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Apple's All-Seeing Screen
Based on a recent patent we may be seeing a new kind of display coming from the Apple store in the near future, one that can capture images as well as display them. From the article: "The clever idea is to insert thousands of microscopic image sensors in-between the liquid crystal display cells in the screen. Each sensor captures its own small image, but software stitches these together to create a single, larger picture."
Now I know which monitor to recommend to that cute neighbor next door. "Sure, I would be happy to help you set up your new monitor and wireless router!" Which reminds me, which wireless router would be the best for streaming video?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
So, what you're telling me is that Apple is NOT really the enemy of Big Brother, but Big Brother in disguise? I'm so confused. How can there be so many truths? The Ministry is supposed to protect us against such confusion by telling us ONLY the truth! If you'll excuse me, I think I need to go watch my telescreen now. Perhaps the truth is there.
Down with Goldstein!
(For those lacking context: Commercial | 1984)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
i need one of these all-seeing screens i guess
"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself -- anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called."
Found it here: http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-dict.html
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Now we won't be able to tell the classic "Blonde holding the page up to her monitor and pressing the 'PrintScreen' key" joke anymore...
Kodak's patent mentions previous research suggesting a correlation between age and the way pupils react to light. As a person gets older, their pupils have greater difficulty widening to cope with dim light, it says. The company suggests that an age-verification system could take mug shots of a person from a set distance in controlled lighting, using a flash. Software would then measure the size of their red-eye dots to determine how wide their pupils are and make an estimate of their age.
I wonder if a picture of an older person with the red eyes in would fool such a sampling.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
With Apple, monitor watches you!
<Cue chirping crickets>
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
so does this mean those old email jokes that "took a picture of you magically through your monitor" might actually end up showing an ugly nerd instead of a monkey?
The result of this second "innovation"? iSight video confernces looked significantly more natural and more natural than web conferences hosted using Logitech and other web cams that (typically) sat to the bottom right or left of the computer monitor (or awkwardly on top) and, hence, gave participants really skewed views of each others' faces.
The innovation described in TFA is the logical next step of this eminently sensible design decision that Apple has been promoting for years.
(Side note: the reason why the iSight demos in Apple keynote addresses look so darn good is that the participants are looking at the iSight camera, and not at the actual screen when they're doing the demo. It's a very subtle shift, but it still matters. Kind of a clever, sneaky way to make the product look even better than it actually does.)
the monitor watches you!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Unless they've also inserted thousands of tiny lenses the device is just a cute hack to create a no-moving-parts contact scanner. Put the thing you want scanned up to the screen and illuminate it with the screen's light. (You can get color by having the sensors sensitive to all the colors of the screen and flashing the screen in each color.)
With lenses they could make it an insect-style compound eye. But the focus would probably be pretty rotten due to diffraction limits from the small size of the lenses. (You might be able to post-process some of that out, though.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The the iSaruman?
Muahahahahaha!
I find laziness to be an excellent motivator.
My iMac has a freaking camera in it too, and i'm not stocking up on canned goods in fear of the inevitable war with Eurasia.
I mean, it contains similarities to a fictional device...and you're acting like the only use is in the same sci-fi scenario.
How is it any scarier from a privacy angle than a webcam? You chose whether you buy this kind of monitor, after all. Its more convenient than a webcam, but not necessarily scarier. Sure, screens outside of your control could have this functionality, but its not like concealed cameras in spaces under otehr people's control aren't a possibility (and frequent fact) of life without these new monitors.
...is that covered under the warranty?
The highest resolution radio telescopes work by reconstructing an image from multiple spread-out receivers. I saw a demo at Cambridge about a decade ago where they used the same concept on optical wavelengths to produce a clearer image than Hubble was capable of from a small set of ground-based telescopes.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Not really sure how this differs from a monitor with iSight built in. Big-brother wise, that is.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
Incorporating sensing elements within the display will permit sensing multiple simultaneous points of contact of arbitrary size/shape in a tablet form-factor. Neat!
Apple's been patenting lots of touch-interface concepts recently, too. Vide.
This patent is probably more about touch-screens than screen as scanner (that'd be a neat trick too, but probably would require too much resolution) or camera (would require a different but perfectly calibrated refractive element at each sensor - probably impractical).
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen, when Skynet achieved consciousness."
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
I guess now, on the Internet they will know you're a dog.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I'd love to just point and speak to my computer, and where convenient use a tablet or glove or whatever comes most natural.
Reminds me of Sun's vision of the future. What was that video called? Starlight?
