Physical telepresence: Growth trends of Tangible User Interface and its future

Tangible User Interface (TUI) started with the invention of mouse and keyboard. Since the last two decades, TUI has experienced tremendous growth and has provided us with a link between the physical and the digital world. Even though, MIT Tangible Lab develops several tangible interface models every year, the research work in TUI is still in its infancy and extensive work is required to fully understand the potential of Tangible User Interfaces. This paper describes a brief history and some landmark Tangible User Interface models. It first acknowledges the existing work in TUI. Then, it is followed by the comparison between several TUI models. The paper brings out methods and technologies which are used in building TUI. It also aims at finding the advantages, disadvantages and applications of some TUI models. The paper concludes with finding those factors which are responsible for the growth of TUI.