Show HN: Mosaic – Use multiple iPhones as one big screen | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Mosaic – Use multiple iPhones as one big screen

mosaic.io

106 pointsigul22247 comments

The Junkyard Jumbotron lets you use all sorts of devices, and it's web based. You arrange the screens in the positions you want, and each one displays a QR code. You take a picture of them all together, and the Jumbotron breaks the image up in to the right pieces:

http://jumbotron.media.mit.edu/

Problems I see with that: it requires n+1 devices, it's less intuitive than swiping, and does anybody want to shift around heavy monitors and big screens anyway?

If that's what you have, your options are presumably use them, or run out and get a dozen iPhones. I know which I'd go for.

Who uses QR codes?...

Those are ARToolKit glyphs, not QR codes (see http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/).

I really like the business model here: Free, simple standalone app that serves as a fun proof-of-concept, supported by a commercial SDK for the inevitable ideas you'll come up with. Smart.

Maybe I'm sentimental, but you should rebrand. I think NCSA Mosaic holds a position of antiquity in a lot of hacker minds, and Mosaic is a special name to me.

Or, maybe we'll eventually run out of English words and start recycling anyway, and I should move on. Tough to say.

Nice... us hackers must be thinking the same thing lately - let's use multiple IP devices to do X.

We just released...

SpeakerBlast - Turn multiple friends' IP devices into one massive stereo system.

Checking out Mosiac ... i wonder what other uses of multiple IP devices can be put to use to?

Congratulations on getting SpeakerBlast to work! We've tried doing that before, but getting the time delay low enough for it to sound good is incredibly challenging.

thanks!

I can see an ad agency using Mosiac at conference for Point of Sale demo. 100 person ad agency tells their employees, "Hey bring your Ipads to the conference we're gonna use them to create one huge TV for our video demo."

Cool stuff.

Traffic sensors, temp sensors, sound sensors, flock orientation, record video from multiple perspectives, record audio from multiple perspectives, proximity team gaming....

I expect Mosaic to be a default, obvious tool for all generations. Set one device as the master - and anyone with a screen can add their real-estate.

What would be interesting would be for the app to have a master push out an audio tone and the slaves would listen for the tone and determine their proximity based on the tone and how well it could hear it...

If I remember correctly there's an app that tracks barometric data from Android devices, right?

Yeah its called pressureNET

http://pressurenet.cumulonimbus.ca/

So just confirming, it's a webapp which would work on all the phones, not just iDevices right? (Asking as you specifically mention iPhone, PC and Mac but not Android)

It's a web app indeed. That will work on Android in the future.

We like Mosiac are bootstrappers so getting our hands on multiple Android devices for testing is a hurdle we'll no doubt overcome in time.

Hey, can you email me? (Email in profile.) I want to run something by you.

Just wondering on your business model. Do you really expect there would be many people with so many iPhones to use this for the purpose of making a big screen? Because those who don't already have, would probably just buy one big screen IMO...

Just think of all the concerts, festivals and other large-scale events though that could make a huge mosaic with the crowd instead of using lighters!

I saw this live at PennApps - it's incredible. It truly feels magic.

Yeah I honestly didn't believe that it actually worked when I saw the demo. Apparently, they even did it with video!?

Indeed - I saw it myself

This is really neat...what would I want to use the SDK for though...?

Multi-phone board games. Swipe-based file transfer. Multi-screen movie watching, video streaming, web browsing.

were you aware of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_%28web_browser%29 when choosing the name?

Yes. There are a few other things out there using the name Mosaic, but we went through about a hundred names and really really liked this one, so we stuck with it.

if you started an indie rock band, would you call yourself 'the beatles' :)?

The Beatles are still listened to. This browser is no longer used. I don't see the parallel.

I would go with "The Silver Beatles", naturally.

I'd imagine they were going more for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic

It's a pity they need such new devices, I've got a box full of old iPhones and iPods that this could have been used on.

The limit in the system is that we don't have enough devs to do everything we want to do right now, but we're working on it!

I would pay a bunch of money for an app that lets me drag windows from my MBA to my iPad.

http://avatron.com/apps/air-display

This looks similar to the free Blinkendroid app for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.cbase.blin...

Here's another relevant project by Seb Lee-Delisle:

http://seb.ly/2011/09/pixelphones-a-huge-display-made-with-s...

very clever implementation with the flashes! We'd love to see Mosaic used at such a large scale

most expensive screen ever.

Very neat art experiment and interface implementation. I love it. I can see a lot of fun social table top games using this.

Thanks! For sure drop us a line and we can get you building on it! everyone@mosaic.io

Still using MongoDB on the backend?

Among other things, yes!

Video doesn't demonstrate, but does it work with angled screens?

this seems fun! and not to be a downer, but can someone give me some examples on how this would be used in the everyday setting?

If only I have multiple devices laying around.

Props for the very clever position detection!

Just downloaded it, loving it so far!

Do photos pan and zoom in sync?

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