Perceptive Pixel

Merkaba

This is some pretty darn impressive technology. I can't wait until I can have a pad in front of my with which to control my PC monitor!

<a href="http://multi-touchscreen.com/perceptive-pixel-jeff-han.html" target="_blank">http://multi-touchscreen.com/perceptive-pixel-jeff-han.html</a>

Doing art and game design would surely make one feel like a sorcerer! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />

NeonSpyder

Coooooooool.


I see very strong 'potential' for Military and Business use.

Not so much for anything else.

But it's still cool.

Merkaba

I can't help but wonder how grubby the screen could get.

I wonder if humans could ever be trusted with one of these things as a public information terminal? Imagine using it to find the local stores, get maps of the area, check your email etc...it'd be a huge wall and you'd just have to find a space on it to use it.

chubbysteve

Cool vid. Reminds me of the system in the minority report. Back when I saw that I thought it was possible. It seems to have taken longer than I expected for someone to go and do it. I mean the wacom tablet doesn't make contact between the pen and the area it writes on. And it has a z-axis which is more than I can say for most computer mice.

A lot of that video is software, but it shows great potential. I think different input and output devices are exciting things, think about the popularity of the wii. I can imagine it would be a fantastic research and presentation tool.

But I would like to sit down at the computer!

Align

Yeah, I remember when I saw this last year, it's pretty cool.
<img src="http://xs413.xs.to/xs413/07101/touchscreen.JPG" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />

Rover

<!--quoteo(post=1611555:date=Mar 5 2007, 08:29 PM:name=Align)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Align @ Mar 5 2007, 08:29 PM) [snapback]1611555[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
Yeah, I remember when I saw this last year, it's pretty cool.
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Oh yeah, same here now that you mention it.


Also: I WANT.

Liku

That's pretty cool, but the novelty would definitely be gone quickly.

Kouji_San

novelty might be gone quite fast, I'd like to see implementation other then shown in the movie and reasons as to why it would be better then mouse+keyboard or a drawing tablet... For graphic design for example or games, Os control, sound design and much more.

Still nice though

Scythe

I want to see a curved wrap-around version of this that's designed to be at comfortable arm's length when sitting down. That'd be ideal.

--Scythe--

Xyth

<!--quoteo(post=1611526:date=Mar 5 2007, 11:41 AM:name=Merkaba)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Merkaba @ Mar 5 2007, 11:41 AM) [snapback]1611526[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
I can't help but wonder how grubby the screen could get.
<b>
I wonder if humans could ever be trusted with one of these things as a public information terminal? Imagine using it to find the local stores, get maps of the area, check your email etc...it'd be a huge wall and you'd just have to find a space on it to use it.</b>
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This is pretty much how Im seeing this being used. Instead of making space for tons of small computers, just put these on a couple of walls.

Tyrain

They had a presentation of that over at <a href="http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/" target="_blank">http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/</a> (check it out if you are bored, really good stuff.) almost seven months ago. And I've seen it quite some time before that. Never seen one that big though. They might be on to something with this thing.

RustySpoon

<!--quoteo(post=1611662:date=Mar 5 2007, 09:55 PM:name=Xyth)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Xyth @ Mar 5 2007, 09:55 PM) [snapback]1611662[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
This is pretty much how Im seeing this being used. Instead of making space for tons of small computers, just put these on a couple of walls.
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Because we all know it wouldn't be covered in dongs made in paint within the first week.

Merkaba

Hah, like www.drawball.com

Haze

<!--quoteo(post=1611873:date=Mar 6 2007, 05:18 PM:name=Merkaba)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Merkaba @ Mar 6 2007, 05:18 PM) [snapback]1611873[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
Hah, like www.drawball.com
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Wow, cool site. How do you use it? :\

J!

I can't believe some of you guys are labelling this as a novelty! There are countless applications for this technology that will change our lives. It's definitely not just for business and military use. Also, I noticed some people are worried about smudging, smearing and general wear and tear, but the text underneath the video seems to indicate this isn't a problem.

