Writing on Standing Water 166
A reader writes "Engadget is reporting on Japanese scientists who have found a way to 'write' characters on the surface of water using waves. This looks very cool - but the time required to change character seems very high (15-30 seconds). From the article: 'Liquid-based displays are nothing new -- in a vertical orientation, at least -- but apparently it's a lot more difficult to coax a standing pool of water into forming recognizable shapes and characters.'"
Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Neato! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Neato! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Interesting, but why? (Score:5, Insightful)
You just answered your own question... see, right there, first word.
Re:John Keats (Score:3, Insightful)
('their' being used lightly, of course, since I'm not native english myself)
Processing time? (Score:5, Insightful)
That sure makes it sound like the calculations involved are so great that the computer takes that long to process (as opposed to a physical delay in the hardware or medium). Certainly that could be reduced substantially either by optimization or throwing more CPUs at the problem. If that is indeed the issue then they could also precalculate the math for various shapes, and recall them instantly on demand. I also wonder if this is a purely virtual simulation inside the software, or if the system requires feedback from sensors in the real world to fine-tune the oscillations to produce the desired effect. In that case it may take that much time to stabilize the system because of chaos and the like. I have a hunch that must be what's going on, because certainly these people are smart enough and have enough funding so that processing speed alone isn't the issue.
Dan East
For real? (Score:2, Insightful)
Has anyone seen any video demonstration(s)? (yes, I know _they_ could be synthetic images too; but it's more-likely they wouldn't be)