Calvin and ASCII

[The_Fox]

So we get our first look at Calvin now. And he is sporting a ring of LEDs around his eye similar to Alice, but no longer wears his glasses. And ASCII is here. I wonder what is going to happen now? This is a little unexpected. I should think most of us figured ASCII was going to go find the woman who broke his heart, and I don't THINK she is to be found under this roof. So...why is he here?

- Jarylan

[Kesh]

Looks like he has the LEDs over the eye, but he also has a "monocle" type display over that eye. I'm guessing that's what's displaying the floating windows he's interacting with.

Speaking of which: I WANT.

That's my dream interface, right there.

[GreatLimmick]

Well, in UH1, he did pretty much have the predecessor to the eye-fi.

[Alfador]

I, too, WANT that nifty little trinket of technology. Want with a capital W.

[Patchwork cat]

I figured a while back that people will have 'heads up' displays in a few years. Probably worn like a hat, so a hologram can be punched or spoken to.
I'd like that a lot- better than this back up comp with a crt 14 inch screen- ouch! I have gone blind...

[The_Fox]

Aha! Calvin is most likely the fur who invented the eye-fi. Or at least the security for it.

Makes sense.

- Jarylan

[Schol-R-LEA]

I figured a while back that people will have 'heads up' displays in a few years. Probably worn like a hat, so a hologram can be punched or spoken to.
I'd like that a lot- better than this back up comp with a crt 14 inch screen- ouch! I have gone blind...

Practical monocular head mounted displays (by which I mean ones with reasonable resolution and clarity weighing under 120g - which for comparison's sake is roughly 4 times the weight of an ordinary pair of glasses) have been around for a while now, but they never really caught on. They are tricky to work with, distracting,, and still fairly fragile; also, most people don't like how they look when worn - even hard-core geeks often find them to be too much. Because of this, they are still very expensive low-production items, and most of the companies which go into the field don't seem to last very long. The few who do seem to have thrived such as MicroOptical or Liquid Image have mostly survived in niche fields where HMDs are the only practical solution, such as certain military or medical uses - the consumer market is almost an afterthought. Integrating them into a system can take a bit of work, as a result.

That having been said, the real problems with wearable computing these days, aside from the cost of putting together a system, isn't in the output, it's in the input. Things like chording keyboards (e.g., the Twiddler series) and similar devices take a bit of work to get used to, and they all work differently from each other.

I have to admit that I haven't seriously looked into the matter in years; I expect the the WEAR-HARD mailing list is still around in some form or another, but I dropped out years ago due to lack of funds, flagging interest (I was too depressed at the time to be interested in much of anything, but that's not relevant) and the increasingly flame-y attitude among the regulars.

[E_voyager]

I have to r3ebmer that. bribery: unethical but effective. but i wonder what now one have ever bribed me.

[GreatLimmick]

Generally, only people with power get bribed. Do you have power over anyone?

[Aki_no_kaze]

my dad always said "everyone has their price... just no one has offered me mine yet" (note: he was a police officer for 30 years )

[Cyril_Dran]

Childhood is a string of parental-child bribery, going both ways. Nobody ever seems to notice that when a parent buys a screaming child a candy bar, they're simultaneously bribing each other: The child screams, implying a stop should they be given what they desire (Also known as soliciting a bribe), and the parent bribes the kid with candy to shut it up.

[GreatLimmick]

Childhood is a string of parental-child bribery, going both ways. Nobody ever seems to notice that when a parent buys a screaming child a candy bar, they're simultaneously bribing each other: The child screams, implying a stop should they be given what they desire (Also known as soliciting a bribe), and the parent bribes the kid with candy to shut it up.

That's extemely poor parenting right there. Your example just teaches the child that he can manipulate his parents, and that annoying other people will get him what he wants. Good parenting is closer to operant conditioning-- the parent reinforces good behavior and punishes bad behavior (with "good" and "bad" being defined subjectively by the parents). That's not bribery; that's manipulation.

Like I said, you can only bribe people with power. If the child has power over his parent's, something has gone catastrophically wrong.

[EDIT]

And recarding the January 24 comic... Well, Volair did say that ASCII was pretty...

...about a thousand times.

[Patchwork cat]

I was wondering about holoprojection really- I doubt there is that in computers yet. Having a whole monitor/keyboard projected where you need it without a physicalscreen would be cool, though I guess not so private, with the whole being a small device held anywhere on your head?
If the future is an iphone I think I'm better off here.

[Alfador]

For privacy, instead project it directly into your eye, imaging correction for lens shape and simulating appearance at any depth with perfect clarity.

[Allan_ecker]

*does not work with a monacle.

[Shurhaian]

Depends which eye you use. Military applications were mentioned earlier; Apache pilots have used monocular displays since the thing was first launched, so far as I'm aware. If you use your dominant eye, it's fine. If not, then you have problems.

[Allan_ecker]

Nnnot for 3D.

For that you need two eyes.

[Shurhaian]

...Aha. The "appearance at any depth" bit. Right. You'd have to "simulate" depth for that one, which would be sketchy.

[Alfador]

One important characteristic to understand is that binocular parallax is NOT the ONLY cue the eye uses to judge distance. If that were the case, 3D imaging for monitors and films would be futile. The brain processes certain overlaps in shape to figure out which objects are "behind" which, as well as looking at relative scale with objects we are familiar with, with referential ground distance, etc. in order to gauge a rough distance. And finally, the eye's focus can be used as a measure of virtual distance--if you're focusing on something in a virtual eyepiece and something you see in the real world is also in focus, you'll perceive the virtual object and the real one as being at the same distance, all other things being equal.

Of course, first we have to get the eyepiece to source the light properly, so you don't have to focus on a screen an inch in front of your eye.

[Allan_ecker]

Most computers these days are already making use of non-parallax depth cues; ever seen two windows overlap on your desktop?

To get the sort of experience Calvin seems to be having, you really would need a binocular display, which he has. The true purpose of his monacle is... mmostly ornamental. He can also use it to holoproject, which is sometimes a quick substitute for sharing files over a wetware network, especially in mixed company where not everyone is equipped with such hardware.