Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Responsive Mirror, Mirror On The Wall
PARC's Responsive Mirror is a prototype device that is intended to augment the usual clothing recommendation and exploration systems already in use (like your friends, for instance). The Responsive Mirror presents the user with new choices that are "similar" and "different" - part of the experiment is to see just how people use these terms in fashion.
A prototype device was recently demonstrated. Lisa Katayama writes in a boingboing article:
Take a look at a brief video clip of her experience with the Palo Alto Research Center's Responsive Mirror:
By streaming video taken by the camera through their spatially oriented machine learning software, PARC researchers have figured out how to give people like me a real-time interactive comparison shopping experience. The responsive mirror system, which comes in both a desktop and full-length version, displays previously worn outfits on a second "mirror" — the playback of a movie taken by a webcam on the ceiling that locates you spatially within the frame and then finds the same angled shot from the previous clip.
(PARC Responsive Mirror video)
Lisa sees an early reference to this kind of device in a 1990's movie:
The idea of using digital images to compare outfits, for me at least, dates back to 1995, when the movie Clueless came out. In the opening scene, Cher (Alicia Silverstone) is picking out an outfit to wear to school. "Actually, my life is way normal for a teenage girl," she says. "I wake up, I brush my teeth, and I pick out my school clothes!" The camera then zooms in on an old school computer monitor showing a program that helps her pick out an outfit. Cher scrolls through all the items in her closet, picks a few possible outfits, and then the software juxtaposes the best look onto a photograph of herself.
I think I can put it back a few more decades. In his classic 1965 novel Bill the Galactic Hero, Harry Harrison writes about a raw recruit who is convinced to sign up when presented with "pictures" of himself in uniforms of increasing rank:
Bill's eyes followed the thick finger as it pointed to the colour plate in the book where a miracle of misapplied engineering caused his own face to appear on the illustrated figures dressed in trooper red. The sergeant flipped the pages, and on each page the uniform was a little more gaudy, the rank higher. The last one was that of a grand admiral, and Bill blinked at his own face under the plumed helmet, now with a touch of crow's feet around the eyes and sporting a handsome grey-shot mustache, but still undeniably his own.
(Read more about Harrison's personalized fashion display)
If you stretch the idea just a bit, sf fans can go back even further. Take a look at the animated "fashion plates" from When the Sleeper Wakes, an 1899 story by H.G. Wells.
Via boingboing gadgets.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/1/2009)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 2 )
Related News Stories - (" Display ")
Augmented Reality Book Covers Reveal The Inner Book
'The E-paper holograms leaped from lurid covers...' - Greg Bear, 2003.
TCL CSOT 17-Inch Printed OLED Scrolling Display
'..a wide sheet of clear material suddenly flared with light and swirling colour.' - EC Tubb, 1958.
Looking Glass Display Good Enough For Science Fiction, Fantasy
'The figure seemed to be swimming toward the surface.' - Roger Zelazny, 1981.
LG Wing Twisting Smartphone Might Be Fun
'A polycarbon screen unfurled...' - William Gibson, 1986.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Barista Robot Perfects Latte Swirl With Multi-DOF Wriggle
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
Vendetta 2023 All-Terrain Skateboard Could Use Neal Stephenson's Smartwheels
'If you surf over a bump... If you surf over a pothole...'
Safe Street Rebel Autonomous Vehicle Luddites And Schachner's 1931 Robot-Deranger
'Then the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and they stood an instant transfixed...'
The Electric Balance Bicycle And The Decline Of Western Civilization
'Noiselessly, on rubber-tired wheels, they journeyed...'
'Droplet' Battery Microscale Power Pack
'...a power pack the size of a pea.'
ARX-5 Doing Robot Arm Dancing
It's Data's day - at last.
CD, DVD Bit Rot And PKD's Civic Notification Distorter
'...copy two of the original document no longer can be superimposed on copy one.'
Inbiodroid Prometheus 2.0 Telepresence Avatar Robot
My prize robot, tall, dashing would speak and act for me...
Amazon One Is Frank Herbert's Palm Lock
'A palm lock must be keyed to one individual's hand shape and palm lines.'
DroneDog Ground Security Robot Dogs From Asylon
'I have transferred the ego of a dog to a synthetic dog brain in the skull case of a robot dog.'
Who Knows What Might Be Found When Visiting A Metal Asteroid?
'...inspect the tiny speck of matter that swam toward them out of the bottomless void.'
Giant Lunar Surface Test Bed Built On Earth
Astronauts first walked the site, then flew over the site at a few hundred feet in a small Cessna.
FlyCroTug Drones Work In Teams Now
'It slid smoothly out of its cell like a metal wasp emerging from its nest, and hung in midair.'
Zai Pits (West Sahel) And Dew Collectors (Dune)
'Each is planted most tenderly in its own little pit.'
Delivery Robots Being Bullied, Robbed
'Robots have worse problems than anybody.' (A Present for Pat)
Zoom Education Idea Is 100 Years Old
'... the frosted glass squares began, one by one, to show the faces and shoulders of a peculiar type of young men.'
