Found Footage: $2 multitouch screen, made with iSight
Multitouch is all the rage lately, but one of the drawbacks is that it's still pretty expensive. Enter this ingenious device-- it's a bag with dye colored water in it. That bag is then laid flat on a glass table, an iSight camera is placed underneath, the computer is coded (it appears, anyway) to look for fingertips pressing through the dye, and just like that, you've got a multitouch interface.
Really incredible. Of course, it's hard to figure out how this could be used for something like the iPhone-- instead of a camera, you'd have to have some kind of light sensors behind the dye, and you'd have to figure out a way to have the dye-colored water stay spread even throughout the bag. In fact, come to think of it, I'm not really sure how most multitouch interfaces work-- maybe this is closer to the real thing than I imagine. Even if not, very cool idea, and I'm almost surprised to see it really works so well.
[via Waxy]
Update: Looks like the video is a little old-- this was posted back in early June, even before the iPhone was released. But it is still really cool, and it's the first I've seen it.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-28-2007 @ 6:46PM
Quix said...
Cool demo, but it's not really $2 if you need a camera, eh?
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8-28-2007 @ 7:54PM
Karl Otto Henriksen said...
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/iphone2.htm - This should be how the multi touch screen works on an iPhone ;)
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8-28-2007 @ 8:52PM
Kyle said...
Alas, the isight in the imac is built in. But if it weren't I would do this in a heartbeat.
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8-28-2007 @ 9:47PM
Greg G said...
I hope he releases the software for this, maybe even support for cheaper cameras (a $20 webcam wouldn't be a huge additional cost).
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8-28-2007 @ 11:20PM
Jared Hawkins said...
This video comes from http://blog.medallia.com/2007/06/dyesight.html
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8-29-2007 @ 1:26AM
am said...
in the second paragraph of this post, are you kidding?
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8-29-2007 @ 3:28AM
Steven said...
Well, I bet it's a lot cheaper than the M$ Coffee Table:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4217348.html
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8-29-2007 @ 3:29AM
Mark UK said...
If genuine this is certainly very smart indeed. The programing is the hard part.
I see nothing wrong with it being published in June. You must remember that MutiTouch is not an Apple invention. It came out of MIT I think, any way this video has been around for over a year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ftJhDBZqss
For $2, I think this is very impressive.
Mark
http://www.metphoto.net/
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8-29-2007 @ 11:31AM
Tyler Whitworth said...
This DIY guide is really good, tells how multitouch works, and even tells you how do build your own, with opensource software, that the develper is willing to give out.
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8-29-2007 @ 11:35AM
Tyler Whitworth said...
sorry my bad, forgot to put in the link
http://www.instructables.com/id/SXRXVA3F3ER7VP4/
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