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GUI Software Hardware

Design Your Own Audio Controller 125

Posted by timothy from the no-sliders-over-here dept.
pronobozo writes with a link to "a cool interface called LEMUR for controlling audio applications. 'LEMUR is a handy and modular touchpanel based controller designed for audio and multimedia real-time applications. Our technology associates multitouch capabilities with visual display. LEMUR is provided with an extensible library of User Interface Objects such as faders, switchs, pads, keyboards, strings, etc.'" It's also vaporware at this point, but looks cool enough I hope it really reaches the market early next year as the site promises.
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Design Your Own Audio Controller

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  • does it go to 11 ? (Score:5, Funny)

    by ch-chuck ( 9622 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @04:39PM (#10580191) Homepage
    Sure, why not.

  • Hmmm (Score:1, Interesting)

    by telemonster ( 605238 )
    Man touch panels can only track one "press" at a time... I'm not sure if it is limited to capacitive touch systems or resistive touch systems (that one is definitly not IR)... but I wonder if this unit suffers from the same issue?

    Also the lack of midi output is odd.

    • Ooops, I ment to say "Many touchpanels".

      Also, my friend Bart Grantham sent me the link to this thing a few days ago. He beat you, slashdot.

    • rtfa

      • Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)

        by telemonster ( 605238 )
        It's been 4 days since I read it, so maybe I'm fuzzy on a detail or two! Should I read it again? It said 100mbps network output... which makes it sound like a tablet PC with a software.

    • Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Informative)

      by cjpez ( 148000 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @04:45PM (#10580241) Homepage Journal
      In the FAQ section, they claim that it can handle 10 simlutaneous presses (at least that's what it seems to say), which would mean that to do more you'd have to use more than just both your hands. So if that's true, I imagine that's quite sufficient.

      Also, OSC == THE FUTURE, so meh re: lack of MIDI. :)

      • Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)

        by telemonster ( 605238 )
        Groovy. A long time ago I tried to use a Thinkpad 700X tablet as a home theater controller. Got them for $5 each since no one wanted tablets. Found out it requires a pen to actually register on the screen (much like the newer tablets that have showed up on the market). Funny how history repeats itself.

      • I'd hate to see what was going through the mind of the guy trying to figure out what 11th digit he can use to test this out.
      • You insensitive clod! Some of us actually has 11 fingers!

        Not me though, but I bet someone has.
      • They are basically saying it can handle "unlimited" presses simultanously in the FAQ, so no worries. (They are just saying they havn't tested it with more ;) And, for reference: # How many fingers can be put on the panel simultanously? In theory, there isn't such a limitation. However, we suggest you not to use more than ten fingers at once, since our sensor hasn't been experimented yet by 11 fingers beta testers.

      • Re:Hmmm (Score:1)

        by torpor ( 458 )
        Also, OSC == THE FUTURE, so meh re: lack of MIDI. :)

        Horse shit. MIDI is one of those protocols which just works, and works well, and does not need to go away.

        OSC may be nice, but then so is XML. Should we replace MIDI with XML? No. Why?

        Because there are thousands upon thousands of MIDI devices out there. They're all still good. They all still work.

        The lack of MIDI on this thing is ridiculous, and demonstrates ingenuity on the part of a 'controller designer'. If it ain't got MIDI, it ain't a con

        • Re:Hmmm (Score:1)

          by ggy ( 773554 )
          Yes, MIDI works until you try to describe it with XML in realtime. Try out Tracktion http://www.mackie.com/products/tracktion/ [mackie.com] and watch it lag when you have much data going on. :)

          • Re:Hmmm (Score:1)

            by torpor ( 458 )
            bah! I *am* describing MIDI in realtime, using XML.

            Just because Tracktion got it wrong, doesn't mean you should be jumping to any conclusions ...

            • Re:Hmmm (Score:1)

              by ggy ( 773554 )
              doesn't mean you should be jumping to any conclusions ...
              What?
              I thought that was what /. is all about?! :)

              No seriously, I shouldn't. But since the rest of Tracktion is really well designed, I just assumed that he got it right...
        • I am a professional composer and sound engineer. I use midi everyday. I have been using midi for about 15 years. I own several midi devices spread across 2 computers. Actually, I kind of do wish midi would just die already. It's broken. If you work for a synth designer, then you know that:
          1. It's slow.
          2. It requires *yet another cable*
          3. Sysex is ugly.
          4. MMC and other midi-based control systems are ugly hacks at best.
          5. 7 bits? WTF? Lost of times, you just need more than 127 possible values!
          6. Support
      • they claim that it can handle 10 simlutaneous presses (at least that's what it seems to say), which would mean that to do more you'd have to use more than just both your hands.

