Notes

How Green is your Computer?



Notes from a talk about DiamondTouch

This past week, I attended a University of Colorado computer science colloquium. It was a showcase of HCI Research from MERL Technology Laboratory. I have blogged about some of my past talks.



The talk was mostly about the DiamondTouch, but an overview of Mitsubishi Electronic Research Laboratories was also discussed. The DiamondTouch is basically an iPad PC with a large screen. You interact with it using touchscreens. ZEHN GAMES CANADA The most interesting thing is that the touch screen can actually distinguish users, by analyzing electrical signals (you sit on special pads which, I believe, generate the needed electrical signatures). To experience the DiamondTouch in action, watch this YouTube movie showing a user playing World Of Warcraft on a DiamondTouch. (For more information about YouTube licensing, read the latest Cringely column.)



The following are my loosely edited notes from the talk given by Kent Wittenburg and Kathy Ryall.



[notes]



First, Kent Wittenburg, one of the lab's directors:



MERL is a research laboratory. They don't do pure research--each year, they set a numerical goal of business impacts. These impacts could be an annual contribution, a product or a feature in the product. They are associated with Mitsubishi Electric (not with the car manufacturer).



Five areas of focus: – Computer vision--2D/3D facial detection, object tracking, sensors and data-indoor networking audio classification – Digital Communications-UWB mesh networking, ZigBee, Digital Video-–MPEG Highlights detection by encoding, H.264. Interesting story: realtime video processing can be difficult however audio processing could be easier, so they used audio processing to find highlights (GOAL !!!!!!!!!!!!) in sporting videos. This technology is currently available in a product distributed in Japan. - Off the Desktop technologies include speech, touch and multi-display calibrations font technologies (some included with Flash 8), spoken queries



The lab is known for its variety of time frames, with 37% long-term 47% medium, 16% shorter term. Although I am of the opinion that "long-term" is longer than 5 years and "short-term" is less than 2 years, I'm not certain.



The next one is next, Kathy Ryall, who declared she was a software person and was focusing on DiamondTouch technology.



The DiamondTouch is multiple user, multi-touch, and can differentiate users. It can be used to touch with different fingers. The screen is dust-resistant and therefore you can place things on it or spill liquids on it. It will still function. The DiamondTouch is compatible with legacy support. This means that hand gestures and pokes could be interpreted as mouse clicks. The interactions standards for the screen are still being developed by MERL and other organizations. Because you can make use of multi-finger gestures as well as pen-and-finger (multi device) interaction The DiamondTouch provides richer interaction than mouse. It's a brand new user interface, especially because several users can use it at the same time. You can also use it as an open space for sharing documents with hand gestures and so on.



It is a USB device that can connect and work. There are also developer kits that are commercially available. They are available in C++, C, Java, Active X. Flash libraries are also available for rapid prototyping. DiamondSpin is an open source Java interface to some of the DiamondTouch capabilities. The people at MERL are also currently working on wrapping other APIs for the DiamondTouch.



There are two sizes available for DiamondTouch - the 81 and 107 (I believe these are the diagonal measurements). These tables are priced at about $10,000, so they're only available to large businesses and universities for a time. MERL is also working on DiamondSpace, which extends the DiamondTouch technology to walls, laptops and more.



[At the end of notes[end of notes



It's an intriguing technology. I'm not sure how I would make use of it to replace a PC however, I could think of it (once the cost is less expensive) but I could also see it as a bulletin board replacement. This technology would also be an ideal choice for applications that benefit from multiple user interaction, as well as a larger screen (larger in size, but not in resolution) like gaming and drafting.





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July 24 in 2006


CalendarTag: A simple JSP Calendar Component

I was interested in the HtmlCalendarBean as well as the Calendar Taglib, both available from ServletSuite. I expected the price to be affordable, but I didn't expect the sourcecode, which was crucial to the client. A little research on SourceForge discovered the perfect project: CalendarTag. The project appears abandoned, but the creator has put things in order before putting it down for development. I would say that the project is mature, rather than abandoned. He also replied to my questions, including "is this project still alive?" within less than 24 hours. I found the documentation to be very useful. Additionally, you can modify the output of the calendar to a great extent. I love the decorator. It allows you to alter the way that each day is displayed. You can either create an interface that is simple or extend an a class. There is no doubt. This component displays a basic calendar in HTML. Update 3:24: There is no support for users or events. I should have read the documentation more carefully and found out that there's no built in support for users or events. You can access the request within the calendar and create the handling of events or calendars for users. If you want those features, I'd suggest looking at a more sophisticated calendaring system. Calendartag does a simple job and does it well.


My Website: https://zehngamescanada.com/