Slashdot Mirror


Disney Research Leverages RFID Tech For Low Cost Interactive Games With Physical Objects (hothardware.com)

MojoKid quotes a report from HotHardware: Researchers at Disney Research and Carnegie Mellon University have been toying around with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. RFID tags are typically used for high-tech inventory management in a variety of industries, but researchers concocted a way to make RFID technology feasible for interactive games using physical objects. Using a framework the researchers developed called RapID, they showed how inexpensive RFID tags can sense when a physical object is moved or touched in near real-time. The research team demonstrated a handful of use case scenarios. One included a tic-tac-toe board that mirrors the physical game on a computer monitor with added sound effects, while another demonstration showed users playing a Pong clone using real wooden sliders to control the onscreen action. What the researchers have done is no small feat. RFID was never intended for interactive toys, and wasn't built for real-time or near real-time responsiveness. RapID interprets the signals by weighing possibilities instead of waiting on confirmation from RFID tags. Most importantly, it reduces typical lag times from 2 seconds all the way down to 200 milliseconds.

18 comments

  1. Limit breaking awesome innovation!!1! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    RFID now fit into TOYS! This is NO SMALL FEAT! I'm telling you!

    1. Re:Limit breaking awesome innovation!!1! by Calydor · · Score: 1

      Reading comprehension. You should try it sometime.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    2. Re: Limit breaking awesome innovation!!1! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      YHBT YHL FOAD!

    3. Re: Limit breaking awesome innovation!!1! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shut the fuck up Cowdor! Moo Cowdor moooo!!!

  2. See also this from 2008 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I quite like this system for low latency bulk RFID tag reading from 2008 that handles collisions 3 different ways so resolves the likely solution as the bits come in:

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220972515_A_low_latency_scheme_for_bulk_RFID_tag_reading

  3. Pretty cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Watching the video of the pong demo. If it's cheap enough it could work and at least it's not something you have to wait 5-10 years to come out of a lab somewhere ;)

  4. 9/10... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They will use it to tag every person inside of disneyland for 'security purposes', possibly with antennas laid out under every thoroughfare.

    After it is proven successful in crime prevention inside of DisneyLand/World you will see them pushing it just like they did copyright extensions as mandatory for the safety of all.

    You will laugh at me today. But will you still be laughing in a few years when we are all chipped like cattle (as if cell phones aren't already there.)

    1. Re:9/10... by NotInHere · · Score: 1

      Already happened, no need for RFID tags: http://motherboard.vice.com/bl...

      But that one was of course russian semi-professionalism. The Americans will do it the right way and track you via RFID body implants. They are harder to remove and shield off.

    2. Re: 9/10... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They already do that today if you stay on park you get a braclet type rfid device that is your room key and credit card. They are wanting to push it out to everyone that comes in to the park. This is at least at disneyworld

  5. do the moaning afterall by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    games is a channel for kids, but the adults make them -- but the kiling assholes keep ruining games. (for the nice people who finds fingering the mice the best of all fun times)

  6. Too little, too late by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Disney already bailed on making video games.

  7. SDRs and Disney Research. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Disney Research are busy beavers. They also developed a way to use an SDR to identify electronics with a high degree of success.

  8. virtual reality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Was thinking on this a while back. If you have tagged objects then you could draw them into VR easily. I was thinking you'd store the size/dimensions on the chip. With RFID you could probably just have an id and the computer has the dimensions already stored. Then all you need is position and orientation (which it sounds like they have) and now you can just buy tags or buy items that are the size and weight you want. It's a next step on the way to physical vr.

  9. F*ck Disney by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    F*ck Disney.

  10. Skylanders? Disney Infinite? by BenJeremy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why is this news, exactly?

    1. Re:Skylanders? Disney Infinite? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same reason "redmond surface" (the big noisy table thingy) is "news". They weren't the first, nor the best. They just have the bigger toot-own-horn budget. And no shame.

    2. Re:Skylanders? Disney Infinite? by Jason+Levine · · Score: 1

      Does this count as irony after the news that Disney canceled the Disney Infinity line and shuttered the studio that was producing it? (An event that have my boys upset and outraged.)

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  11. Physical vr??? by lhowaf · · Score: 1

    Wouldn't "physical vr" reduce to "reality?"