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Display System That Knows Who You Are
lee1 writes "New Scientist
reports on an 'interactive computer display that keeps track of multiple users by differentiating between their touch'. The system consists of a touch-sensitive screen that can be operated by several users simultaneously. When a user touches the screen an electrical signal is sent through their body and picked up by a receiver located in their chair, telling a computer precisely where the screen was touched and by whom. Applications could include system access control, safer vehicle controls, and smarter videogames. The bottom line, in the words of one of the inventors: 'If the controls know who is operating them, they can behave appropriately.' The movie
even has funkier than average background music."
I don't think I want a screen that can scream to the rest of the office, "Oh, it's another dirty pervert looking at me again."
Gone are the days of the generic PEBCAC - now computers will know exactly who is there between them and chairs.
I can assure you, the best way to get rid of dragons is to have one of your own.
When a user touches the screen an electrical signal is sent through their body and picked up by a receiver located in their chair, telling a computer precisely where the screen was touched and by whom.
Of course the chair would also need to be able to read the RFID tag implanted in your butt to solve the Musical Chairs Problem.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Wow, sending electrical signals through my body! What's not to like about that. I'm sure it will never mess up or anything...
Every time you post an article on Slashdot, I kill a server. Think of the servers!
Awesome. I would love a monitor that tracks who puts there fingers on my screen. So I know who's fingers to break when the muck my display up.
Think of the possibilities with sexbots!
Chica chica bow bow!
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I like it. Finally I'll know when my boyfriend is playing with my desktop again, because then the screen will scream for help. No more rescuing the system after an embarrassed admission that the screen suddenly turned blue, when he didn't do anything except play with the settings a little.
...instead of allowing anyone using the computer to see and hear their DRM content, they can charge everyone who sits at the same person for the privilege.
Oy vey.
...they make a mixing console with access control lists.
1984, Anyone?
That's because they really do have a projector mounted to the ceiling. They can't have a flat panel because the touch part currently cannot be made transparent, so it has to be overhead lighting.
And I can see the warning stickers now... "Do not use if you have a pacemaker or other heart condition." "Do not use during a lighting storm." "Please disscharge all static before you sit down and use the monitor." "Do not handle other electronic devices while using monitor, Damage or miss ID could occor." "Do not lick chair." "Do not use while wet." "Do not plug into a 220v outlet." (Yes we know it would be funy, but we can not be held responsible for any unwanted "Cooking")
It's from the same group that brought you this project.
The funky music in the video was composed and performed by Peter Wilder. I'm a big fan of his work. You can find out more about him here ...
Wouldn't a system like this require skin contact to work?
I can't see a "no pants" rule becoming corporate policy anytime soon...
Definitely we can see that multiple input works, but that has been shown within the last year or two already, so that is nothing new.
You would think that if the major new feature is this user detection, they would have used different colors for the different users, or found some other method to really show off that it doing one thing for one user (resizing/moving windows for instance), while doing something else for the other user (scrolling through a window, selecting options in a different window, etc.).
And what was with the staged beverage spill. For a technology demo that was pretty weird.
I did find it ironic that the entire demo was done in XP, but they used Apple's website as their demo material.
Shawn's Tech Articles
Am I the only one that thought, why not read the fingerprints on the moniter?
This one's been around for a couple years, but might be new on Slashdot.
It's a pretty cool system subject to some limitations. People that I know that used it reported that bumping into each other confused the system (although the ability to form human chains and have multiple people in contact using the system together in various weird ways was the subject of a recent CHI paper). The inability to get up and move around makes it less appealing.
It's not really clear to me that having to sit in particular places and not move around is a worthwhile trade for the joys of 'identification', either, but I suppose that would depend on your application.
Last month we had the dual touchscreen displays with the Matrix music. At least this is entirely original.
What genius put "bigbrother" as a tag for this article? If you read anything in the submission beyond the horribly-written title, you find out that what the display actually does is differentiate between the people using it at a particular time, thus allowing several people to simultaneously use the same interface device.
This has nothing to do with ascertaining your identity, and this time you didn't even have to RTFA to figure that out.
BTW, the Jeff Han mentioned in TFA has a site where you can see a much more impressive demo video.
They had video demos of people touching an LCD.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
You know the old tech joke... Error between Keyboard and Chair!
Now you actually can have the computer tell you that. Well I just can't wait to start telling my computer users this... "Yeah, the error is between the keyboard and chair.... no seriously, its you... stop touching the computer, and it wont break."
But then, we have always been able to say that... just now we can have the computer tell the user this. Then confirm it. Oh my job gets easier... Thanks Merl.
"Don't Forget to Salt the Fries"
who washed their hands after using the toilet... Honestly why would you want to touch anyone's screen or mouse for that matter... eeewwwww~
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
Here is a page that has a much more impressive multi-touch sensing demonstration than just some doddles and window re-sizings: http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/
Can be found here:
. pdf
http://www.merl.com/projects/DiamondTouch/DTflier
I wanted to post the specs itself, but thanks Adobe for continuously messing up their product: the copied text is put in the clipboard buffer backwards.
You're right. Having the user sitting in a chair is going to be the key problem. Specially some companies are going to run out of chairs, due to someone high in the hierachy keeping throwing said chairs, because he want to f*cking kill some other competing company.
Touch screen : detected.
Chair detector :
Initialisation : done.
Waiting for input.
User reported as : STEVEBALLMER
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Isn't this the same as the screen talked about here? http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/10/ 1521227
1.) Increase voltage of said system
2.) Add survailance webcam
3.) Broadcast
4.) Profit!!
PERL:
All of the power of Voodoo with most of the understandibility!
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/
"Multi-Touch Interaction Research
"Bi-manual, multi-point, and multi-user input on graphical interaction surfaces"