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Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware (2018)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- marcusbrown 5y agoWe should make a 3d model (STL file) that anyone can print! If you share the exact dimensions maybe I could give it a try… Awesome project!!
- elevanation 5y agoStill a prototype, yet could be a viable and affordable product with a little work.
- notahacker 5y ago"Turn your MacBook into a Touchscreen with our $150 accessory available on Amazon"
- coder1001 5y agoThe number of simple, yet very cool ideas on HN just baffles me, no wonder HN is an addiction! Selling an add-on/accessory that clips onto any macbook or even any laptop with similar screen properties as the macbook pro used will be a nice little business!
- _Microft 5y agoSince it is this time of the year again, here is an idea: try bouncing the view of the screen off of a metallized glass Christmas bauble for a makeshift curved mirror. Edit: an iPhone fails to focus on the reflections in a Christmas bauble, maybe the warped reflection throws something off in the auto-focus method. Edit 2: it works with a larger bauble, supposedly because the view is not as warped as in a small one that has a smaller radius of curvature.
- illustrioussuit 5y agoIt seems it already exists! https://www.brightfingers.com/mirrormethis https://www.brightfingers.com/mirrormethis > MirrorMeThis is a specially-designed laptop mirror. Instead of your students seeing your face, they see the keyboard area where you can place anything you want to share and talk about. So it's designed for the classroom, but I don't see why it couldn't work here.
- zoe4883 5y agoSimple? Long time ago (2010?) there were ads PC vs Mac. PC had conference camera ductaped on his head, Mac had build in camera. This hack feels similar.
- Hnrobert42 5y agoYou get that this was just some random person doing a hobby project, right?
- the_arun 5y agoI remember 2008 Prius had mirror to reflect Speedometer. Basically Speedometer is on the floor of the dashboard and a vertical mirror reflects the numbers. I assumed they made it this way to save space.
- jcrawfordor 5y agoThis technique is often used to reduce eyestrain and refocusing by extending the optical distance to the display, making it.more similar in terms of vergence angle and focus distance to the view outside. I'm not sure if this was the motivation in the Prius but given the fairly advanced state of VFD displays at the time I'd guess so, there would have been options to avoid the complexity. It's further curious that the Prius used to use half mirrors to combine multiple display units for that dashboard, I'm less sure of the reason for that other than that perhaps the assembly was expensive and they saved money by doing it only for critical instruments like the speedometer.
- bluedino 5y agoSome GM cars had this back in the 80's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzVV8UUIu48 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzVV8UUIu48
- unbanned 5y ago2018
- oefrha 5y agoDiscussed in the past: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16745998 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16745998 (16 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20624576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20624576 (216 comments)
- peterburkimsher 5y agoUpon further reflection this is a wonderful idea! A mirror on the webcam reflecting the screen light back, and AI/ML watching the screen's reflection of the finger to see when it touches, can clearly see a touch event. This idea was also re-invented by Carmen Castrejón, as a teaching aid during Zoom classes. https://www.boredpanda.com/teacher-shares-screen-hack-zoom-class/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic https://www.boredpanda.com/teacher-shares-screen-hack-zoom-c... She uses a CD as a mirror to point at a pen and paper, with maths homework. Likewise, we can use scrap CDs on the corners of the office, to help people see motion and not collide (bus contention) when turning sharp 90º angles walking out of the washrooms or kitchenette or lab, back into the grid squares of open-plan desks.
- retskrad 5y agoSteve Jobs said the iPad is the product he’s most proud of and it seems like Apple shares that sentiment internally. I use both the Mac and iPad and iPadOS is Apple’s best software. The downside is that it’s not as feature packed because they’re literally reinventing a new computer UI from the ground up. The iPad really is a paradigm shift. MacOS has been around for 40 years. IPadOS only 10. It takes time.
- headmelted 5y agoiPadOS is frustratingly close to perfect for me, but I rarely use it because of a few trade-offs that part of me really appreciates. I could develop software on it, but Apple won't let me run arbitrary code on it, even in a sandbox. I get why, and I really appreciate that for everything else I would use it for, but even getting a Linux container running similar to ChromeOS would be something. It's a surprisingly pleasant experience with the magic keyboard.
- oleganza 5y ago> I get why Apart from purely political/commercial reasons, I don't see why. Sandbox and App Store are mutually exclusive reasons for this situation. Option A: you have good security architecture, so running arbitrary code is safe because all the data is well-isolated and programs cannot mess with each other's data. There is no need to have humans reviewing apps, apart from optional parental controls that people may opt into. Option B: you don't have good security, so you need to micro-manage app publication and have ability to revoke them, in case an exploit is discovered. Also, for a development machine, when you run arbitrary 3rd party open source dependencies, build scripts etc, you really want iPad-like security model where each project lives in its own sandbox. But the Unix permission system is an unusable mess, so even if you put your project in a container, your build script can still push to git repo and do other fun stuff outside build folder.
