In this demo at the 2006 TED conference, Jeff Han shows off a high-resolution multi-touch computer screen--his prototype drafting table-cum-touch display, developed at NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences--that may herald the end of the point-and-click mouse. The demo, which drew spontaneous applause and audible gasps from the audience, begins with a simple lava lamp, then turns into a virtual photo-editing tabletop, where Han flicks photos across the screen as if they were paper snapshots. (The Apple iPhone, to be released a year later, also does multi-touch -- but only with two fingers.)
"When I think of initiatives like the $100 laptop, I cringe when I here that we are going to introduce an entire new generation to the mouse-window-keyboard interface. This is how we should be interacting with the machine from now on." - Jeff Han
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