        Apparently you've never been to Tennessee.
    • Our technology associates multitouch capabilities with visual display.

      *snip*

      What do you mean by "Multitouch capabilities"?
      It means that it allows the use of multiple fingers at once, thanks to its multitouch sensitive LCD.
    • "Also the lack of midi output is odd. "

      Nah, MIDI sucks. It's 80s technology. OSC is a far superior protocol. Why shove a hi res controller through 7 bits?
    • Why do you expect a midi port?
      as said, midi only uses 7 bits in stead of 32 wich are needed to get a decent resolution and throughput.

      also, most important - this is not a audio thingie, but a lot more than that. Once they are affordable i'll have one, as input device. If they are going to b supported in some games, that'd be great. Personally, i'd make my own LCARS [wikipedia.org] into a reality.
  • LEMUR? I'd rather use MONKEY!

  • No MIDI Support? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by GameGod0 ( 680382 )
    The website mentions that the LEMUR isn't a MIDI device, instead it uses something called OSC (OpenSoundControl) [berkeley.edu].

    How does this affect the LEMUR's ability to interface with application such as Cakewalk's SONAR?

    Does OSC provide a way to interface with MIDI applications?

    • Re:No MIDI Support? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by fishbowl ( 7759 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @05:12PM (#10580516)
      "How does this affect the LEMUR's ability to interface with application such as Cakewalk's SONAR?"

      It practically eliminates that compatability. While OSC is an open protocol, and even though there are quite a few products listed (including a bunch of open source items), it is pretty much a Reaktor thing. Don't get me wrong, Reaktor is very, very cool. But if you wanted to use it with ProTools or Cubase or Logic or FLSTudio or Magix or Cakewalk, you would probably have to setup some sort of OSC proxy that sits on the OSC bus and outputs MIDI.

      I cannot fault them for taking this approach -- there are some limitations with MIDI, with some ugly workarounds and some pretty bad scalability issues. Imagine if you were epxected to run Kermit over Ethernet instead of TCP/IP, I think that's a fairly good analogy.

      I suppose you could extend something like MIDI-OX to implement OSC, and cause it to route the messages you were interested in onto the midi bus.
      I have no doubt at all you could make Reaktor do exactly that, sit on the OSC bus and pass some of the messages through, filtered for your various midi devices.

      If the Lemur becomes popular, the support will follow. Wake me up when I can buy on on Zzounds. Meanwhile I'll continue building my ucapps.de midibox, using my Peavey PC-1600's and my FCB-1010. Right now my rig has seven instruments and 4 controllers, and while MIDI is frustrating, I have not reached its limitations.

      • They even mention example software for this to use in the FAQ, see this quote:

        # Is it possible to control a midi software or hardware with LEMUR?

        Nowadays, the is no way to control directly your prefered midi device or application with LEMUR. Nevertheless, here is a trick to manage it. You can use a software such as Max/MSP to convert and route OSC data to your MIDI application.
        • "You can use a software such as Max/MSP to convert and route OSC data to your MIDI application."

          It's a little bit like saying, "you can have feature XXX, just download gcc and make it happen."

          Chances are, if and when this thing ever gets to the market, there will be a software driver to make it do things like route/filter midi controller messages.

          I guess it makes no sense to argue what a piece of hardware can and cannot do, if you can't even get your hands on the hardware!
          • It's a lot more like saying "You can have feature XXX, just BUY Visual C and make it happen".

            Although, in Max/MSP it should be very simple to do, it doesn't change the fact that Max/MSP is not free software.
            • The Max/MSP runtime environment is free though. All it takes is one person to build a patch in Max and distribute it for free. You don't need to own Max to take advantage of it.
              • I'm not familiar enough with the other protocol (the non-MIDI one, can't remember the acronym for it) to say whether you'd need internal patch access or not to get an effective solution.
            • Max/MSP isn't free, but PD and jMax are. Max/MSP is a lot nicer to use, but an OSC-midi translator is a pretty trivial thing to build, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone didn't already have one for download somewhere on the net.
    • OSC is a successor to MIDI (providing higher resolution datatypes, and avoiding a lot of the stupidity that's engineered in to MIDI as a side-effect of having been designed as a 7-bit, 38kbaud protocol).

