everything buzzing in my mind right now. All the speakers were wonderful, but here are my personal highlights. So bear with me; here we go:
- Philippe Starck: Proof positive that tangents are but the arcs of greater circles, Philippe gave us a very big picture look at life, beauty, meaning, the universe, and brushes for one's toilet and mouth. No photos, no precious design shots, just him and the space around him dancing around the stage in a virtuostic lesson in what it means to be a charismatic speaker. Strictly nonlinear in presentation -- and likely uncomfortable to some -- his time on stage tickled me pink, and was formidable! Watch for the TEDTalks on this one. You need to see it to understand it all.
- Hans Rosling: How does one go about topping your previous world-changing effort? Hans Rosling did it. With equal parts killer interface design + serious storytelling + oodles of data + approximately a third of a meter of reliable Swedish steel, Hans Rosling pulled it all off.
- Murray Gell-Mann: Was the field of particle physics ever presented in a more human, accessible way? Elegance personified. I loved every minute of this. It was like being in the room with a triumvirate of geniuses: Newton, Einstein, Gell-Mann. Wow.
- Jeff Han: Okay, I want one. Please. I want one.
- Steve Miller: As part of TEDUniversity, told stories about Tiger Woods to reveal some elegant points about how to set standards of excellence and then rise to meet them.
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: A moving essay on jazz, leadership, responsibility, and the need to look deep within to find excellence. Inspiring.
- Raul Midon: A degree of artistic achievement which made we weep, so powerful was his music. The high point of Day One. And recipient of my TED Quote of the Day Award: "Feel the fear, but do it anyway".
Onward! Tomorrow bodes to be another amazing day.
photo credit: Jurvetson
-
Steve Jobs' speaking techniques – July 16, 2007
At TED, we make a job of scouring the world for ideas worth sharing and for speakers able to share them in the most compelling ways. So we pay attention when somebody delivers a great speech. And Apple CEO Steve Jobs certainly did so when, last January, he introduced the iPhone at the annual Macworld trade show in San Francisco, five months before the device actually hit the US market. Communication coach Carmine Gallo has deconstructed Jobs' job for BusinessWeek.com. A good primer for any speaker, with concrete, memorable examples. Read Gallo's column, watch Jobs' speech, or consider this cheat sheet: 1) Build up the presentation to something unexpected; 2) Stick to one theme per slide, and make them visually attractive; 3) Vary the speed and tone at which you speak to electrify the audience; 4) Three things are absolutely key: rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. 5) If you're passionate about the idea or the product, show it.
-
Dick Clark on Jill Bolte Taylor – May 1, 2008
Among the many TEDTalks stars on this year's Time 100 list, Jill Bolte Taylor gets perhaps the coolest biographer: Dick Clark. He writes:
Through her writings and lectures, she has done perhaps more than anyone else to explain, both to the healthy and the stricken, what a stroke is.
Read the whole list >> -
Jeff Han's "Magic Wall" on CNN – November 4, 2008
CNN has a story today on the Magic Wall they've been using in their coverage of the US elections. The wall was built by TEDTalks star Jeff Han and his company Perceptive Pixel. From the story:
Throughout the 2008 primaries and the general election, John King, CNN's Chief National Correspondent, has stood before the now-familiar electronic wall map, zooming in and out of battleground states with a few pokes of his fingers. The big map allows King to instantly tally electoral votes, shift swing states from one candidate's camp to another's and highlight red swaths of John McCain turf alongside blue pockets of support for Barack Obama.
Read the story on CNN.com >>
-
Counting down the Top 10 TEDTalks – June 26, 2008
With 50 million views since we debuted online two years ago, TED talks have become a powerful cultural force.
To celebrate this milestone, we're releasing a never-before-seen list: the Top 10 TED talks of all time, as of June 2008.
With speakers like neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor and global health expert Hans Rosling, the list proves one of the compelling ideas behind TEDTalks: that an unknown speaker with a powerful idea can reach -- and move -- a global audience. Links to all 10 talks are found below -- or browse through our Top 10 TED Talks Theme. Even if you've seen all the talks, the highlights video is darn fun.
Embed this video: Use this code to run the video on your own site:
Download the Top 10 TED Talks highlights video:
Video to iTunes (MP4)
Video to desktop (Zipped MP4)
Hi-def video (480p)Top 10 TED Talks of all time
1. Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight
2. Jeff Han: Touchscreen demo foreshadows the iPhone
3. David Gallo: Underwater astonishments
4. Blaise Aguera y Arcas: Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo
5. Arthur Benjamin: Lightning calculation and other "Mathemagic"
6. Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?
