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Open-Source Multitouch Display
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri May 02, 2008 09:24 PM
from the yes-she-knows-it's-a-multipass dept.
from the yes-she-knows-it's-a-multipass dept.
shankar writes "Engineers at Eyebeam, an art and technology center based in New York, have created a scaled-down open-source version of Surface, called Cubit. By sharing the Cubit's hardware schematics and software source code, the engineers are significantly reducing the cost of owning a multitouch table. 'Multitouch displays are not new technology; in fact, they've been built in research labs for decades. Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs created an iconic multitouch table called DiamondTouch; more recently, Jeff Han, founder of Perceptive Pixel, based in New York, developed wall-sized multitouch screens that he sells to corporations and major government agencies. But because of the falling costs of many touch-screen components, such as infrared light sources and small cameras and projectors, it's now becoming feasible for people without access to a lab or venture-capital money to make their own multitouch displays.'"
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Apple: Multitouch Gesture Patents Could Prevent Standardization 210 comments
ozmanjusri brings us a Wired report on Apple's efforts to patent the multitouch gestures used on their laptops, smartphones, and tablets. The article discusses concerns over how this could affect the standardization of certain gestures in developing multitouch technology. We've previously discussed the patent applications themselves. Quoting Wired:
"If Apple's patent applications are successful, other manufacturers may have no choice but to implement multitouch gestures of their own. The upshot: You might pinch to zoom on your phone, swirl your finger around to zoom on your notebook, and triple-tap to zoom on the web-browsing remote control in your home theater. That's an outcome many in the industry would like to avoid. Synaptics, a company that by most estimates supplies 65 to 70 percent of the notebook industry with its touchpad technology, is working on its own set of universal touch gestures that it hopes will become a standard. These gestures include scrolling by making a circular motion, moving pictures or documents with a flip of the finger, and zooming in or out by making, yes, a pinching gesture."
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Don't forget Reactrix... (Score:4, Interesting)
Mod parent up! (Score:2)
Multitouch isn't new... (Score:2, Interesting)
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Seamless synchronization, which can be achieved with any of today's operating systems, is functionally beyond Sur
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Automatic synchronisation is pretty trivial. I used to have a script on my PowerBook that was triggered whenever my phone entered range and ran iSync if it hadn't sync'd for more than 24 hours.
The nice thing about a multitough table is that it can extend the user interface of devices placed on (or near) it. Making syncing trivial is important, but being able to transfer a subset of the data is also important. You can put your phone and a friend's phone down on the table and have it display a larger vi
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Cubit Websites (Score:3, Informative)
http://nortd.com/cubit/ [nortd.com]
http://eyebeam.org/project/cubit [eyebeam.org]
mod parent up! (Score:2)
mr. lee (Score:3, Informative)
Someone needs to get compiz running with this (Score:3, Interesting)
Table schmable... how about a bartop? (Score:2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peWX0hcqGdc [youtube.com]
Figured it was frustrated total internal reflection at work and managed to find out that the concept is pretty much unpatentable due to prior art. Not very often you see that!
That video does go to show that 'nifty' goes a lot farther than just computer based interaction. I'm imagining some cool new video game concepts, like virtual air-hockey or pong, plus games whose imputs might be be
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With a multitouch surface and appropriate desktop UI software, it allows anyone to do things that they would be hindered in doing with keyboard and mouse. This type of interface is much more intuitive in
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I type around 80 wpm, and I bounce back and forth between keyboard and mouse, depending on which is faster for a given task. I've even become really accustom to hitting Win+R or Alt+F2 and then typing a program name, as opposed to using a Start or KDE Menu, and
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Whether it is for multiple people or not, it does change the interface for the computer to a more 'natural' environment. You and I and many others are quite adept with mouse and keyboard for one reason or another, but joe bloggs is not. It is joe bloggs that it will help the most. In a "failure mode test" (TM) it will succeed where keyboard and mouse do not. Think of the physically impa
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I'm an artist. When I do art in the real world I'm working on a big surface. When I do art in the computer I'm squinting at it through the lens of my laptop screen. I would much rather spend about $1000 for a table-size display I could draw directly onto than the $2500 a 21" Cintiq tablet would cost.
If your main use for the computer is "writing" - whether it be code, text, mail, irc, or whatever - then yes, a keyboard is your best choice.
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As a side note, I'd wager that you never learned to type properly. Put another way, there is no reason why someone who can type at 45 wpm shouldn't be typing at 65 wpm minimum comfortably and with increased accuracy.
Not worth the effort? Perhaps, but consider the time required for a course and some initial practice versus gaining a 50% improvement in speed for the rest of your typing days.
Me, I took typing class way back when in high school because I thoug
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In high school I was the ONLY guy in the typing class. I took it because I figured some how, some way, I'd be working with computers some day.
Yes, back then I could hit 60wpm pretty good. Now, I'm just a little lazy really. If I wanted to be faster I would.
I've been to meetings where when asked if I'll share my notes and I reply yes, everyone else (including the secretary types there) will shut down their notebooks. I type and talk at the same time and only fuck up if I look at the
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Is there a "natural fashion" to use a computer?
As a drafting table-trained draftsman (back 25 years or so ago) I had to learn how to interpret the real world at a small scale. Going to CAD and a 14" screen was tough because I couldn't see the extents of my normal 22"x34" (or larger - some older P&IDs were on scrolls many feet long) field of view. Later I used dual 21" C
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In short, I think that multi-touch is a much better approach to computational collaboration that the single node per user approach... but one has to realize that it's still in its infantile state (for a typical, off-the-street user).
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Uuuuh? You think that someone who's attempting to do something is cooler than someone with an actual finished product, that you can build yourself right now as the designer's have published the software & hardware schematics?
Seriously? What makes this kid's attempt at something much cooler than eyebeam's table?
(Oh, and your name is like my sig)