Sometimes You Want To Glow

August 18, 2006 3:29 PM

The iBar (Interactive Bar). YouTube link.
posted by fandango_matt (19 comments total)

looking forward to the iSeizure
posted by wumpus at 3:35 PM on August 18, 2006

iSpilledMyDrinkAndShortedOutYouriBarOMG
posted by stenseng at 3:50 PM on August 18, 2006

Cool. Reminds me of a countertop version of a plasma ball.
posted by nickyskye at 3:53 PM on August 18, 2006

Uh... I don't get it.
posted by ZachsMind at 3:54 PM on August 18, 2006

I think after 15 min you'll get fed up with that stuff
posted by zouhair at 4:09 PM on August 18, 2006

Only tangentially related, but I read this article on bartending myths the other day and it was semi-interesting.
posted by Rhomboid at 4:11 PM on August 18, 2006

Cameras above and projectors below. Not strictly touch-sensitive but still fun to look at.

I bet the bartenders get really tired of the same questions over and over. Gotta get old.
posted by crunchyk9 at 4:17 PM on August 18, 2006

Gotta start crying once the fat, ugly drunk girls with their big heels decide it's not a party until they start dancing atop the bar.
posted by Mach3avelli at 4:33 PM on August 18, 2006

Historically, this type of bar has been problematic
posted by hal9k at 4:45 PM on August 18, 2006

So it tells you where your drink is or your hands are. Should you want to know, it will tell you where other people's drinks and hands are. Handy.

"Oh god, is someone else touching the bar? I NEED to know if someone else is touching the bar. What if they are?"
posted by Serial Killer Slumber Party at 5:15 PM on August 18, 2006

There used to be a hamburger joint in Greenwich Village that brought your burger out on a Lionel electric train flatcar. This is about as interesting.
posted by QuietDesperation at 5:26 PM on August 18, 2006

Lost interest at :07
posted by wfc123 at 5:41 PM on August 18, 2006

I kept waiting for it to do something... else.
posted by scheptech at 5:54 PM on August 18, 2006

gayBar. There's one, maybe two girls total. Ok, the guys all have their shirts on, but still, one of them's all on e feeling up the bar.
posted by redteam at 6:58 PM on August 18, 2006

my cats would love it.
posted by owhydididoit at 7:42 PM on August 18, 2006

Hell. My walls have been doing that non-stop since 1971.

Call me back when I can play Pong on it.
posted by loquacious at 12:15 AM on August 19, 2006

Cameras above and projectors below. Not strictly touch-sensitive but still fun to look at.

If that were true there would be a lot more illuminated blobs on the surface. According to the website:

". . . Integrated video-projectors can project any content on the milky bar-surface. The intelligent tracking system of iBar detects all objects touching the surface. . . . [V]irtual objects can be 'touched' with the fingers.

The iBar system is ready to be installed completely into any kind of bar-counter, there's no need for any further installations on the ceiling or something like that. The software is flexible and can be adjusted and enhanced."

If it's that open-ended, it should be possible to write Pong for it. They should have shown/created more effects for their video. It's like writing a screen saver engine but only demoing one module.
posted by D.C. at 4:38 AM on August 19, 2006

Looks like they're using bounding boxes to prune edges of the graph outside of about 4 or 5 feet. Which is very sensible, but also a bit of a disappointment--once the novelty wears off, the most fun you could have with this thing is throwing a couple pockets full of change on the bar and watching an N² algorithm try to keep up.
posted by Galvatron at 11:08 AM on August 19, 2006

It looks pretty cool, but it also looks like the kind of thing that would only appear in the kind of bars I would never want to frequent.
posted by Doublewhiskeycokenoice at 4:06 PM on August 19, 2006