$5 Sensor Uses Ambient Electro Magnetic Interference to Turn your TV into a Touch Screen
…the electricity running through the wires in your house has a unique electromagnetic signature. There is the “carrier wave,” provided by the power company and your nearby substation, and then every single kink and switch along the way modulates the EM signature until it is quite unique.
What most people don’t realize, though, is that every device that is plugged into a wall outlet also changes your EM signature. Your TV doesn’t just suck power from your house — it’s a two-way street, with the electronic components in the TV producing interference that change your house’s EM signature.
Now, by plugging an EMI sensor into any wall socket, you can read your house’s EM signature — and if you continue to listen, you can detect changes in the signature. Obvious changes occur when a device is switched on or off, but it also turns out that simply moving your hand close to an LCD monitor also alters your house’s EM signature.
…Using that $5 sensor, which is attached to a PC running some clever software, the University of Washington researchers are able to discern between five different gestures: full-hand touch, five-finger touch, hovering above the screen, pushing, and pulling.
…The average detection rate is 96.4%; it would be higher, but the hard-to-detect hover and push gestures drag it down (the EMI caused by a hand placed a few inches away from an LCD monitor is almost infinitesimal).
Two years ago, the same research group used the same technology to turn CFL bulbs into proximity sensors.
(via Turning a standard LCD monitor into touchscreen with a $5 wall-mounted sensor | ExtremeTech)
In the 1950s we might have needed a guy on one of the three television channels to tell us that there are protests going on somewhere. Today, we don’t. We already get the facts elsewhere, in real-time.
What television excels at is day after day providing interconnected and continuous stories. It’s why great television often leaves great film gasping at the complexity and depth possible on the small screen.
Pining for Murrow is misguided nostalgia. We don’t need Murrow on the air so much as we need master storytellers. Right now those guys exist, but they’ve only got two story lines, and they both suck.
Set-Top Box Uses Facial Recognition to Target Ads to Whomever is Watching
Intel has developed a new set-top box that will monitor who is watching TV at that moment, enabling advertisers to target the most appropriate ads to them. The box does this by using facial recognition technology.
(ht paulocesilveira)
Dutch to Establish Mars Bases by 2023, For a Reality Series That Ends in Death of All Participants
This is a real thing. No return mission planned. People who go to Mars on this mission will die there. The whole thing will be televised.
This is what the privatization of space looks like.
Landsdorp says that the event will be all privately funded. How will he get hold of that money? By creating the “biggest media event ever”, he says.
Reading closer, it begins to sound a little like reality TV:
Our mission will be one of exploration. It will truly be the next giant leap for mankind. And who gets to go to Mars will be selected, at least in part, by the audience such that they will be interesting people to watch.
Please call your congressman and ask him to restore funding for NASA
(via This Dutch Company Is Planning To Establish A Human Settlement On Mars In 2023 - Business Insider)
New Glasses-Free 3D Display Supports Multiple Viewpoints Without Losing Image Quality
If 3D has a future in our pockets, then it must be one that requires no spectacles. Not only are the goggles an issue, other key factors like resolution and viewing angles all need to be bettered before it stands a chance of broad adoption. NLT technology knows this, and has prototyped a 3.1-inch 3D LCD display that not only matches 2D resolution (as we’ve seen before,) but also offers up to six viewing angles. The display is based on existing horizontal double-density pixel technology with “HxDP” (horizontally x times-density pixels,) a new technology for creating multiple viewpoints, thrown into the mix. Standard HDDP gives a 3D image two viewpoints, HxDP allows more depending on density of sub-pixels. It also allows for both 2D and 3D images to be on-screen at the same time, meaning you can decide which version of Alvin and the Chipmunks Chipwrecked you prefer side-by-side.
(via Prototype 3D display maintains resolution, bumps viewing angles, spans dimensions — Engadget)
