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The applications will make or break this. In my opinion, the killer app is digitisation of paper documents, tracking changes, and live multi-user editing. The

The applications will make or break this. In my opinion, the killer app is digitisation of paper documents, tracking changes, and live multi-user editing. The 3d scanning stuff is a neat addition on top of that, but a much more niche use case. e.g. My colleague writes a document and emails it to me. I open it, print it out, and bring it to Sprout, placing it on the capacitive mat. As I'm reading it, I'm annotating it with pen on paper. Sprout tracks my annotations, digitizes them, and adds them as a digital layer to the original document. While I'm annotating, my colleague joins the "session" and wants to make more changes and incorporate some of my suggestions. I see that notification, chuck away my piece of paper, and have Sprout project the digital document onto the capacitive pad. While I watch, my colleague makes changes which are live-updated to my document. I see her copy my hand-written notes which have been digitised and OCR'd. She takes my notes, changes the font, and sticks them into one of the paragraphs. Likewise, I can use the stylus to make more annotations that my colleague sees in real-time, or, since the document is digital this time around, I can just edit the paragraphs directly too. Think Google Wave + Collusion for iPad + the ability to do fairly seamlessly with both digital and physical documents.

zan2434 12y ago
I don't see the point of printing it in the middle, otherwise that is indeed a great potential use case
- Schwolop 12y ago
  Yes, you're right - that is unnecessary. I only really wrote it like that to make it clear that you could digitize documents that didn't start out as a digital file.
aaron695 12y ago
From what I can see, what you talk about here is more the wishy washy magic the PR companies use to fool the masses. How does Sprout do great OCR or facilitate joint collaborations? These are both problems that need solving but have nothing to do with Sprout. PR often has things like this ‘solved’ for their mockups which people then falsely associate with the product. See the mass delusion many people have with the Minority Report interface. Why not just edit the email/document using a keyboard, you can even do it in a google doc so the other person can live collaborate, but as we know live collaboration is fine in movies but in real life is very very hard to do. Humans are just not build for it. This isn’t about applications or Sprout, it’s about solving very hard problems.
- Schwolop 12y ago
  But that's exactly my point - Sprout doesn't do this, but it provides a form factor with all the sensors and actuators necessary to do so. An application could then provide this functionality and support these use-cases. Yes, it'd be a very complex application, solving some fairly hard CS and CV problems, along with probably needing to invent a whole suite of new UI paradigms.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    So, a pipe dream.
  - aaron695 12y ago
    I guess what I was saying, invent OCR that good you’ll sell it to someone like IBM for a billion dollars. Actually find a workflow that allows live collaboration to be more efficient than working individually might be hard to capitalise but would be revolutionary and change the world. I’ve never seen Pair programming in XP really work, for instance. It’s certainly not common practice for most workers. Each solution would be amazing for plant earth, Sprout doesn’t help solve either.
- rtpg 12y ago
  >Why not just edit the email/document using a keyboard, you can even do it in a google doc so the other person can live collaborate, but as we know live collaboration is fine in movies but in real life is very very hard to do. Humans are just not build for it. Because some people prefer a pen to a keyboard when trying to mark modifications to a draft? Surely you can imagine of at least one situation where a pen is a useful input device.
  - lmm 12y ago
    Honestly it's very difficult to imagine a case where pen is better. I can type faster than I can write, and everyone can read my typing much more easily than my writing. Etherpad (sadly killed by google) had a great annotation UI. Maybe for serious mathematics with formulae, or something where you want to annotate 2D diagrams (architecture?), but that seems pretty niche.
Shivetya 12y ago
I did the the idea they displayed with making what appeared to be an ad or such but I think the work area is too small. I can see all sorts of fun for kids in arranging toys on different backgrounds to produce interesting pictures, provided there is some ease of sharing their work. Same with adults who want to do quick mock ups, something this would open up that world a lot more than any paint or image program ever did, most are still too arcane for the majority of users. This is like taking grade school collage work and suddenly making it a valid development tool

zan2434 12y ago

I don't see the point of printing it in the middle, otherwise that is indeed a great potential use case

Schwolop 12y ago
Yes, you're right - that is unnecessary. I only really wrote it like that to make it clear that you could digitize documents that didn't start out as a digital file.

aaron695 12y ago

From what I can see, what you talk about here is more the wishy washy magic the PR companies use to fool the masses. How does Sprout do great OCR or facilitate joint collaborations? These are both problems that need solving but have nothing to do with Sprout. PR often has things like this ‘solved’ for their mockups which people then falsely associate with the product. See the mass delusion many people have with the Minority Report interface. Why not just edit the email/document using a keyboard, you can even do it in a google doc so the other person can live collaborate, but as we know live collaboration is fine in movies but in real life is very very hard to do. Humans are just not build for it. This isn’t about applications or Sprout, it’s about solving very hard problems.

Schwolop 12y ago
But that's exactly my point - Sprout doesn't do this, but it provides a form factor with all the sensors and actuators necessary to do so. An application could then provide this functionality and support these use-cases. Yes, it'd be a very complex application, solving some fairly hard CS and CV problems, along with probably needing to invent a whole suite of new UI paradigms.
- coldtea 12y ago
  So, a pipe dream.
- aaron695 12y ago
  I guess what I was saying, invent OCR that good you’ll sell it to someone like IBM for a billion dollars. Actually find a workflow that allows live collaboration to be more efficient than working individually might be hard to capitalise but would be revolutionary and change the world. I’ve never seen Pair programming in XP really work, for instance. It’s certainly not common practice for most workers. Each solution would be amazing for plant earth, Sprout doesn’t help solve either.
rtpg 12y ago
>Why not just edit the email/document using a keyboard, you can even do it in a google doc so the other person can live collaborate, but as we know live collaboration is fine in movies but in real life is very very hard to do. Humans are just not build for it. Because some people prefer a pen to a keyboard when trying to mark modifications to a draft? Surely you can imagine of at least one situation where a pen is a useful input device.
- lmm 12y ago
  Honestly it's very difficult to imagine a case where pen is better. I can type faster than I can write, and everyone can read my typing much more easily than my writing. Etherpad (sadly killed by google) had a great annotation UI. Maybe for serious mathematics with formulae, or something where you want to annotate 2D diagrams (architecture?), but that seems pretty niche.

Shivetya 12y ago

I did the the idea they displayed with making what appeared to be an ad or such but I think the work area is too small. I can see all sorts of fun for kids in arranging toys on different backgrounds to produce interesting pictures, provided there is some ease of sharing their work. Same with adults who want to do quick mock ups, something this would open up that world a lot more than any paint or image program ever did, most are still too arcane for the majority of users. This is like taking grade school collage work and suddenly making it a valid development tool