Xperia Touch makes any surface interactive | Hacker News Reader

Xperia Touch makes any surface interactive

sonymobile.com

204 pointsastdb78 comments

Not sure why the skeptics are all down on this - I think this is awesome. If nothing else it's a great POC product that will get imitated and integrated into other ecosystems (can imagine Google incorporating this into the next Home device), and opens up the world. No use case? Ever needed to watch something, or show something but lugging around a 30'' screen wasn't an option? You can make ANY surface an interactive input device and screen. From consumer to industry applications I see a lot of potential.

If they make this a key product it could grow, but if Sony licenses it out (yes I know they're not really big on that), it could open us up to a whole lot of applications and integrations.

Because the pictures are bullshit. You can't have a projector showing a white image on a dark surface, and they have a countertop example which displays white letters and a white picture on a black marble countertop. Physics literally don't work like that.

You mean the piano and math pictures? The finish on those surfaces makes both of those easily possible (I also don't think that countertop is marble). You can see the reflection of a white light on a finished marble countertop. Black under ambient light != always black, even under a directed light source.

The finish is the problem. Glass is a clean, smooth surface for touch. Walls and wood aren't. The odd tap is fine, but any app that relies on a lot of dragging is going to feel unpleasant, for at least some users.

Would love to use this with my kids. I'm a VR skeptic, but novel variations of AR are always great to see.

We use touch enabled projectors in schools all the time. That technology is way over five years old. I can't remember the last time I saw a classroom without it.

The first thing my 5 year old son does when he gets to school is to drag is name into the school dinner part of the board -- registration and meal choice all in one.

I wonder if they make a clean room version of this? Would be neat to have in hospitals and theatres (for surgery) and in the hospital clean rooms (labs etc)

I was always under the impression that those devices in schools weren't capable of making any surface touch-sensitive, but rather only the whiteboard itself, using sensing on the whiteboard (IR touch?).

This Sony device seems to enable the former, however.

Happy to be corrected.

OK, maybe that's why all the downvotes? I'm not sure if you can point them at anything. They are bolted to the ceiling.

I've used projected keyboards that you can move around. We used those in hospitals. Little USB things.

In fairness to the OP, there are other devices out there that do make any surface touch-sensitive, such as projection keyboards[1]. I remember seeing those devices being released more than a decade ago, thinking these kinds of devices would be the future. It has surprised me it's taken this long for the next evolution of this product to come to market (possibly due to licencing issues with IBM?) but it's really exciting now that it is finally here.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projection_keyboard

I can see this in medical environment where you want to isolate physical contact on easy to clean surfaces (granted the device is also locked in place securely to avoid snitchind)

I like the concept. But the box is too large and the projector output doesn't seem to be enough. I have a 3M Streaming projector which is 60 lumens, this Sony product is 100. The 3m is not usable at all with any normal lamp on, daylight from a window renders it completely useless.

Bump it up to the ~300 lumen range then it might become useful.

Having used the ASUS P2E (300 lumens) virtually every day for the past 3 years in place of a television, I completely agree that 100 lumens is pretty low for a box this big. The latest models from ASUS such as the P3B (800 lumens, ~3hr battery life) better demonstrate what's currently possible for that form-factor and within the that price range.

Touch input aside, I feel like portable/LED projectors are a very promising avenue for Sony to explore. They are very convenient and incredibly dinky compared to big old clunky flat-panels (aka "black mirrors").

The test, of course, is to imagine a similar multi-person touchscreen product coming from Apple. Or HP. Or Google. Or Microsoft.

Think about how each of those 4 companies' reputations prejudices the emotional idea for this product.

It's not just a thought experiment; Apple has the big iPad which is still pretty small for people to crowd around, but its bigger than the other iPads, and there have been multi-player single-iPad games since pretty early on. HP has the HP Sprout, which has a slightly larger area compared to the big iPad but isn't really targeting multiple users, though it does feature a camera + projector combo that the Xperia Touch also uses. Google has the Jamboard, which is based on a 55" TV, and was recently announced as being $5000 for the TV, plus $1200 for the matching stand. The Microsoft Surface Hub is probably the oldest product after the iPad, and that goes for around $10k.