      Bridging it back to MIDI in software is pretty trivial - if it takes off, you will most likely see limited OSC support in all the big sequencers fairly rapidly. However, because many of them use MIDI as their native event protocol, full OSC support will take much longer.

      A few big apps already support it -

  • *thinks* (Score:2, Interesting)

    by NightDragon ( 732139 )
    This is surely a nice idea, i personally hate having to use my mouse when mixing music, but i think the magic questions will be : Just how functional is this? Is it going to have a lot of flashy bells and whistles and doodads, or is it going to be efficent?

    and of course, "just how many arms and legs am i going to have to give to have one?"
    • This is surely a nice idea, i personally hate having to use my mouse when mixing music,

      It's too bad no one's thought of a [stantondj.com] way [numark.com] around [geminidj.com] that [denon.com]...

      but i think the magic questions will be : Just how functional is this? Is it going to have a lot of flashy bells and whistles and doodads, or is it going to be efficent?

      They're marketing it to DJ's .. but I don't see how it would be all that great. Tactile control is very important, espessially in a dark club and when you're trying to be fast. Think about trying
    • It depends. It could be as intuitive as an iPod, or someone can re-implement traditional UI design flaws for an entirely new audience. Imagine if using a cross-fader became as easy as programming a 1980's vintage VCR!

      Also, the *nice* thing about physical pots and buttons is that I can see that they are there and will eventually see what they do. Similarly, you can see *all* of the console and its settings at a glance, handy when something goes wrong and you're not quite sure where it's gone wrong.

      Xix.

    • Price (Score:1)

      by ja ( 14684 )
      -- "just how many arms and legs am i going to have to give to have one?"

      It was mentioned on the Linux Audio Developer list, that the suggested price is in the $2000 range.

      mvh // Jens M Andreasen

  • Been done already - obligitory HHG ref (Score:5, Funny)

    by Weaselmancer ( 533834 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @04:43PM (#10580219)

    "The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive - you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope."

    Chapter 12 [globusz.com]

  • pronobozo writes with a link to "a cool interface called LEMUR for controlling audio applications. 'LEMUR is a handy and modular touchpanel based controller designed for audio and multimedia real-time applications. Our

    In other news, Slashdot user pronobozo works for JazzMutant. More like proMobozo to me...

    • Re:Infomercial (Score:2, Informative)

      by pronobozo ( 794672 )
      Don't work for them. Although I do make music.. so if you want some shameless self promotion.. here you go.. http://www.pronobozo.com

    • Re:Infomercial (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Fnkmaster ( 89084 ) * on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @05:05PM (#10580440)
      There are now marketing firms that specialize in grass roots marketing efforts, by putting out semi-phony blogs and probably pimping things on supposedly "community-driven" sites like Slashdot. As soon as the market gets big enough, the marketers will be there. And Slashdot is numerically significant and a good spot to push technogizmos on the geek thought leaders.


      I would be surprised if people didn't try to use Slashdot in this way. Just look at how Roland Piquepaille has made a business out of getting Timothy (I think it's usually him) to publish his inane Slashdot submissions, which ALWAYS have link-backs to his "summaries" of various news stories in his blog. He's Slashvertizing for his blog, so he can get more advertising hits.


      What does it all mean? Well, you just have to be a little more cynical around here I guess. In any case, it's nothing really new - used to be we'd see vaporware announcements and the like float by, but the submission writer and the sketchy company weren't usually one and the same. Now sometimes they are.

      • FWIW, the Lemur has been creating a buzz on geek-musician community boards for the best part of a week already, quite without marketing help. The guys (and very few girls) this thing is aimed at are excited about it on its own merits - assuming it works as advertised, of course - although most are put off by the price, supposedly in the $1000-$2000 range.
      • Well, in this case they're looking for investor dollars and eventually customers for their product.

        In Roland's case though....I wonder if he even makes money seeing as how nobody RTFA.

    • Um, hey troll, why don't you RTFA before you go about accusing someone of being an astroturfer. Its pretty obvious from the way he wrote his story post that he was quoting the website.

