Hasta La Gadget!

Two-finger touch or multi-touch? Users don’t have to choose. It can be touch anywhere says French start-up Sensitive Object, which offers a touchscreen technology that goes beyond the traditional display area.

The company’s ‘Anywhere MultiTouch’ platform is based on the recognition of sound waves propagated in an object when the user touches it.

A user’s touch on a glass surface produces a pattern of sound waves that creates an acoustic signature unique to the location of the touch, says Sensitive Object. The company, which was created in 2003, says it has found a way to associate this acoustic signature to the user’s every action.  A glass panel equipped with two piezoelectric sensors, similar to what is used in some new flat speakers technology, is used to detect the sound waves and determine their acoustic signature.

The Anywhere MultiTouch platform can be used on various materials such as glass, aluminum and plastics says Sensitive Object.

The company  hasn’t disclosed how much its new technology will cost. For now it says this will be available at a “very competitive price.” The platform is Windows 7 compliant and offers handwriting recognition.

Sensitive Object hopes to bring its technology to cellphones, netbooks, laptops, PCs and portable games terminals. For app developers, the technology can be handy to expand how users interact with their devices, it says. For instance in case of a cellphone, a game app can require touch on any part of the phone instead of just the screen.

“Sensitive Object’s products are now used in various markets such as home automation, interactive point of sale or information desks and gaming,” says Bruno Thuillier, CTO of Sensitive Object in a statement. “We’re now addressing the handheld and consumer markets.”

[via UberGizmo]

See also:
Touchscreen Kit May Spur More Multi-Touch Apps
Video: MOTO Labs Shows Large Screen Multi-touch Prototype

Photo: (Pranav Singh/Flickr)

Touchscreens are already a big hit with cellphone users. But PC users largely remain chained to their keyboards and mouse.  N-Trig, which provides touchscreens for HP and Dell machines, hopes to change that by putting the technology into the hands of independent software developers — the same people whose apps helped propel the iPhone to massive success.

N-Trig has introduced a touchscreen kit for software developers that can be connected to any development PC. The kit, which costs $900, allows developers to display and test programs designed for touchscreens without having to buy computers that already have one.

“The advantage of having a dev kit  is that it allows you to use the CPU on a high end workstation for compile times but lets you test the multi-touch features in a box next to it,” says Frank DeSimone, senior director of research and development at SpaceClaim, a company that makes a 3D CAD-like product.  “Or you have to compile on a consumer laptop with a touchscreen and that isn’t as fast.”

Apple’s iPhone has made touch a much-desired feature on cellphones. But in PCs, touchscreens have yet to take off. Multi-touch (which involves use of more than two fingers on a touchscreen) is expected to get a boost once Microsoft releases the Windows 7 operating system, its successor to Vista.  Windows 7 supports gesture such as pinching and fingertip scrolling. Other Windows programs, such as Paint, will also include new brushes designed for multi-touch and features such as panning across a page in Internet Explorer. Earlier this year, Microsoft led a $24 million investment round in N-Trig.

But so far developers have had to buy touchscreen computers that feature the N-Trig display. Only three PCs — the HP TX2 and two Dell PCs — currently have it.  The N-Trig dev kit allows developers to turn any of their computers into a touchscreen enabled machine.

“The N-Trig kit can connect to a very powerful desktop computer,” says Harry van der Veen, CEO of Natural Interface, a Swedish company that offers multi-touch software products for applications such as digital signage and education. “You can easily move it around and it is attractively priced. The fact that it is mobile adds a lot of value to the product.”

And as more developers take to creating multi-touch based apps, N-Trig is betting demand for its touchscreens will increase driving the company’s fortunes.

N-Trig's digitizer box aims to kick start multi-touch apps.

“We are a hardware company but the only way that multi-touch on PCs will become mainstream is if independant software developers create applications such as games and productivity tools,” says Lenny Engelhardt, vice-president of business development for N-Trig.

The N-Trig dev kit box, also known as the digitizer, looks like a tablet computer with few controls. The touchscreen on the digitizer supports both stylus and finger touch and connects to the computer using a standard USB cable. The digitizer box can be moved to any Windows-based computer, though it does not work with a Mac.

“This way the developer community can have a touchscreen without buying a touchscreen computer,” says Engelhardt.

$900 for a touchscreen box may seem expensive, but N-Trig says developer shops can use a single box across many machines. And if there is significant demand for the kits, the company can bring down the costs.

Though Windows 7 won’t be available to consumers till 2010, developers interested in multi-touch will have to start working on creating and testing applications now, says DeSimone. “To be successful to get it right you have to start now,” he says.  “If you wait till Windows 7 is out it could be too late to design around the hurdles and have a quality product.”

Photos: N-Trig

This particular Colormunki has been lying around my various offices for
a long time now, — perhaps more than a year — waiting to be reviewed.
The reason is not laziness, but buggy software. You see, while the
Munki itself is an easy to use color-calibration device which both
looks good and works well, the software, on the Mac side at least, is
an abortion. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First, let me tell
you what it’s supposed to do.

