Slick!

[SneaksieDave]

Damn...

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6379146923853181774

[Darkness_Falls]

Damn. That is pretty wicked!

[sparhawk]

Wow! Imagine a fantasy game with spellcasting, using this technique.

[Macsen]

Looks like a recipe for a dirty, germ covered screen to me.

[OrbWeaver]

The problem with touchscreens is that they look cool for a while, but just try holding your arms out in front of you for any length of time...

[demagogue]

The working one I've seen in real life was almost horizontal, like tabletop style. So it wasn't that different from a mousepad. You could rest your hands/arms on the surface. But I could see how extending your arm from one end of the screen to the far end could still get tiring after a while.

[SneaksieDave]

Wow! Imagine a fantasy game with spellcasting, using this technique.

Mmm, Arx Fatalis gesturing, but without a mouse. It would probably also be really good for uncooked first person sword fighting or martial arts.

 

But the dirty screen and tired arms arguments do have a point.

[Darkness_Falls]

My main beef with the theory of touch-screen keyboards is that you don't have the tactile shape of the keys to work with either. When I type, I can tell what keys I'm hitting -- without looking -- because each key is separate and the "F" and "J" keys normally have a little bump on them for orientation. Not the case with such a screen as seen in the video.

[Domarius]

Still, the posibilities are enormous, far beyond what we're used to doing with the keyboard.

 

The goal really does seem to be the "Minority Report" scenario. Sure people will suffer from tiring like teachers using blackboards, but there are similar concerns with typing at a computer anyway. It's just different.

[Darkness_Falls]

Oh, I totally hear you, Domarius. I fully agree. I was mainly just referring to the actualy keyboard they showed part way into the video. There are many things that are very exciting about this technology.

[sparhawk]

"Minority Report" All the time I tried to remember the title of that movie, because the demo reminded me a lot of it, but I couldn't recal the title.

[OrbWeaver]

"Minority Report" All the time I tried to remember the title of that movie, because the demo reminded me a lot of it, but I couldn't recal the title.

 

The thing that amuses me about that film is that even with all the complex arm-controlled technology, they still have to copy stuff onto a glass plate and carry it across the room in order for one guy to pass data to another.

 

Apparently in the rush to invent motion capture systems they have forgotten how Ethernets work.

[sparhawk]

THat's oncly consistent. You don't believe how much redundant paper work you have to do even in companies that are highly innovated and working with computers as their core business.

[Macsen]

THat's oncly consistent. You don't believe how much redundant paper work you have to do even in companies that are highly innovated and working with computers as their core business.

You should do like my company and make people pay for all those redundant bits of paper.

[Subjective Effect]

The thing that amuses me about that film is that you can use your eyes to get into the police headquarters when yuo are a fugitive policeman and the police know that is where you are headed. All that tech an no brains. And you can use your own eyes to free yourself from prison. Logical security systems then. What a load of crap.

[Maximius]

"Minority Report" All the time I tried to remember the title of that movie, because the demo reminded me a lot of it, but I couldn't recal the title.

 

It was a very easy movie to forget.

[Subjective Effect]

I thought is was well made, the idea was good (of course - taken from a PKD book) but the script and logical inconsistences are just ridiculous

[Maximius]

I thought is was well made, the idea was good (of course - taken from a PKD book) but the script and logical inconsistences are just ridiculous

 

 

I know, I know, its the same old story. Great idea and/or special effects but the storyline is ridiculous, events dont necessarily make sense in the context of the movie, its seems like they are just trying to get from point a to point b in a script by whatever means necessary.

 

I watched a movie about jack the ripper last night. It was a love story intertwined with this detective chasing the ripper. The ripper was the crown prince in this tale and at the end, the detective chased the fucking king of england back to his palace, knocks out one guard, then tackles the king in a big empty room and forces him to confess hes the killer. Suddenly, a dozen guards appear after giving the hero enough time to murder, rape, and eat the king. The king dismisses the guards and goes along quietly.

 

I was speechless watching this shit. Who in the world would believe that anyone could pursue the king back to his palace and beat his ass before a million guards showed up? But they wanted some mano e mano drama and set it up that way. Its the same tune in a dozen other films that come to mind. Movies are going the way of the video game.

[demagogue]

I just saw Paycheck recently and the plot-structure was so godawful as the movie went on I had to literally tell myself to stay in my seat and watch it just to get through it. I thought it was worse than Minority Report ... although both of them started off well and could have easily gone in a better direction, I thought. The ending was horrible IMO ... like even on the actors faces you could see them wondering "who writes this shit?". It's all the worse because they were Dick stories, and I really like him. I wish they'd go tarnish some other author's canon.

 

Anyway, when I think about this touchscreen technology, it reminds me of early GUIs (in their ergonomics, not the look and feel of it!), which got more efficient and easier to use over time, although the first ones were frustrating ... I'm sure they've got some team at MIT whose sole goal in life is to tweak the angles and sizes of the thing to make it comfortable for your arms and efficient to use (just like they have one for ergonomic keyboards and workstations) -- but we might not get there for a while. But if it's got real potential, they'll design it to make it easy and comfortable to use I think.

Edited March 27, 2006 by demagogue

[Vadrosaul]

The only worthwhile PKD movie is Total Recall. It's choc full of life's important lessons:

[Maximius]

The only worthwhile PKD movie is Total Recall. It's choc full of life's important lessons:

 

 

What about "BladeRunner?" The name is taken from William S. Burroughs "Interzone" story IIRC but the plot is from "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by PKD. It was my favorite movie for years, its lost some of its shine as my tastes have changed but I still pop it in every so often.

 

"Total Recall" was fun, usually I cannot stand Arnie but it had some good points. I wouldnt cross the street to pick up a free copy of it but I might watch it again on the boob tube. The best part was seeing Sharon Stone taking a slug to the neocortex, I could watch that scene over and over. BTW Cohagens assistant, not Arnies main opponent but the grey haired little rat looking dude is the sci fi author Harlan Ellison I believe.

 

I recently watched "Andrei Rublev" for about the hundreth time in the last two years, directed by the Russian master Tarkovsky. What a fucking film, so rich you can come back to it a thousand times and still gain from it. You dont even really start to understand whats going on until you have seen it three times at least, not because its incoherent or cobbled together but because the writing is subtle, you have to study the events on the screen to start to get the idea of whats going on. Directors like Tarkovsky have ruined me for most film, who can watch the crap out of Big Hollywood when works like this set a higher standard?