Seagate D.A.V.E.: perfect MT compliment?
July 6, 2008
One of the biggest things that is thought about when designing multi-touch is getting rid of the keyboard and mouse. I think the second biggest thing should be getting external data onto the table easily without using cables or a secondary computer for uploading.
Microsoft’s Surface has done some of this in a very neat way by interfacing with your Bluetooth enabled camera or cell phone and displaying the contents on the table. However, what if you want to add other files beside pictures on your camera? Time to pop open the CD tray or plug in a jump drive.
I was reading a bit about some new technology from Seagate coming out later this year that appears to be the perfect compliment to multi-touch. D.A.V.E. is a small form factor hard drive that includes Bluetooth and WiFi built in.
I can’t wait to get my hands on this when it’s released. I can imagine it would be pretty simple to check for a large blob from the hard drive (or a fiducial marker) and then interface with the Bluetooth to grab and transfer files to and from the drive. Plop the hard drive on the table and interact with it’s contents wirelessly without having to plug anything in!
If I’m able to get ahold of one of these I’ll work on developing some kind of interface (Objective-C/Cocoa based) that I’ll make public open-source via another part of this site that will hopefully be launched in the next few months at http://developme.ntal.ws/
