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LCD Display/Image Capture Device
Jon writes "Remember jokes about clueless newbies trying to fax documents by holding them up to the monitor? Perhaps they were just ahead of their time. Toshiba has developed a combined LCD/optical sensor, according to EETimes. It isn't monitor sized yet, but in a few years, perhaps?"
Aaarrgh! My screen is watching me!
Because I like to complain...
"LCD Display" is horribly redundant. As this post will be modded.
But the tech itself is cool!
"Uh, I think so Brain, but monitors as webcams? That's a silly idea."
Besides how will I be able to make fun of friends when they tell me they met this really hot supermodel online...
I mean, honesty on the Internet? Yeah, right.
That opens up an interesting question, can some one exploite this to see what you are doing at your desk?
ie picking your nose =]
Ok, I'll just come out and say it: ball sack mashed against the screen = a shockingly revolting image to be sent around the world.
It may not be useful for every optical input job, but if it were able to look far enough away from the screen to capture imagery and act as a webcam in some way, then there's possibilities for video conferencing for starters.
I think it would have to do with limited space. If you have this you don't need both a monitor and a scanner. Less stuff on desk means more desk space.
To be able to position a webcam from computer A in front of a monitor from computer B, and reverse it. So each camera is looking at each other's monitor.
Then I want to display crap on the screen which then gets interpreted as data (Imagine a 4x4 checkerboard, black=0, white=1, so each screen displays 16 bits at a time)
Now use this to bridge two networks.
Questions: How many cells can be fit on a monitor?
How fast can you change/read the data?
Ideally if your webcam is 320x200, you could get 64kbits per flash. If you can use 4 colors instead of two, you're upto ISDN speeds...
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Certain companies already monitor their employees to what I believe is an obsessive extent, and the ability to take a "scan" of what's in front of the monitor every X minutes is something I can see being used and abused by the "w3 0wnz j00" philosophy that a lot of businesses have with respect to their employees. Worse yet, look at this technology after a few iterations and a few million dollars, and you've got screen = scanner = webcam.
In the dark, uncertain future of cubicle dwellers, there will be no need for paranoia...your computer is, in fact, watching you.
"Linux doesn't exist. Everyone knows Linux is an unlicensed version of Unix"- Kieren O'Shaughnessy
A new variant of the "Hi!, you have been e-mooned" chain letter will be born...
(nothing stopped people from using the photocopier at work, this will just be another amuzement toy)
Ahh!, the memmories...
will work for Karma
Faxes around my office are usually printed computer documents that perhaps have a hand written signature. This fits beautifully into the sending slot. Why would anyone want to stand there holding the thing still while they press a button / click a mouse. No way.
__ cheap web site hosting
well, a Floppy drive or a cd burner or hard drive are Input and output devices - not a totally new concept to do both I and O on the same device. Given these are all storage medias and a monitor is presentation media - but how many presentation medias are there (I can think of 2) I'd be pretty suprised if there weren't speaker / microphone combos out already.
and if it worked really well It might be nice to free up that large portion of my desk that the scanner is taking up
This solution must be somewhat intuitive if people were holding sheets of paper up to the screen trying to fax them.
Conserve Oil, Recycle, Boycott Walmart
In Soviet Russia, Monitor Watches You!
(I know, I know...but it's true [now] )
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
What about screen/artpad combos such as Wacom's Cintiq line of products? Or imagine the possibilities with public booths? Or on laptops?
I think we'll come up with more and more applications for two-way devices in the future, as the technology evolves. It won't replace a scanner, but it'll certainly find itself useful somehow.
Cheers,
max
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
Cue posting to that site that gives you the picture of the chimp, saying it has been taken through your monitor...... now!
;)
i think it can be found through bored.com
Then, I can install VNC, hold a mirror up to the screen, and /. my machine!!!! :)
You are not the customer.
combine this story with this prior slashdot story(http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/03/31/ 1453223&mode=thread&tid=196&tid=137) about turning the monitor into a speaker and you have one hell of a trim kick ass system.
Hilarity ensues.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
This has great applications for two way interactive pr0n, until the screen gets all sticky, and gross that is..