Any attempts to go beyond the individual/single-person experience of the iPad have not yet broadly succeeded. Price is an issue, but also portability - smart whiteboards exist, but beyond installed systems, there has been no wider adoption. If this product is able to drive wider awareness of the concept, I will be happy to kill pen and paper, chalk and chalkboard, dry erase marker and whiteboard.

Pricing is €1,499, according to http://bgr.com/2017/02/28/sony-xperia-touch-release-date-pri...

This would be awesome if it weren't for that price.

It's one of those products that are quite unique which drives up the manufacturing cost. But also niche enough that it won't sell in large volumes.

You think this might catch on, reducing price over time? Cause I'd love to have something like this.

If it becomes popular enough, others will enter the market which will drive down costs. I could see Xiaomi creating something similar.

TheVerge has a nice hands-on video of the prototype, which I think explains the whole thing better than the official website: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/2/27/14737824/s...

I like the projector mode a lot.

This is awesome and exciting.

Looking at it I can only be disappointed in science fiction's failure (specifically tv and movies) to move beyond Minority Report inspired glass touch screens.

I wouldn't necessarily blame science fiction as a whole, but the moreso the concept artists or directors for sticking with physical touch screens. And while many may think of Minority Report as the innovator for interfaces, the current Avengers' Tony Stark has a holographic interface that he manipulates in space.

(I'm just as excited as you are because I had the same idea in middle school, but until a manufacturer like Apple implements it in a flagship device, I'm just considering this a novel gadget. And as another aside, I always thought the idea of moving screens the way Tom Cruise does as super tiring--lemme just nudge that Thinkpad nub.)

Why be disappointed? Reverse projecting onto a 'glass' panel would be better UX, with this your hand can interrupt the beam of the projector obscuring the picture.

This looks like one of those products that would be extremely cool if it worked as well as advertised, but also not likely to do that (which is a recurring theme with the so-called "Weird Sony"). I once tried that "projection keyboard" in a Sharper Image store at the mall and it seemed to register about 20% of my keypresses. It's totally possible the tech has gotten better since then, but I'll wait to see reviews before I spend any money.

Yeah, apparently IBM engineers built a projection keyboard back in 1992. It's not surprising we haven't seen it sooner because of detection issues like you mentioned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projection_keyboard

Lets also not forget Weird Sony's pricing which usually makes most of their products unapproachable.

There are electronic whiteboards which behave in the same way and work extremely well.

From what I remember of smart boards, they were pretty universally hated.

Have smartboards improved? I've had nothing but bad luck with them

I've heard from a friend who tried one at electronics store here in Japan where they're on demo that it worked really well, he tried 10 finger multi-touch and everything.

Combining a projector with a touchscreen and Android. Sounds like a bad idea until you see the person cooking while scrolling through a recipe on the counter.

That and the 1500 EUR price. Can you imagine spending 2-3 large, high quality TVs worth of money and leaving it on the counter?

Don't know how practical it is but a cool extension would be to mount it on a movable mount on the ceiling and have it pop up on any surface you like.

In every kitchen of every home I've ever lived in, counter space has been a premium. A tablet affixed to the wall is a lot more practical for 1/20th the cost. But I suppose if you can afford this gadget, you are probably not wanting for kitchen counter space.

Yeah I didn't find out the cost of this thing until sometime after I'd commented.

I guess if the tablet used leap motion like sensors for gestures that might work otherwise you'd have the issue of messy hands (common state while cooking).

I mean if all you want to do is scroll through recipes in a browser, you could get away with one of those ridiculously cheap chinese tablets that cost like $30.

Or a first gen nexus 7, they're piss cheap now too.

And the projector is hitting the stove and counter, and highlighting where to put which ingredients when, and it's a Tasty video...

Why is this not everywhere? I find this way cooler than over-hyped VR.

I mean it is cool but how is it cooler than VR? VR can achieve the exact same effect as this and more.