      Just to confirm my suspicions (since it was pretty obvious from his use of italics) I checked the link and sure enough, it was the first paragraph he quoted.

      So while it is entirely possible that he is an astroturfer...it seems very unlikely, especially with the vaporware comment at the end and since the suspicious part that y

  • In case of the Slashdotting... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kinetic ( 3472 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @04:47PM (#10580266) Homepage
    Mirrors, including the video files, are at MirrorDot [mirrordot.com].
  • A fitting tribute to the one, true Lemur, Mr Fernandinande LeMur [subgenius.com] of SubGenius fame, audio collageitier/black belt.

    Slack on, you crazy diamond.

  • Good idea that should be expanded (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alaivfc ( 823276 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @04:54PM (#10580343)
    I think they are entirely marketing this in to narrow a makret. Yes, it seems like it would be great to control audio apps, but there is a much greater potential. Many large control boards could be easily replaced with a small dynamic board that gives you the pots/switches/etc. that you need at the time.
    I'm thinking, in particular, things liking theatrical light and sound boards in which you use most of the sliders very rarely - but its still important that you have the option to input them through a slider or nob (as opposed to entering a number).
    I bet there are other applications in industries where large control boards are involved where this could be useful as well.
    • Dynamic boards are nothing new... audio software has had them for the best part of a decade. What's new is the touchscreen interface... although it has been done before (MIDI editor/librarian/synth-remote-controllers running on PDAs or tablets), this looks like it will do it much better (larger form factor, great screen, great looks, multi-point touch sensing).

    • "I bet there are other applications in industries where large control boards are involved where this could be useful as well.

      Yes, for example, when you need to reroute the phaser array through to the main deflector. This is useful in destroying large ships, placating energy-hungry life-forms, and removing plaque.

      Another useful application is searching for the life .. forms, the leetle life-forms ..

      +10 to anyone who gets that last reference

    • The salient feature of this gizmo is its multiple touch capabilities. I don't know of too many applications other than faders and musical instruments that require fingerpress chords.

      Although I can think of other potentially convenient applications such as 'context sensitive menus' such as those found in the 3d modeling package Blender http://www.blender3d.org/ [blender3d.org]. In there, function keys bring up completely different sets of buttons. Kinda like the armament consoles in F-16s.

      • I don't know of too many applications other than faders and musical instruments that require fingerpress chords.

        Sure, I can think of a great application set that requires multipress sensitivity: every application that doesn't require multipress sensitivity. Ever been annoyed by an accidental finger brushing against your laptop touchpad, sending the pointer to oblivion? By doing some basic "finger tracking" a multipress touch interface can choose to ignore spurious brushes against the touch surface -- ve
    • In some areas you find that large boards of unused sliders have already been done away with, certinly in lighting - even some relativly old boards operate in a program with numbers, then play-it-back mode. Once you get desks that control more than just lamp intensity (ie moving fixtures, colour changers etc etc) the slider concept just seems to get in the way.

  • Hmm... (Score:3, Funny)

    by bravehamster ( 44836 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @04:54PM (#10580344) Homepage Journal
    They might as well call it Star Trek:TNG Interface.

  • DIY MIDI (Score:5, Informative)

    by L3WKW4RM ( 228924 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @04:55PM (#10580348) Homepage
    For some less-vapor, DIY MIDI controller kits (soldering, planning, etc. required) you can build from scratch at Thorsten Klose's [ucapps.de] awesome site, or assemble pieces from Doepfer [doepfer.de]. I've built a few great fader boxes and knob boxes. What a fun hobby.
    • As a fellow midibox'er, I'll second that. Thorsten and all the guys at ucapps/midibox.org have built a great DIY community - I'm constantly impressed with the amount of great ideas/advice/etc!

  • LEMUR not pressure/velocity sensitive (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Chromal ( 56550 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @04:58PM (#10580379)
    Though it looks like it could be very useful for certain types of virtual controls (particularly x/y axis controllers as well as sliders), its usefulness is slightly limited by its lack of velocity and pressure (other than boolean, anyway) sensitivity. Requiring PC host software seems more of a handicap than a feature, too...

    Still, anything to break away from having to use a mouse to tweak realtime parameters on-screen is welcome.

