LOTD: Sketch-a-Move

http://www.lwk.dk/sketch_a_move/sketch_content.html#

Check out the video:

http://www.lwk.dk/sketch_a_move/sketch-a-move_mov.html

Okay that is SICK.

MUST OWN NOW. MUST OWN NOW. MUST OWN NOW.

This is one of those things that was never predicted in sci-fi movies. The sci-fi writers' idea of a futuristic toy involves holograms and brainstem interfaces. This is like sci-fi come to life, but it's much cooler and simpler...

And I haven't even looked at the website yet to see if I can get them or how much they cost... All I've seen is the video.

That is just so utterly cool.

Nooooo!!!!! It's not a commercial product yet, it's a couple of students inventing the next billion-seller and giving it to Mattel for free.... Argh....

Either that or it's an elaborate hoax done with radio control cars.

You know what, I think it is.

Must be a hoax.

No one would invent something that utterly cool and then just give it to Mattel. No one smart enough to make something that amazing could possibly be that stupid about its worth.

Interesting thing is, as a proof-of-concept, I think it might still be viable. Sure it's just a hoaxed video, but I think the technology described is actually do-able. Anyone agree?

I'm sure it is do-able now, but not to the level of accuracy demonstrated on the video. They do say on their website that they think it is tehnically possible as well.

Ideally you would want the top of the car to be a touch sensistive LCD like my Pocket PC screen. That would make it extremely expensive of course.

You could get the same functionality out of a cleanable film of plastic that was touch sensitive, like the suggest in the video, but it wouldn't be as neat as an LCD.

Using a Pocket PC strapped to the top of a radio controlled car body would be the easiest way to prototype this, though the 600Mhz Xscale in my Dell might be a bit overkill for the final product

I'd bet you could do it almost exactly like they showed it, no expensive LCD needed. Either an X/Y pen (like those pens that remember what you write), or just a very simple piezoelectric touchgrid with no attached display. The microprocessor and electronics would have to be highly integrated and very specialized, but you wouldn't need much CPU power if you simplified it to the bare minimums to get the job done.

The only thing the microprocessor would need to do is remember a series of impulses from the piezoelectric grid, in order, and then play them back, in order. A small and simple math calculation to determine the amount of wheel turn to reach the next X/Y point, some tweaking of values to fit the real world, and you're done.

Or what about this. Ooo Oooo OOOO this could work.

You ever see those tiny little radio control cars at the mall? I believe those are the very same radio control cars that were used to create the hoax video in the first place. Okay, they are SUPER cheap, like 20 bucks retail, right? You get the radio control and the car in a little box and it's cheap fast fun, right?

So what you sell instead, is a PocketPC or a Palm interface module. Inside the module is the transmitter part of that really cheap radio control. Only, instead of buttons on the radio control activating its directions, it's serial commands from the PocketPC or Palm that turn the car left and right and such.

Some very simple Palm/PocketPC software, and for not much more than 20 bucks a pop, you can do almost exactly what they were doing on that video. The only difference is that you're drawing the line on the screen of the PocketPC.

Now, the people have to already own a PocketPC or a Palm, so that's your target audience. But hey, that projet could be done cheaply, practically overnight and on shelves by this Christmas...

Wait, doesn't the new Nintendo handheld come with a pen-touchscreen interface? Can you say, tailor-made development platform with huge potential pre-carved market niche? I remember people wondering what the pen interface for the Nintendo handheld was gonna be good for. Well, we just saw one thing it could be good for.

PATRICK?!?!?!?!? HELOOOOO?!?!? ARE YOU HEARING THIS??!?!?!?!

Enable the remote control device with Bluetooth and then a whole army of Pocket PCs and fancy touch screen mobile phones can control it (though of course you would need software for all the types of devices you supported).

Links are dead already...Damn.

Quote:
Enable the remote control device with Bluetooth

I knew bluetooth would be brought up. But wouldn't that be very expensive? The type of thing I'm talking about would be a $20.00 item, assuming the owner already had a handheld PC. Also, not all handhelds have bluetooth, I'd want something that could work for every single handheld device out there, going back to even the old palmpilots. You could do it, I'm sure...