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Obscura Digital Demos "Minority Report"-Like Display
Barence and other readers sent along word of a demonstration by Obscura Digital of a new technology it's dubbed a multi-touch hologram — reminiscent of the display in Minority Report. The demonstration shows a man interacting with holographic images projected before him, moving them around and resizing them. It's only sort of like the Minority Report display, which used hand movements to control elements on a screen. Earlier, Obscura had demoed another take on the Spielbergian technology, a multi-touch wall.
now please. That's one of the best displays that I've ever seen in any sci-fi movie. Even if it was just special effects, it had me drooling. That and the electric citroen DS from gattaca.
MP3 Search Engine
Somehow, doesn't seem as efficient as alt-tabbing.
Someday, when holograms are commonplace, I will drive down the street, and instead of seeing my car, you will see a giant snake breathing fire on everything around me.
I applaud every bit of research and technology advancements that bring me closer to that future.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
Yeah, but can we lay it down on say, a table?
as a form of Geek exercise. Lift that window, scroll that window, spin it, spin it, expand then contract...
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
The researchers did state that their tech would need to be scaled up before it could work with straight actors.
I, for one, welcome our new "Minority Report"-like display overlords.
How can pr0n be enhanced from this technology?
nothin' sounds quite like an 808
The problem with this is that your arm gets tired! The Nintendo Powerglove from the 80's had this problem. A more natural interface would occasionally let you use your hands for rapid-fire intensive input or precision adjustments, but would follow your eyes and verbal instructions.
tactile touch, scratch-n-sniff...whats next?
The Cocytans called...they want their planetarium back.
Well first of all, it's shot from one angle, saw another movie like this where some random blogger (also the case here it seems) thinks its "holographic" when it is in fact a projector shooting on clear plastic.
Also it looks to me that he interacts with the system through sensors in each hand, clicking them when he wants to "grab" something - and they are poorly calibrated, quite a lot of the time the system clearly isn't responding the way he wants it to.
Aww come on! That was pretty funny.
~ Ron Fitzgerald
Boring.
Hasn't anyone figured out a more interesting application of this "multi-touch" input form?
Here we have a report about a cool new technology - yet the Slashdot summary is more concerned with how it compares to pretend tech from sci-fi movies. Pretty much de rigeur for Slashdot I guess.
#DeleteChrome
So how exactly does this work? I'd hate to find out that it is just a hyped camera trick that looks awful from any other angle.
From the blog comments:
This guy is not controlling anything with his hands. It's a pre-recorded sequence and he is "hand-syncing". Look closely.
Still, I'd like to know what technology they used to create the holograms... *IF* indeed they're real.
Too inefficient for porn.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'll keep my CLI, thank you very much!
Imagine the ungodly interactive porn!
stuff |
Using the Powerglove is not like using a Wii. Try making a fist and waving it back and forth and up and down in front of you with the back of your hand level. Try this for hours. Eventually, you wind up trying to rest your elbow on something. With the Wii, you usually make specific gestures, after which you are free to go back to a more restful position. It's more like holding a sword/racquet/frying pan. The Powerglove is more like using a giant-sized air-joystick. There is no chance for resting. The Wii is much more "natural."
If the interface in the article allows you to make momentary gestures, then it won't be tiring. If your hands are way out in front of you for hours, it will be a drag.
why is it that every single demo of these multi-touch technologies involve moving/rotating/resizing f-ing pictures or photographs? What am I, a private eye looking for f-ing clues? For christ's sake, show me some some practical applications, gawdammit..
Its just projection, nothing to do with holographic!
If they're using the setup I think they are the guy giving the presentation can't see the holograms from his angle. He's most likely looking at a tv pointed at him, Making this cool but mostly useless.
All this is a lot like what Johnny did with the Wii-mote. He effectively turned the Wii (aka OLD technology by this point) into a tracker so he could manipulate items. He even used a screen to make images appear 3-D. In fact, his system is a lot more like Minority Report because, iirc, Cruise was touching a kind of screen, moving pictures and images across it, not hanging in mid-air.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
You don't resize with your eyeballs, NOW. You're looking over someone's shoulder saying "okay, make it just a bit bigger. Okay just a smidge too big. Okay split the difference." Then you get frustrated and "grab the mouse" and do it yourself, which is when you'd do the hand gesture thing.
