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Mind-Blowing Interfaces On Display At SIGGRAPH 2009
An anonymous reader writes "Tech Review has a roundup of some cool, experimental new interfaces being shown at SIGGRAPH 2009, underway in New Orleans this week. They include an amazing 'touchable holograph' display, developed by a team in Japan, which uses an ultrasound device to simulate the sense of touch as the user grasps objects shown in 3D. The other ideas on display are Augmented Reality for Ordinary Toys, Hyper-Realistic Virtual Reality, 3D Teleconferencing and Scratchable Input Devices. If this is the future of computers, sign me up."
The conference has also seen the release of OpenGL 3.2 by the Khronos Group.
So, you can actually feel something when you touch the hologram?
3-D PORN.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Rimmer will be delighted!
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
Who cares?
By the way, Macs are Personal Computers too.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Ever since I first heard of it I've thought augmented reality is going to be big some day. It's not much more than a toy right now (watching the video, it was clear that there's still a long way to go before it reaches it's full promise), but someday it'll be there. At my last job we used a lot of virtual reality modeling to do experimental training programs (learn to weld without real fire kind of stuff). Augmented reality will be so much better for this kind of thing. Think about it. A welder uses a real (modified) torch on a real piece of metal, but his goggles show the metal heating up and reforming. Or combine it with the tactile stuff from the other example and surgeon uses a "real" scalpel in a real operating room, but sees and feels a virtual patient. You could learn and practice very complicated procedures this way.
We're no where near being able to build holodecks, but between this tactile display tech and augmented reality we may not have to. Use the real world as your backdrop, put in real things where ever appropriate, and only simulate the stuff that you actually need to interact with.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
I don't really want a display that will cause an explosion in my mind, I'm kinda attached to it...
You take that back!
From TFA: "A cluster of PCs is needed to perform the necessary image capture and 3D modeling." HA! Suck on that Mac!
Also from TFA: "You're a retard." Oh wait, the article doesn't say that, that was me.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
So, you can actually feel something when you touch the hologram?
3-D PORN.
. . . just hope that you can't catch something when you touch . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I couldn't really tell from the video, and the article didn't specify. Are the touchable holograms 3D, or are they just 2D images floating in mid-air? I suspect the latter. Still impressive, though.
As we all should know from STNG, the 3d touchable hologram is probably the most dangerous entertainment system ever created. The doors never let you out, the holographic characters become sentient, the safety protocals NEVER work and it opens a rift up to places where holographic characters evolved naturally, so they promptly invade. STOP NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I tap my desk all the time, just as a habit. Wouldn't want my cell phone to interpret that the wrong way -- or, if not my cell phone, perhaps somebody else's. And I wonder about somebody entering the room with a heavy step, or scuffing their feet... could be weird.
I remember ïseeing Apple's voice recognition demo'd years ago (on a Mac IIfx! yikes, that's old) and the presenter had to address the computer each time. "Computer, close the window. Computer, open Microsoft Word." Etc. Somebody in the audience asked him how that would work in a shared, open, noisy office environment, and he didn't know. He suspected that you couldn't use it on more than one computer, or you might end up directing somebody else's machine to do stuff. "Computer, shut down." Oops. Might the same be true of a scratch interface?
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First, they'll set this up on PCs at home. Then it'll be laptops. Then, netbooks.
The next thing you know, you're gonna have to dodge a frigging mindfield of idiots walking around having orgasms (cmon, you KNOW this thing is gonna be used for porn) because wearable computers takes off.
Sent from your iPad.
I made it SIGGRAPH last year, but not this year. Its GEEK heaven. SIGGRAPH makes me aware how inadequate current video technology is. Do not be deceived by current large screen HD TVs - technology can do so much better.
In a nutshell, perfect video technology would be "indistinguishable from looking outside of a window on a sunny day". Thats what human visual systems are designed for. I've seen some experimental systems at SIGGRAPH that start to approach this quality. I hope it doesnt take 40 years to commercialize this like HDTV. I would love to see a theater movie where it felt like I was looking through a window at another world.
Resolution is probably the best aspect of current video. Beyond about 2,000 scan lines and 4K horizontal pixels, you reallly cant see more, unless it is a very large screen.