Because VR doesn't scale up like this. If you want multiple people interacting with the same virtual surface, this is much better than VR.

Yes I think it is much cooler than VR. This would be used every day. No one is going to use it on a table to to play the 2 half decent games it can do /snark. But in the kitchen in the wall mode, with some good Google Assistant integration. Vs VR? No one uses VR everyday. However the cynic in me guffaws at the VR price level. Jesus Christ. Way to much. At least with an ok VR rig I have a general purpose computer to use or put to work. Maybe I'm wrong but I can see this being used everyday in the morning and evening. It would become a fixture. VR only exists for gaming. No one is going to put VR goggles on every day to watch the news or check the time.

> VR only exists for gaming. No one is going to put VR goggles on every day to watch the news or check the time.

False dichotomy. There's a huge range of potential and real applications for VR that are neither games nor "watching the news".

Pop back here when you've tried SoundStage, TiltBrush, some decent social VR, CAD or interior design in VR, some high-quality VR storytelling experiences, training/education VR, historical reconstructions, music visualization, data visualisation, a physics sandbox, visual programming, interactive character animation etc.

Sony seems to make cool devices like this one. Or like the ePaper one for $700 [0]. But price seems too high for them to achieve a wide success.

[0] https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/show-digitalpaper/resource.sol...

That's a sad thing about sony products. I know they can justify the prices due to high R&D costs but it makes it difficult for the average consumer to purchase their products (I'm fairly sure I'm not their target). For example, I went to the Sony showroom in Japan in 2006/7(?) and they had a cool bluetooth speaker that rolled around based on the music it was playing. The problem is it was ~$350.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Rolly

That's the one!

> the Rolly Choreographer software produces far better results when it analyzes tracks and creates motion files before loading them onto Rolly

I like how the staff just happened to not tell me about that part (thinking back I'm almost positive the demo had pre-loaded tracks)

I started having a good opinion of Sony while ago, when I knew how they behave [See Sailfish OS and in general their openness (not complete at all, but better than others one) regard android platform]. I hope the better for them.

Sony Mobile is still somewhat separate from Sony itself I believe, since the Sony Ericsson days when it started out mostly the old Ericsson mobile team. E.g. they still have development in Sweden (although with continual layoffs).

Back in the day Sony Ericsson and Sony were night and day. Sony made DRMed ATRAC players, and Sony Ericsson made walkman phones thst would let you Bluetooth MP3 files between phones right from the music player.

I dont understand the skeptics its amazing to have a company such as Sony in the engineering and product design landscape doing things like this. I believe they have always been the best product company in the world, they might have shitty marketing and sales spitch but comon, the Vaio were a marvel of computers, sleek looking with nice specs, the Aibo is probably the greatest consumer product ever created and a marvel of imagination, their phones were precursors noticably the xperia compact were the only phones on the market that provided high-end performance for a small size (later to be copied by apple btw), the playstation is an amazing system and has always been, actually most of their product range is amazing, their cameras are the best on the market (the sony A7S is a marvel of engineering), their 4K Ultra Short Throw Projector is crazy as well. Really we owe much to this company and for me this has always been the only giant that I ever respected.

The website makes it look, essentially, like a 1.500 € toy.

I don't need a touch screen to watch a movie with a projector, I can use a whiteboard to write messages, I can even point a projector at a white board (which is common for teachers to do). I don't think I would ever put such an expensive device in the kitchen while cooking.

I'm all for innovation, but this does seem like a bit of a solution in search of a problem. I guess you could say the same about VR, and now they're coming up with good business cases for it, but VR hasn't been touted as a consumer device from day 1, it's only now after some time that it's reaching the common man.

No, it definitely has huge uses. Mostly on a wall though. It's a massive portable touch screen. Think of demos. The problem is glare, you'll need to dim the lights to use it.

Musicians can use this immediately. I'd like to write an app for it that I can use with my piano.

In fact, pretty much any object could be the use-case for this. Very exciting .. I wonder when they'll be available in Europe.

Thought the same. The first "screen" that's big enough for reasonably fit a playable piano keyboard.

