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$5 Sensor Turns LCD Monitors Into Touchscreens
An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from ExtremeTech: "Researchers at the University of Washington's aptly named Ubiquitous Computing Lab can turn any LCD monitor in your house into a touchscreen, with nothing more than a $5 sensor that plugs into the wall and some clever software." The system works by measuring changes that your hand creates in the electromagnetic signature of the monitor. Surprisingly, it offers some pretty fine-grained detection, too: "full-hand touch, five-finger touch, hovering above the screen, pushing, and pulling." The "$5 sensor" part is mostly theoretical for now to those of us who don't live in a lab, though; on the other hand, "co-author Sidhant Gupta tells Technology Review that the $5 sensor uses off-the-shelf parts, and the algorithms are included in the paper, so it would be fairly easy for you — or a commercial entity — to recreate the uTouch system."
a $5 shake
Because otherwise nobody would pay extra for a touch screen PC with Windows 8
They looked at all options before selling touchscreens for massive amounts of money. Oh wait...
It's not really designed to have your finger smashing against it. It better have a hard surface.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Hopefully someone makes this a commercial product. I would gladly pay $20 for this.
Gorilla Arm ...
Well, more ...
Why people still believe that desktop computers are good as a touch device? That makes no sense for me, specially because the ugly fingerprints hehe. I love to *work* on my dual head desktop because the speed of keyboard and big resolution. If I have to use a touch device, it's not for work and not on a desktop, really.
Anyway, nice research, I have to say.
Is there any indication this will ever be able to detect position, as opposed to just the size and duration of something in proximity to the monitor?
This only detects 5 gestures and is not a full touch screen where it detects touches at different parts of the screen...
It can still be usefully for some applications but it is not a replacement for a touchscreen...
Is it just me or does this screen look like it's response time is quite slow. If that's the case it's currently not very useful for most applications.
My first idea was that it should work even better in battery power devices, where the only device that uses power is the notebook/cellphone/whatever that uses lcd or display tech similar enough. But in the other hand, CPU/GPU/disk/fan etc also weights there. And shouldn't be them a factor in desktop PCs too?
If one can find a use for it, why not? It is totally dependent on a the situation.
I wonder if this could be added to an existing touch screen monitor or ATM monitor to steal user input? If anyone has any information on how to do that, I would be *very* interested. TIA.
I won't buy one of these until it PAYS me $5 every time I touch it. I really have no desire to touch my monitor.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
5$ sensor. $2,500 software license.
5$ sensor. 2,500$ software license.
Set one of these up, together with some surveillance, train the device to recognise the mark and where he is (in conjunction with the now mandatory CFL bulbs as well as the tv and computer screens) and when you gets to just the right place - let off the shaped charge. It's clean, capable of discerning whether there is any collateral damage potential (and wait until the mark is alone) and economical as well (only use just the charge you need).
This is bad, who wants gorilla arm from using their monitor? Monitors weren't designed to be touch interfaces for very good reasons. Unless your at a kiosk or a tablet, it's just not practical to use your arms that way. Leave gorilla arm to the 800 pound gorilla that is Steve Ballmer and Microsoft.
This kind of implementation only allows the system to detect whether the screen was touched or not. There is no directional or spatial information; it is _not_ like a regular handset touchscreen. The applications for this technology are very, very limited in the PC arena. Security companies might want to know, though.
...or I WILL punch you in the mouth. It's impossible to clean it up completely. Nor do I want to.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
...do you need fingers to operate it?
You see, I'm a parrot, and though touch screens are ok (if a little bothersome), I'm seriously annoyed at the Kinect on my new Xbox, which refuses to recognize my beak and toe movements. I wish people would just stick to keyboards; their wholesome nibblyness is superior to any other input device.
Why on earth would people want to jam their fingers into their screens? If it is to have some gesture based control, a much better solution is a decent trackpad, which in effect works as a proxy for the screen but in a more ergonomic location.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Big Deal...
Where can I buy the sensor ?
don't let apple get a hold of it, it would turn into a 200 dollar sensor.
This is very cool and rather unique solution, but there is considerable lag between the input and the registration of the input. I don't see it being much useful beyond pause/play video or music or to wake up a computer from sleep. That being said, I love the spelling mistake in the powerpoint in the youtube video.
To assuage the gorilla arm issue it seems this tech could be configured to make your desktop a large touch pad. A piece of desk glass and some thin wires.....
Facts take all of the premium out of arm waving - T. Reynolds
It works by looking at HF signal on power lines. I though FCC regulations prevented devices from sending HF signals on power lines, but obviously it tolerates some remains.
I wonder how it can be used to extract informations from the computer: what is displayed, what key are pressed, what data is computed?
the $5 sensor uses off-the-shelf parts, and the algorithms are included in the paper, so it would be fairly easy for you — or a commercial entity — to recreate the uTouch system and then pay a nice fat royalty to the patent owners for the next 20 years who won't surface until your product is successful.
...for the screen cleaner & cloth that comes with it.