Peephole Displays

benh57 writes "A student at Berkeley has come up with a novel approach for navigating small handheld displays. In effect the display is a "peephole" into a much larger information area. You see different parts of the display by moving the handheld around - no more tiny scrollbars. Check out the DiVX movies to see it in action. It even works in 3D!"

Comments

Hey, I know him

[CaseyB]

Ka-Ping Yee

Heh, I went to high school in Winnipeg with that guy. (Well, he was in grade 9 when I was in grade 12.) He was a math prodigy back then. Placed highly in all the Canadian math competitions while he was underaged by a few years.

Nice concept

[e8johan]

Nice concept, but I wouldn't want to use it in a bus or such. It real life it would crave some sort of gyro to detect movement. Imagine a bus rounding a corner and the text compensating by scrolling. At least it would serve as amusement to the fellow busriders.

Of course there are other solutions, and there is defenently a need for a solution to this problem. I would suggest having touch sensitive sides of the actual PDA. To scroll, simply stroke the side of the PDA (not a wheel, but the side). But there are probably even better solutions to this. I enjoy the peephole approach, but must regrettably say that the problem is to control it (without clicking tiny sliders).

Re:*sigh* Already slashdotted

[WinterSolstice]

Why not just have a pair of glasses that contain the computer? A nice pair of wraparounds should certainly have room to accomodate a small enough system by the time we have good enough displays.

Then, all you need is roll-up keyboard, or a laser projection keyboard.

Of course, in all seriousness, I find that the ideal form factor would be something the size of a Zippo lighter, that projected both text and keyboard onto other surfaces. Perhaps the display onto your eyes, and the keyboard onto a desk?

-WS