Slashdot Mirror
Digital Clock Without Electricity or Moving Parts
NerdMachine writes "Throw away those slide rules and embrace the digital age. The Digital Sundial is a 10 year old invention on display in Sundial Park (Genk, Belgium), Deutsches Museum (Munich Germany), Kölnisches Stadtmuseum (Cologne, Germany), and Martha's Vineyard, USA. You need to pivot it to adjust daylight savings time. If you can't visit one of these, Digital Sundials International can sell you one for US$12,000+, or you can buy a pocket version for under US$100 for that special nerd in your life."
Sigs cause cancer.
That will go perfectly with my new Digital Sun! I cant wait!
$12,000 USD?? That doesn't seem like a very bright idea.
RTFA. From the product info:
Sunlight is cast through two cleverly designed masks in the shape of numbers that show the current time of day
Its a cool idea.
I cringe at the sight of that Belgian website about the sundial park in Genk. Awful awful awful. I'm ashamed for my country.
And just to mix your metaphores...
"Holy Modern Stone-Age Family, Batman!"
My understanding at this moment before reading the article is that it uses shadows and light to make a digital readout.
-- thinkyhead software and media
Wonderful, maybe someday they'll invent a digital clock that somehow fits around your wrist
Nope, it looks like it uses something like polarized glass. The site says that it uses two "masks," so that'd be my guess.
Thats the greatest thing since easy open soup cans. I am that special nerd in my life. And dad-gummit im going to purchase this masterful device. Good write CMDRTaco. Hadley.
$12,000 USD?? That doesn't seem like a very bright idea.
And if you're not bright enough it won't work when you're inside.... That's deep.
.. they have built-in calculators, can be worn on the wrist, and can run a scaled-down version of Linux.
JMD
When all else fails, feel free to panic.
Hmm I can answer myself after RTFA ... ugh.
"n a singular blend of artistry and utility, the digital sundial combines the ancient science of sundials and advances of modern technology with elegant simplicity. Like a digital clock, the digital sundial displays the current time using digits. In the true tradition of all sundials, the device is purely passive - it operates without electricity, and has no moving parts. Instead, the sunlight is cast through two cleverly designed masks in the shape of numbers that show the current time of day. The sundial is available in two versions, for use in either hemisphere. Placed on the inside of a south-facing window (north-facing in the southern hemisphere), the sundial can be read through the horizontal mirror. The display updates every 10 minutes, and gives a remarkably accurate record of the time during the daylight hours."
But if it updates every 10 minutes I wonder how useful that is.
as in the earth. If the earth didn't rotate, it wouldn't work. Sorry, but there must be a moving part.
It would be great if all other watches/clocks would be banned and criminalized, so that no one could read the time when it's dark. That would make my life a lot easier and I could spend the time I gained through that to think of a way to turn the world dark at some point in my lifetime.
No, it doesn't. It consists of two plates with lines, which either transmit or block light depending on the specific location of the sun (the viewer needs to be at a specific position).
The visible lines then align in such a way that you can read off the time in digits. Hence 'digital'.
Evidently the sun does shine there for some people...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
We "still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea."
Did you even look at the website for it?
"In a singular blend of artistry and utility, the digital sundial combines the ancient science of sundials and advances of modern technology with elegant simplicity. Like a digital clock, the digital sundial displays the current time using digits. In the true tradition of all sundials, the device is purely passive - it operates without electricity, and has no moving parts. Instead, the sunlight is cast through two cleverly designed masks in the shape of numbers that show the current time of day. The sundial is available in two versions, for use in either hemisphere. Placed on the inside of a south-facing window (north-facing in the southern hemisphere), the sundial can be read through the horizontal mirror. The display updates every 10 minutes, and gives a remarkably accurate record of the time during the daylight hours." -Digital Sundials International
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"for that special nerd in your life"
I thought nerds don't leave their Parents basements. How are they supose to use a sun dial? Maybe if it ran off monitor radiation, that would be something for the geek in me.
- Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
just happens to be me.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
This has to be the fastest slashdot has got an article to the frontpage. Congratulations
So it's perfect for Saskatchewan (Canada) which doesn't have that silly tradition of "spring forward fall back".
(same thing with Arizona, USA?)
Honestly, (after spending the first 30 years of my life in Saskatchewan), I cannot understand WHY daylight savings time exists
Next!
WWJD? JWRTFA!
RTFA. You just turn the clock such that the sun hits it at a different angle.
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
Except at night maybe. Editors asleep at the switch again. Or fully awake ad men.
