First Shareable Interactive Display

Jeremy Newton writes "I want to share with you a new device that allows multiple moving images to be displayed to several users from the same screen at the same time. The project is called a "Shift in Time," my thesis project for NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. The driving goal of this project was to end fighting over the remote control, the gamepad, or the keyboard. It also makes room for new applications in marketing, games, and education. Recently it's gotten some buzz on Engadget.com."

Comments

Let me guess...

[birge]

This works using the same technology from those plastic animation pieces you used to get in cereal boxes. Am I right? Somebody let me know, because I can't bear to read the stupid article. If it weren't for the frat boy who cooled his room with institutional ice and thought he'd invented a refrigerator, I'd say this is the lamest thing I've read all day.

If this qualifies for an engineering PhD, I'm not sure I really care about getting one anymore. This kidn of thing has been done a LONG time ago to make rudimentary 3D displays out of LC panels. It's hard to believe it's considered noteworthy engineering when somebody slaps a plastic lens array on an LCD panel and doesn't even do the most interesting thing you can imagine with it. Viewer multiplexing? Fricking viewer multiplexing? Yeah, if you don't move your head much.

Re:Let me guess...

[baxissimo]

Relax. If you RTFS you will see this is for "NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program", not the engineering department. So the guy is probably a tech-savvy artist rather than an art-savvy techie. And if you download the thesis you'll see that it is in fact "A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES in INTERACTIVE TELECOMMUNICATIONS at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University"

So don't worry. You can still be proud of your engineering PhD when you get it.

Still, you have to admit that even though the underlying tech is nothing new, he does present some fairly novel usage cases for it. Of course most of them are fairly pointless like "let's collaborate together by looking at completely different things on the same screen". But the idea does seem to make sense for something like the split screen mode in 2-player video-games. If you can only have 512x768 pixels out an XGA display for your view, wouldn't you rather have those spread over the whole screen than squished onto one half of it, like they typically do? And if the other guy can't see what you're doing, all the better.

Anyway the point is these lenticular screen 3D monitors that various companies are starting to make may have a variety of interesting uses beyond just displaying 3D imagery. Exploring those ideas is probably worth a master's degree in "professional studies," whatever that is.

Re:wow

[fred fleenblat]

>> This is great; Now, if only someone
>> makes multiple streams of sound riding
>> on the same speaker...

Yamaha YSP-1

Re:wow

[MrDomino]

Now, if only someone makes multiple streams of sound riding on the same speaker...

How about hypersound?

Re:wow

[Doc Ruby]

OK.

Re:old tech

[Xshare]

Lenticulars are what they're called. :-x

Not new by a long shot

[rminsk]

We were doing almost the same thing over 12 years ago a Georgia Tech using polarized glasses and an active shutter on the screen. Could not really find any useful application for it...

Re:the tv..

[shadow_slicer]

Picture a bunch of people sitting around a television watching the same show as a family. They laugh together at the jokes, comment on various aspects of the show and maybe discuss their day during the commercials.
At one point in time the TV was the social center of the ideal American family.