June 16 - The real Minority Report: Scientist gives incredible demo of how we will use computers in the future‏

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The real Minority Report: Scientist gives incredible demo of how we will use computers in the future

By Daniel Bates In New York

It looks like a scene from the futuristic thriller 'Minority Report'.

But this stunning footage shows how humans could be interacting with computers using today's technology.

The 'Spacial operating environment' allows the user to move in 3D inside the workspace which is projected onto huge screens in front of them using gloves with sensors attached to them.

Instead of clicking with a mouse and typing with a keyboard, you can move through and around the work you are doing in realtime 3D, giving you far more flexibility than a standard computer allows.

Minority Report science adviser and inventor John Underkoffler demos G-speak -- the real-life version of the film's technology

It has been designed by John Underkoffler, one of the science advisers for 'Minority Report,' who continued his research after the 2002 Steven Spielberg film was completed.

He said that 25 years on from from the invention of the Macintosh, which 'fundamentally changed' how people thought about computers, operating systems have changed very little.

Although software and web programmes have improved massively, how you interact with a PC or Mac is much the same.

In a jaw-dropping demonstration at a conference organised by the Technology Entertainment and Design (TED) group in America, Mr Underkoffler showed how things could be updated to the 21st century.

Using his gloves, he worked on a series of images in a fraction of the

time it would have taken with a normal computer.

Tom Cruise in the film Minority Report in which he uses special gloves to move information and graphics around a screen in front of him

He was able to change the way they were laid out with a flick of his wrist, put them flat so he could pick one out easily by moving his palm or fly around them by turning his fingers.

The intuitive setup also allowed him to 'reach in' and make selections from 3D plates with ease.

In 'Minority Report' Tom Cruise uses sensors attached to his hands to control a huge wraparound screen in front of him to search through vast banks of data and the internet.

He works for 'Precrime', an elite law enforcement unit which works with genetically altered humans called 'Pre-Cogs' who have psychic powers to see crimes before they happen.

The famous scene in his office shows him tracking down the location a murder is about to be committed using the incredible software.

Mr Underkoffler's demonstration also included a section where he 'pulled apart' a schematic of a machine part and manipulated logistics data onto a globe which was projected onto the screens in front of him.

The device also allows collaboration on-screen which he demonstrated with the help of two colleagues who both worked on the same image at the same time he did.

Only now are computer and console makers exploiting the possibilities of interfaces beyond the joystick and the mouse.

Microsoft last week launched Xbox Kinect, a sensor which allows users to control characters in the game by moving their body with no controller at all.

The Nintendo Wii also uses a sensor which tracks players but they still have to use an infra-red joystick for most functions.

Mr Underkoffler, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that any new technology should be made available to the public and not just business.

'Technology is capable of expressing and being imbued with a certain generosity and we need to demand that,' he said.