What would it be like?

I'm thinking you would have to use a track ball with two balls, one for side-to-side and up-down, and the other for forward and backward and rotation.
Icons might need to be semi-transparent and 3D blocks or spheres or whatever.
Most program windows would probably still be flat, but with 3d elements scattered about. The window could be dragged around and layed flat, or at angles.
The mouse pointer would have to be a ball that is dragged around and maybe bound by gravity so that it bounces off of screen elements. 🙂 I don't see how an arrow would work because arrows are generally only two dimensional.
I have no idea where the start button would be or what it would look like.
It could either have one screen and show a virtual 3D environment or you could by two screens. One screen in a normal position and one placed horizontally above it and a slanted semi-transparent mirror. I think this might provide a 3D look because each screen would be offset slightly for alignment with each eye.

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Microsoft Word would show a piece of paper with pens for fonts and sizes and a dictionary setting next to it for the spell check. If you want to change something you move the ball (mouse pointer) to the pen you want and click it.
Minesweeper would be a flat playing field and when you mark a mine it stands up a flag or when you uncover a mine, it explodes 3D.

I wonder when something like this will happen.....

Edit: okay, I guess I didn't explicitly say so, but.... what are your thoughts, ideas, criticism?
Is there an OS already out there that does this?

    12 days later

    apparently nobody thinks 3D is a good idea. Judging by the lack of feedback.
    Oh well. It was worth a shot.

      All I see here is more screen real-estate given over to content-free chrome....🙂

        sorry to be the third person to burst your bubble here but... what would we the point? I mean a 3D "style" interface like Vista's is visually appealing, but an actual 3D operating system? It would be very proc. intensive, and for what? Having two screens configured the way you say would just be a headache.

        It would be cool, for sure, but... nah. its like sending cows to the moon. cool but nah.

          Thing thing is that all the examples are all just two-dimensional with some three-dimensional visual effects. While there has been some research done over the decades into three-dimensional user interfaces (though only Xerox's "Rooms" project is the one I can think of by name right now), none have really taken off (except in gaming). Part of it is the processor intensiveness, but I think some of it comes down to the fact that human retinas generate only two-dimensional images anyway (when it comes to transferring information visually, two-dimensional interfaces are still the norm throughout human experience - when you have a three-dimensional visual interface you have to take the time to move around it to see it from different angles; and humans are generally weak at mentally visualising such movements). I also don't think it's an accident that as soon as the mechanical linkages were removed from typewriter keyboards, they became flatter.

          As long as the visual presentation of the interface is bounded by the (two-dimensional) screen, two-dimensional interfaces would have an accessibility advantage over three-dimensional ones.

          (Being a reactionary, I wouldn't describe this as "computing" anyway - there'd be a lot of interesting computing to go on to generate it, but if you're talking about the end result it's user interface design.)

            Weedpacket wrote:

            Thing thing is that all the examples are all just two-dimensional with some three-dimensional visual effects.

            So in other words, we can't have true 3D computing. Unless, of course, someone develops holographic rooms like we see in Star Trek. At that point, I would agree with foid025 "what would we the point?" Perhaps it would be cool to play Quake in a first person true 3D scenario but it doesn't really make sense for MS Office.

            I did a little searching and it looks like Sun has actually got a virtual 3D desktop they're playing around with. It's called Project Looking Glass. Looks kind of interesting.

              that youTube video is simply amazing. the guy's right... the technology isn't particularly cutting edge or interesting in itself, but the applications are sweet.

              as for the 3D computing... maybe it won't work, but here's what I think should be thing of tue future: 😃 🆒

              We've gone from CUI to GUI, character user interface to graphical user interface. I want to move on to MUI, mental user interface. Or whatever acronym you want to give it. Essentially, I believe that we currently have the ability to make people control simple mechanics with their minds. Like handicapped people and their wheel chairs, or artificial arms.

              I want to tap that power for computing. You imagine in your mind the mouse pointer moving, and it moves. You imagine words, and they write themselves in your text pad or Word or whatever. I have no idea how doable it is though, but it would be quite an idea...

                bradgrafelman wrote:

                Considering that humans have nearly no idea how the mind truly works, I think it'd be hard to have machines do so.

                Which part of the post are you refering to? Or whose... Haha sorry you got me confused.

                The thing though is that we may have no idea how the mind works, but we can still pretend we do and make machines that act as we think / wish the mind works 😛

                If you were refering to my post though, I'm pretty sure that we do have the ability to tap into nerves and use nerve signals to produce a mechanical output. I haven't done any significant reading on the issue though, so my word is only as good as the next guy's...

                  bradgrafelman wrote:

                  Considering that humans have nearly no idea how the mind truly works, I think it'd be hard to have machines do so.

                  That's true, but you have to admit that we are leaping in this field. The mind(brain) is one of the most researched organ in our body, it's a question of time... 🙂

                    completelly off topic but... WorlAolic are you from Quebec? I ask cuz of your display picture from that show... Haha that thing is hilarious, albeit a little hard to understand.

                      I suspect that below the gross neurological features that have already been found (Broca's, Wernicke's, and so on; maybe Chomsky's language centre if he's reading this 🙂), each individual human is running a distinctively different OS that is sufficiently incompatible with all the others that the only standardised APIs are those that are already publicly accessible. We might be able to agree on everything we're capable of having in common - like what "red" refers to - but how we respectively implement the concept may not have that much to do with each other (and if anyone spotted the bit about "agreeing on everything"....). There's only so much encoded in our DNA, it can't be relied upon to design everything.

                      Subvocal communication would be a pretty close second. You can almost say things much faster than if you actually had to say them out loud - when you say them out loud you have to stop to breathe every now and then. Probably be less prone to distraction, too (you're giving a presentation to the board and a gorgeous whatsyourfancy walks in and you didn't want THAT image going up on the screen.)

                      bradgrafelman wrote:

                      what with prosthetics with integrated computer chips and whatnot

                      E.g., http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=15290370 and http://www.bmc.riken.jp/~yagi/retina/ and remember that neurologically the retinas are considered parts of the brain because of all the preprocessing that goes on in them to pack our visual fields into 10Mbps.

                        Well, using eye movements to control mouse etc has already been done, I suppose you use blinks instead of mouse clicks to operate on stuff. Save a lot of RSI if nothing else; be great for me cos I hate having to use the mouse all the time.

                        As to the rest of all this, in various peoples' links, it is just the same old GUI crap.

                        US Air Force research proved conclusively that search and locate on a screen was fastest with an ordered list - they wanted to know cos milliseconds count in a firefight. Yet we still have all this crap about icons and graphic links being 'more intuitive'.

                        This is just one example of the HCI freaks ignoring basic research findings and good psychological theory in favour of their own agenda.

                        After all what is 'intuitive': in reality it is learned behaviour, and like all learned behaviour it is socially and culturally specific. Instead of trying to create GUIs that conform to old notions of 'intuition' we should be designing HCIs that are most efficient. Society and culture will adapt, as they previously adapted to mass education and literacy, and logic and efficiency will be the new 'intuition': progress in other words.

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