I think, therefore I am...I think.
this is going to combine online sex with more realist facials... i'm guessing these things will have no secondhand market.
Number one, iSight cameras aren't even remotely as popular as all the PC USB-based webcams; they're EVERYWHERE, and ISPs for years have been giving them away as freebies. Number two, the iSight wasn't distinctive because of its interface; webcams have been available for years with USB2. I strongly suspect it was firewire because most people NEED their USB ports for keyboards and mice, but don't really use their firewire port except for occasional camcorder use, if at all.
The iSight was distinctive because:
The mounting devices just make it slightly more convenient to attach the camera, particularly if you had an Apple LCD. It's a problem solved with a little bit of tape, by the way.
Another "by the way"- the iSight cameras in the Macbook and iMac absolutely SUCK. They're basically cellphone cameras; microscopic lens and CCD, no autofocus. No privacy shutter. The picture is very noisy and low resolution, the colors are funky...
Please help metamoderate.
When does a camscreen become mandatory?
I'm not kidding here. After all, if I'd told you ten years ago that by 2005, all cell phones would have a mandatory GPS tracker broadcasting your location to the phone company as you move about, with a nominal abilty to be switched off (ha), would you have believed me?
I see no outrage over Homeland Security, your phone company, Scientology, and any random corporation with a legal staff being capable of tracking your movements for the rest of your lives. Where is the outrage?
I see no problem with camscreens becoming mandatory in the next 15 years. Even the techiest of the techies have no problem with the tracking devices in their phones, cameras on the streets, and eventually mandatory trackers in our cars, so letting Mr. X watch you as you all watch your computer screens is not a biggie. I can see an infinite number of excuses to make it required by law. Hell, even the emergency health care bit that they used for the cell phones could be re-rigged for this one.
And the generation of kids coming up through school have been seen drug tests, dog searches, RFID trackers, and lie detectors. They've been told they have no rights as minors, and I doubt they'll be any more rebellious as adults. They're also convinced they are surrounded by enemies wanting the kill them in their schoolbuses and office buildings, so the fear excuse is a big Go.
Such a neat device, a camscreen. Here's what I'd like: separate power circuits for the screen and the camera element array. So I *know* that the thing cannot operate without my permission. But I wanted that for my cell phone's tracking device, and so far the phone salesmen look at me like I'm bin Laden or a specially-abled adult who left his house without his nurse. (big thought: look overseas for a phone capable of giving me the option of being untracked, import the damned thing. Maybe I am a little slow).
I know somebody with a MacBook Pro, and when I video chat with her, it looks like she's looking into the camera, when she's actually not. That's probably caused by the camera being so close to the screen. I have a 24" TFT with an iSight on top of it, and the illusion isn't there.
With that in mind, I'd be interested in knowing how such a microsensor would work without a focusing element...
Where the guy tells IT he can't fax a document and it turns out he's been holding it up to the screen. Now it will work!
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
I would suspect that this will be more like a scanner, in that the sensors will probably all be looking in the same direction.
So did Orwell's original telescreen- Winston Smith took advantage of the shape of his apartment (a rectangular shoe box) and put the telescreen on the long wall, so that he could put his writing desk beside it and not be spied upon while writing in his diary.
Unfortunately quicktime has taken ownership of whatever format the patent images are in, and is drawing only the top few percent of 'em, so I have no way to find out. The advantage is that it will have infinite depth of field, and not require focusing, which could only reasonably be done (as TFA suggests) by switching between sensor elements with different focal lengths.
Yep- that and the ironic nature of the Apple commercial during the 1984 Superbowl.....
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Make make a cube of these and have the senors in one screen fed the opposite screen. If they could get it to work with epaper then all the better.
Yes I know it wouldn't be perfect but it could be very cool.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I'll also point out a relative of mine had this happen to her. She's a pretty, vivacious, young woman, married, was then working in a public relations firm. The IT fellow was always a little too attentive for her comfort, to the degree she actively avoided calling him for issues.
Eventually she needed her speakers for a project, but rather then call in creepy IT guy she asked office clever guy to take a look, it was probably just a loose wire or something. That was indeed the issue, however he also discovered an additional cable, running to a camera, mounted under her desk staring into her crotch, feeding into a nearby cabinet with a VCR.
Much hullaballoo ensued, everyone in the building heard of it within a few minutes, much to the ire of the police. There were fingerprints, and all of the fellas in the office but for creepy IT guy offered theirs for comparison. none of the supplied prints matched, IT guy quit, relative had her desk replaced with a table.