This had me confused for a while, since I haven't seen the Tom Cruise movie. I can recall no such thing from the 1949 short story by Theodore Sturgeon, or from the 1959 PKD short story.
It's ironic you must admit, that the demo shows us a bright future where we need to dance like monkeys in front of huge screens in order to do what? view a couple of photos.
A task I can currently do with a mouse scroll wheel and rolling over a thumbnail in any pedestrian photo viewer program.
Realistically speaking: in what areas of use, is it handy to wave your arms around to view translucent photographs, or interact with other kinds of translucent 2D images in front of you that way? Other than a novelty, can it break through? The mouse was a great invention, even though it looks very boring to have a pointer on a screen, it was something extremely useful. But standing and moving your arms around surely isn't something you can keep doing for a long time? Still cool to see though! Maybe for original demos in an interactive museum?
Indeed. I've seen holograms in tech museums, but they're only viewable from one angle. And worse, they're always BEHIND the glass with the imprinted interference patterns.
I've yet to see a hologram that can be displayed in any point in space (and could be viewed from nearly all angles) with just one or two projectors. THAT would merit a Nobel Prize.
Multitouch is so overhyped. Give me a break...you expect me to be impressed by the fact that you can use your fingers to move icons around? Ooooo...so much better than my mouse. How about the fact that they keep displaying the same expand/shrink image over and over AND OVER again. Give me a break, if the best multitouch can offer is getting me extremely tired using my arms to move icons around and zooming in/out of images.... yeah.
That doesn't even look like holographic; looks like a projector is projecting onto a clear plastic screen in front of him and some motion tracking camera is following his hands. None of this is revolutionary...or useful in its current implementation. Multitouch is even less useful to the average person than those silly overhyped convertible notebooks.
I'm not able to tell exactly, but this is probably one of the projection 'holograms' that hollywood has been using lately.
I can't think of many specifics, but at some awards show the band "Gorillas" and Madonna did a live stage performance with the band's digital likenesses on stage with her. It looked really good.
Basically the idea is a semi-transparent screen at a 45degree angle to the crowd, in front of the stage, and projectors that point upwards from the orchestra pit as well as the back of the stage. Sitting in the crowd you can't see the screen if the room is lit properly, but the dual projectors allow the illusion of a 3-d hologram. Combine with an actor on stage who knows where the CG images are supposed to appear, and it looks almost seamless.
Not Holograms, but still kinda neat.
Oh, and why did this reference the 'Minority Report'? This is hardly the first movie to showcase such input technology, and certainly not the best example.
More than that, have you noticed that the primary organizational concept used for all of these "advanced" systems is the pile?
If all I wanted to do was move things from one pile to another I'd ditch the computer and go back to the piles of paper on my desk.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I saw a commercial with a girl using a holographic display and I realised that there is no privacy in it, unless she uses Public Key encryptions built in to her special glasses so only she can see the display unencrypted.
"I'm a dirty white tomcat, enter my world..."
This technology isn't new...
The film and video game industry have been using it forever, notice he is wearing black (in the video) and has a spotlight on him (whitening his skin). It's using the same motion capture software.
Looking at their site also shows the specialize in projection technology. Meaning there is likely a fine mesh in front of him for the projection to land upon. That doesn't seem very advanced to me.
Everyone sees gesture applications and thinks... oh thats innovative...
Although that show had its problems, especially after the 1st year, they got a lot of tech right. Mobile phone video with flexible e-paper type displays, etc.
Will the public ever tire of this kind of crap? I'm willing to sit with the next guy and admire some cool-looking input/manipulation device just like I'm willing to flick though the National Enquirer for laffs, but there IS a limit.
Do they think this is impressive? Do they think it has an actual use? I suppose they do, but right here, right now: this. is. shit.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
I hope nobody gives one as a gift to Stephen Hawking. That would be so tacky.
Only his tendency toward a dazed stupor prevented him from screaming aloud.
I've been playing around with a few ideas for a free floating display for some time, though I imagine the actual physics involved in making it work would be tricky.
