人機互動，觸外有感

在科技日新月異的今天，你會發現有時那些新奇有趣的創意也會給你帶來“審美疲勞”，比如如今滿天飛的觸屏，是不是已經讓你有些厭倦了呢？也許是時候，來個新點子了。

Hostess: Computer chips and technology are invading all sorts of previously “dumb” devices. Phones are now smart. Cars are becoming connected computers on wheels. Call it the 1)computerization of everything.

Reporter: At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show， touch pads are everywhere—in phones， in tablets， laptop screens. And Brad Feld has had enough.

主持人：電腦芯片和計算機科技正全面入侵以往的“傻瓜”設備。現在手機都成了智能手機，汽車都漸漸變成一臺臺帶輪子的互聯電腦，可謂萬物皆“計算機化”。記者：在今年的消費電子產品展上，大小觸屏隨處可見——手機、平板電腦、手提電腦的屏幕。布拉德·菲爾德對此心生厭倦。

Brad Feld: The whole idea that it’s socially acceptable or 2)functionally acceptable to have a whole mass of 3)humanity that’s 4)staring down at a tiny piece of glass and 5)pounding on it with their thumbs is kind of 6)absurd. Reporter: Feld’s a venture capitalist at the Foundry Group. His firm is investing 7)aggressively in startups that are creating new ways for humans and computers to interact.

Brad: Twenty years from

now the way we interact

with 8)computing will be

unrecognizable to us

today.

Reporter: But judging

from the displays at 9)CES，

the touch pad 10)craze

hasn’t 11)crested—yet.

Just inside Microsoft’s

enormous 12)booth here，

there’s a giant touch pad

the size of a tabletop. It

looks like the love child of

an iPad and a flat-screen TV. “But it’s a bit different to that”， Steve Clayton’s from Microsoft. Clayton says this table doesn’t just respond to touch; it’s actually watching us， paying attention to where we are—where we’re standing.

Steve Clayton: If I click on one of these images or I tap on one， the image 13)rotates to me， and that’s because this surface， this device， can see. It can see the orientation of my finger and it can present the image towards me.

Reporter: More and more computers are doing just that—paying attention， watching and listening to us. Microsoft’s Kinect responds to gestures. Apple’s Siri listens to our voices. And observant little machines are popping up in places you might not expect. Matt Rodgers is a founder at Nest. His little 14)thermostat observes patterns in your house， then programs itself.

Matt Rodgers: So use it as you should， like， use a normal， you know， non-programmable thermostat—turn it up and turn it down to make yourself comfortable—and Nest will learn from your patterns.

布拉德·菲爾德：好好一個人就知道盯著一小塊玻璃屏幕，用拇指左敲右戳的，這樣的做法從社交層面乃至功能操作上來說大家竟然都覺得是合宜的，真是匪夷所思。

記者：菲爾德是美國Foundry集團旗下一名風險投資商，他的公司大力投資于研發人機互動新方式的新興公司。

布拉德：二十年后我們跟電腦的互動方式在今天的我們看來會是那么的新奇莫辨。

記者：但從消費電子產品展上展示的新品來看，觸屏熱仍未退卻。在這邊，微軟龐大的展位里面就有一部臺面那么大的巨型觸屏，看上

去很像iPad和平板電視的結晶合體。“但跟那個又有點不一樣”，微軟的斯蒂夫·克雷頓如是說。他透露，這款觸屏桌面不單只對指觸命令能作出反應，實際上它還在觀察我們，留意著我們在哪里，如我們站立的方位。

斯蒂夫·克雷頓：只要我點擊或者按著其中一幅圖片，那圖片就會轉向面對我打開，那是因為這平面、這種裝置本身看得見周遭的一切。它可以辨認我手指的方向，從而能為我正向展示圖片。

記者：越來越多的電腦正是往這方向走——關注、觀察、傾聽我們。微軟的體感游戲設備Kinect能應玩家的動作姿勢而運行。蘋果的Siri能識別我們的語音指令。而這類眼觀六路耳聽八方的小儀器正陸續現身在很多你預料之外的地方。麥特·羅杰斯是Nest的創始人之一。其公司出品的小型溫控器能觀察你家里的調溫模式，然后自我編程、自動調溫。

麥特·羅杰斯：就像你用平常那些非編程的溫控器一樣——按自己的舒適度要求調高調低的，然后Nest就會從中了解到你的模式。

Reporter: If you turn up the heat and then leave the house， Nest has sensors that will notice you are out and turn the heat down. You end up programming the computer inside this thermostat without even realizing you’ve done it. And John Underkoffler envisions a day where machines all around us respond to how we move and what we want. Underkoffler’s best known as the brains behind the futuristic computers in Steven Spielberg’s film Minority Report. Spielberg didn’t want Tom Cruise to mess around with keyboards or touch screens in a film set in the future.

J o h n U n d e r k o f f l e r : W h e n I proposed to Steven that it could be a gestural interface that it would be body-centered—human-centered—and that you could literally point at the screens and command the pixels and sift data using your hands at a distance， I think Steven loved that idea.

Reporter: So Cruise stands in front of a screen and conducts his computer like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia.

Underkoffler built a working model at MIT. After the movie， he refined it and started a company called Oblong. For now， the full Oblong system can cost up to half a million dollars， but eventually he hopes it will control all sorts of common machines.

John: Obvious computers like laptops and desktops， but also computers that you don’t think about—the front of your microwave oven， the dashboard of your car， the TV set in your living room.

Reporter: And Oblong executives at CES say they see more and more signs this transformation is on the way.

記者：如果你把室溫調高了，然后離開房子，Nest溫控器的感應裝置會注意到你已經外出，繼而將溫度調低。就是這樣，在不知不覺之間，你已經完成對溫控器內置電腦的編程工作了。約翰·恩德柯福樂更預言，將來我們周圍的機器全部可以按我們的一舉一動及所需所想而反應。他曾是大導演斯蒂芬·斯皮爾伯格的電影《少數派報告》幕后設計片中那些未來科幻電腦的智囊團成員之一，因此為人所熟知。斯皮爾伯格當時不想片中的湯姆·克魯斯在未來時空的電影場面還要敲鍵盤或者按觸屏什么的。約翰·恩德柯福樂：我當時就跟斯蒂芬提議說，可以設計一個手勢操作界面，更以肢體動作為導向，更以人為本的一套操作模式，基本上，你可以遠距離對著屏幕用手指指點點就能操控像素選擇數據了。我想當時斯蒂芬就愛上了這個主意。

記者：于是大家就看到了湯姆·克魯斯像《幻想曲》里的米老鼠那樣站在屏幕前指揮自己電腦的一幕。

恩德柯福樂按自己的設想在麻省理工大學為電影做出了一臺可操作的模型。影片拍攝過后，他把這臺電腦進一步調試完善，并成立了一家名為Oblong的公司。目前，完整的一套Oblong系統叫價達五十萬美元，但他希望此系統最終能統帥所有普通機器設備。

約翰：手提電腦、桌面電腦這些不用說了，連一些你想不到的電腦也是我們的目標——微波爐的控制面板、座駕的儀表板、客廳電視等等裝置內的微型電腦。

記者：出席消費電子產品展的Oblong公司高層表示，有越來越多的跡象表明這一大轉變正悄然上演。