That's who you sound like when you post stuff like that.
The good news is Steve Jobs has been here before. I remember NeXT bringing around one of their boxes to demo at my local http://www.acm.org/">ACM chapter. It came with a nifty built-in microphone, to which someone immediately noted "great for spying!" The NeXT rep gave a smile and pointed to the red LED next to the microphone, hardwired to light up whenever the microphone was active.
This practice continues to this day at Apple, putting in hardwired signal LEDs to indicate when a camera is active. My expectation is that this will continue. Indeed I wouldn't be surprised if Apple were to even include a camera-active screen mode to brighten it for a better picture when the camera is active, possibly swapping in a white background.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Slashdot user Isaac mentions the idea of using this for a touch sensitive display. I couldn't find this mentioned in the patent application, so the race is on to file a follow-on patent!
But you wouldn't actually have to touch the screen. Years ago, MIT built a user interface called "put that there" that did gaze tracking and voice recognition, so that the "mouse pointer" was pointing at whatever object you happened to be looking at on the display. No need to touch a mouse, you just use your gaze. That might be possible with this technology. It could also be used to interpret hand gestures and facial expressions, and use them as input.
I personally think it would be cool to build a software-programmable mirror. Think of a bathroom mirror with zoom functionality, image enhancement functions, etc. The extra functions are activated by hand gestures, and face recognition is used to determine the centre of zoom (because in a bathroom, you normally want to zoom in on your face).
Doug Moen
I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
Assuming Apple gains significant market share in corporate America (and the world), the following scenarios are possible:
1. Your boss can actually watch you pick your nose and possibly see what you do with the booger. Options include wiping it on something, flicking it somewhere in your office/cubicle, eating it.
2. Your boss can view your facial expression to determine if you enjoy your job, enjoy your current task, day dreaming, sleeping on the job, or in general wasting time.
3. Your boss can see what you're eating/drinking while at work.
4. Your boss can see your facial expressions and behavior while looking at members of the same/opposite gender.
5. Your boss can see with whom you socialize and network while in front of your computer.
6. With regard to unauthorized employee monitoring, this technology could possibly be defeated with a semi-transparent mirror.
Fellow Slashdotters, please reply with ideas that I've missed/omitted!
First I get in trouble for looking at pr0n at work. Now I'm going to get in trouble for masturbating, too?
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
I used to be a Mac Genius, and the answer is.......maybe, if you're cute!
With the first link, the chain is forged.
No they don't. They sound like 13 year old males trying to make a joke. No more/no less.
Your story has some holes about 1 mile wide in it, but I'll let that rest.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"It was a lesson well learned to treat women not as objects but as intelligent people."
great, so NOW we have to assume all women are intelligent? No. Bear in mind I don't assume all men are intelligent either.
As someone who has had the privilidge to be around women, they treat men like objects to.
Guess what? the human mind is designed that way.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That's a good idea, but it's actually non-trivial to do this well for a variety of reasons. Microsoft has a technical report on how they do it; there are other approaches possible.
You can not give Apple credit for camera placement. That's pushing things. Anybody can stick their webcam anywhere they'd like. Most of them come with either a way to stick them to something or clamp them on. Even my 6 year old Intel camera has a removable foot that has a sticky pad on the bottom in addition to its industry standard camera mounting bolt in the center bottom.
Apple's biggest innovation over any of the other technology companies is that they hired an advertising company that's worth a damn.
And yes, I dig that the iSight is firewire. But what I really want is a firewire keyboard that has a built in charging cradle for a wireless Mighty Mouse. There's no sense in a wireless keyboard, and there's no sense in replacing batteries.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
You could use the same screen they are putting on jackets and shirts and stuff to make a bendable cloak, suit, or vehicle cover. Then simply have the pixels on the one side display the images seen from the other side. The only problem then would be computing the different viewable angles and deciding what to display where, but it would still be better than standard camouflage.
--- Nothing is secure.
I don't know any women who dislike Slashdot.
OTOH, I don't know any women.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I hope Homeland Security doesn't get wind of this. The patriot act allows covert surveillance where they law forces companies to remain silent about what they turn over. I wonder if there's a provision in it (it's so huge I haven't had time to read it, like many of the lawmakers who hurredly passed it into law) to allow the government to force companies to put backdoors into their products for this type of thing without telling consumers. Closer and closer to 1984... Trust the little LED all you want, I won't be buying one of these.
That was a long way to go just to show off the fact that you have a 24" monitor. ;)
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Jokes on you.
Seen http://www.apple.com/imac/isight.html?