My first idea was to set up a series of intersecting lasers of identical wavelengths to act as a sort of "polarizing" filter on which a third beam could be reflected off the areas in the grid where the third beam was unable to pass through. The "grid" would also be warped slightly on both the horizontal and vertical axis to allow the beams to z-sort past one another in a diagonal pattern.
A more recent idea (and perhaps slightly more realistic) was to create a "grid" using tiny "water" droplets suspended within the pockets of sound waves reflected back at themselves in perfect noise canceling alignment, then using lasers to scan across them to make them light up. The tricky part is finding a fluid that could survive this kind of treatment on demand without evaporating. (I've seen footage of similar experiments where peas were suspended in mid-air by sound waves in this manner, probably going back over 10 years ago.)
I'm also toying with the idea of a display based on controlled rapid air temperature changes which could potentially be used to create a grid of free-floating thermal lenses, but I haven't quite worked out the specifics on it yet.
Keep in mind that these are primary in the range of "crack pot" ideas with no actual scientific research involved. But, they are interesting to think about.
8==8 Bones 8==8
He can see them. They are being projected on to a semi-clear sheet of plastic. If you've ever done this with a projector, or projected on to a sheet, you know you can see it from both sides.
I've been looking for something like this - I have this collection of weird, blurry nonsensical poloraids that I've been wanting to slightly change the size of, rotate, and punch around.
for the rest of you though, this technology seems to have far greater promise for gaming purposes. not sure why they didn't tailor their demo to that sort of application.
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This actually has more literary content than the rest of this thread. Genius! Pure genius!
I need to wear black.
Hold 'fists' all the time (unless to zoom, which will be seldom)
and work in a dark room.
All to prove that I can use all my body parts to do what? Move a freaking 2D window across the screen. Inefficiency at its best I guess?
Where do I sign up? (too cool!)
You can take the crack out of the pot but it won't stop this guy from smoking it.
This is an interesting theatrical trick, but isn't real because the guy can't actually see the images in front of him that he is supposedly manipulating. If you look carefully, the guy is looking down the whole time, at the projection screen hidden out of view down the front of the stage. He can't see the images in front of him, as they are reflected off the foil and only apparent to the audience.
Guestural interfaces aren't new either, and there has been a fair amount of R&D into them in recent years (well before Minority Report). Because the guy can't see what he is manipulating in relation to his hand position, I am inclined to think this is choreographed movements. Of course he could have a monitor, but that makes it no different than the greenscreens used by weathermen.
Ok let's get this clear. Being a Scientologist doesn't make you gay, it makes you retarded.
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
Minority Report sucked. The sensitivity on that wall-sized display was set to the level where it required a Shatneresque facial tick to get anything to happen at all. Cruise was doing Swan Lake just to accomplish a simple fade. Just what we all need: a 10,000 pixel wide display with a 20dpi gesture camera.
...for users with an itch or a hiccup.
The IET are running an event on Programmable Hardware Systems that looks interesting. Anyone going? Their website is http://conferences.theiet.org/phs/
Please, sit down, calm down, and see how useless is this.
- no contact feedback (seems few things, but makes typing nearly impossible.)
- PAIN, PAAAAAIIN ! (torture, suffering, tears, suicide...)
what about longtime use ? what about using this for..let's say... 3-4 hours a day (even 1 hour !) there is no way your arms, your legs, your back can handle it. Even if you sit down the weight of your arms will hurt your back...
(no utility for any geek, any nerd, any professional any "IM-kid"... and 80% of games market
- looks cool, yeah, looks great on a movie (first saw on Final Fantasy : The movie, remember ?) but NO WAY it can manage my 10 virtual desktops Desktop, it's just impossible to use 4-5 application minimum at the same time, and I don't even want to ear talking about gnome/KDE with this, it's not made for it. It needs specific WM, unless really good ideas it will be a pain to use. Using a computer it a little bit more complicated than spinning pictures and drawing circles.
- poor image resolution from the user's point of view, as far as I know holograms can't reach enough resolution, too blur to use it for real.
Verdict : Useful for "powerpoint" presentations, public conferences and...that's all. Stop saying it's all you've ever wanted for your desktop, it's just ridiculous, it's not even the purpose !
Segmentation Fault in "Life, Universe and Everything" at line 42. Don't Panic.