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Cell Phone with Built-in Projector
karvind writes "Siemens researchers have developed a cell phone featuring a built-in projector system. A laboratory model was presented at CeBIT 2005 in Hanover. The system makes it possible to project a complete keypad or display onto a surface. With a special pen, users can write on the virtual keypad and operate the phone's functions. Other projection keyboard concepts can be found here and here"
I want a 1280x1024 projector. They're just projecting a keyboard.
Anyone who has ever used these type of keyboards knows you need a completely steady surface, it needs to be semi-dark so you can see the keyboard, and it hurts the hell out of your fingers to type on a non-giving surface.
None of these aspects are well-suited for portable typing. I want a SELMA hologram for my portable electronics interaction.
How far does this thing project? Can I set it up across the room and have giant keyboard that I can jump around on, like in Big?
TFA claims:
...but I disagree. It looks big and clunky. Frankly I don't think this feature is worth the added bulk, cost, complexity, and battery-usage. This will remain a gimmick until it can be integrated seemlessly into current cellphones, and more importantly, until the interface is actually smooth and efficient.
"At first glance, the mobile phone looks exactly like a conventional cell phone."
In this concept a virtual touch typist demonstrates he can type directly on a laser-projected keyboard, but this newer concept indicates that a special pad and pen are required. What happened? This was hot a couple years ago...
Wait, no, my bad.
Also what do you really need a projected keyboard on your cell phone for? Is it really that time consuming to put in a new contact with your keypad, or are people writing 20 page business reports and stuff on them? I'm getting too old for this shit.
sup
Very nice technology and all but it requires the user to be stationary, kind of defeating the purpose of a mobile phone.
If I project this onto my lap, maybe I'll get fewer odd looks on the airplane.
First thought: ta da ta da ta da ta da ta da ta da ta da ta da - Batmaaaaaan. Communicate with symbols projected into the sky.
Second though: wow, I will have to walk around with two suitcases full of batteries.
no dice.
You can't handle the truth.
Most of our motor skills require a tool to be really skillful. Because tools react to our actions, and our minds require feedback to interact with things. This projector requires a pen, which looks superfluous, but which will certainly help accuracy and counter the frustration of pushing fingers against an actually blank, flat, smoot surface like a tabletop. But it's kinda big, and has only limited gestures: press and stroke. How about a thin rubber sheet, maybe 0.1mmx10x10cm, with a textured pattern, that the phone projects onto? A video sensor next to the projector (with the phone standing upright, rather than that huge swivel projector) watches the fingertips, like existing projection keyboards. Our fingers will work the surface a lot more nimbly when it reacts. A later generation can cover the sheet with rubberized piezo actuators, or stacked MEMs, for a truly interactive surface. The sheet could be rolled up into the side of a hollow stylus used for more precise pointing when necessary. Make it cheap enough to replace several times a year, and the whole thing starts looking like a real tool, instead of a picture of a tool.
As long as I'm writing SF, how about the MEMs sheet un/rolling itself from the stylus? And including sensors, rather than a video sensor? Or the phone with a fiberoptic jack for projecting the interface image through the sheet itself? Somebody gimme a budget!
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make install -not war
... like Verizon will want this disabled - for your own protection of course!
To use this virtual interface, you'll need to subscribe to Verizon's easy-write(TM) service. It's only $4.99 a month!
#DeleteChrome
If your cell phone can project a game of Minesweeper onto the bathroom wall...
PHB: Why are you spending so much time in the bathroom?
Peon: Uh... none of your business.
PHB: Why were you tapping on the stall walls for?
Peon: If you were stuck up like me, you're be tapping the walls too.
PHB: Why did you yell "You bastard!" when I walked by?
Peon: Hey! Can't a guy take a difficult dump around her?
PHB: Not in this company!