  • You should simulate your control in SW first (Score:3, Informative)

    by museumpeace ( 735109 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @05:07PM (#10580457) Journal
    and then buy HW when you know just what is going to work. Although dated by its dependence on an older version of JMF, Lindley's book [at the top of the list of this page of audio books [javaolympus.com]] , gives a set of audio widgets [well, beans, actually] on its CD that you can mix, modify, and mate in various combinations for all kinds of audio effects. Not a tool for the timid but a rewarding exercise for the software/audio geek.

  • Where's the sound (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    why have silent video clips for an audio device?

    HELLO!

  • from a couple of years ago.
  • I love this kind of device, and I can't wait to finally be able to acquire one for a reasonable price. I've been keeping an eye on a similar device called AudioPad [mit.edu] for a while now, which works with a projector and drawing tablets.

    The devices are similar, but the MIT project seems to place the bar higher concerning potential UI innovations instead of re-creating existing hardware virtually. (Look at the IP Workbench [mit.edu] example video and see what I mean...)
    • The Audiopad is similar to this Lemur thingy in the same way a two ton truck is similar to a ferrari. they are extreemly differant in what they do and the methods they accomplish, but the fact that they use visual reprisentation of manipulation on the actual surface is what makes them seem similar.

      not that I don't understand where you are comming from, actually..

      I'm an Industrial design student, just starting my last year, and my final graduation project will most likely be in this field, IE music composi
      • Woah, cool! Please post more info on your journal, that's exactly the sort of thing i'm interested in :)

        Well, current products sometimes try and hide their head in the sand and pretend that audio feedback is just as good. That's always an option ;)

        I believe Sony claims that an LCD screen + piezo-electric vibrations is enough for basic tactile feedback, and had a demo some time ago.

        I've thought of using a LCD with small pin-like buttons (a couple mm of diameter) going through holes at short regular interv
        • I'm not sure I compleetly understand your idea, since what it looks to me you are proposing is basicly a matrix of microswitches, which is nice, but I'm not sure this will be a big improvment over the Lemur, for example (lets assume that you find a technical solution that wil make the LCD still visable, maybe very small LED's on each switch). the two dimentional array of switches you get as a result is still an array, though you do get some sort of feed back, I'm not sure that is a big enough change from th
  • design your own authentic Creative Labs PCI noise controller!
  • The screen grabs (w/o audio!) could be from a research project-- I saw something like this at Siggraph last year or the year before.

    The unit itself is only shown as a CG image-- it looks like an _idea_ for a unit.

    Was this shown in Paris or not?

    I doubt every "check out this cool new thing they rendered!" post on /.

  • Just give me a PDA that can controll stuff via WIFI/bluetooth and I'll be happy...
  • I've always wanted an input device that had a handful of sliders and knobs for adjusting things like color balance, 3d position and rotation in modeling programs, etc. I've envisioned a little device with about 3 sliders and knobs, and maybe a couple of buttons. The joystick, mouse, and even keyboard arrow input should all be abstracted to an axis input which would also work for this kind of device. Forget touchpads - the power in a device like this would be the tactile sensation, the ability to remember ho
    • If the modeling program supported MIDI, there are many, many MIDI controllers that are nothing but sliders or knobs (I have an Oxygen8, which is a 2 octave keyboard + 1 slider and 8 knobs, but there are slider-only and knob-only control boards available). The key would be in getting the MIDI translated to useful operations in the program - most audio programs support this, but I somehow doubt that modeling programs do.

  • ...are they selling this thing yet, or what?

    Positively beautiful piece of equipment, if it did Midi it would be a great replacement for my MIR [xvisionaudio.com] midi controller (which I use to control Pro Tools [digidesign.com] transport and to tweak my reverb). I particularly like the Tron-style buttons.

    It doesn't seem to support MIDI, and I ask, WHY? I'm all for adoption of open standards, but is not MIDI, or even MTS, open and available for anyone to implement? I loooked up OSC [berkeley.edu] and it looks very promising, but it is completely abse

  • I want the other kind of interface: programmable "flying faders" that are tangible physical dials, buttons and LED/LCD displays. They attach to a computer by USB or FireWire, and are dumb interfaces whose state is sent to software on the PC, so they can be saved and restored under software control. Where's a $100 flying fader panel with Linux drivers?

    • Where's a $100 flying fader panel with Linux drivers?

      Audio and Linux don't mix. Or do they? Anyone who knows, please respond.