+1 point for cyber sex hobbyists (If thats what you call em)
-2 points for privacy (How long will it be before we have spyware in our monitors)
Now spammers can see if you're really fat or not. I can also show them my schlong, so they won't 1) tell me how to make it longer and 2) tell me how I can increase my breast size.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Ah, now soon everyone can have a telescreen in their own room that not only displays images, but also sends images back to Big Brother.. errr Toshiba.
Sounds like the screens in "1984" doesn't it?
A nice side effect of this would be built-in touchscreens on everything. More like pointscreens, you won't even have to contact the surface.
And kids can open up Paintbrush and make Hand Turkeys!
...
Video conferencing where you don't have to look anywhere but your monitor?
How about spying on your workplace? Security people would love to be able to "hide" a security camera in a monitor.
Of course, to get the kind of depth of field that you would need for those applications you would need to have lenses.
So lets look somewhere else...
How about a portable fax machine in your PDA?...
Or double your PDA as a scanner of text documents?
I'm sure something cool could be done here!
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
Maybe then we can get a direct picture, instead of making the videoconfrencer look like he's always looking down. I want my virura-hookers looking right at me dammit!
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
Eventually, this might lead to a better, standalone implementation of that "invisibile raincoat" thing that's been hyped over the last couple of months.
-- Fratz, human
worst formatting ever sorry
"Toshiba Matsushita Display expects the display with the image capturing function to open new consumer and business applications. The company expects the technology to be used in security applications such as fingerprint authentification." lol..."authentification"...
Easier video conferencing or a tool for the governement (i.e. Big Brother). Or maybe they'll create special TV's just for the neilson families or worse they'll end up like the TV's in Max Headroom - always on sending realtime feedback to the networks about viewers.
Then again with no lense the viewing distance is going to be quite short.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
...technology for its own sake is a useless technology. Is it any wonder why the high-tech industry has been decimated lately?
In reality, this is just a way for computer monitors to get back at us for staring at them constantly for 16 hours a day...
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
It will now be possible to look directly at the person you are talking to, not up at a camera mounted above the screen. The one problem is that it will be harder to 'cover' the lens for peace of mind if you want privacy. Something that is easy with a regular camera lens by simply putting finger or lens cap over it.
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O'WONDERWe're working on it.
I would be over the moon if I could slide my Newton down a document and scan it. I got a c-pen, but it just isn't worth using. It might be a killer app for PDAs.
No more cracking the photocopier glass to get a butt shot ;)
My penguin ate my sig
"A monitor is an output device. A scanner (optical reader, whatever) is an input device. Why merge the two when they should be mutually exclusive? "
Does your keyboard have a caps-lock light?
Remember jokes about clueless newbies trying to fax documents by holding them up to the monitor?
Next thing you know, blondes really will be using White-out on their monitors.
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Cheese it! It's the FEDS!
The Patriot Act had good intentions but has the effect of erasing a lot our rights.
Think of how a technology like this could be pushed by the insurance and government law enforcement agencies in the future.
Insurance companies could require that all new car windsheilds and rear view mirrors, all TVs, all laptops have this "camera LCD" installed. Then if we also have cars, houses, etc ... that have networks required for software as Oracle CEO Larry Ellison sees it, I suppose the "device" (wisndshield, TV, laptop) once reported stolen would email a picture of the theif to the police and the owner. What a boom to forensics! But what a total erasing of privacy.
Then I suppose this could be hacked and teens could REALLY get REAL live webcams of "certain activities" from TVs in bedrooms. Hotels would monitor sleeping activities. Insurance companies monitor driving habits. (already tried with GPS in Alamo rental cars) Are you using that cell phone without a hands free?
Are you smoking and not telling the insurance company?
Truely 1984 wasn't satire!
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
"A monitor is an output device. A scanner (optical reader, whatever) is an input device. Why merge the two when they should be mutually exclusive?"
Why is this +5 Insightful? Did I miss the computer class that said output devices can only be output devices? Why should there be any absolute rules like that?
I'm curious what you think of touch screens or Palm Pilots.