Contrast is perhaps in worst shape. The most impressive videos are those that have contrast ranges over a million, preferably over a billion. Super dark shadows and bright light source appear real then. The best monitors at Best Buy have contrast ranges in hundred thousands, but many are under a thousand. Different contrasts are very noticeable viewing screens side-by side. Sony has an experimental Organic-LED screen with a million contrast that starts to look realistic.
Current video only fills about half of the human perceptual color space. I've seen six-primary-color systems at SIGGRAPH that approach 80%-90% of the color space. They are very impressive when looking at nature and artwork. Compare a work of art and its best conventional video display and the color inadequacies will be immediately apparent.
Least is important is 3D in my opinion. It does make things look more real when you look through a window.
A big issue with enhanced video is that its not just the display device, but the whole video system. You need a camera, a signal representation, coomunication bandwidth, and recording devices that support all the enhanced features. You really cant shoe-horn it in existing systems.
In your terminology, what kind of computer found in a home is not a personal computer?
Precisely.
I don't understand this 'PC vs Mac' bullshit. It's all the same hardware (now, anyway).
What about those of us who use Linux/FreeBSD/OpenBSD/Plan9 as our day-to-day OS. Are they not running on "PC's"?
Not to knock the hologram, but that looked too limited to be very promising. The augmented reality has a lot more promise, considering its only been a few years since we got Haar Cascades for object recognition, and we've already got real-time facial recognition. Screw laser tag, I'm waiting to fight alien baddies.
Imagine real life way-points for GPS navigation, or mid-air big screen TVs, or general awesome HUD display. A single pair of badass augmented reality glasses could replace all of your monitors (TV, computer, etc) it could give perfect directions (follow the magic glowing green line) virtual computer terminals (say, via an Airport network computer) floating text bubbles for deaf people, insta binoculars, glorified porn, etc.
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
As awesome as these are, I can see where the bottleneck is: display technology.
These are all cool, but what we really need is the same thing we've needed for a while: a way to produce a good image and shovel that into our visual centers. That augmented reality game will only really be fun if we can wear a pair of lite glasses or point some device at our retina that will produce a display that will both exceed 640x480 and not fry our rods and cones.
The guy with the $5000+ HMD(likely with a lifespan measured in months, too) glued to the Martian construction helmet shows how far we still have to go in terms of personal and wearable display tech.
I can scratch my butt or something else to make stuff happen? Awesome!
What advantage does it have over voice recognition? It seems to be the same or similar underlying processing.
Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of those! ...oh wait.
The first example, I seen a long time ago. A very bad hologram effect that really has little practical use. So, they added motion detection to it. Coupling TWO existing techs is not that mind-blowing. I would have been impressed if the hologram was either bigger, or more involved or the motion tracking had displayed something more. The ultra-sound for touch again has been done, it has also been tried with air, but really, if this is the future, then the future is still decades away.
The augmented reality TOY is a joke. Augmented reality MIGHT be worth something but this game is a pathetic example of it. Come on, we HAVE had laser games for YEARS. Also toys that shoot REAL (foam) rockets. Who is going to bother with a game where a simple cowboy's and indian's game takes this long and costs a fortune? Someone should give these guys a pc or console. Shooters have been done, both in the physical and virtual world and with a LOT more excitement.
The virtual reality... well, what is new this time? We seen this display for ages and for reason the 3d world always seem rather subpar to what a common console could render last year. So, I am in it. Useful for design but the future? Only for designers.
The 3d teleconfericing is even worse. Oh goodie, lets do away with ordinary monitors and beamers for quality video and instead buy a no-doubt expensive device that has a spinning plate in it and a huge black cowling, all that so we can see ONE face and nothing else.
And the scratching... that is just pathetic. I thought at first that it make a wall into a touch surface. Capable of detecting the POSITION. But no, this can just detect some sound. This is no more then the most basic voice control software provided over a decade or two ago. Record a sound and if that sound is repeated again with in certain parameters, a command is triggered. WHOO! That is the future! Oh wait, no it isn't. Can you imagine how many times you will either scratch wrong or do it accidently. Every time you bump your coffee-cup, your phone shuts-off.
All the above techs are somewhat intresting, but the "mindblowing" bit in the headline blew it for me. This stuff ain't mind-blowing. Just barely worthy of idle.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
In your terminology, what kind of computer found in a home is not a personal computer?
