In "Foggy screen points the way," Nature describes a technology invented by a Finnish company named FogScreen. But don't let you be fooled by the name, the images are not blurry, even if the screen is made of water. You can even walk through the screen without feeling wet because the company uses 'dry' fog made of plain water without any chemicals added. The idea behind the technology is similar to the one used by laser shows for musical events. And the real beauty of this innovation is its ease of use. You just replace your conventional screen by a FogScreen, and you're all set. But read more.
Here are the opening paragraphs of the article from Nature.
Forget plasma screens, here's one made out of nothing but water. Inventors have fashioned an interactive computer display from a curtain of fog.
The FogScreen uses ceiling-mounted air jets to create a vertical, turbulence-free slice of air a few centimetres thick, into which a fine mist of water is pumped. An ordinary projector can be used to display images on the resulting wall of fog.
And you can even click on this wall of fog.
When the projector is hooked up to a normal computer, the FogScreen can function much like the large display from a desktop in a lecture theatre. But, with the help of a laser-scanning system, the FogScreen also allows users to click on the watery screen itself.
Poke a finger at the screen, and the laser beams scanning the surface of the fog are interrupted, allowing the system to detect where you have 'clicked'.
Below is a photograph showing how a FogScreen could be used during a trade show or a cultural event (Credit: FogScreen Inc.)
Here is a link to a larger version of this image (579 KB).
I believe that organic sex, body against body, skin area against skin area, is becoming no longer possible, simply because if anything is to have any meaning for us it must take place in terms of the values and experiences of the media landscape.... What we’re getting is a whole new order of sexual fantasies, involving a different order of experiences, like car crashes, like travelling in jet aircraft, the whole overlay of new technologies, architecture, interior design, communications, transport, merchandising. These things are beginning to reach into our lives and change the interior design of our sexual fantasies. We’ve got to recognize that what one sees through the window of the TV screen is as important as what one sees through a window on the street.
—J. G. (James Graham)
Nature adds that these screens are based on simple technologies.
It looks high-tech, but the FogScreen relies on fairly simple technologies. Ceiling-mounted blowers create vertical sheets of non-turbulent air that flow side-by-side without mixing. High-frequency ultrasound vibrations vaporize water into tiny droplets that are pumped between air flows.
In this page about its technology, FogScreen adds some details -- but of course, this is company literature.
The basic components of the screen are a laminar, non-turbulent airflow, and a thin fog screen (or any particles) injected into and inside a laminar flow. Created this way, the fog screen is an internal part of the laminar airflow, and remains thin, crisp, and protected from turbulence.
The fog is made within the device using water and ultrasonic waves. If you hold your hands in the fog flow, the fog feels dry and cool, and your hands do not get wet.
After the screen is formed, images can be projected onto it. The screen can be translucent or fully opaque.
And with two projectors, you can project different images on both sides of the screen.
The technology behind the FogScreen products has received the U. S. patent number 6,819,487 in November 2004 under the name "Method and apparatus for forming a projection screen or a projection volume."
Finally, in "Click on air!," innovations report, from Germany, describes what you would experience at a car show if an automotive company used such a display.
The screen of supreme good fortune curved his absolute smile into a celestial scream.
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
Imagine a stand at a motor show featuring a new convertible. There’s a screen 'hanging in the air’ with everything you expect on your PC desktop. You can click your way through all the new features of the car just by pointing your finger, and when you’re done you can walk through the screen and on to the next stand.
A last note: I've never seen these displays in action. So if you read this note and have already walked through a FogScreen, please leave your comments below. Anyway, tt looks like serious fun technology.
Sources: Michael Hopkin, Nature, June 10, 2005; and various websites
Related stories can be found in the following categories.
Displays
Human Computer Interface
Innovation
Patents.