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Computers

by Michael Ho

Wed, Jun 30th 2004 11:39pm





Tap On, Tap Off -- The Tapper

from the as-seen-on-TV dept

Instead of moving things around on a vibrating table using calculated oscillations, how about turning almost any surface into a touch-sensitive interface by measuring vibrations and back-calculating the location of where they originated. By using time-reversal techniques, sounds and vibrations that are picked up by a few sensors can detect, for instance, where someone is tapping on a desktop. This could be used for such applications as switching on/off different devices (watch out, Clapper!). Similar techniques, using several well-placed microphones, could detect where a sniper is shooting from. The computation to do these tasks in real-time is still a bit beyond practical. At the same time, the accuracy (and filtering out interfering sounds) probably needs to be improved, but the technique certainly could eventually be applied to a lot of interesting applications.

5 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    Wax On Wax Off Daniel-san

    identicon
    dorpus, Jul 1st, 2004 @ 12:27am

    What about the same technique in reverse, which takes advantage of well-placed vibrations that harmonize into a giant rogue wave? Then sky scrapers, bridges, and highway overpasses can be brought down with a few well-placed speakers by scr1pt k1dd3s.

    As it is, rogue waves can happen spontaneously at sea, if waves overlap the right way.

    http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/257.html

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Re: Wax On Wax Off Daniel-san

    identicon
    dorpus, Jul 1st, 2004 @ 12:39am

    As the link says, supertankers can be brought down at sea, based on a sensitive dependence on initial conditions -- if it can be computed, tossing a few tennis balls into the ocean at the right places can cause tsunamis that will bury cities.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Already patented

    identicon
    Exadios, Jul 1st, 2004 @ 1:09am

    If I'm not mistaken this was patented some years ago. Certainly there is a touch screen technique that relies on this technology.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    Re: Already patented

    identicon
    Who is John Galt?, Jul 1st, 2004 @ 5:02am

    So this is basically "Touch" without the "Screen" - a step backwards

    Where's the tactile response? Oh yeah, no one wants that anymore, that's why "Touch Screens" have taken over the world - Not!

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    Finding snipers

    identicon
    John Jorsett, Jul 2nd, 2004 @ 12:14pm

    As far as locating snipers (gunshots), this system already exists.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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