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Hitachi Does Microsoft Surface Without the Table

Posted by Zonk on Thu Jan 17, 2008 08:42 AM
from the enless-variations-on-a-really-cool-theme dept.
Toys Hardware Technology
An anonymous reader writes "According to CNET.co.uk, who randomly stumbled into a booth at CES, Toshiba has created a Microsoft Surface-type system without the unwieldy table. 'The StarBoard system is really two technologies in one. Firstly, it features Hitachi's short-throw LCD projector. This is important, because the projector sits mere inches from the interactive surface. This means you get a huge — 50-inch, in fact — bright screen, which doesn't get blocked out by your head as you lean over the table. The image it projects is incredibly high-quality too, and there was no noticeable distortion.' The video attached to the article shows the system in action." It should be noted that the implication that leaning over the table blocks a projection from above is spurious; the Surface projects an image from below. The 'overhead' setup at CES was a camera designed to show onlookers what was taking place on the table.
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[+] Microsoft's Multitouch Coffee Table Display 466 comments
longacre writes "Popular Mechanics takes the Microsoft Surface system for a hands-on video test drive. To be announced at today's D5 conference, the coffee-table-esqe device allows manipulation from multiple touch points, while infrared, WiFi and Bluetooth team up to allow wireless transfers between devices placed on top of it, such as cameras and cell phones. Expected to launch before the end of the year in the $5,000-$10,000 range, the devices might not make their way under many Christmas trees, but will find the insides of Starwood hotels, Harrah's casinos and T-Mobile shops."
Submission: Hitachi do Microsoft Surface without the table by Anonymous Coward
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  • ICARS -- the interactive touch-screen displays seen on Star Trek: The Next Generation and later shows predicted this as far back as what? 1986 or 1987 or something? And now it's here for real.

    I see this as ideal for collaboration. Gather a bunch of people around the big screen and they can all make changes in realtime. Very nice.

    • Re:ICARS predicted this! (Score:4, Informative)

      by B3ryllium (571199) on Thursday January 17 2008, @09:50AM (#22080182) Homepage
      LCARS, not ICARS. The "L" stands for Library.
    • Wasn't there something like this in "Hunt for Red October" as well? Like a computerized chart table.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by vegiVamp (518171)

      I may be wrong - I'm only a regular trek viewer - but I don't remember any trek, even the most recent (Enterprise) or the farthest in the future (future federation timeships in Voyager and Enterprise) that clearly had multitouch interfaces. Touchscreen, yes, but not multitouch as in the typical picture-rotate-and-resize demos we get these days.

      If those kinds of interfaces were pictured and imagined since back then, I think they'd have been implemented years back as well. Palo Alto et al were quite the innov

      • Re:ICARS predicted this! (Score:4, Informative)

        by daenris (892027) on Thursday January 17 2008, @10:32AM (#22080716)
        While the first mass-media use may have been in Minority Report, research on multi-touch systems goes back at least to the mid-80s, and quite possibly before. http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html [billbuxton.com]

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by CodeBuster (516420)
        One of the interesting things about Star Trek is that the concepts frequently exceeded the ability of the set designers or the prop builders to keep up. If you get some of the coffee table books where they include some of the concept and designer notes from when say TNG, DS9, Voyager, or even Enterprise were being developed they include such items as three dimensional holographic displays, completely voice actuated systems with no buttons or control panels at all (ruled too advanced for 24th century at the
    • And now we're supposed to just sit back and watch as we all get our arms broken by sore loser wookies? No fucking thank you, I'll stick with my monitor.

  • The future is here... (Score:4, Funny)

    by PietjeJantje (917584) on Thursday January 17 2008, @08:48AM (#22079624)
    More big ass tables! [jibjab.com]
    • Speaking of ass, these tables are a definitive upgrade from photocopiers at office christmas parties. Just imagine the possibilities ...

  • shadows (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gEvil (beta) (945888) on Thursday January 17 2008, @08:48AM (#22079630)
    This means you get a huge -- 50-inch, in fact -- bright screen, which doesn't get blocked out by your head as you lean over the table.

    No, but you do get big shadowhands when you use the touch surface. If they found a way to do this with two projectors, though, you'd probably be able to avoid even that (though alignment/convergence issues would be a bitch).
    • Or do what other multitouch systems do - rear projection. The short-throw projector still has an advantage because it allows the table to be thinner.

      The only way this would be truly unique is if you combine the short-throw projector optics with those pocket-sized projectors and have the motion sensing cameras built into the same unit as well... then you would literally have a pocket-sized, large area multitouch interface that could be used on any surface.

      Does anyone know if someone's gotten multitouch input
      • Or do what other multitouch systems do - rear projection.

