Flexible Computers in the Future?

An anonymous reader writes "New Scientist is reporting on Sony bendable input devices. When computers become too small to be operated by buttons, how will we control them? The only option will be to gently bend them, according to engineers at Sony's Interaction Lab in Tokyo." The diagrams make it look like a warped Game Boy. Looks pretty cool, though.

Only option will be to gently bend them???

[sould]

When computers become too small to be operated by buttons, how will we control them? The only option will be to gently bend them, according to engineers at Sony's Interaction

Nobody considered simple voice recognition?

more ideas

[leekwen]

i remember there was a controller for the SNES, Genesis, and i think NES called the turbo touch 360 that used a laser sensor on a flat surface instead of the Dpad, i was thinking maybe an updated version of that which detects a finger covering some light emitting gizmo.

or how about connectors which can be fused through skin?

and i've often seen elevator buttons which aren't buttons but solid flat things that seem to only activate when i touch it with my finger (i tried poking one with my keys and it didn't work), i'm not sure how those work but it seems like that could be implemented in a thin device as well.

bending seems like a decent idea but i'm so used to jamming my finger onto things to make things happen.

Re:Only option will be to gently bend them???

[ibsteveog]

Voice recognition is nowhere near as capable as a mouse, keyboard, or even 'bending' for something such as gaming. Imagine playing half-life by having to say "strafe left, start shooting, duck, strafe right, stop shooting, reload, walk, stafe left, shoot, run right"... and thats not even aiming.

The only way voice recognition could handle a situation like that would to have higher level commands (almost like what you'd find in movies) that would make the game play itself, really. I imagine something like "go forward, explore cautiously... (wait wait wait) (see enemy) attack! aggressive! now evade! (enemy dies)"... i mean. Its basically playing itself (and it certainly could at that point). it'd just be a voice activated aimbot.

Now, about the only thing I think voice recognition is exceptionally good at is dictation of documents...

For everything else, there's [master]card :-P

Design fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me that flexing the device is more complex & difficult and than using buttons. I think they are barking up the wrong tree with this idea!

Re:Any ideas how this would work in real life?

[seasleepy]

Cool and useful as I think this'd be, I can just see tourists going insane trying to get one to work. (Or even just finding where they are in the first place.) Lost people with no sense of direction + map = Lost people. Lost people with no sense of direction + map the size of a credit card = Lost people with a crumpled piece of "polymer electronics."

cursor control

[ThePeices]

Im not sure the idea of moving a cursor by moving your finger on a small touchpad is the most efficient idea, UI wise. It seems too ungainly, and a pain to use. Touchpads are not as good as a mouse, especially a small one. The only easy way to interface is to touch the screen on the front. Though im not sure how one gets around entering text easily...our current ways of using a stylus, moving a cursor, or pressing tiny keyboard buttons just to enter in some words just doesnt cut it. There has to be an easier and more efficient way of doing this.

Re: possibilities....

[Cochonou]

Mhh ? I don't really see in which way the problem would be specific to bending devices. In my pocket, a device is as likely to bend as to be compressed (clicking on its eventual buttons).
So it is just a matter of having a locking function or not...

Works with mac GUI model not MS (3 button)!

[Anonymous Coward]

A Touch sensitive pad can work with :click, drag, double tap, tap, and even triple tap, but it cannot understand majically WHICH GODDAMNED finger you are using by using psychic powers.

That is why the Apple Mac OS (no second mouse button idiocy) , and NeXTStep gui (2nd mouse = 1st button unless custom overridden by user after purchase) are ideal for flexible illuminated placemat computers.

This was discussed in 1983.

Apple planned on this over 20 years ago.

That is whay a gui needs to be finger-order insensitive. The COMPLETE gui.

The mouse pointer can be drawn offset half an inch above the estimated center point of your finger tip pressure.

I love Apple. And having a graphical user interface since the Apple Lisa shipped in November 1982 (same month the black and white cassette-drive 64K ram IBM PC shipped for 600 dolalrs at Sears) is a great thing.

I am glad the Apple GUI won... but I am saddened that linux people cannot unclutter their lives and respect one-button plans on a flexible computer placemat computer of 2010.

It is perfectly suited for Apple gui model... unlike MS windows, which has a few actions that REQUIRE two buttons and cannot be implemented on a placemat flexicomputer easily.

Re:Only option will be to gently bend them???

[Chad E Dirks]

"You never heard of a throat mic/earphones?"

Interesting.

Actually, I hadn't thought about that. Of course I understand how and why they work, but it hadn't come to mind.

