PaperComp 2010: The Dawn of Paper Computing

from PaperComp.org:

Paper is not dead. Books, magazines and other printed materials can now be connected to the digital world, enriched with additional content and even transformed into interactive interfaces.

Conversely, some of the screen-based interfaces we currently use to interact with digital data could benefit from being paper-based or make use of specially designed material as light and flexible as paper.

In a near future, printed documents could become new ubiquitous interfaces for our everyday interactions with digital information. This is the dawn of paper computing.

1st International Workshop on Paper Computing
26-29 Sept 2010 / Copenhagen, Denmark

Sony unveils paper-thin OLED screen that rolls up while still playing video

from PopSci: ⇦ Video at source

The 80-microns-thick (that’s 80 millionths of a meter, or about as thick as a human hair) full-color display can be rolled up and unfurled repeatedly without degrading picture quality.

It was made possible by a breakthrough in OLED tech, in which Sony researchers created organic thin-film transistors with 8 times the performance of conventional OTFTs.

• EOT OLED archive

Researchers analyze performance of first updatable holographic 3D display

from PHYSORG:

In 2008, researchers from the University of Arizona created a holographic 3D display that could write and erase images, making it the first updatable (or rewritable) holographic 3D display ever demonstrated.

Now, in a follow-up study, the researchers have reported the results of their analysis on the performance of the display, including how the polymer enables display enhancements and what more needs to be done before such displays can be widely used.

• EOT Holography archive

A feasibility analysis of neural interfaces and controllers

from h+ Magazine:

As human neural networks and electronic digital networks converge there is some debate over how to best move data from neural to digital formats.

Since the human brain is equipped with high-resolution sensory organs, there are many obvious routes for digital-to-neural input, but organic systems lack sufficient neural outputs for porting thoughts, memories, and dreams directly to digital memory.

• EOT Neuro archive
• EOT Interface archive

Gesture-based computing on the cheap

from MIT News:

With a single piece of inexpensive hardware — a multicolored glove — MIT researchers are making Minority Report-style interfaces more accessible.

“This actually gets the 3-D configuration of your hand and your fingers,” Wang says. “We get how your fingers are flexing.”

• EOT Interface archive

Siftables are changing the shape of computing

from Singularity Hub: ⇦ More videos at source

What if computers were more like a child’s wooden blocks?

Siftables are a new approach to computing developed by David Merrill and Jeevan Kalanthi. Each small square electronic tile has a small screen, motion sensors, and RF signals. The siftables interact with each other, letting you use orientation, proximity, and movement to control their performance.

• EOT Interface archive
• EOT Video archive

Wheelchairs that listen

from Boston.com:

Seeking greater independence, patients help MIT researchers design a voice-driven device

“They can know more about the environment — weather, scheduled events, menus — and exploit that knowledge to make more meaningful choices about how they wish to spend their time,’’ said Teller, a member of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

The prototype, under development since 2005, can cruise the halls of MIT’s computer science lab, often without a passenger. When one of the students working on the device tells it to “Go to the kitchen,’’ a computer-generated voice responds: “Do you want to go to the kitchen?’’

• Video
• Intelligent wheelchairs will navigate on their own

10 Smart Clothes you may be wearing soon

from ReadWriteWeb:

In the emerging Internet of Things, everyday objects are becoming networked. Clothing is no exception.

It’s still early days for Web-enabled clothes – the best example so far is the Nike+ running shoe, which contains sensors that connect to the user’s iPod. But expect to see everything from your shirt to your underwear networked in the not too distant future.

In the following list of ten ‘smart clothing’ items, we showcase Internet pants, a proximity sensing shirt, a heart sensing bra, biosensor underwear, a “thought helmet”, and more!

• EOT Clothing archive

‘Think-dial’ on your thought-controlled iPhone

from h+ Magazine:

Don your telepathic headset and plug into your iPhone. Want to call your friend? Just look at her picture and think about her.

A new iPhone app described in the MIT Technology Review blog developed by Tanzeem Choudhury, Rajeev Raizada, Andrew Campbell and others at Dartmouth College lets you “wink” or “think dial” your relative or friend when his or her photo appears on an iPhone.

• EOT Neuro archive

Hand-held device projects images that respond to the real world

from NewScientist:

The device – called Twinkle – projects animated graphics that respond to patterns, shapes or colours on a surface, or even 3D objects such as your hand.

It uses a camera to track relevant elements – say a line drawn on a wall – in the scene illuminated by the projector and an accelerometer ensures it can sense the projector’s rapid motion and position.

