Because I seem to have gotten pelted with a bunch of cool stuff over the past few days...

This video's been around a bit, but the geek in me loves a crazy machine.  This is the most insane wine corking / pouring gadget ever created:

So, Google acquired GrandCentral a while back and they're on the verge of releasing Google Voice.  It's only available to GrandCentral users, but they expect it to be ready for launch in a few weeks.  You can read about the features here, some of which include:

• Google Number:  Call Screening, Listen In (while someone is leaving a voicemail), Block Calls, SMS, Place Calls (US calls for free), Taking Calls (from any number of your phone lines), Phone Routing (based on who calls), Forwarding Phones
• Google Voicemail:  Voicemail Transcripts (yep, read your voicemail), Listen to Voicemail, Notifications (via email or SMS), Personalize Greeting, Share Voicemail (forward or download)
• Voice Features:  Conference CAlling, Call Recording, Call Switch (switch phones mid-call), Mobile Site (check things via mobile phone), GOOG-411 (Google's already existing directory assistance), Manage Groups (and set preferences for them)

Here's an interesting video on listening in on a voicemail as it's being left (and joining the call if you wish!)

Jason Calacanis posted an unemployment chart for every state over the past couple of years...

If you're in to Home-Brew DIY DVR's like I am (click the link for my first article on SageTV), then you'll love this list of available SageTV add-ons posted by GeekTonic.

Were you lucky enough to ever make it to the world famous CBGB's before it shut down?  Me neither.  Here's the next best thing!  This is an amazing 360-degree panoramic view of everything from the stages to the bathrooms...classic fun technology.

This Solid State Drives (SSD) are cool?  How about 24 of them RAIDed together in an amazing system?  Might cost you a few bucks though!

A very cool technology that allows you to interact with a video presentation on-the-fly, you can even try it yourself!  Watch the video in this link then give your own version a go!  All you'll need is a piece of paper, a printer, a webcam, and a microphone.  Thanks GE!

Whether or not you're a fan of the movie Minority Report (or Tom Cruise, for that matter), you're going to love what you see here.  This article was sparked by some new technology from a company called Oblong Industries.  Apparently, many of the founders of this organization were involved in the making of the movie and have decided to make the incredibly cool user interface from the movie into reality.

The user interface is quite elegant and (of course) the movie makes it appear easy to interact with.  The surprising thing is, the real version looks just as easy to manipulate.  What's the core interface comprised of?  You standing in front of any number of screens moving your hands around, making jestures, pointing, etc. 

So, this is a discussion on Graphical User Interface (GUI), Human Computer Interaction (HCI), and any other buzz-phrase / acronym you can come up with to describe how we interact with virtual worlds and environments.  I've always been a proponent of something outside of the stale keyboard and mouse standard we're all tied into.  To quote a close friend Jack Bell, "There's got to be a better way."  I believe that there are better ways today, and very soon, there will be incredibly better ways.

We've seen some major steps forward in touch and multi-touch technology via the Apple iPhone and Microsoft's Surface technologies.  This has certainly sparked development in the User Interface (UI) industry, but I don't see it as the holy grail.  What might that holy grail look like today?  Likely no single item you'll see in this article, but possibly a combination of them...working together to provide us a seamless and intuitive ability to interact with the machines and virtual worlds we rely on today.

Are you a hand-talker?  This might just be the inteface for you!  Unless, of course, you're trying to navigate and talk at the same time.  <chuckle>  The first video I'm sharing is the inspiration for this post, and is truly cutting edge when it comes to UI.

I recommend you view this in full screen to get the full effect (button on the bottom right of the video).

Another popular technology getting a fair amount of attention is Microsoft's Surface.  The video is long, and a little slow in the beginning (marketing blab), but this is a great video that shows off some of the possibilities this technology has. 

The next two videos aren't so much directly about a human interacting with a computer, but are more about computers being smart enough to adjust to our environment which is certainly quite important in the ultimate UI experience.  This first video shows how a projector can automatically calculate a screen to match where the screen is...wherever it is.

This next video is very similar, and shows how we might be able to use similar technologies for virtual newspapers (foldable!) and other dynamic surfaces.

Another very important aspect is how we organize our data within this new interface.  We could have the most incredibly evolved way to interact with a computer, but if we can't find anything because how we store the information we need is clunky then our inteface is useless.  This is a novel desktop replacement idea that has some slick ideas. 

I found this video interesting because is shows a cheap and easy way to track head location and movement using a Wii remote and receiver.  Pretty amazing what this guy is able to do by re-using existing (and affordable) technologies.

Finally, this is yet another great video showing the ability for a computer system to track humans or items in the real world, and project information based on those real-world items. 

Image Credit:  20th Century Fox