Have Your Family Gather 'Round the Virtual Table 68
Ridgelift writes "A new device is helping families and loved ones feel connected even when they're far apart. Part of the Media Lab's Habitat project, a pair of 'cyber-tables' are equipped with radio tag readers, projectors and computers running on Linux and Macintosh operating systems. 'Habitat's designers say the system can give people a sense of what their loved ones are up to and perhaps even how they are feeling'."
Woo, RFID tags (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Woo, RFID tags (Score:5, Funny)
Why, cause she'd pop?
Re:Woo, RFID tags (Score:4, Funny)
I hate to break the news to you dude - but vinyl blow-up girlfriends always had RFID tags installed by stores to prevent shoplifting geeks who were too embarrased to buy one....
Privacy? (Score:1, Funny)
"Media Player", ha! More like "Media Deleter and Computer Crasher", am i rite?
joek joek (Score:1, Funny)
i'm in australia dad, HAHA.
Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
The idea is you use it one a regular basis without really thinking of it. It's like coming home and seeing someone elses shoes thrown across the kitchen, which tells you "hey, my brother's home. Why'd he throw his shoes like that? Maybe he's upset about something".
Eating, reading, having a set of keys sit on a table when you're supposed to be at work. We recognise all these non-verbal queues without really thinking about them. Most technologies like telephones, email and video require a deliberate attempt to connect. Technologies like this one help you "feel" the other person's presence and activities.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
It's like the little computer-companion in Mona Lisa Overdrive, or the amplified sensory perception chips from Neuromancer.
I'd love to be soaked in so much tech that communication by technological means becomes second nature, or to have my brain jacked to th
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you ever experienced the solitude of camping in the great forests alone? Have you ever spent more than 8 hours free from civilization's grasp?
Your brain jacked into the net? With the current state of the net, you would spend all of your time ignoring Spam, blocking script kiddies "hacks" and modding down jerks from Slashdot trolling the FP, Yoda and goatse.cx posts. When will your overloaded braincells have time to experience Gibson's fantasies? How would you guard your innermost dreams from the omnipresent government and NGO watchdogs?
Thanks, but no thanks. I'll stick to my simulated first person virtual world called "real life."
Simstim can never replace reality, I can hike a glacier in Alaska, sleep on a beach in Belize, shop the East gate Market in Seoul, or just drive in the first-snow traffic jam anywhere in North America, and I know that the experiences are unique to me.
Nothing can simulate the random chaos of nature, since everything is but a creation of nature.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Humankinds appetite for communication and connectedness will continue to grow [kurzweilai.net], and despite my "Brain-2-Network" interface, I'll still be able to stop and smell the flowers.
Simstim can never replace reality
Never say never, or did you mean to say "I hope it's never possible, because it conflicts with my current belief systems"?
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Re:Why? (Score:2)
So, suggesting that real life is more interesting than simulations is pessimistic, paranoid, isolationist, and luddite? Sounds paranoid to me. And you don't want to go out into the world to experience it, but rather stay at home jacked in? Definitely isolationist.
Yes, becauce current technological and socieconomic trends are taking aw
Re:Why? (Score:1)
Yes, I have camped alone in the forest. I lived in the Santa Cruz mountains for 10 years.
The whole point of having one's brain jacked into the net is that it's a fantasy. It's an ideal that gives us something to stretch for. It gives us access to human contact when it would otherwise be impossible. Like in the tables article, where you're connected, however abstractly, to someone living far away.
Granted, all t
So, in other words the traditional holiday fights (Score:5, Funny)
Similar to Neil Gaiman's Sandman series... (Score:5, Interesting)
Another option: call every morning at 6am (Score:3, Funny)
Negative Cash Flow Problem (Score:1)
why did this win top prize for an EE student? (Score:1)
Re:why did this win top prize for an EE student? (Score:1)
To attempt to be brilliant, you've got to dare to be stupid. (At least, that's the excuse I always use. :-) )
Is there a joke here? (Score:1)
Hmm. Nope. Can't think of anything funny.
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I can think of some (Score:2)
promising I can "add 3 inches."
re. remote intimacy (Score:2, Funny)
Hmm, gives a whole new meaning to the Media Lab's "Put That There."
goatse? think of the children... (Score:1)
Who funds this research? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who funds this research? (Score:3, Informative)
95% of all communication is non-verbal. Technologies like these are an attempt to come up with ways to communicate non-verbal communication. Of course nothing beats visiting in person, but perhaps the technologies that follow these ones will help people who are in isolation cope better, such as Antarctic stations or perhaps deep space exploration.
for crying out loud (Score:4, Funny)
- If a VT-50 was good enough for me and good enough for my father, then it's good enough for you!
- My relatives live 10 timezones away and now my circadian rhythm is all messed up!
- Dammit, the whole point of technology is to avoid human contact! Especially with my biologicals!!!
(I was going to make a Surak joke, but flashed on Johnny Carson trying to tell jokes about Lincoln.)Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Big potential for the future (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Big potential for the future (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
no research needed (Score:2)
(Be sure to use security correctly: definitely set a password. You can also use stunnel or ssh tunneling for additional security.)
LAME (Score:1)
Now if it created a hologram on the display end it might be usefull and cool.
Genius! (Score:5, Funny)
compare to plane tickets (Score:2, Insightful)
I know what my Mom would say... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I know what my Mom would say... (Score:2)
But of course she'd put a question mark on the end, because otherwise that's really shocking Mom advice.
Missing the best use... (Score:1)
(yes, I know the table described in the article wouldn't quite work for this. But that's THEIR design flaw, not mine...)
Image differencing and extraction (Score:5, Interesting)
This would be superior to the RFID appoach because it allows the inclusion of ordinary and arbitrary objects. If you receive a greeting card from a loved-one, you place it on the table to show that you appreciated it. In contrast, the RFID approach requires someone to both tag any new object and create a simulacra of it for display on the other end. Rather than people creating a symbolic language from the default icons in the system (e.g., the default coffee cup, cigarette pack, etc.), the high-res image fragments could include very personal items such as the actual greeting card, a favorite coffee cup, or a meaningful momento.
Image differencing and extraction would reduce the bandwidth requirements to below that required for videoconferencing. Even if a high-res (5 megapixel) imager is used, the image extraction algorithms would work to only transmit image fragments of objects that changed but stayed in place for some time. Thus, it might transmit a single snapshot of your bowl of cereal in the morning, but not any images from when you quickly opened and closed the kitchen cabinets.
and in this day and age, this is amazin how? (Score:1)
it doesnt even show the "state" of the tagged object - the ciggie pack is closed while the projection just shows a generic pack of ciggies. jeez!!
i can add a picture of a nescafe bottle to the icons on msn and
looks like an engineering interns final year project, only made known cos its 'meeedia labs'. tsk tsk!
Aha (Score:4, Funny)
Always wondered about that.
Celebrity Tables for Virtual Stalkers? (Score:1)
Asimov (Score:1)
Goatse (Score:1)
Computer: You have a video from... your husband... please press recieve.
You: Okay.
Man on other end: HAHAHAHAHA!
You: Wait... is that a... OH MY GOD IT'S EVEN BIGGER THAN NORMAL! AAAAHH!!!!!
Did anyone else... (Score:1)
cigarettes == death wish (Score:1)
No, a pack of cigarettes, means they hate themselves so much, that they not only want to kill themselves, but they want to insure their deaths are as long, drawn out and painful as possible. :-D
mind-reading berries (Score:1)
fun for the whole family! (Score:1)