Apple’s iPhone popularized touch in the mobile marketplace by bringing a sleek, virtually button-less device to the competitive landscape previously focused on incremental change. Now it’s the iPhone’s turn to worry because Microsoft may be taking interface to a whole new level. The SideSight interprets gestures made by a single finger and executes commands based on the type of motion.

It sure sounds a lot like mousegestures, but taken off the screen and brought into the physical dimension. A direct motion toward the SideSight would be interpreted as a click, while a motion to one side could move through a list of possible selections.

Using touch to interpret commands provides a lot of flexibility for devices like the iPhone. But, to accommodate the ongoing miniaturization trend humans will need a different way to connect with their electronic world, especially if screens shrink to the size of a watch. Here are some other gestures Microsoft’s SideSight can interpret:

By twisting one’s hands appropriately on either side of the phone, objects could be rotated in place. Pages could be panned and scrolled by moving a hand up and down, and Microsoft also proved that text could be entered and edited on the main screen through a stylus while the other hand scrolled the page — a movement that would be akin to the motions a user’s hands would make if he or she were writing on a sheet of paper, according to Gearlog.

Overall that sounds like a much more intuitive way to communicate than by keeping hands glued to a keyboard and mouse. After all, humans have used gestures to communicate with each other since the times of the caveman.

The difficulty? Bright light or objects from other sources have the potential to interfere with the SideSight’s accuracy. So far, tests in a typical office environment seem to be working well, possibly because the sensors focus on the horizontal plane.

Who knows, maybe Apple has something like this already in the works. The company is certainly capable of keeping a secret. But if not, the iPhone’s time on the throne may be very temporary.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 at 8:40 pm under Apple, Cell phones, Microsoft.

Read more entries by Matt Jansen.
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