Comments on: Touch Me Baby

Touch Me Baby

dbiedny — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 18:58:16 -0800

This very cool multi-input touchscreen is an amazing example of potential human-computer interfaces and is not the same thing as the very cool Lemur device marketed in the US by Cycling 74. It really makes you realize that there's a whole new level of graphics, animation, 3D, music and control technology yet to be explored. Fascinating stuff.

By: dbiedny

dbiedny — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:05:22 -0800

Oh, sorry, Embedded video and soundtrack.

By: gimonca

gimonca — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:09:53 -0800

Can I say 'Minority Report' before anybody else does?

By: rob511

rob511 — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:11:03 -0800

Oops!

By: gimonca

gimonca — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:11:17 -0800

Some of the first examples left me a bit...underwhelmed. I thought they got better as you get further into the demo.

By: gimonca

gimonca — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:12:23 -0800

I guess that's what I get for not reading every thread.

By: dbiedny

dbiedny — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:16:16 -0800

rob511 - damn, I missed that one. Feel free to delete this thread.

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:23:43 -0800

Well I hadn't seen it before and it's fucktastic, so thanks. I hope it'll be available sometime soon.

By: b1tr0t

b1tr0t — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:31:09 -0800

looks cool. I'd hate to have to code against it though.

By: Tubes

Tubes — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:36:59 -0800

I hadn't caught it before either. Waaaaay cool. Our kids are gonna think we grew up in the dark ages of computing. CRTs? Keyboards? Mice? Disk drives? So primitive. Can anyone identify the music playing with the video?

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:37:08 -0800

Unless they write a porn demo it will probably stay in the lab or high-end specialized apps.

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:38:03 -0800

that's hella awesome

By: Bucket o' Heads

Bucket o' Heads — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:40:29 -0800

I missed the first go around too. This + Live and Reason = wetness

By: Bucket o' Heads

Bucket o' Heads — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:42:08 -0800

Ok..I just watched the whole video. This + anything = wetness

By: dbiedny

dbiedny — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:42:49 -0800

Bucket o' Heads: This thing and Isadora = Sheer Madness

By: Malor

Malor — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:43:39 -0800

I didn't see it the first time either. That is WAY cool. I haven't been that jazzed by a new interface since seeing the original Macintosh. Just like with the Mac, I'm not entirely sure what it would be good for, but I want it. :)

By: Bucket o' Heads

Bucket o' Heads — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:46:37 -0800

Oh wow..thanks dbiedny! I hadn't heard of Isadora before..time to play! now, who do I need to fuck, blow, kill or feed tasty popsicles to to get this thing?

By: Foosnark

Foosnark — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:47:18 -0800

Can anyone identify the music playing with the video? "Who Am I?" by Peace Orchestra, from the Animatrix soundtrack. Entirely awesome interface there. I want.

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 19:50:04 -0800

i missed that the first time too ... well, you know what's going to happen, but thanks for pointing it out

By: Heywood Mogroot

Heywood Mogroot — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 20:16:01 -0800

hint to demo-makers: the BGM is like 80% of the take-away...

By: F Mackenzie

F Mackenzie — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 21:23:32 -0800

The guy that worked on this, Jeff Han, also did some early work on CU-seeme. Some interesting projects on his home page at NYU.

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 22:15:35 -0800

I saw a live demo of the Grumann Touch Table, last year, which looks exactly like the same interface. As far as I know the Touch Table is in production and being sold to the military.

By: mono blanco

mono blanco — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 22:39:46 -0800

Except for the fingerprints. All it takes is one snot-nosed kid and you're not going to want to touch that screen.

By: hincandenza

hincandenza — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 23:49:08 -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.

By: Meridian

Meridian — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 23:53:23 -0800

Apple has just filed some patents covering almost exactly this. We may see this on a tablet PC in the very near future! Yes!!

By: LondonYank

LondonYank — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 03:56:45 -0800

I believe the current rumor on Apple's touchscreen patents is that they're going to cover a touchscreen interface on the new "proper" widescreen video iPod.

By: Meridian

Meridian — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 04:30:55 -0800

... the current rumor on Apple's touchscreen patents is that they're going to cover a touchscreen interface on the new "proper" widescreen video iPod. In that case, someone may hack it to load Linux and create a sweet little multi-input device that can be plugged into a Mac or PC. Not ideal, but at least it would be an interesting experiment.

By: xthlc

xthlc — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 07:01:41 -0800

There are a number of different multi-touch technologies out there. The MERL folks were some of the first ones to invent a practical multi-touch display technology (and theirs has the advantage of being able to detect and track multiple users). It's based on capacitance, the same thing that your laptop trackpad uses. That said, Jeff's stuff is damn cool. He came up with a pretty clever method of doing multi-touch detection -- basically, he uses an array of IR LEDs to shoot a whole bunch of infrared light into the side of a glass pane; the light ricochets around due to internal reflection. However, when you press something up against the pane, it causes the IR to bounce right out again. This bounced IR shows up in a digital camera image as a glow wherever you press against the glass. Throw in some basic computer vision and rear projection, and you've got a very cheap, flexible, and (most importantly) SCALABLE multi-touch display. Throw enough cameras and projectors at it and you can have an entire wall display that's interactive. Of course, it can't track individual users (yet) . . . .

By: juiceCake

juiceCake — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 10:43:42 -0800

This won't be actually cool until Apple invents it.

By: BlackLeotardFront

BlackLeotardFront — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 13:01:05 -0800

Why hasn't this been deleted? It's the same exact link as this, a few days earlier. I even mentioned the apple patents!

By: Tubes

Tubes — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 15:06:54 -0800

'Cuz then we'd lose the additional conversation here.