Flexible Computers in the Future? 229
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.
Any ideas how this would work in real life? (Score:4, Insightful)
Does anyone have any ideas?
Re:Any ideas how this would work in real life? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Any ideas how this would work in real life? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Any ideas how this would work in real life? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Any ideas how this would work in real life? (Score:2)
Oh wait, you meant the beverage...
nevermind.
Re:Any ideas how this would work in real life? (Score:2)
Flexible pr0n viewer! I can't think of a better use.
Re:Any ideas how this would work in real life? (Score:2, Interesting)
Video Link (karmaless) (Score:2, Informative)
visit earth2willi.com! [earth2willi.com]
Re:Any ideas how this would work in real life? (Score:1)
Remind me how that one turned out again, will you?
Re:Any ideas how this would work in real life? (Score:1)
Re:Any ideas how this would work in real life? (Score:1, Funny)
Ok, so maybe not.
Re:Any ideas how this would work in real life? (Score:2, Funny)
Stop it All !!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, now you have your answer...
P R 0 n !
Re:Any ideas how this would work in real life? (Score:2)
possibilities.... (Score:3, Insightful)
FP!
Re:possibilities.... (Score:1, Funny)
Re: possibilities.... (Score:2, Interesting)
So it is just a matter of having a locking function or not...
Re: possibilities.... (Score:2, Funny)
Locking function is simple - bend it until it snaps in half.
It's the unlocking function I haven't figured out yet.
Re: possibilities.... (Score:2)
hehe
or we can just talk to our computers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:or we can just talk to our computers (Score:2)
Rejected Advertising Slogan (Score:5, Funny)
However, if this is ever marketed with that slogan I'll be shocked and disgusted... and then try to weasel some money out of the deal.
*honk*
Re:Rejected Advertising Slogan (Score:1)
What's the lifespan? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I know they're small piezoelectric particles to generate voltage when compressed, but those can't last forever. The material of the card might start developing a memory if you bend it too much.
However, this will be kickass if they can make them cheap enough. Imagine: walk up to a vending machine in an airport, buy a little credit-card sized game to occupy you during the flight, and throw it away when the battery runs out. Or have a book on the card - a novel and text output probably won't take up that much memory.
Re:What's the lifespan? (Score:1, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Not to sound like an environmental maniac, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine: walk up to a vending machine in an airport, buy a little credit-card sized game to occupy you during the flight, and throw it away when the battery runs out.
And designing things to be thrown away is good practice?
Re:Not to sound like an environmental maniac, but. (Score:5, Funny)
You keep your used toilet paper?
Re:Not to sound like an environmental maniac, but. (Score:2)
AKA Kia. (okay, okay, Hyundais too)
Re:Not to sound like an environmental maniac, but. (Score:2)
Yes, it is, because then people at least make the effort of making it recyclable.
Re:Not to sound like an environmental maniac, but. (Score:2)
Never heard of that before... Anything like Samsonite? Are you Leather luggage? Anyway, you're wrong (but I don't blame you, everyone generalizes). The American Economy is not wasteful at all. You are giving way too much weight to an intangible thing. Put the blame where the blame belongs: it's the people who are wasteful. That's like saying SUVs run people over and kill them. It's the jackasses driving them that cause th
Re:What's the lifespan? (Score:5, Informative)
You're halfway right.
When a material is deformed by stretching, compressing, twisting, or bending (which is really a combination of stretching and compressing), there is a region called the elastic region where the material will return to its original size and shape when the force deforming it is released. Beyond the elastic region is the plastic region, where the material will remain deformed. If the material is deformed in such a way that the deformation never reaches the plastic region, the material(with a few exceptions) can be cycled (deformed and returned) infinitely without failing. The amount beyond the elastic region that the material is deformed determines how long the material will last. Think about bending a paper clip or a pencil in your hands.
There's a whole field of study devoted to understanding this process better, and to make the existing equations fit the real world better.
Any inaccuracies or typos are because I'm tired and it's late, feel free to correct me if you know what you're talking about.b
Re:What's the lifespan? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sure I recall something like this in dealing with the lifetimes of pressure cylinders - the cylinder doesn't show exhibit plastic deformation, but it only has a finite number of cycles (i.e. number of times you can fill it and empty it)
Re:What's the lifespan? (Score:2)
Been a while since I did out the equations, but basically, every time you stress an object above it's endurance limit, (aka fatigue limit) which is in its elastic region, you form microfractures. These microfractures propogate every time you stress the material.
It's fairly easy to figure out the lifespan, from a ballpark figure, anyway. If you test the number of cycles to failure right at the endurance limit, for the most part, if you double the stress, you
Quite long, I suspect (Score:3, Informative)
It seems, for example, that even bending the device once will result in *some* retention of that bent shape. This establishes what is minimally the initial lower threshold for registering an intentional 'bend'.