Color calibrating a monitor is important for professionals. The idea is that all your displays show the same colors, and that from this consistent base you can also add in color profiles for printers, meaning what you see on the screen matches what you see on the page.

Since computers entered the world of publishing, this was the case. Now though, the digital camera boom means that many amateurs also want color accuracy. I don’t print much, for instance, but I do want my MacBook and my external monitor to match. For that, I need calibration.

The ColorMunki Photo kit contains the unit, a bag with a weighted strap (you put the Munki in the bag and hang it in front of the screen) a USB cable and the software. There are several things that the hardware can do: automatically calibrate and generate color profiles for you monitor, scan prints to make printer profiles and even check the light color and levels in the room. I tested the monitor calibration.

It’s simple to use, and the software guides you through the setup — you set the contrast of the screen to the max, if you like you can put the box on the desk next to the monitor to measure the ambient light first, then you hang the ColorMunki (actually a spectrophotometer) over the front of the screen. After giving instructions on setting brightness and contrast, various colors flash on screen. After a minute or two, you’re done, and the profile is stored and put into use. On a Mac you can see this in the Displays preference pane.

I used the machine on both my MacBook’s screen and my Samsung monitor. Before, the colors were way off — the same photo looked completely different on each screen. Now, they almost match. The MacBook has a slightly yellower rendering of whites and light grays but for me, it’s more than accurate enough.

So what’s the problem? That software. I understand that, in order to directly set the color profiles, ColorMunki needs to access some low-level processes. But the software runs all the time. Even when you’re not using it, there are two processes running in the backgound, one of which cannot be stopped. Not even a force quit command from OS X Activity Monitor, nor a Killall command from the Unix terminal will end it.

This wouldn’t be so bad, but the process is constantly “not responding”. Here’s a picture. Note the use of almost a gig of virtual memory.

There is no way to make this go away short of uninstalling the application. At least, this was the case a year ago. I recently moved to a new apartment and dug out the ColorMunki to check it out again. There is new software. Did it fix things? No. The hung process persists.

I figured that maybe I could install the software, use it and then uninstall it. This is a review, so it’s not a big deal for me, but in a pro-environment, where you might calibrate your monitors weekly, it would be impossible. Worse, there is no uninstaller for the Mac. There is a download page hidden away on the X-Rite website, but the link doesn’t lead to a file. UPDATE: After searching for the link to post here, I found a different page which does have the uninstaller.

Wait, it gets even worse. The installer puts files all over the place. Applications should be in the applications folder. ColorMunki puts them in both the Application Support folder (a big no-no) and also inside the Library folder — the root one, not the user one. What’s more, there is a lot of stuff you don’t need, such as a picture sharing application and the rather mysterious Color Munki Photo Try, which launches at startup and has no options or menu items.

This is a shame. The software, while not particularly Mac-like in appearance, works fine. It’s easy to use and the results are good. The hardware, too, is solid and feels built to last. But the runaway processes and litter installed on my machine mean that I have uninstalled everything.

In short, if I had to use this on a regular basis, I would actually keep another disk with a bootable OS X system on there, just for running the calibration. As a recommendations that is, of course, no recommendation at all. If there are any PC users who have a different experience, let us know in the comments. $500.

Product page [ColorMunki]

The California Energy Commission is proceeding with a proposal this summer to ban the sale of TV sets that do not meet new efficiency standards when they are turned on and displaying a picture — a measure of power consumption that is not currently regulated at all.

But the market and technological advances may already be advancing this goal, as large-screen plasma sets fall out of favor and LCDs become more energy efficient.

The CEC proposal is set up as a two-tiered system. The first enforces efficiency standards beginning in 2011 and would save 3,831 gigawatt hours (and bring down overall TV energy consumption by 33%) by placing a cap on the active mode power usage (in watts) of individual TVs. Current standards in California only regulate TVs in standby mode, at a cap of 3.0 watts.

According to the Commission, energy used in standby mode only represents about 5 percent of all TV energy consumption.

The proposal is based on the following formulas:

The program’s 2013 second stage promises to reduce energy use by 49%. If they are enforced, the new standards are expected to save Californians between $18 and $30 a year per TV set in energy costs. As noted by the Commission, current LCDs use about .27-watts per square inch and plasmas use 0.36-watts per square inch.

This isn’t the first time Government has stepped in to regulate the energy efficiency in a gadget. More than thirty years ago, regulations on always-on refrigerators were passed and were first seen by companies as oppressive. Those companies eventually adapted and the result was a more efficient product. Similar acts have managed the energy needs of air conditioners and other gadgets.

Not surprisingly, several TV companies are seeing this proposal as an all out declaration of war. On the front lines are the folks that put on the Consumer Electronics Show every year, members of the Consumer Electronics Association. They think they’ve done enough to self-regulate their industry, including setting up tougher energy criteria with the new Energy Star 3.0. 