      You're unlikely to find flying-fader anything for less than a thousand USD. The celebrated Mackie HUI is no longer with us, but Mackie Universal Control [mackie.com] is cool, and talks to everything.

      • Thanks for the lead. As long as "everything" means only the top, and most expensive, DAWs, I guess they can charge $1200 for a replacement for the $25 keyboard. I suppose they must have an SDK for those vendors to use, and a proprietary data protocol. If we could buy them used for $500, and the drivers were available for GStreamer or somesuch, we might see a lot of hobbyists with $1000 P4/Linux/Audigy setups expanding their market with the audio equivalent of the GIMP.
    • behringer make a motorized fader box with knobs and buttons. it costs about US$220 street price. you can use it with Ardour (http://ardour.org/) and ardour will move the faders automatically during automation playback. its an awesome deal.

      Ardour can also do that with many high-end digital mixers that accept MIDI control.

      The general protocol for such things is still MIDI, sometimes generic MIDI controllers, sometimes SysEx.
      • That's pretty snappy - 8 channels with pots and sliders for $220, and one that's just pots for just $169. Pretty much exactly what I'm looking for. Do you know how the Behringers feel in the fingertips? Actual tactile reality, as well as digital measurement/repositioning? Does it really feel 10x as cheap as the $1200 Mackie :)? Thanks for the insight.

  • The Problem with this: LACK OF FEEL (Score:4, Informative)

    by sr180 ( 700526 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @07:23PM (#10581573) Journal
    With this device, you cant FEEL the buttons, so you have to look at it as you adjust it.

    Example: My tv remote. I'm watching tv, I pick up the remote, and I can adjust channel, volume, power etc with out looking at the remote. With a device like this, you cant do that, as there is no tactile feel, you cant just feel where the volume button is and press it, you have to visually find it first. There is a programmable LCD remote available that has floundered on the market for exactly this reason.

    This also applies to the main application for this device, audio mixing (as well as stage lighting and visual applications.) Try cueing audio to some on stage effect while having to look at this device instead of looking onstage...

    Its a cool device and I'd love it at home, but the lack of tactile feel will make it useless in many applications.

  • I'd like to see this work with Ardour [ardour.org] and not cost over a couple few hundred $..

    Fulfill my dream of having a Linux based hard disk recorder!

    For those that haven't heard of it, it's an audio recording program, similar to Protools, that's open source.
  • Besides on the touchscreen, I mean. I'm wondering what it would take to put a nice X10 interface or DVD controls on there along with the audio mixing for the ultimate in customised portable home theater control panels. Just stick an ethernet jack (or WAP) near your favorite seat and you'd be all set.
    • Ok, specs are on the Features page:

      Display - Size : 12 inches diagonal - 800x600 pixels - Resolution : 800x600 pixels - Type : LCD - Contrast : Ajustable

      Sensor - Sensor resolution : 100x128 - Number of fingers at once : 20 (two hands + two feets)

      Central Processor Unit (CPU) - CPU : Nios 100Mhz 32bit float precision

      Graphic Processor Unit (GPU) - Fill Rate : 360M Pixels/s - 2 pixels/cycle - Color format : RGB (5.6.5) : 65,536 colors - 16bit RGB/ARGB and 8 bits Alpha Textures - Texture Mapping :

  • The CPU listed is a Nios @ 100 MHz. Nios is Altera's soft core, so either they prototyped on an FPGA, and will use the same design to fab, or, much more likely since it's obviously a low volume application, they still have the fpga in the production equipment. Given that there aren't many (heh) GPUs for that kind of device, my guess is they have the CPU and the GPU on the same FPGA. Most newer FPGAs have capabilities for partial reconfiguration. Why didn't they leave the possibility of using it to their use
  • Back in college, we needed a mixer downfront in the auditorium to mix four singers together, but we only had one hardwired channel. So using my budding electrical engineering skills, I started working on a remote controled four channel audio mixer. It recieved commands over a wireless serial link to mute or adjust the volume on each channel. Unfortunately, we didn't need it for very long and the project got shelved before it could be completed.

    By the way, its name, LATMAN, is a really nice acronym, you'll

  • "built-in100 BaseT Lan interface [...] no latency"

    No latency ethernet? What else are they "kidding" about?
  • The reason why marketing departments exist.

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