[sdiy] Poly finger touch controler, Lemur by jazz mutants!

[Tim Parkhurst]

On 11/7/05, Jeff Farr <moogah at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> That thing looks cool as hell tho... Until you see the price tag.. I
> really think It needs to have on board DSP capability to justify that kind
> of expense. I've been interested in creating a very similar graphical
> control toolset based on a touchscreen for sometime now, and the total price
> of hardware doesn't top 500$ (admittedly the Lemur is much slicker than what
> I've spec'd) and the software end is only complicated in terms of getting
> the nice neon graphics. A+ for concept, C- for implementation
>
> On 11/7/05, karl dalen <dalenkarl at yahoo.se> wrote:
> >
> > This is supposed to be patented!
> > I wonder what is pre art with it?
> > Its rather nice as a controller still i dont se the
> > patentable issue here, the polyphony of fingers perhaps?
> >
> > http://www.jazzmutant.com/lemur_features.php
> >
> > The electronics seams to be dirt simple, scanning
> > by scattered light wich has been used for many years
> > by finger recognition machines.
> >
> > KD
> >
>
>
Well, the price is a tad high, but there are several factors in this. In
making a commercial product, you need to cover not only the cost of the
hardware (which you need to mark up and make a profit on if you're going to
stay in business), but the cost of R&D time on both the hardware AND the
software. Lots of other factors go into determining the price of a gizmo,
and the cost of the hardware bits and pieces is only part of that. It does
look like they've put quite a bit of work into the software
 That being said, hopefully the price of things like this will come down in
the future. If the initial R&D costs can be spread out over more units, then
the price per unit will drop. Also, touchscreens and related technology will
continue to evolve and drop in price. If they start selling a bunch of these
things, look for RolaYamaKorCo to knock one off for about $1k.
 Me personally, I'd love to have a couple of these things controlling an
Arturia Moog or 2600 (yeah, I know, neither one sounds exactly like the real
thing, but you gotta admit they can do some very cool sounds). Well, maybe
when I win the lottery tonight.
 More interesting though, is the use of OSC and an ethernet connection for
control. Perhaps this will become MIDI for the 21st century? Sounds like the
best alternative so far to me.
  Tim (not the real thing, but I make cool counds) Servo
--
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein
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