Currently, the standards set up by the Energy Star project are not as stringent.

The Energy Star caps are set by a formula that uses native vertical resolution and visible screen area. Power Integrations recently noted that the Energy Star formula (PMax = 0.240*A + 27), with a TV-viewing area between 680 inches and 1045 inches, limits 42-inch TVs (754 in.sq.) to 208 watts in consumption. More than 300 TVs qualify at that limit right now, including some energy-hogging Plasmas. 

It’s important to note that the Energy Star program is voluntary, and most of the TVs that would be banned by the proposal would be larger TVs that are already losing steam in the market anyway.

The CEA, working on behalf of companies likely to be most affected by the proposal (over-40-inch CRT and Plasma television makers), says pushing through this law would immediately take out 25 percent of TVs off the market. They claim that removing any TV options would harm companies already hurting from the recession.

Those who’d benefit from the new law don’t share the same belief. The LCD Manufacturers Association, including up-and coming TV makers like Vizio, are supporting the proposal.

The Commission, says the law’s main goal is to reduce the strain on the energy grid, which will help avoid building expensive new power plants. It cites the fact that TVs are among the fastest growing electronics in the business and are slated to grow further.

But that’s a deceptive citation because recent TV growth has focused on LCDs and other ‘greener’ TVs.

Energy-hogging TVs are on their way out, without the help of the government or an overriding desire by consumers to own energy-efficient TVs. Most buy LCDs because they’re simply cheaper and are finally approximating the quality of larger plasma televisions.

As we noted recently, the next six years are expected to follow this model as well, with super-efficient OLEDs growing in popularity and availability.

So this might be a moot issue after all, even if you take into account the very largest TVs, which the CEA says will be ones most penalized.

Consider the Mitsubishi LaserVue Laser TV, which comes in huge sizes over 65 inches. Its laser technology not only produces good video, but is also the most energy-efficient, with long-lasting lasers that never need replacing.

So the intention of the commission is generally positive, but it looks like consumers are already ahead of the game here. No matter what happens with the proposal, energy-hogging TVs will be gone within two years.

The CEC has told Wired.com there will be further opportunities for the public to give input on this issue through public hearings and comments on its website, http://www.energy.ca.gov/commission/complaint.html. There’s currently no word on the exact date the proposal will come to vote in the summer, but we’ll update this post when we learn more.

Follow Jose Fermoso on Twitter at twitter.com/fermoso

Anyone walking into the new $1.3 billion stadium for the New York Yankees this spring is bound to be amazed by the size of the center field LED scoreboard, as the first photos of the screen reveal.

Taken by a local CBS affiliate in New York, the pics show early tests of the 103-by-58-foot, 1080p HD Mitsubishi Diamond Vision LED display, which is six times larger than the screen at old Yankee Stadium. According to Mitsubishi, the display is embedded with 8,601,600 LED lamps (covering a total of 5,925 square feet), and can put up to four simultaneous images, with picture-in-picture capabilities.

Some fans are worried that the screen will overshadow the game itself. Since it’s located at the same height as the stadium’s second deck and seems to occupy a quarter of the whole outfield façade, this seems quite possible. That is prime viewing position for nearly everyone inside (including the players), and it’s only natural to continually glance over at a giant flickering thing rather than the serene pastoral slowness of the game.

So you’d think that with that enormous screen, umpires will be using it with the new replay system, right? Alas, no.

According to Major League Baseball, teams are forbidden from showing "a replay of any play that could incite either team or the fans." Judgment calls will continue being made by the umps, as they always have. It’s possible that once a play has been decided, the scoreboard will show versions of disputed plays, but with a screen that size, any possible mistake by the umps could be compounded.

The giant screen is part of a big display tech development for the new Stadium, which also includes about 1,400 other video screens of all sizes, and about 550 of them are flat-panel Sony Bravias.

All displays will be managed by an IP-based network from Cisco Systems. Every one of those TVs will have a singular IP address that can be manipulated for specific MPEG-4 compressed video.

Expect the system to be used to sell ads within the stadium and to show awkward baseball-themed marriage proposals.

Last but not least, big-screen specialist Daktronics also built a video/scoring system that manages a 1,280-foot long color LED ribbon board mounted to the facade of the second deck and will be one of the longest continuous displays in sports. Just like the giant Times Square screen we featured months ago, the LED ribbon board is made out of hundreds of smaller LED ‘cubes.’ This one will show lineups and other team info and will occasionally show psychedelic light shows during the night (see pic above).

We’ll see if the Yankees break from old-school baseball tradition and use all of those displays to put on the first legitimate pre-game light-show-in-the-dark introductions, just like the NBA does in most of its arenas.

The screen at the old Yankee Stadium. Photo: Broadway National Sign and Lighting

All other photos courtesy of WCBS 880. 

See also:

• Mine is Bigger: JVC Launches Giant 720p Screen in Times Square But Walgreens Beats it
• 180-inch 3D LED TV Announced But Resolution Quality is in Question