Filed under: OS, Peripherals, Hacks, Odds and ends, Found Footage
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.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Quix said 6:46PM on 8-28-2007
Cool demo, but it's not really $2 if you need a camera, eh?
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Greg G said 9:47PM on 8-28-2007
I hope he releases the software for this, maybe even support for cheaper cameras (a $20 webcam wouldn't be a huge additional cost).
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Karl Otto Henriksen said 7:54PM on 8-28-2007
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/iphone2.htm - This should be how the multi touch screen works on an iPhone ;)
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Kyle said 8:52PM on 8-28-2007
Alas, the isight in the imac is built in. But if it weren't I would do this in a heartbeat.
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Jared Hawkins said 11:20PM on 8-28-2007
This video comes from http://blog.medallia.com/2007/06/dyesight.html
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am said 1:26AM on 8-29-2007
in the second paragraph of this post, are you kidding?
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Steven said 3:28AM on 8-29-2007
Well, I bet it's a lot cheaper than the M$ Coffee Table:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4217348.html
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Mark UK said 3:29AM on 8-29-2007
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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Tyler Whitworth said 11:31AM on 8-29-2007
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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Tyler Whitworth said 11:35AM on 8-29-2007
sorry my bad, forgot to put in the link
http://www.instructables.com/id/SXRXVA3F3ER7VP4/
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