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Apple's All-Seeing Screen

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wed Apr 26, 2006 03:26 PM
from the don't-leave-this-on-by-accident dept.
Displays Businesses Apple
Based on a recent patent we may be seeing a new kind of display coming from the Apple store in the near future, one that can capture images as well as display them. From the article: "The clever idea is to insert thousands of microscopic image sensors in-between the liquid crystal display cells in the screen. Each sensor captures its own small image, but software stitches these together to create a single, larger picture."
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  • Clandestine image capture (Score:5, Funny)

    by nizo (81281) * on Wednesday April 26 2006, @03:27PM (#15207413) Homepage Journal
    Now I know which monitor to recommend to that cute neighbor next door. "Sure, I would be happy to help you set up your new monitor and wireless router!" Which reminds me, which wireless router would be the best for streaming video?

  • Ministry of Truth (Score:5, Funny)

    by AKAImBatman (238306) * <akaimbatman.gmail@com> on Wednesday April 26 2006, @03:27PM (#15207415) Homepage Journal
    So, what you're telling me is that Apple is NOT really the enemy of Big Brother, but Big Brother in disguise? I'm so confused. How can there be so many truths? The Ministry is supposed to protect us against such confusion by telling us ONLY the truth! If you'll excuse me, I think I need to go watch my telescreen now. Perhaps the truth is there.

    Down with Goldstein!

    (For those lacking context: Commercial [uriahcarpenter.info] | 1984 [gutenberg.net.au])

  • Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. (Score:3, Funny)

    by pintomp3 (882811) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @03:28PM (#15207416)
    i need one of these all-seeing screens i guess

  • Obligatory: Facecrime (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RobertB-DC (622190) * on Wednesday April 26 2006, @03:29PM (#15207435) Homepage Journal
    "It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself -- anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called."

    Found it here: http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-dict.html [newspeakdictionary.com]

  • D'oh! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rollgunner (630808) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @03:31PM (#15207458)
    Now we won't be able to tell the classic "Blonde holding the page up to her monitor and pressing the 'PrintScreen' key" joke anymore...

  • Workaround (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MECC (8478) * on Wednesday April 26 2006, @03:32PM (#15207459)
    Kodak's patent mentions previous research suggesting a correlation between age and the way pupils react to light. As a person gets older, their pupils have greater difficulty widening to cope with dim light, it says. The company suggests that an age-verification system could take mug shots of a person from a set distance in controlled lighting, using a flash. Software would then measure the size of their red-eye dots to determine how wide their pupils are and make an estimate of their age.

    I wonder if a picture of an older person with the red eyes in would fool such a sampling.

  • bad jokes from the grave (Score:3, Funny)

    by afex2win (941849) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @03:34PM (#15207480)
    so does this mean those old email jokes that "took a picture of you magically through your monitor" might actually end up showing an ugly nerd instead of a monkey?
  • The iSight video camera was distinctive back when it was introduced for two reasons (versus most other web cams commonly used at that time). First, it connected via FireWire. Second, it came with mounting brackets (included, for free in the iSight box) to attach the camera securely to the top center of Apple's LCD monitors and laptop screens.

    The result of this second "innovation"? iSight video confernces looked significantly more natural and more natural than web conferences hosted using Logitech and other web cams that (typically) sat to the bottom right or left of the computer monitor (or awkwardly on top) and, hence, gave participants really skewed views of each others' faces.

    The innovation described in TFA is the logical next step of this eminently sensible design decision that Apple has been promoting for years.

    (Side note: the reason why the iSight demos in Apple keynote addresses look so darn good is that the participants are looking at the iSight camera, and not at the actual screen when they're doing the demo. It's a very subtle shift, but it still matters. Kind of a clever, sneaky way to make the product look even better than it actually does.)

    • No. Autofocus, decent appearance, large CCD. (Score:5, Informative)

      by SuperBanana (662181) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @04:10PM (#15207799)
      The iSight video camera was distinctive back when it was introduced for two reasons (versus most other web cams commonly used at that time). First, it connected via FireWire. Second, it came with mounting brackets (included, for free in the iSight box) to attach the camera securely to the top center of Apple's LCD monitors and laptop screens. The result of this second "innovation"? iSight video confernces looked significantly more natural and more natural than web conferences hosted using Logitech and other web cams that (typically) sat to the bottom right or left of the computer monitor (or awkwardly on top) and, hence, gave participants really skewed views of each others' faces.