- Jcowell 5y agoWhy would it not rely on both ? Why would any security measure not have an additional security measure ? In my opinion there is no such thing as a “good security measure”. There are only security measures that haven’t been broken yet.
- pbowyer 5y agoI have the 14" MBP and my wife the Surface Laptop 4, and I am envious of her touchscreen. As a free-thinker who sketches ideas on paper and draws arrows between thoughts, doing that on my laptop with a stylus would be _wonderful_. Buying an iPad alongisde my MBP to do this is more than I want to spend. Come on Apple, touchscreen MBPs please.
- hnaccount_rng 5y agoOut of curiosity: What do you need the MBP for? I.e. what couldn't you do with an iPad + keyboard?
- treekogreen 5y agoA lot, the iPad is not a computer period. It's great hardware (that has the same CPU as the MBP) with extremely limiting software, low hanging examples of limitation would be the how iPads fail to utilise any monitor properly, inability to natively open up a terminal instance and its weak filesystem. You would think given its power it would be a perfect platform to develop native applications but no, in order to get any work done you would need to remote into an actual computer which defeats the point.
- ricardobeat 5y agoThe experience is quite nice though. A lot of people already develop on remote machines, and switching to a “dumb client” with an amazing screen, huge processing power, touch and writing abilities, plus crazy battery life is not a bad deal.
- smoldesu 5y agoThat doesn't make it any more of a computer. It's not like you're going to take it out to the park and do some debugging in Valgrind with it.
- ricardobeat 5y ago
- antimatter15 5y agoOne of the authors of this project here— We actually iterated a bit on the design since then and removed the dependencies on door hinges and paper plates. The revised^3 design involves scotch tape and a paperclip instead. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6tgFeBjhVg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6tgFeBjhVg
- roland35 5y agoThat's awesome! I can tell that the millions of dollars spent on product development is paying off
- chaozznl 5y agoThe comments on that 2 year old video seem to suggest it doesn't work properly when setting it up?
- a11r 5y agoI think two mirrors at an angle would provide an opportunity to get much better precision in estimating the location on the screen being touched. Wondering if you have tried that.
- callamdelaney 5y agoI go out of my way to avoid buying touchscreen laptops. If my mbp 2015 was a touchscreen I wouldn't have bought it.
- Hendrikto 5y agoThe reason would be more interesting than just stating a fact.
- callamdelaney 5y agoThe screens get dirty, I find the build quality to be in general worse (perhaps with the exception of the microsoft offering) than the alternative, they are too light, half of them do stupid things like switch between tablet and laptop and bend in ways they shouldn't. I feel touch is more suited to a tablet. Edit: I also find that the keyboards are often neglected in 'touch screen laptops'
- marderfarker2 5y agoHuh. I went out of my way to buy a 2in1 touchscreen laptop despite not using the 2in1 feature precisely because I know the manufacturer has designed the hinges and casing to be stronger for that use case, so that it doesn’t break easily. Avoid random Chinese Celeron based 2in1 and you should be fine.
- disagreesry 5y agoI can't confirm any of this. I've had 0 keyboard issues or screen issues. Asus, windows 7 and 10. Laptop is 7 years old. My biggest surprise is how often I use the touch screen. I'm typically a mouse and keyboard guy, but when I'm on an airplane it's sooo easy to tap. Didn't know Apple doesn't offer touch screens, kind of shocked given how Essential they are to me.
- smoldesu 5y agoScreens only get dirty on glossy displays, for the most part (unless you have outrageously dirty fingers), build quality is pretty arbitrary since, much like normal laptops, good ones and bad ones exist. I don't know what you mean by "too light", but I can at least agree with the fact that Windows 10's "tablet mode" is a load of crap. It's a much better experience with recent Linux machines, where their GUI is optimized for mouse, trackpad and touchscreen navigation. No need to switch modes, just reach out and do whatever you want. Keyboards though? You might not be looking hard enough. I've got two touchscreen Thinkpads that feel equally fantastic to type on as they do to swipe on. I feel like you're grasping at straws a little bit, here.
- headmelted 5y agoI really wish Apple would let me have a touchscreen MacBook at least as an upgrade option. I don't care at all about a touchscreen macOS, I just want to be able to run the iOS Simulator on the laptop when I'm travelling and have touch like I would on an actual phone.
- YetAnotherNick 5y agoCouldn't you use screen mirroring on iPad for solving that(Haven't used that personally)
- headmelted 5y agoI could, but then I might as well just use the phone. It's the portability of being able to do it directly on the laptop that I'm wanting.