However, consider even the common household rubber band. Even if stretched to two or three times its originally length repeatedly, while there will be
Re:Quite long, I suspect (Score:3)
Re:What's the lifespan? (Score:2)
However, this will be kickass if they can make them cheap enough. Imagine: walk up to a vending machine in an airport, buy a little credit-card sized game to occupy you during the flight, and throw it away when the battery runs out.
Yeah, just like self-destructing DVDs, disposable cell phones and god knows what are "kickass". I mean, who cares about the environment anyway, right?
Re:What's the lifespan? (Score:2)
Man, we've got a bunch of far too serious people here
that, my friends, is considered a joke.
Browser commands? (Score:5, Funny)
You could fit ... (Score:1)
Are they suffering from NASA invention disorder - invent something then find a use for it? If so, they can first find a way to fix my bent MiniDisc player to fix itself.
Re:You could fit ... (Score:1)
Only option will be to gently bend them??? (Score:2, Interesting)
Nobody considered simple voice recognition?
Re:Only option will be to gently bend them??? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Only option will be to gently bend them??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody considered simple voice recognition?
No, they finally realized it would be really, really stupid (and noisy) to have everyone talking to their PDAs.
Re:Only option will be to gently bend them??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or maybe they realised that the current crop of PDAs don't have enough grunt to do Voice recognition.
You never heard of a throat mic/earphones?
Re:Only option will be to gently bend them??? (Score:2)
You never heard of a throat mic/earphones?
Well, I have heard of cell phones with sensitive microphones (say, just about any modern model), and yet every day I see (hear) people on trains yelling into them. And even if people knew how to use throat mikes properly, talking is still talking, still annoying, and still going to draw eyes (and ears).
Re:Only option will be to gently bend them??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Only option will be to gently bend them??? (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Only option will be to gently bend them??? (Score:3, Interesting)
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
*Simple* Voice Recognition?? (Score:3)
That's like one of those simple NP-complete problems.
:-)
Erm (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a thought... when they get that small, small is no longer the issue... spend some time on improving battery life / screen resolution / feature X.
more ideas (Score:5, Interesting)
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:more ideas (Score:2)
Apple has been using this technology for ye
Namco's NegCon (Score:3, Interesting)
bending vs. jamming (Score:2)
Design fault (Score:1, Interesting)
I was wondering when they would come out with that (Score:4, Funny)
Swivel it (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Swivel it (Score:2)
cursor control (Score:5, Interesting)
Works with mac GUI model not MS (3 button)! (Score:2, Interesting)
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 insens
Re:Works with mac GUI model not MS (3 button)! (Score:2)
You can rave about one button mouse all you want, but all Apple really did was move the second mouse button from the mouse to the keyboard.
Re:Works with mac GUI model not MS (3 button)! (Score:2)
Re:Works with mac GUI model not MS (3 button)! (Score:2)
Not sure I agree, if all the single devices appear to be single function. I have no prob
New puzzle game? (Score:2)
Bloom County (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of a Bloom County comic strip where Milo & gang go to the new 3000 theatre mega-cinema or whatever it was called. An announcement comes over the P.A. system: "Due to our recent expansion to 3000 screens, our screen size has shrunk so small it's no longer visible. Please exit to the side."
Unless the device has a different practical use than displaying information (such as playing MP3s or whatever) you're not really going to want something so tiny it's physically unusable. There's something to be said for real buttons that you can press and get positive tactile feedback.
A prototype demonstration ... (Score:5, Informative)
bender the robot... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm all for some more flexible devices, but the flexibility controlling them?, would there be the equivalent of a "hold" switch or keyguard to prevent you from accidentaly hacking the CIA by doing jazzerci
you can write on your watch (Score:4, Interesting)
Touchable (Score:4, Interesting)
So, it has a touchpad already... (Score:2, Insightful)
Although, I do remember when Nintendo
Dumb concept (Score:5, Insightful)
Being small only gets you so far, and just because you can make it smaller doesn't mean that you should. For example, take your average ball-point pen. Most pens you can buy in a store are about the same size - a good fit for an average hand. Yet, I've seen a few "toy" pens here and there - I remember there was a teeny pen on a swiss army knife I owned. That thing was completely useless. You could attempt to write with it, but your hands cramped up almost instantly. That's probably the reason you don't see a lot of swiss army knives with pens as attachments nowdays. I'm sure there are ways of making a new "interface" for a miniature ball-point pen - for example, if you had nothing to do, you could probably attach it to a thimble and have a half-decent pen. The point is, that people don't do it. There is a thing as TOO small.
I think handheld computers too are getting to their natural sizes with the Palm (and PocketPC) form factors. If you get too much smaller, you start squinting at the screen and there's the whole issue of diminishing utility again. Input into the thing becomes just one of your (many) issues. I had a teensy cell phone for example, and I was in constant fear of losing it in the cushions of my couch. I actually upgraded to a larger phone with more features and a longer battery life - because the size of the previous phone was a nuisance rather than a benefit.