      Number one, iSight cameras aren't even remotely as popular as all the PC USB-based webcams; they're EVERYWHERE, and ISPs for years have been giving them away as freebies. Number two, the iSight wasn't distinctive because of its interface; webcams have been available for years with USB2. I strongly suspect it was firewire because most people NEED their USB ports for keyboards and mice, but don't really use their firewire port except for occasional camcorder use, if at all.

      The iSight was distinctive because:

      • Physical appearance A bit of cheap cast aluminum looked a hell of a lot better than a few cents of plastic.
      • Autofocus
      • A relatively large CCD size for lower noise (a larger CCD also makes optics easier/less critical)
      • built-in microphone specifically designed for the purpose
      • A somewhat decent lens
      • Privacy shutter

      The mounting devices just make it slightly more convenient to attach the camera, particularly if you had an Apple LCD. It's a problem solved with a little bit of tape, by the way.

      Another "by the way"- the iSight cameras in the Macbook and iMac absolutely SUCK. They're basically cellphone cameras; microscopic lens and CCD, no autofocus. No privacy shutter. The picture is very noisy and low resolution, the colors are funky...

    • Re:Apple has been a leader in addressing this prob (Score:4, Informative)

      by am 2k (217885) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @04:13PM (#15207828) Homepage
      Side note: the reason why the iSight demos in Apple keynote addresses look so darn good is that the participants are looking at the iSight camera, and not at the actual screen when they're doing the demo. It's a very subtle shift, but it still matters.

      I know somebody with a MacBook Pro, and when I video chat with her, it looks like she's looking into the camera, when she's actually not. That's probably caused by the camera being so close to the screen. I have a 24" TFT with an iSight on top of it, and the illusion isn't there.

  • Lenses? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ungrounded Lightning (62228) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @03:40PM (#15207536) Journal
    Unless they've also inserted thousands of tiny lenses the device is just a cute hack to create a no-moving-parts contact scanner. Put the thing you want scanned up to the screen and illuminate it with the screen's light. (You can get color by having the sensors sensitive to all the colors of the screen and flashing the screen in each color.)

    With lenses they could make it an insect-style compound eye. But the focus would probably be pretty rotten due to diffraction limits from the small size of the lenses. (You might be able to post-process some of that out, though.)

    • You can take pictures with a scanner. A guy did it and put the pictures up on his webpage. They were amazingly good for not even having been made using any kind of jig, he just held the scanner up and rotated his viewpoint (and thus, its as well) while the scanning element moved.

      If you pointed all the elements in the same direction (perpendicular to the display of course) then you could get a fairly high-resolution image of anything directly in front of the monitor, and with infinite depth of field with

          • Re:Lenses? (Score:3, Interesting)

            by birge (866103)
            with astonomical interferometry, you cause light from two different paths to hit on the SAME detector at the same point, thereby interfering. also, light from stars IS pretty much spatially coherent (because it's from so far away that it looks like a plane wave). but the main thing i was talking about was the fact that you can only do interferometry when you get the two (or more) sources onto the same detector. if we could measure the phase of light directly, there would be no end to the really cool stuff w

  • Could they call it... (Score:5, Funny)

    by iolaus (704845) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @03:41PM (#15207537) Homepage
    The the iSaruman?

    Muahahahahaha!

  • Jesus christ, people. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Gannoc (210256) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @03:42PM (#15207548)

    My iMac has a freaking camera in it too, and i'm not stocking up on canned goods in fear of the inevitable war with Eurasia.

    I mean, it contains similarities to a fictional device...and you're acting like the only use is in the same sci-fi scenario.

  • So if I throw a hammer at it... (Score:5, Funny)

    by richdun (672214) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @03:46PM (#15207589)
    ...is that covered under the warranty?

  • Touch screen, not camera! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by isaac (2852) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @03:56PM (#15207672)
    Think touch-screen here, not camera. Regular touch screens typically register only a single point at a time. There are alternatives that use frustrated total internal reflection, but currently these require rear projection - not feasible for a tablet. See http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/ [nyu.edu] if you haven't already.

    Incorporating sensing elements within the display will permit sensing multiple simultaneous points of contact of arbitrary size/shape in a tablet form-factor. Neat!

    Apple's been patenting lots of touch-interface concepts recently, too. Vide. [uspto.gov]

    This patent is probably more about touch-screens than screen as scanner (that'd be a neat trick too, but probably would require too much resolution) or camera (would require a different but perfectly calibrated refractive element at each sensor - probably impractical).

    -Isaac

  • I realised I had seen this awful thing before... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Cally (10873) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @03:58PM (#15207686) Homepage
    "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen, when Skynet achieved consciousness."

  • No one else has said it yet (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Nom du Keyboard (633989) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @03:58PM (#15207687)
    I guess now, on the Internet they will know you're a dog.