Is there an equivalent of RTFA for somebody who didn't even read the headline? RTFH perhaps? You just rotate the thing "one hour" in the correct direction to adjust for DST or Summer Time or whatever your country might call it.
I'd shoot you, but the waste of lead wouldn't be worth it.
No. Solar energy in the form of light. No electricity involved. It really is just a very complex sundial-- whose output is numerical.
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
...in Rochester.
It says that this thing doesnt use any electricity or lenses... but by filtering through precise slots... so basically... its like one of those Kracker Jack toys that "move" when you turn it side to side... cept now.. the Sun "moves" and the image is reflected.. It only LOOKS digital... Kind of cool... but whats the point, and why $12,000???
...will never learn to read a proper sundial.
The idea of DST is broke, not the clock.
RTFA...
I would, but for the webserver time has truly stopped.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Couldn't you power a hundred digital watches off a solar panel that big?
... or cliche?
... or meme??
We've just ushered in a new X-tream-nerdy(tm) age of mixed-memes!
Don't forget they need to also play .ogg files.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
(the viewer needs to be at a specific position)
The viewer doesn't need to be at a specific position. The light which gets through the slits shines onto the "display" of the device.
If I shine a flashlight past my hand onto the wall, it doesn't really matter where you are (as long as you can see the wall), you'll be able to tell that I'm making a bunny shadow puppet.
I could buy 17 Linux licences from SCO for that!
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
http://mirrordot.org/
umm.. dude.. it has digits.
A slashdotter's arch-nemesis.
*runs from the flames*
Although the clock is set to read in 5 or 10 minute intervals, depending on the time of year it could still be up to 16 minutes fast or slow compared to your watch or clock because of the Equation of time. Our sense of time is so conditioned by our dependence on the mechanical/digital that solar time is now percieved to be "wrong".
from the companues website
... I never leave my basement during daylight hours. I would have to set up something to allow light to stream into the house... I would probably have to cut a 4 foot wide gap through my house and the two neighbors houses so that the shadows don't distort my clock. Oh, the humanity... image if someone where to ask, "what time did it start raining?" I would never be able to answer that question. This is a really geeky product - not so nerdy. It is really kewl and I want one, but how much would I use it? Last idea, what if you made a LARGE compass - enough so that this clock can float on the arm. Then you can use it in your car - only at red lights.
Because the work day is 8-5, regardless of what the sun is doing.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
It displays digits, hence digital.
That's not a digital clock in any sense of the word.
What high school did you graduate from? Obviously they weren't doing their job.
From dictionary.reference.com:
digital
1. Of, relating to, or resembling a digit, especially a finger.
2. Operated or done with the fingers: a digital switch.
3. Having digits.
4. Expressed in numerical form, especially for use by a computer.
5. Computer Science. Of or relating to a device that can read, write, or store information that is represented in numerical form. See Usage Note at virtual.
6. Using or giving a reading in digits: a digital clock.
Please see #6, and then go think about why you don't know the definitions of common words. It also seems that you can't be bothered to look them up.
Are you sure you are 'intelligent' by any sense of that word?
(Sorry, I couldn't resist...)
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
But if it updates every 10 minutes I wonder how useful that is.
As i'm usually 'bout 5 minutes too late at work, a clock that only updates in 10-minute-steps would probably save me quite some trouble...
Look, this thing is totally safe! Built it myself, you know. You just press that button like this and then turn that lev
I'd RTFA but the server looks like it's running on one of these clocks! *SNORT* *CHORTLE* Ho ho ho, I'm a clever one!
That's not a digital clock in any sense of the word.
It shows the time with discrete digits, so it is digital.
From Wikipedia: [Digital] comes from the same source as the word digit: the Latin word for finger (counting on the fingers) as these are used for discrete counting.
It is digital in the sense that most digital watches are digital.
They display the time using digits instead of the analog rotary minute/hour hands.
Not sure if even normal battery powered digital watches have little computers in them storing time in 1's and 0's.
-David
A sundial tells you solar time which is not civil time. And at best, depending on your longitude within your time zone, solar time will agree with civil time 4 times a year.
You need to pivot it to adjust daylight savings time.
You are required to move it so it gives correct time for 6 months out of the year. I think that qualifies as a moving part.
The sundial is down!
Anyone have a mirror?
That's absurdly expensive.
If you follow the manufacturers link and then get the instructions, it explains how it works. But here it is in a nusthell (as I understand it).