7. Hans Rosling: The best stats you've ever seen
8. Tony Robbins: Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better
9. Al Gore: 15 ways to avert a climate crisis
10. Johnny Lee: Creating tech marvels out of a $40 Wii Remote -
TED2007: Day one wrap-up – March 7, 2007
Quotes of the day:
Cassini imaging team head Carolyn Porco: "So there are possibly liquid water, organic materials and excessive heat on Saturn and its moons. Which means that Saturn could be a place were life is possible.
If we can demonstrate that Genesis has happened not once (Earth) but twice (Saturn) then we can infer that it has happened hundreds of thousands of times across the solar system.If we can demonstrate that Genesis has happened not once [on Earth] but twice [including Saturn] in the solar system, then by inference that means it has occurred a staggering number of times across the universe in its 13.7 billion year history".Nobel prize of physics Murray Gell-Mann: "In fundamental physics, beauty is a very successful criterion for choosing the right theory".
Psychologist Steven Pinker: "The truth is that our ancestors were far more violent that we are, and today we are probably living in the most peaceful times in history".
Computer scientist Jeff Han: "We basically have to un-teach people what they have learned so far about computing, and convince them that they can use several fingers, that several people can work on the screen at once".
Architect Philippe Starck: "I believe in general that my job is absolutely useless; but now, after Carolyn and these guys, I feel like shit".
Statistician Hans Rosling: "Bring me my sword!" (Rosling is a serious demographer but he is also -- another deadly serious activity -- one of the few sword-swallowers active in Sweden, and he ends his speech swallowing a Swedish bayonette).
-
We're made for zooming – January 30, 2008
It its newest issue, Newsweek publishes a detailed story on Microsoft's Seadragon technology and the man behind it, Blaise Aguera y Arcas (who premiered it at TED07 last March, watch his speech), and discusses what it calls the "zoom interface":
The Internet, it seems, doesn't take advantage of how humans best process information. Evolution granted Homo Sapiens a high degree of visual acuity ... Scrolling and linking are inferior modes of taking in information. "Humans are incredibly good at spatial navigation and incredibly bad at navigating through a list of generic icons or generic text." ... These limitations are not lost on the technology giants and forward-thinking entrepreneurs working to commercialize a new way to take in information visually: the zoom interface. In its simplest form, it displays information all at once - all the photos in an album, say, or all the files on a PC, or all the entries in a database, or all the items retrieved in a search - and when you spot something of interest, you zoom down into it. In this way, zooming represents an upgrade from the second- and third-best methods for accessing information (scrolling and linking) to the best option: displaying information like a landscape, and giving people the chance to zoom down to the details ... Only recently have engineers had the advances in display technology, broadband connections and video processors capable of coping with a zoom interface. As a result, prototype zoom interfaces are now up and running in labs around the world.
And are arriving on the market. Think of Google Earth's zooming capabilities, of the iPhone, of Jeff Han's PerceptivePixel multi-touch wall (watch his speech at TED06), of Zumobi's zooming interface for cell phones, and many others.
-
PopMech's 2007 Breakthrough Awards – October 17, 2007
Some familiar TED faces and themes turn up in Popular Mechanics' 2007 Breakthrough Awards, published in the magazine's November issue. Jeff Han's multitouch wall (watch his 2006 TEDTalk) and Hod Lipson's print-anything printer (related to his work on robots) are named as two of the awards' "8 Bold Ideas" for 2007. If you were moved and inspired by Amy Smith's TEDTalk on her developing-world technologies, check out PopMech's profile of the like-minded Ashok Gadgil and Christina Galitsky and the cookstove they developed for use in Darfur, or 2006 winner Jock Brandis and his portable peanut sheller. If Dean Kamen's robotic prosthetic arm TEDTalk interested you, dive into the video report on Johns Hopkins' project. It's a fascinating, well-reported awards package.
-
Pogue tests the Apple iPhone – June 28, 2007
NYTimes tech columnist and TED06 speaker David Pogue has been testing the Apple iPhone, which will hit stores tomorrow Friday in the US, and he shows it all on video, feature by feature, dressed with classic Pogue fun. Or you can read his article. Summary: "much of the hype and some of the criticisms are justified. The iPhone is revolutionary; it’s flawed ... it does things no phone has ever done before; it lacks features found even on the most basic phones."
By the way, David has a book coming out in a few weeks about the iPhone - "iPhone: The Missing Manual".
