When I saw this video on Engadget, I simply had to take a step back away from the keyboard, go to the bathroom, look at myself in the mirror and punch myself in the face. You’re looking at PhonePoint Pen, an application written by Sandip Agrawal, Ionut Constandache, Shravan Gaonkar and Romit Roy Choudhury at Duke University. These bright young lads are in Duke’s University Computer Science program, which according to their admissions page, runs around $53,390 without textbooks.
I can’t think of a better example of the disconnect between academia and the real world. We all know gesture based controls will be one of the many ways we’re going to interact with the world around us. With more and more smartphones shipping with accelerometers, and even compasses, we’re all going to be walking around with Wii controllers in our pockets that will allow us to manipulate stuff on digital displays and interact with real world objects.
Writing my name in the air however? You’re in university for fucks sake! You’re supposed to be drinking a 12 pack of the Bud Lite and writing your name in urine on the bed of the sorority girl you just contracted syphilis from.
Fail.