• Link to Video
• EOT Projection archive

Video: New interface combines strength of touchscreen with precision of a pen

from MIT’s Technology Review:

The prototype for Manual Deskterity is a drafting application built for the Microsoft Surface, a tabletop touchscreen.

The interface’s most interesting features come out when the two types of interaction are combined. For example, a user can copy an object by holding it with one hand and then dragging the pen across the image, “peeling” off a new image that can be placed elsewhere on the screen. By combining pen and hand, users get access to features such as an exacto knife, a rubber stamp, and brush painting.

• EOT Interface archive

Intel guru says 3-D Internet will arrive within five years

from ComputerWorld:

Sean Koehl, a technology evangelist with Intel Labs, said technology is emerging that will one day change the way we interact with electronic devices and with each other.

That could come as soon as five years from now when, he predicted, there will be realistic-looking three-dimensional applications.”The Internet may never go fully 3-D, but making 3-D environments broadly accessible is probably capable within five years,” noted Koehl.

• EOT 3-D archive

MIT’s BiDi Screen: A thin depth-sensing LCD for 3D gesture interaction using light fields

from web.media.mit.edu: <- video, specs, & more at link

The BiDi Screen is an example of a new type of I/O device that possesses the ability to both capture images and display them. This thin, bidirectional screen extends the latest trend in LCD devices, which has seen the incorporation of photo-diodes into every display pixel.

Using a novel optical masking technique developed at the Media Lab, the BiDi Screen can capture lightfield-like quantities, unlocking a wide array of applications from 3-D gesture interaction with CE devices, to seamless video communication.

• EOT Interface archive

Video: ‘Building of the Future’ has swarm-robotic guides, AR, touchscreen walls & more

from Singularity Hub:

Set on the massive 16 hectare compound of Santander Bank outside of Madrid, El Faro awes its guests with technology that transforms their surroundings into a interactive mesh of the physical and digital worlds.

Integrated technologies providing humans with an enhanced environment – welcome to the future, boys and girls.

• EOT Video archive

Video: Virtual Reality in a box

from Singularity Hub:

pCubee is a small cube with five LCD screens on its sides. Stare at pCubee and it feels like you’re looking a 3D environment inside the box – a Fish Tank Virtual Reality (FTVR).

Users wear a head tracking device, allowing pCubee to correctly present you with depth perception and motion parallax on each of its sides – it’s a personalized experience (hence the ‘p’ in pCubee).

Video: Touchscreen wall explores gigapixel photos

from Singularity Hub:

Students at the University of Tromso in Norway have built an amazing multitouch wall with a mind-blowing 7168×3072 resolution – 22 megapixels!

The WallScope has 28 projectors whose graphics are fueled by 31 nodes in a cluster. A series of 16 cameras on the floor create a 2D ‘multitouch plane’ so you can control the WallScope without making contact with the wall.

Portable mind-reader lets users write with their thoughts

from TGDaily:

The Mind Speller, intended primarily for people with severe motor disabilities, is an EEG-based device that interprets brain waves to spell words and phrases.

The Mind Speller contains a proprietary ultra-low power eight-channel EEG chip developed by IMEC and Holst Centre to process the EEG signals. A commercially available low power microcontroller digitizes the EEG signals, and a low power 2.4GHz radio transmits the EEG signals wirelessly to a nearby PC.

• EOT BCI archive

New touch-screen technology to allow big displays to be used by multiple people

from The Montreal Gazette:

Robert Biddle is a professor of human computer interaction at Carleton University and one of the lead investigators on what is known as the Digital Surface Software Application Network (SurfNet), a project involving 12 elite researchers who believe the time is right to take touch-screen technology to a new level.

“Computers these days are really designed for one person. There is one keyboard, one mouse, one cursor on the screen and one focus of attention. You see people working ‘together’ and they are all just sitting there staring into their own computer,” Biddle said.

“New multi-touch technology will allow big displays to be used by more than one person at a time. People working around the conference table, sketching things and showing them to one another in parallel. We think this has a lot of potential.”

Video: Future displays send pixels swarming all over your house

from Fast Company:

For her grad-thesis at the Art Center College of Design, Julia Yu Tsao created Curious Displays, a pretty amazing vision of what display technology might become, decades down the road.

Rather than a single screen, she envisions a swarm of autonomous blocks that occasionally join up to form a TV–but which can also disperse to highlight other information, such as what your schedule looks like, or even where your keys are.

Intendix Brain-Computer Interface goes commercial

from Singularity Hub:

The world’s first patient-ready and commercially available brain computer interface just arrived at CeBIT 2010.

The Intendix from Guger Technologies (g*tec) is a system that uses an EEG cap to measure brain activity in order to let you type with your thoughts.

• EOT BCI archive