Slashdot Mirror
Talking Mirror, Pirate Skull Security System
junger writes "Themeaddicts, owned by a Hollywood animatronics guru famous for doing the T-rex in Jurassic Park, has created a home security system with a talking mirror (complete with floating head), talking pirate skull, and talking toucan. It informs the homeowner of things like a car coming up the driveway or the jacuzzi reaching the right temperature, and it turns into a surveillance camera."
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/1640/1jq5.png
http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/1937/2yv7.png
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/3663/3fj4.png
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/3041/4ty1.png
For video and audio clips of the mirror, you can go straight to the company's website
that is much more impressive.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
You can buy one from Philips:
Company website (UK).
Developed years ago. Nothing new.
This technology has been around for a few years for mirror/televisions. eg: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,111100,0 0.asp
Already done.
AlarmForce is a security company doing business in Canada with just such a setup: if the system detects a break-in, then the burglar is put on intercom with the monitoring station. If he can't convince the folks at monitoring that he should be there, then they just wait for the cops to come.
I don't know why the interface was mentioned in TFA, but RS232 was not a bad choice.
RS232 (does anybody actually call it TIA232-F in conversation?) is robust, easily interfaced, well supported, commonly available, and cheap. RS232 is also quite fast enough for human-world device interfacing.
Many things have changed since RS-232-C was revised in 1969; there has been a name change and it is up to revision -F.
Already been done by some Greek dude about 22 centuries ago...
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