Jeff Han blew people's minds last year at the TED conference with this presentation on multi-touch computing. He showed us what could be accomplished when interfaces just get out of the way and we get to manipulate our data with our own hands, rather than through crufty intermediary devices.

So, while the Han video is insanely cool, I was trying to come up with an idea of how this technology could help me in my day to day work environment. I don't use maps. I don't need an interactive lava lamp or to manage mountains of photos all day. I sit in a cubicle in front of three separate computer monitors (2 for my laptop - the onboard and a separate one, and one for my desktop development box). My work revolves greatly around email, Microsoft office products (blech), and some organizational webapps that I use to remember and manage what's important. In general, I think I have pretty good systems for what goes where, especially on my computer and network drives.

As I looked at the mess that was my desk, however, an idea finally began to emerge. I could use the new interface to completely replace my entire desk! Now that a sizeable screen has the ability to access any amount of virtual space and I have the ability to navigate that space with simple gestures there is no need to keep mountains of paper (half of them with huge "confidential" reminders printed all over them) stacked out in plain view or in little file folders.

It also opens up the possibility that I can use smaller interfaces to access my virtual workspace remotely. As long as an input device is large enough to gesture and the scaling technologies allow us to navigate at any scale, there's no reason I can't use an iPhone or an ereader during a meeting to access files on the network, distribute them to others in the room, and generally replace all the paper cruft which would normally be going on. No more printing PowerPoint decks, OK?

What I'm really talking about is the merging of multi-touch computing with something like the 3D BumpTop Desktop below:

Maybe the combinations of these new interfaces spell the death of my messy real-world desktop and the birth of my messy virtual desktop? Dare to dream.