“We could soon see a new kind of display screen from computer maker Apple – one that simultaneously takes pictures while showing images. The clever idea is to insert thousands of microscopic image sensors in-between the liquid crystal display cells in the screen. Each sensor captures its own small image, but software stitches these together to create a single, larger picture,” Barry Fox reports for New Scientist. “A large LCD screen filled with image sensors would be ideal for videoconferencing, Apple suggests, as participants would always appear to look straight into the “camera”. The technique could also add a camera function to a cellphone or PDA without wasting space, and light from the screen should help illuminate a subject.”
“The more sensors there are, the wider and clearer the image. Sketches accompanying the company’s patent show as many sensors as liquid crystal cells in a screen. If some of the sensors have different focal lengths, switching between them would make the screen behave like a zoom lens,” Fox reports.
Full article with link to patent application here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “scrounger” for the heads up.]
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Sounds cool. Can’t wait to see it (if it comes out)
I don’t think it’s cool. It’s a telescreen! Anyone who has read “1984” will recognize this right away. It’s ironic after the Super Bowl commercial that it’s Apple who has come up with this.
Time to be VERY afraid…
MDN magic word: remember…before the state starts to remember it for you.
This is very old “news” (the apple patent) – BUT it sounds very cool ! I don´like o talk to people who won´t look me in the eye so this would be a great thing to come !
http://geirwerner.squarespace.com/dev-singhs-diary/
Just imagine. A screen the size of a skyscraper showing Monkey Man Ballmer prancin’ and dancin’ without all of those miniscreens. The world world would defect to Apple in minutes !
So, we can do this kind of thing but we can’t figure out how to get super conductors to operate at room temperature?
Its got to be a conspiracy. I think the military has already got SC, so maybe in about 10 years we’ll start seeing it leak into consumer electronics. Or maybe now that we’re headed toward less expensive titanium rod solar cells we’ll be able to afford to put more effort into getting SC hitches worked out.
Speaking of new display technology, anybody notice the user interface for the computers in the movie “The Island”?
It could double as a nice shaving or makeup mirror. Also, it could be another boost for the porn industry. Cool tech!
Actually a bunch of pinhole “camera on a chip” mounted around the screen would do the same thing much cheaper.
In fact it could give 3D stereo vision to give the illusion of depth.
My verision of freehand is safe in my pocket pool
Darkness, ever hear of “dynamic camouflage”?
Andrew / Macdude –
You’ve just set a new standard for inanity. Congratulations!
Oh gawd…PLEASE don’t tell me that pratt MacDude is back?
This is a cool invention no doubt. But with the Apple MacSlate handheld we also want a really flat hi-res lens built into the Apple logo on the back (or front?) too. What you will have is a camera like the original cameras of Fox Talbot with a 6 inch full screen image.
OMG some of you guys are freakin’ hilarious!
“I don’t think it’s cool. It’s a telescreen! Anyone who has read “1984” will recognize this right away. It’s ironic after the Super Bowl commercial that it’s Apple who has come up with this.
Time to be VERY afraid…”
HA HA HA
It’s how the technology is deployed that makes the difference.
Andrew, you are just plain entertaining.
Everyone have a good day.
Wow…
Anyone else thinking that Apple wants to be the new Sony?
More and more “computer-centric consumer electronics” please… And sooner, not later!
This is off the subject but IntelliTXT bites ass. That what I get for hovering over it, I suppose.
i would wholely endorse intellitxt ads… but ONLY if the banner ad or the side ad went bye bye.
that would be cool if could be triggered on web sites. Think of it; a mirror effect of your hands mapped onto the surface of an object or a background of the website – or a game. Even better – if it supports DOF
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> Dunno if I like the integrity aspect of it…but then again, without backsides – no frontsides. Now that the PBs have a built-in cam, wouldn’t the next logical step be retina scans when we log in/boot?