"Derp de derp."
One of those people who was made fun of on the first day @ the job for holding the paper to the monitor and hitting 'send', actually thought: 'hey I should make that work, just to spite those tech assholes that made fun of me.'
I guess Michael has never done tech support. They aren't just jokes.
.? .? .?
A buddy of mine took the following call (from memory):
T: Thank you for calling Dell, this is [name deleted], may I have your service tag number, please?
C: . .
T: The service tag is a six character, alphanumeric code printed on a white, bar-coded sticker on the back of your computer.
C: . .
T: It is on the back of the box that everything plugs into. Not the monitor.
C: [Service tag deleted.]
T: How can I help you?
C: What is my fax number? [Ah, now we're getting sort of on-topic.]
T: . .
C: Someone needs to send me a fax, but I don't know my fax number.
T: It's your phone number.
C: No, my computer has a fax modem. I need to receive a fax on it, not a phone call.
T: . . . !
[20 minutes of trying to explain the concept of "fax" and get a phone line plugged into both an active jack and the right jack on the modem.]
T: Thank you for calling Dell.
T: [to me] You wouldn't believe the call I just had.
[T relates call.]
Me: I would have just told her "That service tag number you found . . . that's your fax number. Thank you for calling Dell. *click*"
After that I always wanted to get that call, so I could say, with all the technical authority I could muster, "six."
Personally, I don't like multi-purpose units (the whole putting-your-eggs-in-one-basket concern) but some people do.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
We have maybe, maybe 15 copies for several hundred people right now, and a few flatbed scanners around the office here. There's no shortage. I can see some new applications, and all -- potentially conferencing, and people would scan to OCR stuff more (if affordable OCR would work for the things they want to use it on) -- but would these really cost out, if those are the selling points?
Easier to see this at public kiosk sort of things -- "hold up your coupon, please" and other cooler variations on touch-screen I/O applications. There the cost difference doesn't seem like a lot next to the convenience of the combined screen/reader. Seems like that'd be the first place to run into it...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I can just see it now people using screen to copy their arses rather than photocopiers. :)
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
So are the newbies who put whiteout on their screen also ahead of their time? When will we see monitors that translate the whiteout on the screen to an actual selection-delete?
I tend to agree with this line of thinking. The printer/copier/scanner thing makes sense: it prints things on paper, it scans things off of paper, it replicates things that are printed on paper. There is a common thread to all those tasks. The monitor/scanner thing doesn't have a common thread. Not that it NEEDS to, it just seems like a proof-of-concept, whiz-bang, "look what I made" kinda thing.
That's what technology is for. We can improve technology. As for the idiots, we can only shoot them, but with technically advanced weapons.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
first is starts out reading the paper, then it can do facial recognition WITHOUT the user knowing! Though there would be good uses for this (ie ATMs/Pharmacys/etc) there are downsides too. Just another small step for Big Brother.
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
Then allow me to sate your curiosity: I happen to like touch screens on areas where there is a need for convergence. On a 19" monitor, one can assume that there is a desktop (a physical one) associated with it. Therefore, there is space to have other peripherals, like keyboards, mice and the like. On a PDA, there is limited room, so convergence becomes a necessity. One needs to be able to write on the same area they read. The only exception to the rule is after market keyboards and the Zaurus, which has one included. As for touch screens - if they're in an office environment, overkill. No need. But in a place like a restaurant, where it's much simpler to not have to use a keyboard and just tap the name of what someone's ordering, it's a great idea.
There is no hard and fast rule that says that there has to be any "hard and fast rules" about this sort of stuff. But coming from a tech support background, whenever there is a device that does the job of 2 (or more), it either doesn't do either as good as the separate devices, or one aspect breaks and makes the whole thing worthless.
"Remember jokes about clueless newbies trying to fax documents by holding them up to the monitor?"
you mean that doesn't really work?
[scratches head...]
Remember jokes about clueless newbies trying to fax documents by holding them up to the monitor? Perhaps they were just ahead of their time.
