Multi-touch Display

[Bill Thompson]

Check out the Multi-touch display (http://www.completetranslations.com/_phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1426#1426)
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h292/Athono/multitouch.jpg
http://www.internetnews.com/wireless/article.php/3696346
To be precise, the device's screen is not actually transparent. Instead, a camera on a short boom attached to the prototype's back captures images of the user's hands touching the rear screen, and an image of the fingers -- to enable the user to "see" where his or her fingers are touching -- is displayed on the front screen as if the device were transparent.

[strathmeyer]

So, do you think that product-shot is real or simulated?

I'd like to be able to type on the back with my fingers and mouse-point with my thumbs.

[GodMark2]

So, do you think that product-shot is real or simulated?

I'd like to be able to type on the back with my fingers and mouse-point with my thumbs.

If it's real, I'd love to know how they got the camera to figure out what the side of the finger it couldn't see looked like. Fingers are round. Unless their camera had exactly the same view as the one that took the 'photo', at least some parts that would need to be displayed to our eyes wouldn't be available from any camera on the backside.

[Earthborn]

The photo is definitely fake. Here (http://patrickbaudisch.com/projects/lucidtouch/index.html) is some information about what the actual prototype looks like, and includes a video on its use. Interesting concept, though the camera sticking out of the back doesn't seem an attractive solution to me.

[Bill Thompson]

If it's real, I'd love to know how they got the camera to figure out what the side of the finger it couldn't see looked like. Fingers are round. Unless their camera had exactly the same view as the one that took the 'photo', at least some parts that would need to be displayed to our eyes wouldn't be available from any camera on the backside.

It says:

But not showing the fingers was confusing to users, so the researchers figured out a way – using a camera at this point but later probably surface-based sensors – to show the finger locations, as if the device's screen were actually transparent.

So the image they show is not an image of what they have so far but rather what they expect to have once they work out this surface-based sensors. Probably what exists so far would just show some sort of crude outline of the hands or a grey area where the hands are.

[Bill Thompson]

Earthborn, we posted at the same time!

[Bill Thompson]

Under the table touch table:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDDhbHrLSnk

Microsoft Touch Table:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwFjjz2BUaY