LED.
"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
-E. W. Dijkstra
See the lines:
and ?Just cause there's not a big LED sticking out from the bezel doesn't mean it's not there, and is glowing through when the camera is active. This is Apple after all, a manufacturer that makes sure all of their "throbbing" LEDs are synchronized on both Mac & monitor, and that their iMac's "sleeping" throbber is appropriately dimmed at night. They're not going to ruin their clean lines with an LED sticking out, they'll just make sure it shows up when needed.
Guess the joke is really on you, and whomever modded your misinformation as "informative".
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
I agree that the iMacs that didn't have an integrated camera had no LED either. And as far as I know, the audio in the new ones may still be recording without an evident sign.
BUT
The iMacs with iSights (G5 and Intel) DO have a LED. You can see it here.
I seriously consider it one of the failures of modern civilization that it is so difficult to find places to covertly have sex outdoors.
Go backpacking in hawaii. I recommend Halape Beach and Waimanu Valley. Bring a girlfriend. Plenty of room for outdoor semi-tropical sex, and its fabulous.
(Posting Anon in case I ever run for president.)
>This practice continues to this day at Apple, putting in hardwired signal LEDs to indicate when a camera is active.
Jokes on you.
Seen the latest iMac?
Camera.
Microphone.
No LED.
So are you saying you are colorblind?
http://www.apple.com/imac/isight.html
And in case you were wondering:
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/isight.html
...back in the 1990s, I was helping someone who was involved with a technology called the optical waveguide display, developed in part by Imperial College, London. This had the ability to emit and receive light. As part of my work I was doing some research and came across a patent by AT&T that described a system similar to Apple's. Of course, it is possible AT&T's patent expired and/or Apple are doing something different. Either way, the privacy issues are interesting as it will not be possible to include a physical 'lens cap' for peace of mind. Also, this would be ideal for an 'instant' scanner. IE, lay item to be scanned on your display, and it's 'scanned' in a flash. No more moving scan head! Forget 30fps video, we could be talking 30fps scanning! (Using a commercial application of the technology.) The LCD photocopier? Ooh!
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
It happened to her 10 years ago, in Toronto, at a PR firm. Her PC speakers were on the fritz for a few months, she asked a coworker to check her speaker cables for her as she was wearing a skirt that day. He found the speaker cables had indeed come unplugged, and there was a camera mounted below her desk staring directly up her skirt. The camera cable, along with a mass of others, snaked along the wall, with that particular one disappearing into a filing cabinet which was discovered to have a VCR in the bottom of it.
Much ruckus was made, everyone was appalled, and word quickly spread throughout the building. The police were called, they dusted for finger prints, and almost every man in the office volunteered theirs for comparison. The one who didn't, and everyone's immediate suspect, was creepy overly-friendly IT guy who no woman was comfortable with and was well known to be unhealthily interested in my relative, and he declined to offer his fingerprints. Everyone else was cleared, IT guy quit, she had her desk replaced with a table she could easily see under.
I only know the story as it came up over a Pad Thai dinner in Toronto's gay neighborhood, where she was asking my lover and I about friends of ours who are in the porn industry. Two had stopped by our table, and afterwards their professions had come up, and after that topic had run it's course she noted how she had once been covertly filmed and how the experience deeply disturbed her. There aren't a lot more details in respect of her privacy, and it was only a minute or two discussion anyway, we'd soon moved on to the topic of good dessert places nearby.
My point is that all of the "I'd use a camera to sneakily check out chicks" crap is skeevy. It's not just that they're puerile and juvenile, it's a pervasive attitude on many tech sites, and Slashdot in general, that those sorts of comments are acceptable. They're not; they're not funny, they're not even clever, they're only profoundly disturbing in how they view women, and yes, this sort of tacitly approved attitude does drive women away.
There are lots of healthy adult men who are on Slashdot. There is also a huge adolescent, either chronologically or emotionally, crowd, and they're modding up disturbing things as "funny". So spying on female "friends" and coworkers is entertaining, titillating, acceptable? Are these fellas so stunted that they have no real female "friends" and family that they would be outraged if this happened to, have they no empathy of what a traumatizing violation this would be?
"I'd buy him a beer", "what a boring single view", "its another way of showing affection" etc. - I just read those and wonder what sort of dysfunctional freaks these are. These aren't people I ever want to associate with; professionally, intellectually, absolutely not socially. They're contemptible, and apparently not even aware of that. And everyone who ignores, or even mods that sort of stuff up, is participating in the hostile atmosphere.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.