        Which sort of defeats the purpose of having a highly portable touch-surface system. One of the HUGE benefits of this system is that you can set it up on any conference room table and it'll work. All you need is a large flat surface. If you messed with rear projection, then you'd suddenly need to either find a big glass table, or you'd need to lug one around with the projection system.
        • Congratulations on being able to completely avoid the second paragraph of my post.

          =Smidge=
            • Yes, they DO talk about two different things... that's why I made them seperate paragraphs.

              My first comment was in direct reply to the parent. The current setup is not that portable, and using two projectors would be even less so - not only because it's twice the equipment, but because they would have to be carefully aligned and spaced. And you would still have "shadows" in that setup - areas of the display that are half as bright.

              My second paragraph was my own comment that a shadow is not a big deal for a
            • I'm not talking about either one. I threw out an idea for a totally different device that combines aspects of several other devices - one of which being Hitachi's short-throw projection optics - to make something that is unique, portable and useful to the point where shadow issues are easily overlooked by the user. I really don't see anything in the wording of my original post that suggested otherwise.

              Maybe you're just not used to being presented with more than one opinion at a time? Does looking at a desig
        • If you messed with rear projection, then you'd suddenly need to either find a big glass table, or you'd need to lug one around with the projection system.

          Use a collapsible table. It could be the modern equivalent of the roll-up movie/slide projection screens most families in the US used to have at home. The whole thing could collapse into a small-suitcase-type package, like I'm assuming the Hitachi device does.

      • The only way this would be truly unique is if you combine the short-throw projector optics with those pocket-sized projectors and have the motion sensing cameras built into the same unit as well... then you would literally have a pocket-sized, large area multitouch interface that could be used on any surface.

        You mean like the laser keyboard, [thinkgeek.com] on a larger display scale?

      • "Or do what other multitouch systems do - "

        'other multitiuch...'? Tracking hand-movement has nothing to do with touch-sensitive screens or surfaces. MS Surface tracks, just as the Hitachi system. Neither has touch-coordinate capability.
    • If they found a way to do this with two projectors, though, you'd probably be able to avoid even that (though alignment/convergence issues would be a bitch).

      Johnny Lee, who is actually mentioned in a post further down, did this already using low cost projectors and surfaces.

      Look at Automatic Projector Calibration on his website: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/thesis/ [cmu.edu]

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by gEvil (beta) (945888)
        And if you'd read the article and watched the video, you'd see that Zonk's comment really has no place here, since he's talking about how the MS Surface works. The Hitachi system demonstrated here is very much a short-throw projector that projects the image downwards onto the surface (hence negating the need for a full-table solution, as the MS one requires). Unless they've figured out a way for light to travel through opaque objects, you will get shadows.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Jah-Wren Ryel (80510)
          Reading between the lines, they say the projector is "inches" away from the table. The only way I can see that working is if the projector is off to one side and has massive keystone correction. So you will get shadows from fingers that touch the surface, but not from heads or hands that are above the table by more than a few inches.
          • The only way I can see that working is if the projector is off to one side and has massive keystone correction

            Yes, that's exactly how it works in the video. I like the table better, although a front-projector probably results in better contrast and colour.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by nherc (530930)
        If you'd RTFA and not just RTFS, you'd see the summary was bollocksed and the editors are either still half asleep or in the same boat as you.

        From the article linked in the summary with my comments in parentheses:

        The StarBoard system is really two technologies in one. Firstly, it features Hitachi's short-throw LCD projector. This is important, because the projector sits mere inches from the interactive surface (on top of the table/surface, which is clearly seen in the video). This means you get a huge --

      • If you watched the video you'd see the projector displays the image on top of your hands and they drop shadows on the surface.

  • Wii guy will do this! (Score:4, Funny)

    by altoz (653655) on Thursday January 17 2008, @08:49AM (#22079638)
    I'm just waiting for the wii guy to do the same thing for like $5
  • Instead of your head casting the shadow, your hand will? I think I'd still rather have the rear-projection in that case.

  • Microsoft already did this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Xest (935314) on Thursday January 17 2008, @09:02AM (#22079752)
    Microsoft has done surface without the table, in fact, that's how the whole tech started off.

    See here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xujhFInvyxo [youtube.com]

    or here:

    http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/03/microsoft_research_techfe.html [makezine.com]

    It's the original demonstration from where the current surface stemmed.

    A specific table isn't essential to the surface concept.

  • So it's a smartboard on its side... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by millia (35740) on Thursday January 17 2008, @09:22AM (#22079894) Homepage
    So it's an interactive whiteboard on the table instead of the wall. Aka, activboard, smartboard, mimio.
    Well, okay, it's multi-touch instead of single touch, but it's still not *that* fancy.

