Airhockey Over a Distance

If you think video conferencing is reserved for stale meetings that serve little purpose aside from burning up your time, Airhockey Over a Distance aims to ice that perspective. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) created the table (or should we say, "tables") to showcase the "power of advanced networking" and joins a host of other wild ways to get your game on. The table plays like your average air hockey match, except the opponent's half is in another location, and replacing your ferocious counterpart is a screen with a live video feed of him / her and a fancy puck-ejecting system. Sensors at the midway point of the table detect the angle, speed, and trajectory of the not-exactly-oncoming puck, and instructs the mechanism how and where to fire the disc -- you slap it back, and the same sequence happens on your compadre's end. Because this was crafted solely to show the wonders of "computer-mediated human-to-human interaction," there's currently no plans to take this prototype into sports bars or internet cafés, but one question still remains: what happens if the puck gets hung at center ice?

[zafar @ Jul 31st 2006 4:33PM]

Impressive technology but use for Airhockey!, what a waste

[Wonderboy @ Jul 31st 2006 4:37PM]

This can't possibly be as fun as normal air-hockey. Unless the tele-table has a dozen different pucks and a dozen firing mechanisms (all instantle retractable for receipt of your return shot) then the firing mechanism will require adjustment time to place the puck correctly and fire at the correct angle and velocity.

In other words, you're going to get a big warning, via video/mech lag of where the puck is coming... either that or they could even sync the video with the firing mechanism but that would still create a very slow game.

This is one step better than calling your friend over the phone and saying "okay, I hit the puck at a 36 degree angle at 4 meters per second... your turn". Unless they can simulate the puck and everything else, it's a waste and a poor example of potentially impressive technology.

[Injulen @ Jul 31st 2006 5:14PM]

If you look at the article #2, it seems that there are 4 rapid firing cannons that each have magazines holding multiple pucks, thus allowing for faster firing. There are also videos.

[Arochone @ Jul 31st 2006 6:03PM]

Not exactly...depending on how they made it, it could quite easily predict where to fire the puck as soon as it was hit, long before it even hit the center of the table. With a well made firing cannon and computer system, I don't see any reason why this wouldn't work fast enough.....

[Jason @ Jul 31st 2006 8:05PM]

Heard about this months ago, then saw it working live (at CeBit Australia?), and all I can say is... Underwhelmed. Wasn't even good enough for me to want a turn. Don't get me wrong, it's certainly "cool", but it just doesn't perform as one would expect.

If you think you have a lag problem with your favourite FPS, wait till you see this baby! I'd guess about 2 second delay. Oh, and that was with the two "tables" only about 10 meters apart.

Then let's talk about the guy in the back of the thing catching and then feeding the pucks... really funny to see, kinda reminded me of a marionette show.

So from the angle I was watching from, I could see the first player strike the puck, said puck would disappear into the machine, where marionette-guy would retrieve puck (most of the time, or pick it up from the floor), a couple of seconds later the second player across the floor would have a puck shoot out from his machine.

Now the really odd part of this thing was that what happened when the second player hit the puck (for a return volley). Player #1 would see on his video screen the puck inbound at a certain angle (and for anyone that has actually played air hocky, would have already calculated the required intercept location and be waiting for it), and be expecting the puck to emmerge at same said angle, but NOoooo the challenge comes from the fact that the puck would most of the time come out the OPPOSITE side of the machine to what was on screen, making for rather entertaining viewing (if not disconcerting).

Give the technology a few years and we might be onto something.

[Dana @ Jul 31st 2006 9:25PM]

I would like to see more games like this that merge the physical and electronic worlds.

[Z @ Aug 1st 2006 9:44AM]

On first glance of that photo, I thought some company was offering the biggest laptop EVER.


(For those who are too dense: I'm joking).