Just the second link on a Google search produced such a device for "tactical" use, which, it says, is capable of clearly pickup up even a whisper here [rahq.com]

While these are rather expensive, perhaps the price would be significantly lower if mass produced at the rate mobile phones and PDAs are.

That would be quite nifty.

you can write on your watch

[73939133]

This seems like a solution in search of a problem. Using Jot (or other character-at-a-time input methos), you can write on something as small as a watch face [fossil.com].

Touchable

[phorm]

If they can make a device "bendable" why not just "touchable". No large protruding buttons, but maybe something to sense impact, body heat or electrostatic impulses. My touchpad on my laptop didn't seem to have a large controller chip, if they could microsize that perhaps we could have touchpad-cards?

Wallet apps

[Elanor]

This is cool. The tourist map thing is fairly obvious, but you could have a range of different cards in your wallet, that you could swap with relatives/mates etc. The book idea is good, magazines & newspapers on card would also work. Go to the counter in the newsagents and get your choice of reading material uploaded. Etcha-sketch not far off the mark, it could be a sketchpad for your use (probs need some kind of stylus tho, extra parts == bad). Games are always good. You could have a photo album one, put it in the place in your wallet where you keep pics of your loved ones, and it could cycle through - a new pic everytime you open your wallet.

the perfect way

[tshuma]

I was wondering too much about it.. it happend years before.. but now.. I still think this is the only perfect way:
Have one litle headphone-micro in your ear. And one retina projectors (in your glasses or your heat, or whatever position). So you can see everything what is important, and you can controll with your eyes and your voice.
To call a friend just say "phone" "call" "joe"
and the call is on the way..
or if you want to know where you are, just say "map" "locate" and you will see front of you the map, and your locatinon.. and so on..
this technic is not the future.. it is working nowdays, just not included together.. yet..

I belive, this will be the modern mobile computers future..
or any one know a better one? :)

Flexible Input Device In Action

[HardcoreGamer]

Early this year, I saw some fairly sophisticated interaction using a flexible input device called ShapeTape [measurand.com], made by Canada's Measurand [measurand.com]. While the company is marketing it as a motion-capture [measurand.com] and 3D modeling technology, Tovi Grossman [toronto.edu] at the University of Toronto's Dynamic Graphics Project [toronto.edu] has been working under Ravin Balakrishnan [toronto.edu] to explore other applications for ShapeTape, including as a general input device. For example, you can use it in computer-assisted design or animation to make and perform some fairly complex 3D curves and manipulations in far less time than it would take with keyboards, mice or drawing tablets.

The Association of Computing Machinery's [acm.org] computer-human interaction publication CHI Letters' [sigchi.org] latest edition [acm.org] includes their paper on the use of ShapeTape [toronto.edu] (2 MB PDF), which was presented at the ACM CHI 2003 [chi2003.org] conference on human factors in computing systems along with MPEG demonstration videos. (3 min. basic - 15 MB [toronto.edu] | 15 min. complete - 190 MB [toronto.edu])

Grossman's Web page includes links to other videos and previous papers [toronto.edu].

Computer graphics and animation tool-maker Alias|Wavefront [aliaswavefront.com] also has several videos [aliaswavefront.com] that featured former chief scientist Bill Buxton [billbuxton.com] demonstrating ShapeTape in use:

• 3D Tapedrawing On The Wall [aliaswavefront.com] 4:33 min. - 11MB
• Digital Tape Drawing [aliaswavefront.com] 2:33 min. - 8.2MB
• Modeling With Shapetape [aliaswavefront.com] 1:14 min. 3.9MB

And, of course, ShapeTape maker Measurand also has further information and videos [measurand.com].

Fabric keyboard

[pacc]

If you want a large keyboard but don't want to carry around bigger things than your PDA there are fabric keyboards [infosyncworld.com] that double as a wrapper case.

Nintendo Power Glove ...flex resistive ...

[Ex-MislTech]

Reminds of the variable resistive nintendo power glove .

Flex resistors that change resistance based on how much
they were flexed , an old idea with a new twist .

Not sure what the spatial sensors were though ...

Ex-MislTech

Namco's NegCon

[henele]

Lower tech than most of the solutions popping up, but Namco did release the twisty NegCon [gameassault.com] controller, which in the future could be part of the time line of this field of devices...

Small Small Small

[dj015]

am i the only person who prefers big? :|

all these damm things are getting smaller and some mobile phones i cant see the screen anymore they need to be bigger not smaller

Blade Runner?

[bingo_tailspin]

Does this remind anyone else of that picture browser in Blade Runner?