  • The age of magicians (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zpok (604055) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @04:07PM (#15207779) Homepage
    I'd love to just point and speak to my computer, and where convenient use a tablet or glove or whatever comes most natural.

    Reminds me of Sun's vision of the future. What was that video called? Starlight?

  • online facials (Score:4, Funny)

    by pintomp3 (882811) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @04:08PM (#15207780)
    this is going to combine online sex with more realist facials... i'm guessing these things will have no secondhand market.

  • When does a camscreen become mandatory? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Catbeller (118204) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @04:12PM (#15207819) Homepage
    When does a camscreen become mandatory?

    I'm not kidding here. After all, if I'd told you ten years ago that by 2005, all cell phones would have a mandatory GPS tracker broadcasting your location to the phone company as you move about, with a nominal abilty to be switched off (ha), would you have believed me?

    I see no outrage over Homeland Security, your phone company, Scientology, and any random corporation with a legal staff being capable of tracking your movements for the rest of your lives. Where is the outrage?

    I see no problem with camscreens becoming mandatory in the next 15 years. Even the techiest of the techies have no problem with the tracking devices in their phones, cameras on the streets, and eventually mandatory trackers in our cars, so letting Mr. X watch you as you all watch your computer screens is not a biggie. I can see an infinite number of excuses to make it required by law. Hell, even the emergency health care bit that they used for the cell phones could be re-rigged for this one.

    And the generation of kids coming up through school have been seen drug tests, dog searches, RFID trackers, and lie detectors. They've been told they have no rights as minors, and I doubt they'll be any more rebellious as adults. They're also convinced they are surrounded by enemies wanting the kill them in their schoolbuses and office buildings, so the fear excuse is a big Go.

    Such a neat device, a camscreen. Here's what I'd like: separate power circuits for the screen and the camera element array. So I *know* that the thing cannot operate without my permission. But I wanted that for my cell phone's tracking device, and so far the phone salesmen look at me like I'm bin Laden or a specially-abled adult who left his house without his nurse. (big thought: look overseas for a phone capable of giving me the option of being untracked, import the damned thing. Maybe I am a little slow).

    • After all, if I'd told you ten years ago that by 2005, all cell phones would have a mandatory GPS tracker broadcasting your location to the phone company as you move about, with a nominal abilty to be switched off (ha), would you have believed me?

      No, I wouldn't have believed you, and I still don't. Know why? Because it's not true. At least, not here in the US. Also, at least in some GPS phones, the GPS cannot be switched off, period.

      At least two cellphone providers in the US balked long enough, get

    • Re:When does a camscreen become mandatory? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mrchaotica (681592) * on Wednesday April 26 2006, @05:20PM (#15208300)
      I'm not kidding here. After all, if I'd told you ten years ago that by 2005, all cell phones would have a mandatory GPS tracker broadcasting your location to the phone company as you move about, with a nominal abilty to be switched off (ha), would you have believed me?
      Don't you realize that every cellphone since the beginning of time has had a tracking ability? It has to, by design -- otherwise, the system won't know which tower to route the call to. The only difference with the new ones is that triangulation via GPS is more accurate than triangulation via cellphone towers.

  • What's with all the big brother jokes? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by posterlogo (943853) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @04:19PM (#15207882)
    It's not like having an imbedded eyesight camera in powerbooks or iMacs is that different. There's still a camera pointed at you. I remember back when those old Sony compact laptops had the camera included too. Honestly. What's with all the clandestine spying/big brother hype? How bout we stick to the technology.

    With that in mind, I'd be interested in knowing how such a microsensor would work without a focusing element...

  • Reminds me of the support story (Score:3, Funny)

    by blueZ3 (744446) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @04:21PM (#15207899) Homepage
    Where the guy tells IT he can't fax a document and it turns out he's been holding it up to the screen. Now it will work!

  • Predator like invisibility? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LWATCDR (28044) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @04:36PM (#15208014) Homepage Journal
    Make make a cube of these and have the senors in one screen fed the opposite screen. If they could get it to work with epaper then all the better.
    Yes I know it wouldn't be perfect but it could be very cool.
  • First for all of those posting "Heeeey, way to spy on chicks!": You're why many women dislike /. You're not funny; you're sad, creepy, and need to get a life.

    I'll also point out a relative of mine had this happen to her. She's a pretty, vivacious, young woman, married, was then working in a public relations firm. The IT fellow was always a little too attentive for her comfort, to the degree she actively avoided calling him for issues.

