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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!
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!
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!
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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.
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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.
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]
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.
It's a 3D rendered object, being projected onto a concave mirror. This gives the illusion of a 3D object floating in space because as you move your head, the perspective of the image changes as well.
They then use a couple WiiMotes to track your hand and use that data to interact with the image. So you can actually manipulate the image with your hand.
They also use some kind of ultrasound thing to give the impression of tactile feedback on your hand. So when you touch the image, you feel something on your hand.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
I can scratch my butt or something else to make stuff happen? Awesome!
"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!