The Lightbulb Computer: Reimagining Spatial & Ambient Computing with Projectors
18 points by pyfisch
18 points by pyfisch
Oh hi, this is my project! Fun to see it here :)
(Not sure why there's a "vibecoding" tag though, it has nothing to do with vibecoding)
Happy to chat more about it!
The main question I tend to get from hacker-types is "what are the tech specs?". The demos run on a Mac with custom software I built for projection mapping/rendering/etc. (the hand tracking uses Apple's built-in framework, which is very good) & a small consumer 4k laser projector.
But this is primarily a research/design prototype - I think it's much more important to figure out what the user experience is, if the interactions are plausible & desirable, and then work backwards to the technology.
For these demos, is the laser projector actually located within the lightbulb, or is that still the speculative part? What's the tracking/projection FOV of the prototype shown in the demos?
Dynamicland.org and folk.computer vibes!
Author here; I was definitely inspired by my visits to Dynamicland many years ago, which Folk Computer is also inspired by.
One big difference in direction is that Dynamicland + Folk Computer use projector+computer vision as substrate to try and reinvent/rethink the interactive/dynamic medium, and what end-user programming could be (which is very cool).
In that way I am much less ambitious; this exploration is more about how there is an entire class of existing interactions (the ones showed in the piece) that we perform today on screens, that could be much more interesting + collaborative if overlaid in the real world. And I am also terribly uninspired by the eyewear-based computing vision all major companies have pushed lately.
This is an amazing concept and one of the most original yet obviously useful tech I have seen lately. Smart glasses are an obvious competitor to this, but the lightbulb computer has a multiplayer, "slow tech" feel to it and does not bring as many privacy nightmares with it.. . I'd buy this!