According to The Verve article (with interesting test video) linked elsewhere:

> It’s going on sale in Europe sometime this spring and has a suggested retail price of €1,499 ($1,583).

How do you overcome the tactile nature of musical instruments though?

Exactly. Even as an electronic musician, I find myself going as tactile and kino as possible when trying to be expressive. Anyone can sequence notes, and notes don't make music. This will be good for producers, but not much value to musicians.

Exactly. My usual workflow is to build out my songs on a physical instrument (Guitar for the main chords -> a keyboard for the melody), then sequence them in Ableton.

It just feels more "natural" to create something new on a physical instrument

When the price comes down, I can see this having potential. Beam recipes up on the kitchen splashback, or household notes on a wall in the kitchen, table-top games for the kids, office status board on whichever wall suits. No need to wall-mount a display or connect a projector to a PC.

There are obvious limitations, even if they never improve the contrast, there are still a lot of decent use cases.

This reminds me of the very cool research of Chris Harrison, a professor at Carnegie Mellon. Lots of interesting work thinking about different ways to interact with computers. http://www.chrisharrison.net/index.php/Research/Welcome

Somewhat similar, Sony's project T http://www.futurelab.sony.net/T/ has a popup demo at 717 Market street during business hours. Anyone off the street can drop by. They have several other demos installed.

I have no idea how well this works in real life. But if the interactive surface is even close to what the video shows then isn't a big portion of the microsoft future concept video [1] fulfilled?

[1] https://youtu.be/w-tFdreZB94?t=2m22s

I'm especially interested in the walk by, weather/clock feature. Instead of mounting an iPad/LCD on the wall I can just drop this on some furniture and have the same "persistent display" experience. Having my calendar display would also be very helpful.

Awful contrast on lit surfaces (like any projector) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW8kzP7qnD8

This looks way better than sitting in a dark conference room with a projector, trying to describe to the person projecting what you want them to do on their laptop.

23-80 inches (60-150cm) means the diagonal axis of the projection surface, right?

How bright is 100 lumens? Sounds very very low to me compared to standard lighting bulbs.

Typical Sony... neat execution but engineered to be built cheaply.

720P video in 2017?

3GB RAM?

Not room-bright, but you have to dim the lights to use it?

Fixing all the above is technically possible but would cost more.

Do not let perfect be the enemy of good.

I just don't want good to be the enemy of "even better" :-)

I feel like 720p/3GB would be capable enough for most basic Android utility apps, and some social media, which appears to be the use case they're targeting here.

Projectors don't need to be as high-res as screens, the pixels spread out in the same way as a torch-beam does so you don't get blockiness (and extremely fine resolutions would be lost), and with the applications this would be used for why would you need more precision than 720p? People obsess on resolution too much, probably because it's a nice simple number to compare.

Same goes for 3GB RAM.. what will this need loads of RAM for? Isn't it basically an external display combined with cameras and gesture input/processing? [EDIT TO ADD] maybe I'm wrong about this, I thought it was a peripheral but it seems to be standalone.. although the example apps don't sound very taxing.

I agree with the general point about Sony designing with cheap components etc but can't see how it matters in this instance.

Good idea but poor branding - Xperia is known for phones, and not for anything else. They should have called it something else.

This is a tablet, like the Xperia Z4.

I wish Google Home had a built-in projector like Xperia Touch. That would be my perfect home device.

Nice, but they conveniently painted in the shadows in most of the demo imagery.

Looks awesome. Now I need someone to write up a Raspberry Pi version

Sony just has to get hacked again, but this time the hackers release code for all their cool projects.

A bad touchscreen. Every touch I see has the appropriate fingers overextended and the others tucked away, as you would expect from a vision system. We forget how much we hated touch screens before Apple made one that works well.

I feel like if Steve Jobs were alive Apple would've made this.

Limited because of glare glare glare. Still, neat.

Nothing new here, POC concepts already done, concepts and code open sourced 5 years ago. Just new packaging with form. http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/#ABOUT

although some of my friends said the same thing when the iPhone came out. Packaging and form do matter...

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