Johnny Chung Lee Review

I have decided to do a review on Johnny Chung Lee's work on HCI in relations to InfraRed manipulations and multi-touch via the humble wiimote.

Firstly, let me give a brief explanation of multi-touch...essentially multi-touch allows more than one user or source to interact with a computing/virtual environment. It is most commonly done using IR lights and a camera with an IR filter to pick up the signals.

Now, the nintendo wii took everyone by storm, the interactivity is sensational, Essentially the nintendo wii works by emitting IR light which the wiimote, which has a small camera with an IR filter in it, reads the light and communicates with the game.

Johnny Chung found a different use...well actually many different uses. He realized that by connecting the wiimote to your computer via Bluetooth, a whole range of possibilities are available, all of which fall under the category of "Physical Computing".

He currently writes consistently to a blog called "procastineering"

I really like what this guy is doing, it is kind of like breaking the rules, as in wiimotes were never intended to be used like this...nor were they designed to be used in such a manner, yet here they are saving hundreds on those wanting to investigate multi-touch aspects of computing.

Here are a few clips of his work...

Multi-point grid - Using IR lights and a wiimote Johnny is able to maipulate the position ad size of a grid...



Head Tracking - This could add a whole new aspect to gaming...



Multi-touch White board - you could turn any surface into a tablet pc, control your desktop with your hands...




So as you can see, Johnny has barely scratched the surface of what can be accomplished using various multi-touch concepts, and of all things, a wiimote.

Thanks for reading this review...

Michael