    Eventually she needed her speakers for a project, but rather then call in creepy IT guy she asked office clever guy to take a look, it was probably just a loose wire or something. That was indeed the issue, however he also discovered an additional cable, running to a camera, mounted under her desk staring into her crotch, feeding into a nearby cabinet with a VCR.

    Much hullaballoo ensued, everyone in the building heard of it within a few minutes, much to the ire of the police. There were fingerprints, and all of the fellas in the office but for creepy IT guy offered theirs for comparison. none of the supplied prints matched, IT guy quit, relative had her desk replaced with a table.

    That's who you sound like when you post stuff like that.

    The good news is Steve Jobs has been here before. I remember NeXT bringing around one of their boxes to demo at my local http://www.acm.org/ [acm.org]">ACM chapter. It came with a nifty built-in microphone, to which someone immediately noted "great for spying!" The NeXT rep gave a smile and pointed to the red LED next to the microphone, hardwired to light up whenever the microphone was active.

    This practice continues to this day at Apple, putting in hardwired signal LEDs to indicate when a camera is active. My expectation is that this will continue. Indeed I wouldn't be surprised if Apple were to even include a camera-active screen mode to brighten it for a better picture when the camera is active, possibly swapping in a white background.

  • This has lots of applications (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dmoen (88623) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @04:44PM (#15208062) Homepage
    The patent application [uspto.gov] mentions a number of applications: (1) video conferencing, (2) using the screen to replace the camera in multi-function portable devices like PDAs and mobile phones, (3) medical probes that must capture an image and supply their own illumination.

    Slashdot user Isaac mentions the idea of using this for a touch sensitive display. I couldn't find this mentioned in the patent application, so the race is on to file a follow-on patent!

    But you wouldn't actually have to touch the screen. Years ago, MIT built a user interface called "put that there" that did gaze tracking and voice recognition, so that the "mouse pointer" was pointing at whatever object you happened to be looking at on the display. No need to touch a mouse, you just use your gaze. That might be possible with this technology. It could also be used to interpret hand gestures and facial expressions, and use them as input.

    I personally think it would be cool to build a software-programmable mirror. Think of a bathroom mirror with zoom functionality, image enhancement functions, etc. The extra functions are activated by hand gestures, and face recognition is used to determine the centre of zoom (because in a bathroom, you normally want to zoom in on your face).

    Doug Moen

  • This technology presents interesting ideas... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by alchemist68 (550641) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @05:20PM (#15208295)
    Assuming Apple gains significant market share in corporate America (and the world), the following scenarios are possible:

    1. Your boss can actually watch you pick your nose and possibly see what you do with the booger. Options include wiping it on something, flicking it somewhere in your office/cubicle, eating it.

    2. Your boss can view your facial expression to determine if you enjoy your job, enjoy your current task, day dreaming, sleeping on the job, or in general wasting time.

    3. Your boss can see what you're eating/drinking while at work.

    4. Your boss can see your facial expressions and behavior while looking at members of the same/opposite gender.

    5. Your boss can see with whom you socialize and network while in front of your computer.

    6. With regard to unauthorized employee monitoring, this technology could possibly be defeated with a semi-transparent mirror.

    Fellow Slashdotters, please reply with ideas that I've missed/omitted!

  • Oh great (Score:5, Funny)

    by proverbialcow (177020) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @05:26PM (#15208330) Journal
    First I get in trouble for looking at pr0n at work. Now I'm going to get in trouble for masturbating, too?
    • How is it any scarier from a privacy angle than a webcam? You chose whether you buy this kind of monitor, after all. Its more convenient than a webcam, but not necessarily scarier. Sure, screens outside of your control could have this functionality, but its not like concealed cameras in spaces under otehr people's control aren't a possibility (and frequent fact) of life without these new monitors.

    • Re:details? (Score:5, Informative)

      by TheRaven64 (641858) on Wednesday April 26 2006, @03:46PM (#15207590) Homepage Journal
      an image "stitched together" from thousands of tiny (but physically spread out) sensors, has got to look like it is on drugs.

      The highest resolution radio telescopes work by reconstructing an image from multiple spread-out receivers. I saw a demo at Cambridge about a decade ago where they used the same concept on optical wavelengths to produce a clearer image than Hubble was capable of from a small set of ground-based telescopes.

      • I would suspect that this will be more like a scanner, in that the sensors will probably all be looking in the same direction.

        So did Orwell's original telescreen- Winston Smith took advantage of the shape of his apartment (a rectangular shoe box) and put the telescreen on the long wall, so that he could put his writing desk beside it and not be spied upon while writing in his diary.

        Unfortunately quicktime has taken ownership of whatever format the patent images are in, and is drawing only the top few p

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