I'm a little surprised at the negativity in this thread. They've announced flexible, soft touch interfaces which can be produced at scale using existing production methods. Isn't that at least really cool? Do you not think there are places this could be used?
I don't know if I can think of many "showstoppers" but is it really that hard to imagine places where a new input device could be used?
Soft, invisible, cheap (?) touch sensors that are flexible and easy to work with.
Things I'd use this for / would like to play around with:
1. Touchpad on the side of my sofa, so I can use gestures to control TV and media.
2. Touchpad on the side of my headboard in the same material as the rest with a subtle marking on which I can control / dim my lights. Similar things for controlling alarms.
3. Improving children's toys that require buttons now but do so by having hard things surrounded by some padding. I imagine "tickle me elmo" that was able to say "you're tickling my feet!" would be popular.
4. Would this detect my feet through socks? Run a bunch through my carpets, I'm sure I can do some fun stuff with home automation with that by knowing which room I'm currently in. Similarly for that, I'd like to track some of my habits, how long do I actually spend just sitting on the sofa or how often do I really get up from my desk and go somewhere else?
5. Make some board games. Fabric + some metal pieces, all the complex logic could sit on your phone.
6. Better sleep tracking? Do I curl into a ball, starfish, keep rolling about a lot?
Those are mostly just things I'd like to do at home. What about interfaces where you want to present something to other people? I've seen touchscreens at restaurants/bars, would a soft less delicate one work well?
To be honest, I think that you could make an absolute killing selling a t-shirt that had a touch sensitive star-trek looking badge that answers the phone. Not world changing, but I can definitely see that this could be used.
Ah damn, missed the edit window and forgot this wasn't markdown.
Formatting fix:
1. Touchpad on the side of my sofa, so I can use gestures to control TV and media.
2. Touchpad on the side of my headboard in the same material as the rest with a subtle marking on which I can control / dim my lights. Similar things for controlling alarms.
3. Improving children's toys that require buttons now but do so by having hard things surrounded by some padding. I imagine "tickle me elmo" that was able to say "you're tickling my feet!" would be popular.
4. Would this detect my feet through socks? Run a bunch through my carpets, I'm sure I can do some fun stuff with home automation with that by knowing which room I'm currently in. Similarly for that, I'd like to track some of my habits, how long do I actually spend just sitting on the sofa or how often do I really get up from my desk and go somewhere else?
5. Make some board games. Fabric + some metal pieces, all the complex logic could sit on your phone.
6. Better sleep tracking? Do I curl into a ball, starfish, keep rolling about a lot?
I don't know if I can think of many "showstoppers" but is it really that hard to imagine places where a new input device could be used?
Soft, invisible, cheap (?) touch sensors that are flexible and easy to work with.
Things I'd use this for / would like to play around with:
1. Touchpad on the side of my sofa, so I can use gestures to control TV and media. 2. Touchpad on the side of my headboard in the same material as the rest with a subtle marking on which I can control / dim my lights. Similar things for controlling alarms. 3. Improving children's toys that require buttons now but do so by having hard things surrounded by some padding. I imagine "tickle me elmo" that was able to say "you're tickling my feet!" would be popular. 4. Would this detect my feet through socks? Run a bunch through my carpets, I'm sure I can do some fun stuff with home automation with that by knowing which room I'm currently in. Similarly for that, I'd like to track some of my habits, how long do I actually spend just sitting on the sofa or how often do I really get up from my desk and go somewhere else? 5. Make some board games. Fabric + some metal pieces, all the complex logic could sit on your phone. 6. Better sleep tracking? Do I curl into a ball, starfish, keep rolling about a lot?
Those are mostly just things I'd like to do at home. What about interfaces where you want to present something to other people? I've seen touchscreens at restaurants/bars, would a soft less delicate one work well?
To be honest, I think that you could make an absolute killing selling a t-shirt that had a touch sensitive star-trek looking badge that answers the phone. Not world changing, but I can definitely see that this could be used.