Some of the Weirder Ideas From CHI 2009

An anonymous reader writes "Technology Review has a roundup of some of the weirder ideas on show at last week's Computer-Human Interaction conference in Boston. They include a trackball that heats up as you roll over different parts of an image, a pair of goggles that track eye movements using electrooculography, and a miniature robot with a cellphone for its head."

Comments

Cell phone for a head?

[homey of my owney]

I know that guy!

Come again?

[hansamurai]

ball that heats up as you roll over different parts of an image

There's a joke in there somewhere.

Re:Come again?

[verbalcontract]

ball that heats up as you roll over different parts of an image

There's a joke in there somewhere.

Hmm... yes... If only the word "ball" were a euphemism for a part of the body that would be aroused by certain types of images.

And if only computers were known for easily being able to access those types of images.

And if only this story were to come across a large body of individuals who both possess this part of the body, and who frequently used computers to download arousing images, and have a certain je ne sais quoi for pointing such a collation.

Mmm... but I guess that could never be.

Re:Tracking Eye Movements

[djupedal]

> "...I don't want to walk around looking like a hobby shop exploded in my face."

Would you settle for appearing as if you fell through the front window of a Radio Shack @ the mall? I'm sure I have some gift cards around here somewhere...

Re:Obligitory

[Arthur Grumbine]

In Soviet Russia, the goggles - they do nothing!!

my idea was rejected

[Em Emalb]

I tried to enter a device in this event, but they wouldn't let me.

My idea was (and the prototype worked pretty well) to create a metal leg from the knee down the bolted under the user's desk and USB cables to connect to the computer. When the user did something stupid, fell for a phishing scam, responded in earnest to a 419 scam, downloaded a virus off a website, etc, the foot's lever action kicked in and kicked the user square in the giblets.

My test run of 16 users in Topeka had "smashing" (and painful) results.

Sadly, they decided not to let me enter. There is a silver lining though, as there is a small-ish "kick me in the jimmy while I'm watching donkey porn" fetish market out there that is in love with my product.

Article was pure fluff

[Anonymous Coward]

The article never mentioned the most important aspect of these devices: what is the application for porn?

Re:Memory matches...

[Chabil Ha']

What makes it the stupidest idea ever is the whole reason things have gone digital: cost. Just because storage media costs five one hundredths of a cent to store a single photo doesn't mean that the photo (or the memory) itself is meaningless. It's like we took a time warp to the 60s with 2009 technology, passed around the 'peace pipe', started living at a communal with digital cameras, and started farting out crazy ideas like this. Wake me up when the trip is over!