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June 25, 2009 11:18 PM   Subscribe

Foldable Display Tracking - more Wiimote magic from Johnny Lee Chung [previously].
posted by mhjb (27 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 
Sweet Jesus, this guy is brilliant.
posted by Michael Roberts at 11:26 PM on June 25, 2009


Holy shit it's actual magic.
posted by GuyZero at 11:40 PM on June 25, 2009


Enough with the Wiimote! Chung, I want a Mech, dammit. I know you could make it with Volkswagen parts.
posted by hellojed at 11:59 PM on June 25, 2009


I'm continually disappointed to find that he hasn't yet attacked Fort Knox, or isn't threatening a meeting of the world's heads of state with his network of laser-armed satellites. Still, I guess he's getting closer.
posted by darth_tedious at 12:00 AM on June 26, 2009 [1 favorite]


Damn. To be half as bright. Good stuff. The changing state of the tabletop display was pretty great. Now I need to go find out what the other half of the tech is.
posted by maxwelton at 12:09 AM on June 26, 2009


Johnny Chung Lee (*ahem*) is also on the Natal team at Microsoft. Gives you a little more faith in that product, huh?
posted by martens at 12:23 AM on June 26, 2009


Re: Natal, I got to see a ZCam about five years ago. The technology seemed precise and robust at the time; no doubt it's even better today. I have no problem believing the depth-sensing camera sensor will work very nicely. As to the software, well, we'll see.
posted by ryanrs at 2:13 AM on June 26, 2009


Re: Natal, impaling oneself could never be captured in better resolution.
posted by vanadium at 2:32 AM on June 26, 2009


This stuff is way cool, but it's reliance on projection makes its usefulness seem limited. What are some scenarios where this tech is both cool AND useful?
posted by wemayfreeze at 2:41 AM on June 26, 2009


This stuff is way cool, but it's reliance on projection makes its usefulness seem limited.

I wondered about that too. The demo starts with a mobile device which seems a bit strange. Will projectors ever be as portable and flexible as ... foldable, paper thin "Kindle-like" displays? But, cool concepts for more static situations (conference rooms etc.).
posted by Glee at 2:58 AM on June 26, 2009


You can get tiny, wearable projectors. The problem is they use even more power than an LCD display, because they need to put out a lot more light.

Maybe we could make this a ubiquitous "service" though. Every room would have multiple projectors that your device would communicate with wirelessly. You just send them the data you want them to display and the coordinates of the surface and they do the work. Doesn't work outside though, unless we make the projectors satellite-mounted lasers....
posted by DU at 4:54 AM on June 26, 2009


Actually, a laser-based projector would probably not use as much power as a bulb projector. Or would it? I'm thinking 3 lasers for RGB and each one has a spinning mirror. Like laser shows, only in a "badge" you could wear. You Asteroids-style vector graphics rather than "filled in" graphics, but that's acceptable for all the other stuff you get. Hmmm....
posted by DU at 5:55 AM on June 26, 2009


Things like this have existed before. I've seen a demo of a CMU project that could do something similar, but it was only shown on flat surfaces I think.

You can get tiny, wearable projectors .

I like the bit where he projects metadata on some random person at 4:00. Of course, everyone can see what's projected, I think it would be kind of rude :P

Will projectors ever be as portable and flexible as ... foldable, paper thin "Kindle-like" displays? But, cool concepts for more static situations (conference rooms etc.).

The thing about Kindle displays is that they don't take any energy when they aren't being changed. So they're perfect for reading books. A kindle can last for weeks without a charge, for example.

Display technology is really advancing quickly. Which is nice since CPUs have stopped getting faster :(
posted by delmoi at 6:16 AM on June 26, 2009


I want someone to combine a motion tracking portable projector with a survival horror game. So you can pretend it's a torch and wander around a darkened arena "shining" the torch around and catching glimpses of monsters and ghosts.
posted by lucidium at 6:25 AM on June 26, 2009


There's not going to be nearly enough resolution to read that newspaper.
posted by rlk at 6:25 AM on June 26, 2009


It's two words people! Wii Remote!

Actually I don't really care, just thought some of you may have wanted to know that.
posted by P.o.B. at 6:29 AM on June 26, 2009


Teaming this technology up with hand-held laser projectors could be really cool.
posted by Lafe at 6:30 AM on June 26, 2009 [1 favorite]


Light Blue Optics is developing what they call 'pico projectors' that are presumably very power efficient. They seem focused on projecting onto flat surfaces, but I think they could be adapted for this kind of work.

Re: projecting metadata onto another person and other private information

One way to make something like that semi-private is to have two projectors: one projects noise using one light polarization and/or frequency, and the other projects your data using a different polarization and/or frequency. You could wear glasses that filter out the noise, leaving you with the desired information.

The level of privacy would not be ideal with a static setup, but you could imagine active glasses that were able to switch their filtering according to some random sequence synced to the projectors. With enough combinations of polarization angles and frequencies, any visual eavesdropper might be able to see the image some of the time but most of the time it would be garbled.
posted by jedicus at 6:34 AM on June 26, 2009


I'm thinking 3 lasers for RGB and each one has a spinning mirror.

hand-held laser projectors

That was fast. Thanks, Internet!
posted by DU at 6:59 AM on June 26, 2009


wow... that projector Lafe linked to is the size of a 1/2 inch stack of 3x5 cards. Color me impressed.

The next technical leap I see is not having a static projector. The projector would be integrated into the display surface, at least that's what I'd like to see.
posted by Severian at 7:18 AM on June 26, 2009


You have to join the "VIP club" to even get updated about availability, but the FAQ says $300-$500 when they are available. That's a pretty good spot to start dropping the price from. Can't wait.
posted by DU at 7:20 AM on June 26, 2009


Head tracking + Infrasound Haunting + Wiimote as camera = The Scare yourself shitless Ultimate Edition of Fatal Frame
posted by yeloson at 7:25 AM on June 26, 2009


Meh, where's the applications? I love this guy's work for his technical prowess, but the actual result of have a display anywhere on any surface doesn't change much for me. We've had a long history putting a display where we need one anyway.

Maybe if you ran around a pitch black room, projecting zombification onto your friends and using your hands to shoot them in the virtual world, that would be cool.
posted by Submiqent at 8:49 AM on June 26, 2009


Head tracking + Infrasound Haunting + Wiimote as camera = The Scare yourself shitless Ultimate Edition of Fatal Frame

It's more effective to just suggest to yourself that the game is haunted.
posted by Evilspork at 9:53 AM on June 26, 2009


Anyone know of an alternate link that won't give proxy/capacity errors?
posted by Evilspork at 9:57 AM on June 26, 2009


Link doesn't work. A quick check of his Youtube account yields this video with the same title.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 10:01 AM on June 26, 2009


I thought the point of this video was that these were prototypes for future displays. I don't think he intends for display projected on to piece of card to actually be used, but he's prototyping how future displays might work. That is, once we have the ability to create foldable, fan, or umbrella shaped displays, we might use them in the way shown in the video.
posted by NoEatingdogs at 12:00 PM on June 26, 2009


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