The server next to my furnace is a surly bastard. I say hello to it when I'm refilling the water softener and it doesn't say anything, it just hums at me. To add insult to injury, it blinks some lights too. The thing never says a word, that's awfully impersonal if you ask me.
Sheldon
That's harder than you think.
Isn't feeling/not feeling the ultrasound more relative to the frequency? A sonogram uses high-frequency ultrasound to get better resolution... if you're just trying to give tactile feedback, you'd use a much lower frequency. Am I right?
Also, a sonogram has to penetrate deep into the tissue... thus the high intensity, which means more heat. If you're just trying to hit the surface, you wouldn't need such a high intensity, so I wouldn't expect it to generate as much heat.
Of course, I'm not a doctor, so I could be wrong.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
And the scratching... that is just pathetic. I thought at first that it make a wall into a touch surface. Capable of detecting the POSITION.
Well I wonder if it couldn't be adapted to give you positional data. Attach two sensors to the wall, and assuming the wall is uniform density and the system is calibrated properly....?
But anyway, it's still kind of inventive. Not because it allows you to do anything wildly new, but because it's like a touchscreen/gestural interface that can be put almost anywhere very cheaply. It seems like it would be very durable and unlikely to break or malfunction. Sometimes something like this leads to some very practical applications.
But yeah, I'm not sure I'd call it "mind-blowing". I think augmented reality has a lot of potential, but this demonstration hasn't shown anything I haven't already imagined.
The augmented reality TOY is a joke. Augmented reality MIGHT be worth something but this game is a pathetic example of it. Come on, we HAVE had laser games for YEARS. Also toys that shoot REAL (foam) rockets. Who is going to bother with a game where a simple cowboy's and indian's game takes this long and costs a fortune? Someone should give these guys a pc or console. Shooters have been done, both in the physical and virtual world and with a LOT more excitement.
I don't think you're excited about it, but I sure am - I mean, this technology has a ways to go, but from the looks I would call it promising. I would love to play scorched earth like this, using AR and my living room to create tanks, simulate the image of the different weapons flying across the room in 3D, seeing furniture get burned and ripped apart, etc. I'm just saying - give me a 6 pack, a couple friends and some AR gaming and we can finally leave Clue behind (finally!)
And the scratching... that is just pathetic. I thought at first that it make a wall into a touch surface. Capable of detecting the POSITION. But no, this can just detect some sound.
Use two of those Mics to triangulate the position of your fingernail and you have your position tracking.
Just needs "some" tweaking of the software and a way of describing the relative position of the two mics (by a echo-like click sound on init maybe?).
NAS aren't PCs, as also aren't the routers, switches, and DVDs.
Rethinking email
"PC" means personal computer yes, although in everyday usage it can also mean a Windows box. The latter meaning comes from the abbreviation of "IBM PC or 100% Compatible." That label used to appear on software when computer architecture was not as uniform between competing manufacturers as it is now. The IBM PC was a popular personal computer of the time, and thus many other companies cloned its architecture.
Now get off my lawn!
The IBM PC was a popular personal computer of the time, and thus many other companies cloned its architecture.
Then wouldn't it be called "Lenovo-compatible" since 2005?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eye_of_Judgment
Eye of Judgement - an augmented reality game for the PS3
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
I've been to Siggraph a number of times. There are always a lot of creative display devices, virtual reality setups, 3D displays, etc, so that doesn't surprise me. But the scratchable input device is actually really cool: I wish I could get ahold of the source code for that one. Just imagine what you could do to automate your house:
1) Put one in your favorite TV chair and get rid of the remotes
2) Get rid of locks and door handles. Only the correct tap or gesture on the wall opens the door. When you've got friends over, you can semi-quote Back to the Future: "Door handles ? Where we're going, you don't need door handles..."
>> "the advanced companies were a real stickler for 24-bit per color channel standard."
Actually, it was 24-bit color - that's 8 bits per channel (3 channels x 8 bits = 24 bit color). The pitch was that was all the human eye could discern. Of course, when you manipulate it, you get rounding errors, leading to banding in the sky, etc.
Right now, high end dSLR cameras only do 14-bits per color channel. And that's pretty darn good.
Place nail here >+