Comments on: You can tell it's futuristic by the techno soundtrack

You can tell it's futuristic by the techno soundtrack

Pseudoephedrine — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 20:14:24 -0800

Multiple-contact sensitive touchscreen doing neat things [Quicktime video]

By: rob511

rob511 — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 20:27:27 -0800

Whoa! I'm on-board. How much? P.S. Does it do pre-crime? Cause some of us might be looking over our shoulders....

By: Popular Ethics

Popular Ethics — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 20:45:17 -0800

Awesome. The map demo sold me - using two fingers they controlled the pan, rotate and zoom of the map easier than if it was a printed page. I wonder if one could set up something similar on a regular display using two mice.

By: marvin

marvin — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 21:21:21 -0800

Two mice?- why not just one mouse with two sensors instead of one?

By: unmake

unmake — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 21:27:02 -0800

Funny you should ask. Neat demo, btw - its a pity that such tactile interfaces haven't been adopted by TabletPCs.

By: zsazsa

zsazsa — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 21:31:29 -0800

If you want something like this right now, there's the Lemur multitouch control surface. It's pretty much made for music/video performances and generation, though. It speaks to programs like Max/MSP, Jitter, etc., or anything that does MIDI.

By: twsf

twsf — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 23:00:37 -0800

Great stuff - although I still think that French guy painting in sand on an overhead projector was cooler...

By: arialblack

arialblack — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 07:43:48 -0800

(disclaimer: I'm one of the developers) You can do similar manipulation tasks with two mice, but since mice are relative motion controllers, you don't have the same type of immediate point-to-point constraints. The larger problem is the user interface. Like a car, most of our current operating systems are designed around a one-user, one point of contact ( plus keyboard ) - so adding more mice means you're limited to turn-based control, rather than shared control. What I'm most interested in are small scale multipoint controls - if you notice the cow demo halfway through, that tiltpad lets you manipulate position, scale, and complete 3d rotation simultaneously with a single control. re: Lemur : it's a similar, but you're limited to the interface widgets they provide, which means that control is essentially one-way. You can't recontextualize touch based on what's at your fingertips ( i.e. grab parts of the map and drag them elsewhere to resize, or view the waveforms of your audio patches )

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 08:32:10 -0800

arialblack; am I correct that, in laymans terms, this works in the same way that you can see a kind of "neon" fingerprint if you touch a thick pane of glass that has polished ends, and your eye is at the correct angle? That is, are you just pointing a camera at the other side and visually processing the image of where fingers are placed, translating that into coordinates?

By: Pseudoephedrine

Pseudoephedrine — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 08:38:39 -0800

arialblack> You're one of the developers? Neat. I don't know if this is your area of specialty or not, but how bulky is the display device? Is it plausible that it could be reduced to thin, pliable sheets anytime soon? I'm specifically thinking of applications involving a display of this sort mounted on say, a curved surface or something similar.

By: ObscureReferenceMan

ObscureReferenceMan — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 09:25:41 -0800

Way cool!

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 10:03:10 -0800

Does anyone have the link to that Mac graphics tablet that used a video camera so that your hands appeared on the screen when you moved them on a separate tablet, and did similar things to this?

By: BlackLeotardFront

BlackLeotardFront — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 11:47:51 -0800

apple's already on it...kinda. and if they pull it off right, maybe I just will buy one.

By: inpHilltr8r

inpHilltr8r — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 14:32:57 -0800

The use of two control points to zoom and rotate worldwind was really nice. I guess you could use three or four to add tilt control. Amazing stuff. Nice one arialBlack. How much for a devkit :)

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 16:29:06 -0800

It's still nowehre as sensitive as my multiple-contact sensitive touchbutt.

By: Hicksu

Hicksu — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 21:12:55 -0800

When do we get the version that touches back?

By: scarabic

scarabic — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 22:41:10 -0800

PFC.

By: disillusioned

disillusioned — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 02:45:00 -0800

Hicksu, when I was at CES, there was a Chinese company there demoing their "force-feedback" touchscreens. By turning a dial, you would feel either a single click, a double click or a buzz when making contact with the screen. Very interesting concept that I'm sure we'll see sooner than later in production.

By: hincandenza

hincandenza — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 23:49:12 -0800

This is like a weaker version of the playtable that MS designed and built, and which was hinted at in Gate's 2006 CES keynote. I've seen it as a fully working model months and months ago, and it does all this does and more- not only the multiple fingers/hands interface, but scanning of barcodes, scanning of pictures and text right on the screen, etc. Of course, the idiots at MS wouldn't think to release this and get the good buzz for it; they'll sit on it indefinitely and probably release a crappier version for no good reason.