Main > Everything Else

Disney touch sensor

<< < (3/9) > >>

kahlid74:

--- Quote from: Le Chuck on May 12, 2012, 02:27:14 pm ---
--- Quote from: kahlid74 on May 11, 2012, 01:26:51 pm ---Hmm, I'm not really freaking too much on it.  If you have to paint a copper based paint on a rock to make it a touch screen and you have to hook up said electric current to the rock, it's not really different than what it was before these guys made their software discovery.

To me, the impressive thing is the AI they built into their program to reliably determine what is touching and when it is touching said surface.  So this isn't really about making anything a touch screen but is more about making touchscreens billions of times more accurate and dependable.

--- End quote ---

I think it's both.  The fact that they can interpret multiple levels of signal strength from conductive objects such as metal door knobs using only a single conductive lead is pretty amazeballs.  So basically, clear conductive glass with a single lead is now able to take the place of the current clumbsy touch screen tech.  Its a software solution for a hardware interface.  The military applications alone make my head spin, imagine a night sight that only turns on when it senses it's being looked through (and not the clumbsy pressure switches of the current sights).  Imagine a radio traffic being controlled by touching rifle's upper receiver in a cetain manner.  This stuff is amazing.

--- End quote ---

I have a funny analogy in my mind to describe why I'm not seeing it like you do.  In portal, the ability to create portals is so freaking awesome, until you discover that you need "moon dust paint" on a wall for it to be usable.  Once you discover that it's like the whole world crashes down on you.  So I read the article and I was super hyped/excited.  Then I read that for a rock to be touchable you have to put a copper based paint on it and I was like "FUDGE.  PORTAL ALL OVER AGAIN.  DAMN YOU MOON DUST PAINT".

Either way it's good stuff.

shmokes:
I'm only just now playing through Portal 2, but I am not given the impression that you need moon dust paint to make portals. The way I understood it is that moon dust paint simply makes an excellent (though not the only) surface on which portals can be made.

kahlid74:

--- Quote from: shmokes on May 14, 2012, 12:29:52 pm ---I'm only just now playing through Portal 2, but I am not given the impression that you need moon dust paint to make portals. The way I understood it is that moon dust paint simply makes an excellent (though not the only) surface on which portals can be made.

--- End quote ---

My take from Portal 2 was that EVERY surface you can put a portal on, was painted in Moon Dust.  Maybe I'm wrong?

Vigo:
I think it is kinda ambigous. They don't ever say if everything you can portal on uses moon dust, just they discovered it worked as a portal surface.

Thinking a bit deeper, it might not only be moon dust, because in portal 1 you are escaping through back routes. It doesn't make sense that they would coat non-testing areas with moon dust. It wouldn't be the first inconsistancy between the two games though.

shmokes:
Nah, you're definitely wrong. Cave Johnson just says that it turned out Moon dust made an excellent portal conductor. This is from the Half-Life Wiki:


--- Quote ---At some point in the late 1970s or early 1980s, Cave Johnson, CEO of Aperture Science, somehow managed to acquire roughly $70 million worth of Moon rock. Upon grinding up and mixing it into gel, he discovered two things: one being that it made a great portal conductor, and the other being that ground Moon rock was "pure poison."
--- End quote ---

If they didn't acquire the Moon rock until at least the 1970s (and they didn't since NASA didn't even visit the Moon until 1969) it would make no sense for 1950s era sections of the Enrichment Center to have signs reminding people not to forget their Quantum Tunneling Device. And the 1950s test chambers require a portal gun to solve the tests. Moreover, there are areas all over the facility as well as outside the facility on which portals can be made--behind walls, in elevator shafts, etc. It would make no sense to just paint random non-test-chamber surfaces all over the place with moon dust. Since it makes absolutely no sense in the story, is never stated, and is never really even implied (again, Cave merely says that he discovered that Moon dust makes an excellent portal conductor), you have to assume that Valve never intended you to conclude that Moon paint is the only viable portal conductor. All signs point to concrete working just fine.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page

Go to full version