justin - 12 June 2008 12:19 PM

I love this idea. The one thing I want to see and or use would be blue tooth. I want to be able to have my cell phone placed down on the screen and download my pictures. My pictures would goto a photo app that you can look at them the ones you want to keep you save by sliding or flickin them off the screen to one side. The other side would be for flickr. Thats my idea

For RFID can you have a symbol on the bottom so when you place it on the table it reacts?? This could solve the problem of being too far away and the RFID being picked up by the computer.

I like your idea!
That would also work with mp3 player with bluetooth. Up pop the music files and a player.

RFID on a MT is a great idea.  How about merchants giving them to patrons who can use them to access info on their account or browse a items on special. One could access info unique to the RFID tag from a data base about past purchases, as the database shows you pictures of what the latest trends say is what you’d like to see.

All on one big MT table with a few card readers. Multi user as well!

if you have a phone with java

you can prototype that scenario with Processing Mobile ( http://mobile.processing.org/ ) and Processing on the host table computer.

i’ve done bluetooth stuff with arduinoBT and processing/reactivision.

The problem with integrating RFID with multitouch displays is the cost. Sure you can get an RFID reader with a few tags for a reasonable price, but the read distance is usually 3 inches or less. That’s so close that you might as well just add a button to the screen. The only difference being that with RFID you can read multiple tags and thus perform different actions with each tag. RFID readers that can read at greater distances are far more expensive and the antennas are larger. And if you get greater read distances you still have the problem of directional reading fields. You would have to place multiple antennas on the display to read in any direction from it. Ultimately I don’t think RFID has any more usefulness with a multitouch display than it does with any PC. They are usually used to lock and unlock a PC when the tag is outside or inside the read range respectively, but not much else.

Actually, I just thought of a use for RFID and multitouch and it’s straight out of minority report. As a person walks by that has an RFID transponder on them walks past a multitouch wall (larger than Han’s) the multitouch wall will identify them and load information targeting them. And if they are interested they can immediately start interacting with the wall to find out more information about what they were presented with.

Imagine a 100 foot long wall and the person walks within 10 feet of the wall all the way down it, with multiple RFID readers with slightly overlapping fields that can track the person as they move along the wall from one reader to the next, and the personalized content follows them down the wall. If it’s an advertisement they can watch it all the way as they walk. And they could ever hear personalized audio over their bluetooth headset or using directional laser speakers like the ones that were created at MIT a few years back.

That would be very cool. I personally wouldn’t want to be idetified in public like that though.

Alpha Algorist - 24 June 2008 10:57 PM

Actually, I just thought of a use for RFID and multitouch and it’s straight out of minority report. As a person walks by that has an RFID transponder on them walks past a multitouch wall (larger than Han’s) the multitouch wall will identify them and load information targeting them. And if they are interested they can immediately start interacting with the wall to find out more information about what they were presented with.

I’ve been thinking about that as well and decided to pursue the bluetooth approach. Yes, bluetooth needs power, but with power comes range, and obviously the data exchange protocol. We’re in the process of spec’ing out an app for the iphone that uses bluetooth device ids (provided the device is discoverable/detected) to identify people and places, triggering contextual events like “don’t forget to bring the milk upstairs” as soon as your car bluetooth disconnects, or birthday reminders when you run into the person in the hallway. Similarly, a company with many billboards across the city can attempt to match faces to bluetooth ids, as well as measure which ads people zoom by and on which they tend to linger.

Personally I’d like to look at a small slot for the credit card shape RFID tags that you insert and it does an auto log on to the machine.  I could see it being useful if you use an MT coffee table as your wireless media centre to your TV.  Or hell, have it so it puts out a wake-on-lan signal to a media centre that’s connected to your TV.

Better yet, have one of the tiny RFID tags put into your hand, swipe your hand over a reader and then it automates your house ^_^

Medd

And IC cards, ID cards, bank cards, is universal, broad-application can be, if RFID tags can enter each person’s life, this will be a great undertaking.

Please notice that the Phidget RFID-reader can only read one tag - if you want to use more RFID-tags in conjunction, Phidgets is not the way to go…

Yesterday, I saw a project in Denmark that makes fun use of RFID, and could be expanded to incorporate multitouch… take a look here:
http://www.mogensjacobsen.dk/art/hoerbar/

@NUIMan - what is the hardware on that touchtable - it’s sooooooo flat?