So the joke about the lady who turns on her van's cruise control then goes back to check on her baby and ends up in a ditch is ahead of her time? We already have the rudimentary technology to do this (GPS, Optical recognization, smart highways) but I would still say that she's clueless.
We must understand what technology can and can't do for us, then try to overcome what it can't. Anyone who doesn't bother to understand is clueless by definition.
This is not a device that can form an image from an object at a non-trivial distance from the display - this is a device that only images an object placed against it.
I would expect the primary intent of a device like this would be in a web-pad type device. Picture a clipboard, but thicker. Your customer hands you a printed item (work order, recept, whatever). You place the item face down against the display and push a button on the side. You remove the item from the display, and verify the scan took, then hand the item back to the customer.
This would no more allow your monitor to image what is going on in the room than putting your flat bed scanner up on edge and leaving the top open would.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Hmm... interesting..
I wonder how it would look if you used this to render metals and other reflective materials...
Pretty soon you will have people putting their butts against the monitors to photocopy them...
The horror!
The only "really cool" thing I can think of for this technology is the aformentioned vidoeconferencing applications.
It's Star Trek style. Admit it. A viewscreen like this would behave exactly like the screens in Star Trek.
Well, I think the common thread you propose is a bit tenuous. You could make the same kind of argument saying that this is a totally new device for image io, not a monitor and a scanner joined together. The common thread would be digital images (i.e. it displays digital images, it scans digital images).
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Well, I think so, Brain - but where are we going to find bovine-sized pantyhose this late at night?
Who's to say this technology is useless?
First of all, I'm not saying there isn't a lot of useless technology. There is. I've seen it. I've even developed some useless technology myself.
At this point it's probably too expensive to justify putting into every PDA and LAPTOP as an integrated scanner for people who don't want to carry scanners around.
Who's to say it won't be cheap enough to produce in 5-10 years? It may make Toshiba a lot of money as an integrated LCD scanner technology as it could add a lot of value to thier existing PDA/Laptop product line possibly giving them a much bigger chunk of the market.
Am I optimistically speculating? Yes. Atleast I'm not jumping the gun calling it useless.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
"Why? (Score:0, Insightful)
A monitor is an output device. A scanner (optical reader, whatever) is an input device. Why merge the two when they should be mutually exclusive? This isn't a troll, I'm truly curious as to how this will be better than just a traditional monitor/scanner setup."
Heh I know it's happened before, but that's the first time I've seen a moderation like that.
Wow, if we installed one of these in everyones house, we could teleconference with our gym and do exercises in the morning and... wait... something about this is very familiar....
It would be relatively easy to integrate an existing image sensor into the bottom of a laptop with a slim feeder.
Of course, OLED and other display technologies will likely make LCD screens obsolete due to their durability and ease of replacablitity in 5-10 years. The difference with that technology is that the research was directed towards a goal with clear benefits versus existing technology. I should know, since it's the thing I'm most paranoid with in a laptop. Not to mention that LCDs are major consumers of power on a laptop. They are the bottleneck to the future.
Because I am going to constantly be pressing my ass and genitals up against the screen.
I mean... I do that now, but if it is going to scan it too - I might as well clean it. The monitor that is... I'll never clean my ass, nor the twig and berries.
That's right, I said never.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Oh yeah? How about this? =)
Why? (Score:-1, Insightful)
A monitor is an output device. A scanner (optical reader, whatever) is an input device. Why merge the two when they should be mutually exclusive? This isn't a troll, I'm truly curious as to how this will be better than just a traditional monitor/scanner setup.
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
This is just hightech silly putty?
Fnord.
a CD-ROM that doubles as a coffee cup holder!
http://www.ucpros.com/Newsletter/newsletter%202002 %2010.htm#Sharp%20Builds%20Z80%20CPU%20on%20Glass
This seemed an appropriate choice to add.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
I love watching Digital Versatile Disc Discs on my Liquid Crystal Display Display, but to upgrade I had to go by the Automatic Teller Machine Machine to make a withdrawal.
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
If you have a regular CRT, your monitor can already do this fairly easily! iMac monitors seem to work the best.
Big Brother will love this monitor!!!