1) Make holograms of the digits of the time in question (lots of holograms).
2) Take the holograms and cut them into strips.
3) Take some of the strips and glue them back to make one hologram
4) Put a mask with slits in it over the hologram. At a certain time the light will only illuminate the hologram strips that coorespond to the current time.
Pretty neat, if you ask me (too bad you didn't).
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Elaine: Hey, what time is it?
Kramer: I don't know. I don't wear a watch.
Elaine: How can you not wear a watch?
Kramer: I've never needed one before.
Elaine: How to use know what time it is?
Kramer: By the position of the sun.
Elaine: How do you know what time it is at night?
Kramer: I don't, but that's only a couple of hours anyway.
Dude.. I get it, you didn't read the article.. you didn't even click the link and look at the pictures.
but to top it all off, your commenting without even reading the damn summary! "no electricity"
However because it is just solid structure, there is no reason why you coulnd't build a macro version out of say VAXen and then you'd have your digital sundial!
Music is everybody's possession.
It's only publishers who think that people own it.
Fuck Beta
~John Lenno
Patents are fine for genuine innovations, which this is. Especially since it's not software-based. It is an ingenious assembly, so for that we thank the inventor with the ability to profit from it (for only a few more years) without competition.
How do i set the alarm, and Play the radio?? And what kind of battery life does this so-called "Sun" have?
A traditional sundial with a gnomon can tell you not only solar time but day of the year, altitude and azimuth of the sun in addition of a note telling your latitude and longitude. This new fancy digital one only tells you only solar time and I didn't even see a correction factor chart to get civil time.
"... others may tell you of storms or showers but I'll only tell you of sunny hours..."
"... life is but a shadow; we are but dust. This dial tells you die all you must..."
--some dialest
There is no Earth.
Then you'll see that it is not the Earth itself that rotates, it is only yourself.
I always knew that there was some huge corporate conspiracy behind the fact that in German class we learned that a Taschensonneuhr was a "pocket sundial." How foolishly at the time we made fun of it... =P
If it can't be installed in an SUV most Americans won't buy it anyway.
i laughed so hard at this picture3 36x280.gif
http://m3.doubleclick.net/790463/mrs04086_funnel_
I live in Seattle. Just a wild guess... but I don't think these clocks are going to sell well here.
The University of Washington might disagree!
You're right. I missed that there is a semi-transparent projection screen on the plate closest to the viewer.
Hopefully, the inventors of this technology have not revealed its intricacies to the Chinese; otherwise, their military forces will benefit.
My workday is 7am-3pm. I work 6am-2pm in the spring, we just all set our clocks to hide that fact. Why? So the farmers don't feel bad about getting up at 4AM all by themselves. Since now it's 5AM, supposedly. But I still get up an hour after the farmers, so the jokes on them.
Changa hates change.
I read an article in an old Scientific American about an especially simple sundial: mount a globe of the Earth outside, orienting it to be exactly parallel to the real Earth. That means pointing the north pole of the globe at the North Star, and rotating it so that your current meridian of longitude runs across the top. This will put your current location exactly at the top of the globe.
The cool thing is that sunlight will now fall on the globe in exactly the way it falls on the Earth (during the day, that is). You can see the day-night terminator and it will be the same as the terminator on the actual Earth. You can see which polar regions are getting 24 hour sunlight or night. You can tell whether it is day or night anywhere on Earth, and even estimate what time it is there.
It sounded pretty cool although I never bothered to try to set one up. You'd need some kind of waterproof globe that wouldn't fade in the sunlight. Probably there are some like this on public display somewhere.
That's sooo frikin cool! Think about it, it is easily readable, does minutes [no need to the NIST atomic time clock - although time will be off by a bit due to the orbit of earth] and can double as a compass! Sweet...
_
Free 27" Sony WEGA TV
The concept is more than ten years old; I read about a proposal for a digital sundial (in the same sense as this one) in a magazine called the Mathematical Intelligencer back in the 80s. However I think that design was more complex and involved some kind of custom fractal-like structure so that the sunlight was always shadowed just right to produce digits. The patented version looks simpler and perhaps less elegant but much more practical.
Moving Part: the earth
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
You could make one inexpensively using a laser printer, overhead-projector foils, several sheets of glass (one frosted), and just about anything for the housing.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Well, at least it is good to know /. is finally clearing out the submissions pool.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
This one uses a little (of your) electricity, but technically it has no moving parts!
Digital Analog Clock
Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
Those who forget the past are doomed
... what kind of battery life does this so-called "Sun" have?