You know, it was seeming kind of odd that the Cinema displays didn’t get built-in iSights along with the iMacs. Guess the functionality might happen now.
It’d be cool, AS LONG AS there’s a little “you’re on” light somewhere on the case!
Cool patent, but it’s just another computing “concept car” to drool over. The really far out stuff never really ships.
iSight does almost as good a job, and works with existing LCD manufacturers. So iSight will win out, boring though it may be.
Billy Bob & gorufo
You may try the following:
1- Easy: Disable Java & Javascript in Safari
2- Less Easy: Install the PithHelmet plugin
3-Geeky: If you know how to edit /etc/hosts safely with command line interface, you could block any source of ads you want.
For those underline ads, just add the following line at the end of your /etc/hosts file:
0.0.0.0 macdailynews.us.intellitxt.com
(you need to “sudo” to be allowed to edit it, and you need to use something like vi). To be safe, save a copy of the original hosts file.
For more info,
http://www.mikey-san.net/hosts.html
Could a device such as this also have touch interface? That’s what should be looked at.
Hey Thorin– I’m NOT Andrew/Macdude. I think my posting history makes that pretty clear.
So…just how will you KNOW how the technology is deployed? I see advertising screens everywhere. In supermarkets, at banks, in public transport stations. Self ticketing kiosks at airports. Possibly even the next television you buy. If you’re not told, how will you know?
Anyway, in the current climate I wouldn’t just dismiss the telescreen concept out of hand. The “T” word has been used to justify a number of government excesses.
And it’s still ironic that it’s Apple, given the original Macintosh ad.
>>Could a device such as this also have touch interface? That’s what should be looked at.<<
Hello … I can’t see you … there’s a big fat finger covering the screen…
This is old news.
So is bitching about IntelliTXT (when solutions which block it have been floating around here for the past week.)
@ About the ads: The 0.0.0.0 solution doesn’t stop the JavaScript code, so that’s not a viable solution. SafariBlock is probably the easiest solution and, unlike PithHelmet, is free.
sweet, now I’ll have a video phone for real, just waiting on the flying car.
Darkness –
The problem with quoting 1984 is that everyone knows the story but very few have actually read it. If this technology has existed at the time of Hitler or Stalin it would have been employed.
We have a govt that is openly scanning emails and internet activity for terrosist activity.
Remember the people arrested at the Super Bowl a few years ago when they were recognized by cameras?
Your concern is warranted, but tech people ironically are the last to be concerned.
What I want to know if there is a way to turn it off or to “Block” it.
MDN-consider
Darkness says that this is bad because they may use these television screens with cameras imbedded in “supermarkets, at banks, in public transport stations. Self ticketing kiosks at airports”
ummm – there are ALREADY cameras in all these places.
And here’s a tiip for how you know if your next TV has these little numbers in them.
PRICE. Do you seriously think that adding as many sensors as liquid crystal cells into a screen is going to result in a product that costs the same as a screen that just has the LC cells? Apart from double the parts, there is added complexity and lower tolerence for error in manufacture, as the LC cells must be more accurrately placed to ensure the camera sensors can fit in.
ADDED to that, for anyone to MONITOR you via the TV you bought, you’d have to hook it up to the web. So when those sneeky TV manufacturers drop those cameras in for FREE (not) just so they can fullfil their comecial dream of watching you scratch yourself whilst you watch the X-files (the truth is certainly OUT THERE) all you have to do, is place the tin foil on your head and make sure the TV isn’t hooked up to any networks
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”tongue wink” style=”border:0;” /> (oh and in pre-emption – you yanks will like that – TV’s are passive particpants on the TV networks – they do not broadcast back to the stations).
I agree that people abuse/downgrade the rights and privacy of citizens in the name of protecting freedom (i.e. those very same rights), but in the end it isn’t this invention that will propagate or even cause this. Hidden cameras are already everywhere, exactly how is the invention going to contribute to the scenario you propose, when it already exists?
my 2 cents.
Luke