"A monitor is an output device. A scanner (optical reader, whatever) is an input device. Why merge the two when they should be mutually exclusive? "
Does your keyboard have a caps-lock light?
That's not a good analogy. The caps lock LED is an indicator of state. It's not really an output, because it is not used to provide you with the result of a function. (LEDs on switches are an output, in my book.) Hitting the caps lock key is not a function itself, it's like one input to a two-input function, i.e. caps lock plus a character.
A better analogy would be tablet PCs or those drawing/input tablets sold by Wacom. Or even simpler, a PDA screen. I think the problem here with output = input is that you can only do one or the other. i.e. if you put a piece of paper on the screen, you can't see what's on the screen anymore. Saves space maybe, but I think most users would find this behavior kind of weird (not to say they wouldn't get used to it).
"That's not a good analogy. The caps lock LED is an indicator of state. "
:)
Yes, that would be output. As a matter of fact, I vaguely remember reading a Slashdot article about the computer sending morse code to the caps lock indicator as an indication that something went wrong.
Though your example is quite accurate, the point of my comment was simply that there is no absolutist reasoning that can work in a situation like that. He had mentioned earlier in the thread that he felt touch screens were a matter of form factor, thus they're exempt. Convenient, eh?
During John Sculley's reign, Apple put together a video, "Knowledge Navigator", showing where personal computing might be going in the 21st century. Intelligent agents, full natural language understanding, full video instant messaging, etc.
One scene showed a guy with a portable machine who was using it to talk to a friend. He held his newspaper up to the flat screen so it could be scanned and sent to the person on the other end of the connection.
So one piece of the puzzle may be on its way.
No sig? Sigh...
Back in the day you could get Handheld scanner things that you just drag across a documnent. They probably still exist. You could just put a linear optical image sensor along the edge of a PDA, an optical mouse-type sensor at each end to see how fast it's moving, and drag it across a document. Probably hell on your batter life, but assumably you're not doing this all day. Or you could build it into an ipaq sleeve with extra battery.
Still, neat idea.
I remember something like this quite a while back. Xerox was developing it but having problems with bleading of the light from the display cells. I suggested that maybe they could use blinkers similar to the ones put on race horses to stop them freaking out about things in their peripheral vision. Also suggested that this would be a great thing for Net kiosks.
Don't have a clue where they got to with the device though.
When shit hits the fan get some of these https://youtu.be/pY-GncsZ-UE
The idea was that it was hard to produce a next generation interface, but relatively easy to fake it.
The film is on a video unfortunately in American format (so most of our UK/EU domestic VCRs don't play it) and is good.
The major item of the workstation or office desk is a screen about 2 metres across, 1.5 m high and continuou with the desk surface, IE with a tightening curve from horizontal to vertical.
At least part of it was to be scanner, so in a nice bit of theatrical business as well as accepting paper documents and adding their image to the workspace, half a sandwhich got scanned in, and then wiped with a swipe of the hand off into the virtual rubbish bin.
It is about time that appeared as a DVD, rather than a video.
Picture
paper about their approach
So, still more Star Trek style technology comes to be. I always wondered why the hell Picard was talking to a screen.
No, that since I have a shlong, I have no need for breast enlargement...
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
"That's not a good analogy. The caps lock LED is an indicator of state."
:)
;P
Yes, that would be output. As a matter of fact, I vaguely remember reading a Slashdot article about the computer sending morse code to the caps lock indicator as an indication that something went wrong.
Though your example is quite accurate, the point of my comment was simply that there is no absolutist reasoning that can work in a situation like that. He had mentioned earlier in the thread that he felt touch screens were a matter of form factor, thus they're exempt. Convenient, eh?
Yeah, I agree with your comment (and disagree with his) about the coupling/de-coupling of input and output devices. But normal operation of a caps lock LED is not morse code
Here are some photos of the Apple Knowledge Navigator. This is a page from the larger document about the Knowledge Navigator mentioned in my other post.
And here is a video - very s l o w - someone mirror it....
http://www.billzarchy.com/clips/clips_apple_nav.ht m