The clock mechanism is powered by a flywheel.
The display is powered by thermonuclear fusion.
Horrors! Have to ban sundials! That "sun" thing is so dangerous when they're working that just a few minutes exposure can give you a radiation burn.
(Bad, bad woodchip mill. Good old outback bill.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Let's see if I can put this in terms us geeks might understand... :)
It's a bit like an LCD panel, there's a backlight and there's a filter that enables or disables each pixel. But instead of flipping the pixels using a small current, the pixels light up based on the position of the light source.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
That thang is wicked. Can someone license the mechanism and make a calendar? If not Julian, then maybe Mayan?
--
make install -not war
All you'd need is a webcam and some code and you could probably make a Firefox extension to display the globe in near real time. Oooh, and if you put the webcam on a motion-control rig so you could move to any latitude and longitude (and maybe even add a mechanical zoom), you could put it on a website and get slashdotted!
To be honest, I'm going to have to find a nice weatherproof globe to mount on a pedestal outside. On the one hand, it'll look nice, and on the other hand, I can see (during my day) whether it's light wherever mi ami ends up being stationed. (Ooooh, with a motion-control system, I could have a lamp fill in for the sun during dark hours... that would be geekish enough, I suppose, and it'd only require proper gear ratios, since the earth's rotation is close enough to constant. Controlling it all with a digital watch would be bonus.)
I never leave my basement during daylight hours. I would have to set up something to allow light to stream into the house...
Apparently such devices has been developed, and are called windows. You may infringe one of M$ patents, if you try to build your own...
I bought the small 100$ version as a christmas gift. It's a very neat little thing, it's about three inches in diameter, and the results are impressive, but require bright, direct sunlight.
I'd recommend it for a gift for anyone who likes trinkets based on science, this is a novel implementation of a simple principle.
If I were to change anythign about it, i'd make it bigger. I don't know why the disc isn't 5...6 inches in diameter. It would be much more impressive.
I can already tell if it's light or dark outside by looking.
What time is it???????
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
It doesn't matter, it only gives you the true local time anyways, which is guaranteed to be totally different from the standard time for the time zone you're living in.
It could easily be off by half an hour or more anyways
In Durlston Country Park, Dorset, England there is a big stone globe. Sadly, I don't remember it being oriented in the way you are describing, but if someone was to make a similar sculpture oriented in the right direction it would probably last quite a while.
So what's to stop you from placing it on top of the highrise and place a webcam in front of it. bjd
http://www.freeos.com/articles/3800
n dex_e.htm
Yes it is a prototype 1. Just add some software and you have the calculator no problems.
Here is the second Prototype.
http://www.trl.ibm.com/projects/ngm/i
Question is will market it take it. And when will it be on sale.
So, according to my sundial, time stops when the sun goes down? I dont want time to stop, id rather have a sundial that works at night and for that natter how is it supposed to wake you up for work?
It's more than a cool idea. It is like one of those magic tricks, where there are no wires or supports or anything, but it works, and the audience is left dumb by it. It's the kind of thing that makes science exciting.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
...a beowolf cluster of these things... (sorry, it had to be said)
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. -- G.B. Shaw
the last time I went there, mirrordot had croaked also.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I am an American ... you insensitive clod!
I dunno about you, but I would call the Earth a damn big moving part that is required for the operation of this thing...
I included a smiley. How can you get mad when someone includes a smiley? Watch:
:-)
This is bullshit!
See?
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Would be cool to make one of these that shows Internet Time. You remember, that dot-com time invention from Swatch to have time-zone crossing con-calls at @526 and everybody would then know when that was. For those who missed that, Swatch wanted to cut 24 hours into thousand pieces, so one unit of Internet Time (called a beat) is app. 1.5 minute, which is accurate enough for things like the start of a meeting.
The headache will be of course that sundials are by nature giving time in "local time" and need a correction to display "standard time". This problem would be agrevated when the dial has to display Internet Time, which can only be overcome to build custom sundials for every longitude on earth. This sounds bad, but sundials are anyway normally custom made, so maybe this isn't too bad. Probably the biggest obstacle is that now already, 5 years after the invention, nobody remembers what internet time was. Oh well.....
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
they're = they are
The word you're looking for is their.
The only "moving" required is moving the whole unit to (most of) Indiana or Arizona, which do not observe daylight saving time.
So whats new? Digital clocks have never had any moving parts. (Ok, maybe if you count the quartz crystal, or MAYBE the buttons, but really now...)