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I notice the screen is not only smudge resistant but durable--or as Han says, "peanut butter--proof," a phrase he didn't invent but liked enough to co-opt<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

TychoCelchuuu

Yeah, and the Titanic was impossible to sink! Trust me, anything you can lick can get dirty, and anything that's DESIGNED to be touched can get twice as dirty.

On the plus side it'll keep people from actually licking it.

pardzh

<!--quoteo(post=1611952:date=Mar 6 2007, 08:48 PM:name=TychoCelchuuu)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TychoCelchuuu @ Mar 6 2007, 08:48 PM) [snapback]1611952[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
Yeah, and the Titanic was impossible to sink! Trust me, anything you can lick can get dirty, and anything that's DESIGNED to be touched can get twice as dirty.

On the plus side it'll keep people from actually licking it.
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Yeah, it's going to get nasty no matter what it's made of if people are going to be touching it regularly.

Why not just ultra-waterproof it and give it a nice hosing down every day?

X_Stickman

Combine this with fully integrated and advanced voice recognition technology, and you'll have one seriously awesome RTS.

Also, this reminds me mostly of the gate/docking controllers in The Matrix Reloaded. In the all white room.

Thansal

honestly, I classify it as a novelty simply b/c it isn't that good of an input system.

Yah, it is nifty, but doing any amount of extended work will eventually get tiring, where as with a mouse/keyboard/tablet you do not have to keep your arms in the air.

For everyone talking about how this would be the perfect public terminal, well we already have touch screens, and yah we use them for some of our public terminals (ATMs/voting machines/etc). The only thing this adds to the mix is the ability to sense multiple inputs, and that is not THAT special. Remember, a normal touch screen is perfectly analogous to a mouse set up. Sure, using complex gestures (that didn't always seem to work, but that is just software) looks nifty, but I didn't see anything that couldn't be done with a single input source.

sure, call me a buzzkill, but I really don't see much use of this outside of novelty (hey, it would make a great game input device, assuming the game was designed around it).

Merkaba

And thus it is revealed that Thansal doesn't have an imagination...at all.

You would be eating your words in 10 years if we are all playing first person shooters that let you actually hold and manipulate objects using your fingers & palms, hmm? Making music, notes with your left hand and pitch tweaking with your right? Painting with your right hand and choosing colours with your left?

I would love to have an excuse to use this every day, the required hand movements look so much more fluid and free than using your mouse and keyboard. Your muscles would soon cope with the extra effort of lifting your arms higher in the air, or whatever is required.

Maybe I am just being hopeful. But....to think that this is a novelty and that's <i>all</i> it can be...I just cannot agree with that.

TychoCelchuuu

This sort of stuff would be good even as an LCARS style keyboard replacement; an adaptable surface that can control whatever you need it to control, changing based on what you're doing.

Thansal

hmm, music is a nifty idea. Then again, I don't really know, as I am completely musically inept, if you would want to be changing pitch/tone/whatever on the fly like that.

However, how often are you going to want to draw AND change colors at the same time? You can still use 2 hands on a touch screen, just not at the exact same time. And of course the problem of your arms getting tired you can always just place one of these screens on an artist's easel.

However there is still one problem I forgot to mention, that of obscuring your view. As I said before, we have places that touch screens are used, and the first one that I think of (outside of ATMs) is my DS, and that leads me to one of my big gripes: games poorly thought out so you end up blocking your view of the action in order to interact.

For games, sure, there could be some awesome ideas (I am thinking of the video of [WHO]Them playing <a href="http://www.xgenstudios.com/play/castle" target="_blank">Defend Your Castle</a> using a touchscreen/projector set up of some sort. Oh, and I would hate the input for an FPS, to much of my screen would be blocked by my arms <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />

I know, I have no imagination, but I have been going over all of the places that this could be used, and the best place is in touch pads, where you will not be obscuring any view, and the funky multiple inputs could be used for something like a better version of mouse gestures.


Oh, Wait. That already exists, and is in all the MacBooks (and for that matter, the iPhone has a multitouch input as well), however I still prefer a mouse over the macbook touchpad (though they are much better then normal touchpads).

Ninja Edit:
Tycho hit the other place that I like the idea, for a keyboard that can modify itself. However we do already have touchscreen keyboards, this would just let us use things like shift and other key combos.