This morning’s whiz-bang-wow moment was provided by Jeff Han, a research scientist at NYU’s Department of Computer Science. Han showed off a prototype of a multi-touch interface that has the potential to drastically change the way we interface with computers.

Han showed off a screen device he called “36 inches of light” which is a multi-touch sensor used to interface with a computer. Multi-touch technology is not new Han pointed out, but it is now becoming inexpensive and easily scalable which allows for devices like what Han showed off.

By going beyond the single point of contact-based touch systems we currently use, Han demonstrated how many powerful things could be achieved very easily. By using combinations of two, three, or even all 10 fingers touching the device (to clear the screen), Han dragged, dropped, shifted, enlarged, and reduced images and objects on his screen. One obvious advantage to a system like this was the ease of which a user could have an apprently boundless desktop space.

Tricks like a virtual keyboard that can be resized and a display that concurrently showed 180 channels of video simulataneously in different screens that could be moved around and resized garnered applause from the audience. Han pointed out that simply bringing the current keyboard metaphot to a brand new interface like this probably isn’t the best idea, and future systems could use non-standard keyboard metaphors to make typing text even easier.

Han thinks the future of computer interfaces lies in multi-touch devices, and they will offer the ability to make computing more accessible to children, seniors, and populations unfamiliar with traditional computer interfaces. With a truly dynamic multi-touch system the interface seems to disappear. More information on multi-touch interfaces and Han’s research is available on Han’s Multi-Touch Interaction Research site.