Hitachi Does Microsoft Surface Without the Table

An anonymous reader writes "According to CNET.co.uk, who randomly stumbled into a booth at CES, Toshiba has created a Microsoft Surface-type system without the unwieldy table. 'The StarBoard system is really two technologies in one. Firstly, it features Hitachi's short-throw LCD projector. This is important, because the projector sits mere inches from the interactive surface. This means you get a huge — 50-inch, in fact — bright screen, which doesn't get blocked out by your head as you lean over the table. The image it projects is incredibly high-quality too, and there was no noticeable distortion.' The video attached to the article shows the system in action." It should be noted that the implication that leaning over the table blocks a projection from above is spurious; the Surface projects an image from below. The 'overhead' setup at CES was a camera designed to show onlookers what was taking place on the table.

Comments

ICARS predicted this!

[morgan_greywolf]

ICARS -- the interactive touch-screen displays seen on Star Trek: The Next Generation and later shows predicted this as far back as what? 1986 or 1987 or something? And now it's here for real.

I see this as ideal for collaboration. Gather a bunch of people around the big screen and they can all make changes in realtime. Very nice.

Re:Wii guy will do this!

[danielcolchete]

He already did: it's a project called "Low-Cost Multi-point Interactive Whiteboards Using the Wiimote" located at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/.

Re:Wii guy will do this!

[theheadlessrabbit]

fuck! now I'm gonna get modded down -1 Redundant.

and it's going to happen to me twice, cause I posted this acknowledgement of my redundancy.

how do i make this +1 insightful... ...um....something about how in soviet russia, chuck norris welcomes his grits-eating natalie portman overlord while throwing a chair at an insensitive clot....because all your memes are belong to me?