Posts Tagged surface
Skinput: Get your whole body into your interface
Posted by admin in Future Concepts on March 2nd, 2010
What you are seeing here is not some sort of modern art, but it may make some statement about our society today.
This is Skinput, a conceptual technology that can recognize a user’s taps of a finger on the skin, but it seems to be limited to the hand and the rest of the arm.
This tech is under development from Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft, and requires that the user wear a certain armband with “piezoelectric cantilevers, or sensors that measure pressure, acceleration and force”. Click on the video after the jump to see this technology in action, and a most unusual method of controlling Tetris.
Skinput also uses a pico-projector to create images like menus on the user’s arm. With a tap on the skin above or below the menu, the user has a very unusual form of navigation.
You have to admit that this technology could have all sorts of applications for the mobile world. Just picture selecting your tunes on your arm instead of your iPod, or dialing your phone on your palm instead of your mobile device.
Still, I can’t help but this tech will lead to an age when we are all comfortable with integrating technology with our flesh. Then our cyborg teachers will say that it all began with Skinput.
Tech Cult – We cover the latest tech news, but always with a funny twist.
[ Skinput: Get your whole body into your interface copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
Read more from the original source:
Skinput: Get your whole body into your interface
Pictionaire: The desk of the future
Posted by admin in Future Concepts on January 28th, 2010
Now that the iPad has been formally announced, let’s take it a step further with this iDesk. Actually, the technology that you see in this picture is called the Pictionaire, and it is under development by Microsoft Research and the University of California, Berkeley.
As you can see from the attached video after the jump, this 4 x 6 foot table has a camera mounted above it, much like the futuristic hexagonal-type board game that we reported on yesterday.
The user has the power to place a physical object on the Pictionaire, and, with a little drag-and-drop gesture, he or she will have a digital copy of that item. The original physical object can be moved, and the digital copy can be traced onto a whiteboard or a sketchpad.
The user also has the option of putting a wireless keyboard on the table, and the table can become a display. From what it looks like in the video, the user can type in a keyword and get the image that he or she is looking for, maybe from the objects that were on the Pictionaire before.
It reminds of a desk I saw in The Island. Some of you might not remember this film, because it was an intelligent Michael Bay film that didn’t involve giant robots beating each other up. I believe that the villain in The Island had a desk with projections, and he even had Ewan McGregor draw on it with a virtual stylus. You know that desks like this will be in offices of the future, unless the companies can afford a Surface.
Tech Cult – We cover the latest tech news, but always with a funny twist.
[ Pictionaire: The desk of the future copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
The rest is here:
Pictionaire: The desk of the future
Infractor is an innovative way of research
Posted by admin in Future Concepts on November 7th, 2009
This next device is odd, to say the least, but I can see how it would come in handy. There is a video of it after the jump if you want to see it in action, but it won’t make sense without a little bit of explanation.
Here’s how it works. You begin with a “light source” that is really a database of some information, like the New York Times, for example. This source is placed on a table that is probably best described as a Microsoft Surface (but isn’t).
This source shines a light with visible particles that essentially contains all the information of on that database. From there, the user can physically place a “prism” that filters out all the information except a certain subject. That subject can be pre-determined by the user by a jog wheel.
I suppose this would be a non-Wikipedia way of doing research. For example, let’s say you had a light source of world history, and you used the prison to filter out everything but Egyptian history. From there, you could use another prism for Cleopatra, the pyramids, or whatever piece of information you need.
I’m not certain why you couldn’t do what the Infractor does on a computer with an ordinary search engine, but the Infractor website says the presence of a physical object helps.
Perhaps the idea for the Infractor came from a Surface-like computer seen in the movie The Island, which operated with a desk-sized flat display and paperweight-like objects.
infractor – interactive, collaborative multitouch application from siwamat on Vimeo.
Introducing Foolish Gadgets because not all gadgets are cool
[ Infractor is an innovative way of research copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
Microsoft shows off its next-gen computing muscles on campuses nationwide
Posted by admin in Future Concepts on November 6th, 2009
Even though Microsoft could probably easily rest on the profits from Windows 7, it is always good to hear them working on new ways of interfacing with computers. Lately, chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundle has been going from college to college, showing off the latest next-gen computer prototype.
Mundle has a lot of interesting things to say about the way computers are headed. One of his demonstrations includes a computer that can project its images onto a pane of glass in front of him. He says that the future will probably bring about a workstation that will include multiple displays, that will eventually work their way into 3-D images. I can’t help but agree with him.
Mundle then used gestures to rotate and focus in on an image of a wind turbine. Gesture recognition is something that has been under development, and I’m certain will be perfected by the year 2054. (Because Minority Report takes place in that year.)
Mundle also showed how a computer can recognize handwriting when doing searches, but his results page was quite confusing as it showed many pages like a quilt of many tiny tiles. He then used eye-tracking to scan along those tiles, and each one would enlarge as it came into focus.
It really is quite amazing to see what they are working on, especially the eye-tracking. I don’t know whether that was just a special effect, but I certainly wouldn’t mind having that now. Perhaps Microsoft is one step closer to achieving that 2019 vision of the future.
Tech Cult – We cover the latest tech news, but always with a funny twist.
[ Microsoft shows off its next-gen computing muscles on campuses nationwide copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
More here:
Microsoft shows off its next-gen computing muscles on campuses nationwide
Gaze into your CRISTAL Table and remote control your future
Posted by admin in Future Concepts on August 18th, 2009
For those who have longed for a Microsoft Surface in your own home should forget it, and embrace a CRISTAL era of remote control.
CRISTAL, or Control of Remotely Interfaced Systems using Touch-based Actions in Living spaces, is a concept device that allows the user to control all the devices in their living room from one place. As you can see in the picture, the CRISTAL can connect with an overhead camera, giving you a bird’s eye view of your living room.
From there, the user just touches the image of the device to take control of it. For example, lights can be dimmed or brightened with a sliding gesture. Roomba vacuum cleaners can be controlled by simply drawing a path on the floor. See more of what it can do with this video after the jump.
What really makes it cool is that it gives the opportunity for a user to pick a movie from a digital storage space, and then drag it to the TV to watch. This also works with photos, and they can be dragged and dropped to digital picture frames.
The CRISTAL is intended to replace TV remote controls, but the designers say it will probably take five to ten years before this technology will be in the home of the typical consumer. And when I say typical, I mean rich, as it would probably cost ten to fifteen thousand dollars.
Introducing Foolish Gadgets because not all gadgets are cool
[ Gaze into your CRISTAL Table and remote control your future copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
Original post:
Gaze into your CRISTAL Table and remote control your future