Some of the Weirder Ideas From CHI 2009 43
An anonymous reader writes "Technology Review has a roundup of some of the weirder ideas on show at last week's Computer-Human Interaction conference in Boston. They include a trackball that heats up as you roll over different parts of an image, a pair of goggles that track eye movements using electrooculography, and a miniature robot with a cellphone for its head."
Cell phone for a head? (Score:2, Funny)
If it's a speakerphone (Score:1)
Memory matches... (Score:4, Insightful)
Officially dubbed "Stupidest Idea Ever".
And no, I'm not going to explain. You'll just have to RTFA. :p
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Seriously.
I'd expect that sort of thing from Tosser's School of Art and Wankery, but not MIT.
Not to mention the fact that their experiment was done for the greater part of a century, with film-based cameras.
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I dunno. They would take all the hassle out of creating those "this message will self destruct in..." type of messages for secret agents, something that I'm sure we all have to do regularly...ok, maybe it is just dumb.
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to ruin it or not to ruin it... what the hell
April's Fool!!!!
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Oh jesus christ I thought they were serious for a minute.
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What makes it the stupidest idea ever is the whole reason things have gone digital: cost. Just because storage media costs five one hundredths of a cent to store a single photo doesn't mean that the photo (or the memory) itself is meaningless. It's like we took a time warp to the 60s with 2009 technology, passed around the 'peace pipe', started living at a communal with digital cameras, and started farting out crazy ideas like this. Wake me up when the trip is over!
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Why
is this article read?
FTFY.
Come again? (Score:5, Funny)
ball that heats up as you roll over different parts of an image
There's a joke in there somewhere.
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ball that heats up as you roll over different parts of an image
There's a joke in there somewhere.
Hmm... yes... If only the word "ball" were a euphemism for a part of the body that would be aroused by certain types of images.
And if only computers were known for easily being able to access those types of images.
And if only this story were to come across a large body of individuals who both possess this part of the body, and who frequently used computers to download arousing images, and have a certain je ne sais quoi for pointing such a collation.
Mmm... but I guess that could never be.
Obligitory (Score:2)
a pair of goggles that track eye movements
If this doesn't warrant an "in Soviet Russia" comment I don't know what does.
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Beowulf is a better obligatory (Score:2)
These are already in production use: the movie Beowulf used them to capture the eye-movements of the actors, so clearly the technique is mainstream.
So you could say "imagine a beowulf cluster" of these tracking you.
Is it because they are now reduced to a cheap goggle form or something that makes this news?
Waiting for some DIY desktop VR instructions... (Score:2)
Hot and Cold Mouse (Score:1)
Tracking Eye Movements (Score:2)
Does anyone know of a good Open-Source eye tracking system? Something using high-res cameras would be dandy. Ideally I'd just end up with an eyetap that would work in all situations, but god knows how far anything like that is from production, and I don't want to walk around looking like a hobby shop exploded in my face.
Re:Tracking Eye Movements (Score:4, Funny)
> "...I don't want to walk around looking like a hobby shop exploded in my face."
Would you settle for appearing as if you fell through the front window of a Radio Shack @ the mall? I'm sure I have some gift cards around here somewhere...
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You might want to look at opengazer
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/opengazer/ [cam.ac.uk]
For a while development had been abandoned but that disclaimer has now disappeared from the website so I imagine someone is working on it.
The same people created the dasher text input system which is really worth having a look at as an example of innovative input methods.
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/ [cam.ac.uk]
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I found this some time ago:
http://directory.fsf.org/project/cveyetracker/ [fsf.org]
which is apparently abandoned. But only 4 years ago :).
Uh huh... (Score:2)
Sounds like a bunch of FaceBook losers [livescience.com]...er....users... to me.
my idea was rejected (Score:5, Funny)
I tried to enter a device in this event, but they wouldn't let me.
My idea was (and the prototype worked pretty well) to create a metal leg from the knee down the bolted under the user's desk and USB cables to connect to the computer. When the user did something stupid, fell for a phishing scam, responded in earnest to a 419 scam, downloaded a virus off a website, etc, the foot's lever action kicked in and kicked the user square in the giblets.
My test run of 16 users in Topeka had "smashing" (and painful) results.
Sadly, they decided not to let me enter. There is a silver lining though, as there is a small-ish "kick me in the jimmy while I'm watching donkey porn" fetish market out there that is in love with my product.
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I tried to enter a device in this event, but they wouldn't let me.
I thought "entering a device" was the whole point of this event.
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I'm not sure how you got access to my research, but I'm not going to let you steal my idea for the interface to my next-gen MMO. Expect a call from my lawyers.
Pair eye tracking with contacts? (Score:2, Interesting)
Has anyone tried to pair some of these eye tracking softwares with contacts? I know it might be a bit more niche since not all us geeks wear Glasses/Contacts, but if you can get over the touching your eyes part I'm sure "blank" contacts could be made. Would be interesting to have a pair of glasses with small cameras that just tracked the marks on the contacts. I know my current contacts have marks on the outer edge of the contact with the makers name, perhaps this could even be made with some sort of non
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Article was pure fluff (Score:1, Funny)
The article never mentioned the most important aspect of these devices: what is the application for porn?
Wow? (Score:1)
Goggles that track eye movements? (Score:1, Redundant)
Those won't work. Any Slashdot reader can tell you: The goggles! They do nothing!
(Yes, even I am groaning as I'm posting this.)
wah? (Score:1)
Eye-tracking (Score:2)
The most impressive eye-tracking device I've ever seen is Tobii [tobii.com]. It's based on infrared sensors which detect the movement of your eyes. I was pretty much amazed with the accuracy of the device, much better than I thought it would be.