Sorting through old e-mail that I had kept in my inbox, I rediscovered this link that my mother was so kind to send to me. It details the construction of a large (over 7 ft. x 5 ft.) model of a church interior, made completely out of LEGO blocks.

I don’t usually post about computer technology on miserere.org, since it’s not a topic directly related to religion and Catholic life. Nonetheless, the following are some phenomenal examples of where computer applications and graphical user interfaces are headed in the next decade:

• Tactile drafting-board: Jeff Han of NYU has developed a 36″x27″, drafting-table-like, rear-projected, high-definition, pressure-sensitive, multi-touch sensing monitor for a new way to interact with computer applications. This presentation video at the Technology Entertainment Design (TED) conference demonstrates some very interesting sample applications — most spectacular of which (for me) is the lightbox application that photographers use to sort, label and edit photographs.
• Microsoft Surface Computing: UPDATE 05-30-2007! If Jeff Han’s demonstrations got you excited, check out Microsoft’s efforts. Going beyond mere multi-touch surface computing, Microsoft has developed ways for the surface to recognize and interact with real-world physical materials and objects. This is definitely the future of computing. The video also demonstrates the power of Vista’s WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation).
• BumpTop 3D: On a Real-World desktop, documents are sorted and stacked in ways that convey subtle meaning, such as ‘pile A,’ ‘pile B,’ or ‘processed’ and ‘needs to be processed.’ The Windows desktop allows the user to keep current project files at easy reach, and folders and subdirectories help give some order to things. But the new BumpTop 3-dimensional physics interface goes much further to allow the user to use the Windows desktop intuitively, like one would a real desk. Messy piles and tidy piles can be arranged; documents can be moved around, sorted, stacked; individual items can be pulled from the pile and placed into another pile, or an item in a pile can be left ’sticking out’ to convey the subtle message that it needs to be worked on later. Important icons can be emphasized by making them larger or smaller, or even pinned to the wall. Deemphasized documents can be ‘crumpled up’ and tossed to the side as an intermediary state before being deleted. All of this is accomplished with an intuitive pen-based tablet interface, which is therefore immediately accessible to many users. Lots to see in the demo video! BumpTop isn’t the only program to introduce more intuitive file manipulation: So-called Low-Fat gives us its take on the challenge, although not in 3D or with ‘real-world’ physics behavior.
• PhotoSynth: Microsoft Live Laboratories has developed an application with tremendous potential for transforming user experience. As shown in this video tour, PhotoSynth essentially analyzes photographs — your photos, or the zillions of photos on the web — for similarities, then creates a virtual map that links the photos together into a 3-dimensional reconstruction of the place where all the photos were taken. In the example video, St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome is reconstructed so that you can take a virtual panoramic tour, zooming in-and-out to look at details up close. This video at TED Talks in 2007 illustrates how PhotoSynth reconstructed Notre Dame cathedral from photos posted on Flickr. The good news is that SeaDragon (the software that PhotoSynth is based on) has been incorporated into Microsoft’s Silverlight, which brings the capabilities of PhotoSynth to all web browsers, everywhere. Imagine what this could do for virtual travel or to plan that all-important pilgrimage!

For those users who want to spice-up their Windows desktop as it exists now, check out Stardock’s ObjectDesktop and WinCustomize. Stardock has been on the leading edge of graphical user interface design and customization for decades and will certainly push the envelope further after the upcoming release of the next version of Windows, Vista.