'Cut and Paste' Is Out, 'Pick and Drop' Is In 327
Roland Piquepaille writes "How do you exchange a file with a colleague or a photograph with a family member? Chances are that you cut the desired element and paste it into your e-mail program to send it. Now, imagine yourself in a meeting, picking a file on your PDA with a digital pen and using the same pen to drop it on your friend's laptop screen. This is exactly what Jun Rekimoto and his team at Sony Interaction Laboratory have developed with their 'pick and drop' technique. BBC News looks at this project in Digital pen takes on mouse. Because it's based on cheap and existing components, such a system might be released in the near future, though Sony hasn't announced any plans to do it. You'll find more details and pictures in this overview."
Novelty? (Score:4, Insightful)
Will it work on linux? (Score:1, Insightful)
Will MS support it?
Will they give these pens out for free?
Will anyone actually use it?
The question (Score:5, Insightful)
What's sad about the above statement is it's not meant as humor.
Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Other more permenant uses would also be cool, get train schedules (including changes due to repairs (Those in NYC know just how important that detail is) at the station with a quick touch.
Good thing (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure it won't be as efficient as cut + paste (won't work on remote machines for e.g.), or as powerful + customisable as a perl script, but for day-to-day needs of people who don't have or want a clue this may be a step further to making computers invisible (kinda like the taps and sinks and washing machines we're so used to when we want water)
Umm... No (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you exchange a file with a colleague or a photograph with a family member? Chances are that you cut the desired element and paste it into your e-mail program to send it.
No. That's what the "attach" button is for. I've always found cut & paste into an email to be quite dodgy.
Awww COMEON..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sony should have seriously sat back and said, "ya know, it isn't broken and it doesn't need to be made any better right now, we have better things to spend money on." But noooo, instead Joe Jackass VP said "Hyuk, I wanna touch my friends laptop and have my files automagically pop onto their computer."
And holy hacking batman, this is a whole new world of identity/property theft.
Cut and paste? No way.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Why use the pen at all? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Will it work on linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
All Sony electronic products will only support Sony pens, and all non-Sony products will interoperate amongst themselves, but not with Sony devices.
This annoying situation will persist for at least a decade.
how it works (Score:5, Insightful)
"The 'pick and drop' system was developed using the Mitsubishi Amity handheld pen computer and a Wacom PL300 pen-sensitive desktop screen.
Pens are given a unique ID, which is readable by the computer when the pen is close to its screen.
When a person taps on an icon with the pen, the computer contacts a 'pen manager' server, via a fixed or wireless connection, and the object is attached to the pen, although the pen itself has no storage capacity.
When the pen tip comes close to the screen of another device, a shadow of the attached object appears on its screen.
Tapping the pen tip instructs the 'pen manager' server to copy the file to that location."
Re:Tom!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
The only problem with that interface is that it becomes tiresome after a short while. This is (one of) the reason for the failure of touchscreens as data input methods. People get tired of having their arms up in the air.
Re:I've had a need for this. (Score:2, Insightful)
I figured out a pattern that led to moderate success. Look for secrets behind features(Tapestries, wreaths, portraits, etc.) on the walls. Generally speaking, there'll only be a secret behind a relatively blank section of wall if it's a short wall. (Such as the secret exit in the first level of the first episode.)
"It'll just quietly fade away" ?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because something is protected by a patent doesn't mean that it can't be licensed reasonably. Rewarding good, genuinely innovative, ideas is OK in my book.
Of course, this is quite clever as it uses hardware as well as software and so can more easily be patented in places that restrict software patents (which is still true in Europe, whatever the press says).
pbhj
Re:Umm... No (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is this 4, Insightful? I've never used "attach" because once I've browsed to the location of the picture which i want to send the last thing I want to do is hit "attach" and re-browse for it again.
Therefore, being the lazy sod I am, I've always dragged and dropped it into the email and never had any issues.
Mind you, i've only ever used Microsoft mail applications - so maybe Microsoft is the only one that can get it right. But that doesn't seem right to me ...
Re:The question (Score:2, Insightful)
People rightly object to stupid patents on trivial inventions and processes, but unlike most such things that appear on Slashdot, this really is a pretty ingenious innovation, and they're certainly right to patent it. If they license it reasonably, it will take off. If not, well, it'll still be a great idea twenty years from now when the patent expires.
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
Based on Sony's track record with past inventions: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sony will patent the device and charge substantial license fees to other manufacturers to make them.
Of course this will be pocket change to MS and they will pay the fees and embrace the technology. Look for MS to add "innovations" which only work when the pen is used on MS-based PDAs, cellphones and PCs. Microsoft will try to patent these so Sony and others cannot legally implemetn them.
No bloody way will the pens be given out for free. More than likely they "given away" with other hardware (probably Sony-only, but perhaps some other brands later) but the cost will really be built into the bundled price.
If Sony doesn't try to excessively hoarde the IP then it'll catch on--it's a really cool idea.
Sony does show some promise however--they have embraced Linux on the PS2 and more recent products so they have some interest in Free SOFTWARE. I'm quite confident that they'd fully cooperate in making such a device work with Linux.
The question remains however on what they think of Free HARDWARE (Free in the "libre" sense rather than "gratis"). You'd think they'd learn from the Betamax videotape format, however they have persisted to some degree in repeating the same mistakes. How widely deployed is their "memory stick" technology beyond their own products? Next to nonexistent compared to CF, SD/MMC, etc. Now they've invented yet another format for their PSP portable gaming/multimedia device.
No, chances are I do NOT do that... (Score:1, Insightful)
If you're a retard, maybe. I usually COPY and paste. But maybe that's just me...
Again, nothing new (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"It'll just quietly fade away" ?? (Score:1, Insightful)
I agree with you on that. However take in account that you're granting monopolies by patents, an thus taking away welfare all common people, which cam be itself also okay. The key issue is to have a an equal payoff by the amount and costs one needs to create the patent, and the payoff of the patent.
Many don't realie the problem in this way, but in software world the problem is that this both monetary complements spread just far far away. The costs of creating software ideas is rather small, in a programming team they even often come from themselves in regard to projects.
Now on the other side you've the payoff and the welfare costs you regred the public since you're hindering a free market, and on software patents they are quite high, as 20 years is an enourmous timelapse in software world, and you're often not just monopolizing one product, no you're forcing of hundrets of programmers to work around a patent that even work for totally different products, and even in some cases make unraltet projects fail due to patent restrictions (yes they could pay the license costs, but this might just be the straw that makes a project uneconomic, and believe me for some technologies the license costs are quite enourmous, unpayable for a small and midsize company.)
In medicince world the welfare costs, the monopol payoff, and the development costs might match, but in other cases it does not.