Un-frickin-believable: there've been a few pretenders, but it looks like this new G-Speak system is really the Minority Report UI made into science-faction;it's made by one of the guys who actually worked on advising the Minority Report movie. It even has gloves something akin to Tom Cruise's natty controllers from the film, and it lets you do the whole arms waving in the air, drag items between screens, object-oriented interface control.

Read More »

Japan is the epicenter of Zen, a concept with deep religious roots and a mandate for simplicity of appearance and lifestyle. But when it comes to native gadgetry, Zen is only skin-deep. Japanese mobile phones are sleek on the outside, but once you open the clamshell, the interface is a complete mess. While American-made phones are leaning more and more towards simple interfaces and clean design, Japanese gadgets continue to be plagued with feature overload and nightmarish interfaces that are totally impractical.

Read More »

The Astonishing Tribe, the interface wunderkinds that designed the G1's Android UI, have released a series of images and videos showing off a few other mobile design concepts — some that clearly didn't make the Android cut, and others that were probably never intended to. These mockups could be penance for the actual Android UI, which we've described as "scrambled," "overly complicated" and, generously, "kinda pretty," but whatever the intent, some of these designs are fascinating.

Read More »

In case the two-finger multitouch seen on the new Macbook Pro and Fujitsu's upcoming notebook wasn't enough for you, French tech company Stantum recently showed off a ten-finger technology that it's calling "true multitouch." On Stantum's 15.4-inch screen, you can use as many points as you want to control the screen. Judging by the smears in the picture, a lot of people found that appealing and took advantage of their chance to feel the new technology up. [Electric Pig]

The New Xbox Experience is ready to go live soon as part of the Xbox fall update, and after getting some quality face time with the UI and it's new features, I'm pretty impressed. The update addresses the core Xbox software on two levels: most notable is that the design of the UI received a complete overhaul, (mostly) eschewing the blades for a more immersive, intuitive, Media Center-like experience. Secondly, it adds new functionality, allowing for Netflix streaming, group-based gaming, heavily customised avatars, ripping games straight to HDD and an all new quick menu that comes up when you hit the home button.

Read More »

Synaptics, best known for developing the Zune Pad and Android G1 screen, have unveiled two new multitouch gestures for their PC touchpads: two-finger flick and ChiralRotate. Two-finger flick is fairly self explanatory — you swipe your finger from side to side on the trackpad and it will move through a series of files, such as photos, and initiate different app-specific "modes" with a flick up or down. ChiralRotate lets you move your finger in a circular motion on the trackpad, and it will move through a series of images in full screen or slideshow mode.

Read More »

TiVo is apparently focus testing a new, more modern user interface that puts content—and ads—front and centre. Besides finally adding Picture-in-Guide so you can keep watching a show while chugging through the guide, the main menu is now lined with a row of pictures along the top. The thumbnails are a combo of recently watched, favourites and suggestions—as well as ads. More details and videos of the new UI in action are below, courtesy of Dave Zatz.

Read More »

We've seen some of the BlackBerry Storm's older UI in blurry shots and videos, but it's obviously gotten a recent facelift—especially the keyboard, which used to look absolutely gross. Storm Reviews has a load of pics of the freshest UI off of Vodafone's version, and it looks pretty good, though I find the italics for the keyboard font to be oddly annoying. [Storm Reviews via BGR]

Read More »

When a tipster passed us the link to T-Mo's G1 User Guide and I read over the 48 page PDF, the first thing I noticed was a misspelling of Google as "Goggle." The second thing I noticed was that when I do end up checking out the phone, I'm definitely going to need the "Getting Started" guide—things seem quite overly complicated. Come, take a look at the interface decisions made by the designers, and judge for yourself.

Read More »

Today the government of Peru, Microsoft and the OLPC announced the first official pilot of XO laptops running Microsoft Windows. This was expected of course, but it marks the beginning of a major shift away from Sugar / Linux—although both will remain as dual boot options for the foreseeable future. It also represents a major step for Microsoft who stand to gain a strong foothold in the developing world.

Read More »