- rootsudo 5y agoBut, a phone is portable, already?
- headmelted 5y agoIt is, but having to hook up the phone to a stand and connect it to my MacBook and lay all that out in a confined space / coffee shop / etc is not.
- xboxnolifes 5y agoNot when it's the laptop and the phone.
- PostThisTooFast 5y agoThey're not going to ramp up a production-line option and do the QA on an ill-advised touchscreen computer for your edge case. And people who prefer computers should be very, very happy about that; because touchscreens on computers are stupid.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dayaz36 5y agoI'll never understand this trend of turning all laptops into touchscreens with dumbed down UI/UX to accommodate your fat fingers...
- tinus_hn 5y agoWait until you see laptops with touchscreens without UI for fingers, like all Windows laptops with touchscreens!
- acka 5y agodoesn't "tablet mode" still work in the current releases of Windows 10/11? I do remember that not all applications supported it (either cleanly or at all).
- tinus_hn 5y agoTablet mode kind of solves the issue for the Start Menu and the window manager. But you’re still using applications with tiny touch targets. Plus all the parts of Windows that don’t even work with the on screen keyboard. Try typing a password in the privilege elevation prompt for a laugh. People with Windows tablets use them with a separate keyboard and mouse in the cover, and then they use the touch screen to draw on pdfs.
- aembleton 5y agoI do like it for quickly drawing diagrams though. I can be on a call with colleagues, open Pinta and sketch out what I'm thinking with my finger.
- TruthWillHurt 5y agoLol the Mac screen is so reflective they actually use it like a mirror :D
- als0 5y agoAwesome stuff like this is why I visit Hacker News.
- pjc50 5y agoOptical touchscreens! Underutilized technology, IMO. I had a very small part to play in the development of the FlatFrog display system which uses the same approach but inside the glass, using the fact that touching the screen alters the internal reflection properties. https://www.flatfrog.com/inglass https://www.flatfrog.com/inglass I was one of the contract IC designers involved in the custom chip which is deployed all round the display to illuminate/measure. A little single-purpose DSP with an ARM on the side.
- megalodon 5y agoWe had an optics lab at the Faculty of Engineering, Lund University about the idea behind the FlatFrog display system back in 2014 (I think) and I remember thinking it was genius.
- m_st 5y agoSlightly OT: I get it on a Surface Pro/Go, but just not on a laptop. I even disabled the touchscreen of both my Dell XPS 15 as I never used it in over 6 years and with the recently reduced bezel even touch it by error when reaching for function keys. Honest question: What do you use a touchscreen on a classic laptop (like MBP, XPS, Surface Laptop) for?
- themodelplumber 5y agoMy wife has a Dell touch screen that's running Ubuntu. Every time we're looking at memes or family photos together on some social platform, she reaches out to the screen and pinch-zooms and it just works. The utility is obvious. I just think, I can't believe this is possible. But also, I'm a home-row person and I feel naturally annoyed by the additional touch interface at the same time, just out of ergonomic idealism. For example, there's no home row for touch screens that I'm aware of, which means the resting position is effectively going to mandate either contortion and body leverage, or some amount of strain. I feel like we'll all laugh about how bad touch screens were, someday. But until then, her laptop also does something cool (and not exactly strain-inducing, really) that mine doesn't.
- treacle 5y agoI like the idea of the nipple in the home row, but it always feels like too much work. Too much pressure etc. So I have resorted to the touchpad on the Thinkpad. But you could do pinch gestures on that, and it isn't too far away. Perhaps joycon style keys on F and J?
- themodelplumber 5y agoI tend to prefer alt-scrollwheel myself. Not sure if that's available in Ubuntu though. Joycon keys are an interesting idea. I had an idea for a keyboard-mashing library that would map all keys into groups of several directional zones e.g. up down right left, and you could mash generally in the zone of your choice to steer a flight sim or paint or modify paint dynamics. Anyway.
- 83457 5y agoReminded me of Johnny Lee and his Wiimote projects. http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii/ http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii/
- vanderZwan 5y agoDoes anyone know what the latency of these Wiimote setups is? If it's better than an actual touch-screen that might be worth implementing for that reason alone
- marginalia_nu 5y agoSome 15 years ago I rigged up a CRT touch screen using the parallax from two cheap webcameras. It worked, just barely. It was a fun project, if perhaps not the most viable.
- dukeofdoom 5y agoIt might actually be useful to show the finger. Think of all the teachers out there trying to direct a student's attention to a particular point on the screen. Maybe you could do a split view. Or put a servo on the mirror and allow a mode where the finger or a stylus is visible.
- layer8 5y agoToo bad this probably doesn’t work for matte (non-glare) displays.