    BTW, those short throw projectors use a crazy fisheye lens to avoid keystoning. From our experience with them in the aforementioned whiteboards, the picture isn't as clear as a regular projector, and it's harder than normal to get good focus. When you're very near to the board, it gets quite noticeable.
    • Well, okay, it's multi-touch instead of single touch, but it's still not *that* fancy.

      There is a lot of interesting research into the kinds of UIs you can do with a multi-touch table interface that can't be done with a screen. My favourite was a video of some students (at MIT, I think?) who had built one that also detected the position of marked physical objects which acted as various components in a virtual sound synthesizer program (so you could e.g. put a plastic star which represented a lowpass filter o

  • education (Score:3, Insightful)

    by apodyopsis (1048476) on Thursday January 17 2008, @09:27AM (#22079948)
    they don't half hard on about the education market for this new projector on some of the other sites mentioning it.

    I was taught in an old fashioned British school with blackboards, chalk, uniforms and traditional methods. Is it just me who thinks that emphasis on gadgets like this will simply cost schools money and distract from the subject matter of the lesson.

    By all means get the whizzy gadgetry, but remember that its no substitute for competent teachers and a well planned curriculum.

    Of course this is /. and this comment is slightly off topic, so feel free to mode me to oblivion...

    • They're going on about the education market, because that's where this sort of technology is already in use - several of my relatives are teachers, and even primary schools are using interactive whiteboards now, and apart from the times when the laptop running it gets broken by one of the kids, they love the things, because they can do things like preparing their notes before a lesson, and just loading them at the appropriate time.

      That means they can spend more time teaching their students, instead of writi

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by SargentDU (1161355)
      I was in a military school in the 1970's (1979 actually) where the instructor used markers on a white board and
      pressed a button on the whiteboard and then passed out handouts with the screen drawing on it. He pressed
      another button and a wiper passed across the board and restored it to all white so he could write and draw as
      he pleased. It did not get in the way of education, in fact, it facilitated the instructor and his efforts.
    • I've felt the same in many respects, and when I was just finishing school they did start to use the early incarnation of the 'interactive whiteboard' in one of the classrooms. I generally found it quite pointless, but my mind was changed when I saw that recently there's a lot of research that's been done (citation needed, I'm sorry, this is a quick post) that shows they readily improve young school children's attention span by a huge amount, even if it's what they were used to from the start. There's just s
      • It may be that children are paying more attention to the large TV at the front of the room (what these things really are) than they were to the teacher, but my take is that much like the 5-second cuts in current TV shows, bright flashy colors and animation isn't "improving" anyone's attention span. For non-animated, non-colored, non-audio presentation of information (you know, those things called "books" or most of the "real" content on the Internet) this is likely to have an adverse affect. As television c
  • CNET for getting the technology wrong or /. for saying it's Toshiba not Hitachi? Standards sinking ...
  • It should also be noted that it appears the Hitachi can only support two simultaneous touches at a time, while the Surface can currently recognize up to 52 different touches and even specific items with visual codes fixed to them.
  • I seem to remember this being done in the mid-80s of the last century with a Commodore Amiga and a Live! video digitizer board. If I could be assed to Google it, I suppose I could quickly invalidate any subsequent patent claims
  • Hitachi makes StarBoard System, i guess someone will soon make a BSD flavored one and call it Ports :)

  • orientation (Score:3, Funny)

    by hey (83763) on Thursday January 17 2008, @10:22AM (#22080568) Journal
    I think you'd get backache if you learned of over a Surface-like thing for a while.
    Maybe the answer is to flip it up horizontal.
    To avoid the cost of a touch screen (or sensors) you might instead use a mouse on a flat surface like a desk.
    That would be one awesome system!

  • What I want is not so much a table, but a tilted drawing board [google.com]. This projection tech can do that. Hell, a nice big DLP/HDMI TV can do that, tilted over and propped up.

    What we need is coffee mugs, pens, magazines and other regular objects that can stick on the tilted surface. 3M Post-Its tech to the rescue?

  • Microsoft Surface is not about the table (Score:5, Insightful)

    by El Cabri (13930) on Thursday January 17 2008, @11:05AM (#22081116) Journal
    The actual hardware is not what Microsoft is after with the Surface, but rather the software, development platform and user experience. For all of these prototypes that explore various ways of bringing the image to any big flat surface and to track the user's touch, all of them show you how to use google maps, and then their ad-hoc photo shuffling application, and that's all. None of them has yet any real useful application or complete SDK with hardware support abstracted.
    • If Microsoft tried this 10 to 15 years ago, they might have gotten away with it as an original idea.

      Surface doesn't have to be an "original" idea, whatever that means, it only has to be the better idea, the practical implementation of the idea. Surface is software that works with the simplest and most reliable of off-the-shelf hardware. It can read tokens printed or stamped into objects like game pieces. It might be able do biometric IDs.

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