I just got to try this out in the Emerging Technologies exhibit at Siggraph last week at the LA Convention Center. I wrote up a little review of the first two parts of what will be probably 4 parts of what went on that day, though I haven't gotten to this yet. I think it'll show up in the 4th part.

Anyway, it was very slow, but amazing. I felt like Magneto. There was a camera in front and one to the side of me, tracking when I moved. When I'd had my fill, I took a step to the left to exit the demo floor, and the whole thing went nuts, shooting rapidly in the direction I was going, keeping me on the pad. I had to fight for balance. It was awesome. They apologized up and down, but I saw it as a great bit of training for when I have to battle our unpredictable future robot overlords.

The demo I was on used only 3 plates, though one was leaning against the side wall, exposing its underbelly. It might've been broken. It still worked with 3, just even more slowly than in this demo film. I wasn't allowed to take pics/video.

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Magneto! That rules.

I kept thinking how cool this would look if the moving tiles were small, like 1" squares, skittering around like SG-1 Replicator-bugs...

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If you can make the tops of each 1" square light up with 24-bit color, you can put me down for 76,800 of them immediately.

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My first thought when I saw that was, "Isn't that how the holodeck floors are supposed to work?"

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When I'd had my fill, I took a step to the left to exit the demo floor, and the whole thing went nuts, shooting rapidly in the direction I was going, keeping me on the pad.

"I can't let you do that, Dave."

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hmmm, video looks like it's using some funky codec... I can't watch :(

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Works in xine 0.99...

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Very cool. Loud as hell, though. My second thought: let's see someone riding a Segway on it.

(It's definitely cooler than a Segway, i think.)

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wow, this is going to take DDR to whole new levels :)

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One step closer to a real life holodeck.

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Why is it that whenever I see a VR rig I get the bad flood of memories of Lawnmower Man? ("I am god here!")

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speed it up so you can run; that would make for one interesting game of Halo.

-RearKick

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Where does the panel motor power come from?
What happens if you manage to step too quickly? Will your ankle get smashed by the approaching floor panel?
How does it know your next step is in that direction? I suspect somebody's hinting to the software which direction to lay a path.
How tempted do you think the programmers are to "yank the rug" out from under their test subjets?

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How does it know your next step is in that direction?

If you take small steps, then distributed weight sensors would be able to compensate.
... Then I read the article, which mentions a laser tracking system, trained on the feet.

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