Practicality and Affordability (Score:5, Insightful)
There are two powerhouses in the PDA industry, Pocket PC and Palm.. Sorry guys, Zaurus IMO is still a non-mainstream. Firstly I'm not gonna talk about a specific PDA or specific brand, rather PDA in general.
In general, most people use PDAs for the address book function, and majority of these people uses the Appointment/Calendar function too. Some would also use the notes function too, but seldom. Anything extra, rest assured you can call yourself a power user. I know this for a fact because I used to work in a retail shop selling PDAs
Let's look at features that most users want..
Handy - Small, slim stylish design that you can keep in your shirt pockets. Not something the size of a brick, and weighs like one!
Battery - You want something that can last at least for a few days without charging the battery (One Pocket PC brand got it right finally, by having removable batteries)
Affordability - Most Tom, Dick and Harries don't need the bells and whistles and the extra gadgets like cameras, bluetooth, Wi-Fi, modems, large external storage. Something reasonable is probably the order of the day. All those extras costs money, house-wives don't need most of 'em in order to keep track of their grocery shopping list do they.. So are students, secretaries and bosses, normal users and joes like me ;-P
Most of those who bought brick-like units are usually either power users (who knows what they want) or those who got too much money and wanna show off. I call these PDAs - Show-Off Units.
Sony bendable handhelds, well, Look and see.. Price-wise, if they're out of reach, most joes won't use it. Battery-wise, too short, they're not Palm-Tops nor Pocket PCs, rather Desktop PDAs, since they're perpetually connected to their charger unit. If it is too bulky, hell no, I'm not gonna use it, cuz it won't stay in my pocket. I don't wanna look like a fully packed Llama
In the end, I (and most joe user) want something convenient to use to get day to day tasks done
Extremely unlikely... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention forcing the general public to learn a new way to interface, which we all know is difficult, but these devices are going to have to be extremely well made to withstand all the abuse. With the rapidly dropping quality of consumer-level products I'd be quite wary of purchasing something that by it's very nature would have to go through all that.
Re:Extremely unlikely... (Score:2)
It comes down to this: why do we still use a keyboard today? It's not like keyboards are going away, far from it; they're actually getting bigger. Well, more buttons anyway, if not actually increasing in dimension.
I don't think the human interface part of the computer as it is today is going to go away, or even get much smaller, anytime soon, there just won't be so much space devoted to everything else.
Re:Extremely unlikely... (Score:2)
Wallet apps (Score:2, Interesting)
the perfect way (Score:2, Interesting)
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, an
Limitations (Score:2, Insightful)
Flexible Input Device In Action (Score:5, Interesting)
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:
And, of course, ShapeTape maker Measurand also has further information and videos [measurand.com].
Re:Flexible Input Device In Action (Score:2)
I read about this... (Score:2)
Fabric keyboard (Score:4, Interesting)
Old (Score:3, Funny)
The Horizon? (Score:3, Funny)
Nintendo Power Glove ...flex resistive ... (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Painting Yourself Into A Corner? (Score:5, Insightful)
When cars become too small to drive, the only option will be to gently bend them. :)
That's how ridiculous this business of changing the ergonomics to conform to the implementation sounds.
If I had a Pentium-IV equivalent system the size of a quarter that could be powered by a watch battery, you know what I'd do with it? I'd build it into a full-sized IBM keyboard. Or, for more mobility, how about one of those portable Palm keyboards?
I certainly have no desire to bend anything just because the guts are small. Also, if these things are expensive I don't want them to be too small anyway. Too easy to lose.
When computers become too small to operate, the only option will be to gently bend them, and throw them into the garbage.
Small Small Small (Score:2, Interesting)
all these damm things are getting smaller and some mobile phones i cant see the screen anymore they need to be bigger not smaller
Re:Small Small Small (Score:2)
I hear the ladies prefer big too
Re:Small Small Small (Score:2)
Obvious gag out of the way, I agree. Things are getting too small.
Why did they name it that? (Score:2)
HP Itsy (Score:2)
~pi
Blade Runner? (Score:2, Interesting)
how to control them (Score:2)
Seriously though; eventually there's going to be some sort of nervous system -> computer interface developed that doesn't involve actual physical contact/motion. Until then, what we have now [and in some situations voice commands] should be sufficient.
/. is slacking (Score:2)
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these.... okay, it's said now.
Re:Break easy (Score:1)
Re:Pocket Mayhem? (Score:2)
I almost accidentally called 112 once (same thing), but thankfully noticed it in time.
I guess it's a necessary safety feature for those times when you're too hurt to disable the keylock, but I wonder how many false calls are made due to it.
Re:Futuresight: Piezoelectric tutorials (Score:2)
Re:Before just accepting what NS is saying (Score:2)
*spritzes turpentine around and lights it*
Re:Before just accepting what NS is saying (Score:2)