"'Cut and Paste' Is Out, 'Pick and Drop' Is In"

[cb911]

just saw this at Slashdot, so some people here might have already seen this, it's from Thursday, but it's so cool, just had to post it here to make sure you guys get a chance to see this.

basically, researchers at Sony Tokyo have found a way to 'pick & drop' a file from a PDA, to a laptop screen for example. how cool is that!

here's the links:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3774747.stm

http://radio.weblogs.com/0105910/2004/06/11.html

you'd think this would be the sort of thing Apple has planned for the future...

 

[irmongoose]

The innovation wheel keeps turning...

Exciting to see in what ways this will be implemented in different products. Sony will probably keep the technology for themselves.

Maybe you could have a pen for your digital camera and drag only the picture(s) you want from your camera to your computer?
Infinite possibilities.


irmongoose

 

[Abstract]

And people are always so down on Sony products and such. Why? They're one of the innovators out there. You don't see squat coming out of the other companies, or at least not as much as Sony as done to contribute to progression. Everyone else just drinks what Sony and Apple (and several other companies, but very few) milk from the cow.

Good for them. This sounds extremely useful, especially for PDA's. When I first read the beginning of the article, I thought that the pen was basically just a flash drive that can store images by touching the screen of a laptop or PDA, and then move it by touching a recipient's screen. But Sony's idea sounds much cooler.

 

[cb911]

and it's also interesting considering that Sony have recently pulled thier Clie line from sale in the US, i think they're only going to be sold in Japan now.

so i'm guessing that this would be part of their laptops? surprising to hear about this since they aren't really selling their PDAs as much as would be profitable... but they're developing technology like this. kind of makes me think it might appear in other devices, not just Sony's.

when i've heard people talk badly about Sony's computers it's usually been because of problems with Windows not working or something... i don't have any experience with Vaio's or anything, but they're one of the very few PC laptops that i would actually consider buying if i had a PC.

 

[KingSleaze]

Re invent the wheel

My Tungsten C has built in IR for beaming to another handheld, built in WiFi to connect to a network. I could add a bluetooth card also.
Great, another way to share files. I'm sooooooo excited.

 

[x86isslow]

And people are always so down on Sony products and such. Why? They're one of the innovators out there. You don't see squat coming out of the other companies, or at least not as much as Sony as done to contribute to progression. Everyone else just drinks what Sony and Apple (and several other companies, but very few) milk from the cow.

Good for them. This sounds extremely useful, especially for PDA's. When I first read the beginning of the article, I thought that the pen was basically just a flash drive that can store images by touching the screen of a laptop or PDA, and then move it by touching a recipient's screen. But Sony's idea sounds much cooler.

People are down on sony and apple because they are so friggin proprietary. sony cameras have their own special kind of firewire, and atrac wont play on anything but sony players..apple displays have their own 'adc' thing.

 

[floatingspirit]

when i've heard people talk badly about Sony's computers it's usually been because of problems with Windows not working or something... i don't have any experience with Vaio's or anything, but they're one of the very few PC laptops that i would actually consider buying if i had a PC.

It was a Vaio that made me switch. Slow, crashes and the screen eventually developed a top half and a bottom half. When I got my first Mac (an iBook), it just worked (and still is!)

 

[sonyrules]

Thats kinda of a cool technology. I would love to see that come from a laptop point of view.

 

[Sparky's]

I can't see Sony holding on to this for very long, just as the mouse was developed so will "beaming" technology. Even if developed by different companies this should be something everyone will want in the future. To be able to "Pick" a file off my computer screen and "beam" it to the platemaker RIP would be so cool
I hope I'm around to see where this goes

 

[ravenvii]

I smell... potential!

Remember the rumor of Apple releasing a DVI touchscreen OLED display? Imagine Apple also releasing a PDA, and those two working together like that!

 

[ChrisH3677]

I can't see what the excitement is all about. Something similar would be quite easy to develop on any bluetooth equipped Mac because of Rendezvous. eg... click and drag a file to the edge of your screen (this would be preconfigured) and it appears floating on the second device's screen for dropping wherever. If an application was the front process, it could even open it. No special pens required.

This approach could have an advantage over "pick & drop" because you could send to multiple devices at once.

 

[whooleytoo]

Heh, I know it's easy to say now, but I was thinking about a solution like this just last week. I had to transfer the text copy for a website from one PC up to a remote site (copy to a laptop, ftp from laptop to remote site, remote desktop connection to copy from ftp site to web home location) - and I thought, wouldn't it be so cool if I could just scan what's on one screen, and transfer it to the other, it could accomplish the same in a few seconds.

I think direct manipulation such as this, and touch screens/screen pens have a lot of potential.

 

[MongoTheGeek]

Who needs sleep.

I have dreams about things like this after too many late night hacking sessions. Where I grab data from one thing and slide it over into another one and then I write a program to make a roast beef sandwich which I download from the refrigerator and then pull out of the screen.

I type up code to create modules and then grab the modules and tie them together with twine and put them into the oven to compile...