Electronics Engineering

Imagine you live in a world that the concept of a screen no longer exists. You no longer need to have a fairly large gadget (like a TV) to view films or play games. Imagine when any wall can be a display and just about any device can produce a large screen for you on any wall you want. You no longer have to look at a tiny screen of a mobile phone and hope that you can actually read it. Your experience goes from ‘lean forward and squint’ to ‘sit back, watch and enjoy’, making your experience a lot richer and more rewarding.

You are sitting in a football (soccer) stadium. There is a huge crowd. You know that apart from the 100,000 people in the stadium, there must be at least a couple of billion people watching the event. This is unprecedented and there has been a huge media interest for this. By now, everyone on the planet must know what is about to happen today. A lot of the details have been deliberately kept secret, so anticipations are high. It feels more like a product lunch of a super-cool gadget than a competition between several teams. But, oh galaxies, isn’t this exciting. The teams have been practicing for years, but everyone is drawn into anticipation to see what is about to happen. It is World Cup after all, and it is the first game between two very interesting teams. One is the champion from last World Cup and the other is, well, a team of robots! The referee blows his whistle and the captain of Team Invincible kicks the ball. Here we go … They are so agile. Wow, this is going to be a close one. Is it actually possible that they could win, in a fair game? That will be news indeed. First time in history! They look so lifelike and superior, you feel you don’t want to mess with them. It’s as if everyone wants both sides to win. Humans versus machines. At last, the dream is coming true. The football of the century; 11 humans versus 11 robots and one goal: to win the World Cup. Humans want it just as bad as the robots. It is 2050 …

Robotics is a technology that most people are familiar with as the idea of intelligent machines is quite old. Numerous works of fiction and movies on this subject show how interested we are in making and using robots for a variety of applications.

You were still in wonder of the latest gadget you were wearing. It’s a lot lighter than your current head-mounted-display, but that’s not what has impressed you most. It’s the clarity! Everything looks so natural. You can see overlaid computer generated visuals even at the periphery of your eyes. It’s as if the overlaid features belong to the scene. The effect is even more noticeable as you move your head around. With your head-mounted-display you could only see objects when they entered the display in front of your eyes as you looked towards them and you always struggled with focus. Despite great advances since the early days, it seemed they still couldn’t get the hang of it. But now, this retinal display was such a joy to use.

Virtual retinal display works by drawing a laser raster display directly on your retina. You get to see a conventional display in front of your eyes with a large field of view. If carried out accurately, you won’t be able to tell the difference from what you see normally. Ultimately, there will be no edges, no flicker, no sense of looking at a computer display.

You have arranged a meeting and your visitors have just arrived. You guide them into the appropriate meeting room and after the initial greetings everyone is getting themselves prepared for the meeting to start. Naturally, you want to exchange business cards with everyone and also distribute some flyers about the projects you are doing. Everyone place their mobile phones on the Display Table at the centre of the meeting room. You simply drag all the files by your finger to the mobile phones that are placed on top of the screen. The files are copied wirelessly to their mobiles. The process is secure since only those mobiles that are physically on the screen will get the files and you know that the system will take care of the rest. Sometime later, everyone is standing next to the screen hanging on the wall. Everyone is busy rotating the 3D models so they can get a feel for this new version of the plastic toy you want to manufacture for your customer. Working simultaneously, they use their fingers and use touch gestures to interact with the screen, zooming, rotating and shaping the model as they like.

Display tables are displays that are laid out horizontally with touch sensors. The sense of touch is captured with different techniques such as camera, pressure or temperature sensors.

Since you can use touch, it is believed that you will achieve certain tasks more naturally and intuitively. For example, to do a drag and drop, you may use your finger to touch the display and move one digital object from one place to another place. You can also use the device collaboratively with someone else to exchange digital material. The beauty of this interface is that you won’t need any instructions to operate a new software service. You can use your intuition to find your way around and interact with objects displayed.

1. What is it about

You are sitting in a train. You were lucky to find a seat with a table in front of it. Great! Now, you can get some work done. You are travelling light. You just want to note down some of your thoughts from the previous meeting before you head for the next one. You take out you iTube. It is a cylindrical object with a few buttons on it. You press one of the buttons and roll out a fairly large display until the device clicks. Done! You put it on the table. It’s time to reach for the other gadget in your pocket. This one is also wrapped. You unwrap the keyboard and put it next to your display. You press a button and all devices come out of sleep. The display is now on. You tap on the display to activate an application. No you start typing away. You always preferred your own keyboard. The keyboard and the display are wirelessly connected to the PDA which is somewhere in your pocket. You are online … You are glad you didn’t have to bring that heavy laptop again. This is so much better.