Multi-touch - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

Popular culture has also portrayed potential uses of multi-touch technology in the future, including several installments of the Star Trek franchise.

The television series CSI: Miami introduced both surface and wall multi-touch displays in its sixth season. Another television series, NCIS: Los Angeles, make use of multi-touch surfaces and wall panels as an initiative to go digital. Another form of a multi-touch computer was seen in the film The Island, where the professor, played by Sean Bean, has a multi-touch desktop to organize files, based on an early version of Microsoft PixelSense. Multitouch technology can also be seen in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace, where MI6 uses a touch interface to browse information about the criminal Dominic Greene. In an episode of the television series The Simpsons, when Lisa Simpson travels to the underwater headquarters of Apple to visit Steve Jobs, who is shown to be performing multiple multi-touch hand gestures on a large touch wall.

A device similar to the Microsoft PixelSense was seen in the 1982 Disney sci-fi film Tron. It took up an executive's entire desk and was used to communicate with the Master Control computer.

The interface used to control the alien ship in the 2009 film District 9 features such similar technology.

Microsoft's PixelSense was also used in the 2008 film The Day the Earth Stood Still.

In the 2002 film Minority Report, Tom Cruise uses a set of gloves that resemble a multi-touch interface to browse through information.