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
The sundials only have to be "custom made for every location" if you insist on mounting them flat. If you don't have a problem with tilting them weird angles, then just like you orient the thing to the north pole, you can also orient it to the Greenwich meridian.
Of course, orienting to Greenwich UTC would mean that when the sun comes around behind your tilted sundial you can loose up to half your already-reduced interval of daytime usefulness. But a UTC clock isn't what you were talking about anyway. [Or is it? You didn't provide any A for us to RTF, so I can't tell.] If you just orient your sundial [digital or analog] to your local time-zone's appropriate meridian, the loss of daytime is insignificant.
...a Digital Sun SGI IBM. Ha.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
24-7-365 in Arizona?
Nope, sorry-- even in Arizona it can't quite work 12-7-365. Nights can happen even where the weather is clear!
Anyone for a moon-dial extension of the concept, to improve on that? It might be possible to tell time almost 75% of the year then, if you have good night vision. It would be an interesting mathematical challenge, if not completely useless...
Does anyone make a sundial that works in braille? Blind people need to tell the time too. Hell, they only have a 50/50 chance of telling if it is day or night.
Yes, it would be cool to display the date but there are a couple of problems.
can sell you one for US$12,000+, or you can buy a pocket version for under US$100 for that special nerd in your life."
That's expensive hardware... just like the hardware of this other company with a name based on a bright celestial body near our planet.
Actually daylight savings was created to conserve oil/coal for electricity. During WWI and WWII the US was big into conservation of resources and factories turing out war machines implitmented daylight savines so that the factories didn't have to use as much electricity for lighting. We care much about energy conservation anymore. We all counteract any savings now by working longer hours and driving SUV's, and having lights turned on on everything 24/7, so the whole point to daylight savings is well... pointless. I imagine we keep it around for the same reason we keep blue laws around.
1) Make holograms of the digits of the time in question (lots of holograms).
2) Take the holograms and cut them into strips.
3) Take some of the strips and glue them back to make one hologram
I don't think it uses holograms. It's more like a series of carefully-arranged slits, with light coming in from any given angle only making it through the gauntlet in a single path, while light form a different angle hits a different path. Theoretically *like* a hologram, but simulated by the masks over a depth somewhat greater than a single sheet of film.
On the other hand, I'd wondered *years* ago whether a digital sundial could be easily made from a simple hologram. No need to cut into strips -- any hologram already gives different images depending on the angle you look at it from. Generally, you see this as you walk around a hologram (like the novelty ones where someone blows you a kiss). Only instead of you walking, if you move the light source, the same animation plays out. Just build a multi-image hologram of all sorts of clock images, and as the light source moves, you'll see the clock animate forwards. It could even be an analog clock -- any picture would work.
If you account for varying altitudes of the sun, you might even be able to get the month displayed (though it'd probably have to show two dates at once, letting the user decide whether it's, say, December 1 or January 9 (each being about 20 days away from the solstice).
Seems like a novel application of a much older technology - barrier screen imaging. This is also similar to Lenticular imaging too - used for 3-D and "flip" image creation.
It's not a new technology, just a cool application of existing stuff.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
But, you need to orient it directly south. Now, if that pocket version had a built-in compass, I'd get one to take camping with me. No joke.
In Korea, sundials are only for old people...
I'm sorry, really really sorry.
but in soviet Russia, sundial adjusts you...
According to the instruction sheet, it uses holograms. Maybe I misread it. Follow the links in the article to find out.
Also, as far as only needing one, I am not sure that they can do this with a white-light hologram where the source of the light provides the angle information. The only thing that I have ever seen changes the image based on the position of the viewer.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
--- There are two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don't know it
for instance.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Are there any frequencies of light that aren't scattered by clouds? How difficult would it be to use materials that fluoresce for those frequencies as the basis for a sundial that works on overcast days? But maybe no material fluoresces brightly enough to be visible through the cloud-diffused sunlight. In that case, with the digital sundial, you could enclose the time-displaying side of the sundial in a shade box with a viewing aperture.
Anybody know why you couldn't redesign the digital sundial to work for UV or X rays? I bet you could even get more accurate time readings that way.
"Humanity lives and dies by its capabilities of communication, or lack thereof."
Factory work here is carried out in 3 shifts, so that lights are always on and the machines are always running. So not much point in daylight savings on those grounds anymore either. But stopping it would not make friends, where ignoring it doesn't make enemies.
Governmental inertia.
-SIG needed.
Changa hates change.