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Holographic Keypads Float Into View
prostoalex writes "The New York Times tells the story of a Connecticut-based company called HoloTouch that is developing input devices that literally "float in the air". The technology will be licensed for information kiosks in New York city. Some other sample applications are available from the company's Web site. HoloTouch already managed to secure the patent on its technology."
Isn't it hard enough surfing for porn with one hand already?
But have they really been able to build one, or are they just patenting the idea with hopes someone else will and they they can sue and get rich? I see nothing on their website (other than very obviously mocked up fake pictures) or in the patent that says they really know how to do this.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I can't be the only one that thinks holographic keyboards would be a great idea for public computers, just so we needn't worry about the disgusting pub-funk that seems to coat most public keyboards.
The coolest voice ever.
The site is slashdotted already.
Just imagine the spectacle of "404 error" numbers flashing and floating in mid-air.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Oh God. Just imagin if you want to go to Google.com but instead land at Gooogle.com... Or pop-ups... Or better yet... Japanese Killer Seizure Robots floating floating in your face!
People discover the meaning of life between getting piss drunk and the following hangover.
Especially, if they plan to use this sort of thing for remote medical procedures. Imagine a doctor trying to perform a delicate surgery, without any sort of sensation of touch whatsoever.
Maybe they'll come up with force feedback gloves or something.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
I have a doormat in front of my front door. It's a holodoormat, not a square drawn on the ground with chalk as someone of lesser intelligence might think. When you step on it it'll ring the door bell (after you hit the button). Anyone wanna buy one? Oh and I have 10MB images that you can download of it; and they aren't picture of my front door with a photoshopped square drawn where a doormat should be. I swear.
-Valiss
I can see some advantages to a keyboard you wouldn't have to touch, but I don't think I could use it. The feedback I get by pressing the keys is how I know that I hit the correct one and that I pressed down far enough. The feel of the keyboard is also how I know where to position my hands without looking. I would probably have to look at something like this while I type, which would slow me down drastically.
They just pointed out that it was already patented. This isn't a ridiculous patent with an enormous amount of prior art to illustrate that it never should have been granted in the first place (AFAIK, IANAL).
Can you read the patent and figure out how the "The holographic image generator 200" works? I sure can't. Maybe I'm just dense and others can point out the invcention here, but how the hell does their supposed holographic image generator 200 work? If the purpose of a patent is to disclose how a device functions, and in doing so give the inventor a limited time monopoly on the invention in return for information that becomes public knowledge and will eventually become freely useable by all, then I think this patent falls far short of this requirement. I have serious doubts that the company even invented anything at all, it looks more to me like they hope someone else will and that they can then sue them, based on having obtained a patent without actually inventing anything or provide the public any value in return for the patent.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Uh... people with only one eye can't see the 3D aspect of a hologram. They can see a 2D picture just fine.
If they move their head, then they can see the 3d aspect as well.
One eyed folks will do just fine here.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
For some reason, the image comes to mind, unbidden:
Cowboy Neal, marching down the street, wearing display goggles. His special custom hologram GUI/keyboard hovers in front of him (he can see it in his goggles, no one else can).
Trying to keep Slashdot afloat, he is furiously moderating the new posts: both fists are stabbing middle fingers all over the place right and left in front of him in mid-air as he walks down the street.
To passersby, it looks like a cross between Mike Tyson, an NYC cabbie flipping the bird out the window, the the crazy homeless man who walks around talking to himself.
Now people won't have to strain their necks to see your pin number while shoulder surfing.
[sarcasm]
I can hardly wait!
[/sarcasm]
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
Unfortunately they didn't do their homework :(
From the website:
HoloTouch, images of keypads can be any size, entirely independent of the size of the hardware.
(emphasis my own)
From the patent:
When a hologram is illuminated by a reconstruction beam, it produces a real image (which appears to be between the plane of the hologram and the viewer) and a virtual image (which appears to be behind the plane of the hologram). [snip] Thus, it is preferred that the holographic image 207 be a real image.
Quick review of holography: an extremely high resolution film takes pictures of the interference pattern generated when a coherent light beam strikes an object.
When coherent light of a similar wavelength later shines through this film, the interference patterns cause it to be shined through in exactly the same manner as the original coherent light, up to about half the resolution of the film. Most holographic film is 3000 lines per inch, so the hologram has a "resolution" of about 1500 lines per inch.
You see an image because the light reaching your eyes through the film is exactly as it would be had the object been in front of your eyes and illuminated by the original beam.
The light reaching your eyes is coming through the film and then traveling in a straight line from the film to your eyes. You can only see such light if the holograph is directly behind it, because the path of the photons cannot change after it passes through the hologram (disregarding minor lensing effects due to the atmosphere, that is)
What does this mean? Well if the hologram appears to be one half meter in front of you and the holographic film is one meter in front of you, and the holographic image appears to be 10 cm x 10 cm, then the minimum possible size for the holographic film is 20 cm x 20 cm.
I don't call that entirely independent; as a matter of fact, it's a pretty simple relationship governed by a version of the inverse square law.
Oh, an interesting fact about it is if you take a holographic film and cut it in half, because all the information about the image is stored throughout the film, you don't have half a hologram; you have a hologram of the entire object that is half the size of the original. Pretty cool stuff actually.
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
And if, by some fscked up logic, you are allowed to patent ideas that have no implementation, what's stopping all the movie producers who portrayed things like this in their movies from patenting this or any other idea seen in a futuristic movie. Hey, I got one... How 'bout patenting cyborgs? Hmmm... Good deal.
Okay, just assuming that this is a case in which they haven't invented anything, and it is actually a good idea [neither of which I feel able to judge], here is a workaround, NOW PUBLIC DOMAIN!
Instead of making holographic keypads, make use of the double-parabolic-mirror optical illusion. You know the kind, shown in Edmund Scientific, where there are floating coins in the air. That is clearly not a hologram, but it would work just as well.
If you feel at all inclined to make something, bookmark this reply!
- MickLinux
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's