Disney Research is always working on some cool stuff and now they are showing off a pretty cool and quite sophisticated touch-sensing technology called touché.
Compared to capacitive touch screens that measure 1 frequency this new technology is measuring a range of them which means it not only can detect multi touch and gestures, but also distinguish between different objects or parts of the body.
It will also add touch to non-traditional surfaces, like liquid.
Check out the video below and see some of the examples on how Disney sees this technology being implemented in the future.
What do you get when you combine Star Wars and a 20 foot multitouch screen?
The most awesome and most fun real time interactive strategy game ever.
It was designed by computer science grad student Arthur Nishimoto and developed at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
It allows players to control cruisers, destroyers, corvettes, fighters, bombers, and even a Death Star in attempt to destroy the other side. Sound effects from the movies immerse those behind the wheel of some of the most infamous vehicles in the classic sci-fi movie trilogies.
Check out the video below:
So now it just needs to be picked up by someone and made available commercially. I will already clear my living room wall for my 20 foot multitouch screen
We all know that Steve Jobs doesn’t like vertical multitouch, but I think it doesn’t hurt having that as well.
And the guys from Media Computing Group seem to share this opinion as they just showed off a cool concept workspace that is curved. For them this is the multitouch desk of the future.
It holds 2 projectors and 3 cameras and supports 10 touch points at a time.
If you thought a Microsoft Surface table was big and spacious then have a close look at this one. I think I will need to build a new office to fit it in.
Check out the video below as they are showing off a couple of applications (including a version of space invaders)
Xbox Kinect is hitting the market and I pre-ordered the one for the office yesterday. And then I saw this today – someone hacked it for the greater good to bring us gesture based multitouch using Kinect and sitting on the couch.
Full body tracking Microsoft Surface Style – Simply awesome
If you just answered no then you should get yourself one of these:
simply connect your iPhone and start up the app (for now it is still an app, but they working on not even using that) and you can see your iPhone on a 58-inch multitouch display.
Yesterday I showed you the future of the DJ mixpult here and today we are getting blown away by this multitouch-enabled rig by a guy called Gregory Kaufman.
It employs a gesture-based interface that lets you spin the virtual turntables and use a variety of taps and finger swipes to replicate the main functions of a regular DJ deck.
It is even big enough so 2 DJs can play at the same time.
I have a few mates that are DJing and I tell you right now, they would love one of these little screens.
A clear sheet of glass that beams out video from your computer and accepts touch inputs in return, the Token concept has been designed by a guy called Rodrigo from Chile. We know it uses a rear projector for its video, Emulator for Traktor Pro as the DJ software, but not much else.
In my line of work (and because I love it) I come across a lot of cool gadgets and usually (at least if you ask my wife) I spend too much money on them.
So this year I will follow my moms advice and make myself a list.
Usually I start these lists with the least and work my way up to the best, but I want to start with the device I really really want this year.
1. Samsung Galaxy S
I have been using my 8310 blackberry for too long and for a while there I was carrying around 3 devices to do my phonecalls, emails and browsing and gaming, but the Samsung will be able to do all that.
So why do I want it?
for a start I don’t like the iPhone (don’t get me wrong I think it is a good phone for “normal” users), but it just doesn’t do what i want from a phone.
apart from that here is my shortlist on why I want it:
* 4 inch WVGA Super Amoled screen (finally a device i can use outside) * big (as in big capacity) battery – 1500mAh * 16GB internal memory + extendable with micro sd * wireless n * camera capable of 720p video @ 30fps * support of MPeg4, H.263, H.264, WMV, RV, DivX, Xvid and MKV – no more converting movies * Samsung Social Hub – no more opening up app after app after app – I just have it all in one inbox – sweet
2. Tablet
I had a chance to play with the iPad for a few weeks now and I have to say I am not impressed – especially since Apple announced the AU pricing for it today and again, Australia gets screwed – all you really get is a big iPod
We haven’t blogged about this here yet, and given all the tablet-like devices we’ve covered over the last couple of weeks (iPad mania? Maybe.) why not add Microsoft’s possible entry into the fray.
The Courier appears to sit somewhere between a smartphone, PDA, the current imaginings of a tablet and… a book. It may sound odd, but if you can see the picture below, you’ll notice just how enticing this might be to certain creative folk, myself included.
Courtesy of Engadget
Notice the menu on the left hand page, sketching. Sure, reading, playing, all of that is great – but for someone who loves to draw, and loves to draw on the go, this is some kind of dream come true. It hasn’t come true yet, but it looks to be on the way. This concept is intended for both touch and stylus, recognising (much like this) that touch is great for some things… but for others, it’s honestly best to have another tool in hand.
Not all fancy new devices have to come in iPad/Slate/Tablet form, and the idea of a digital note/sketchbook complete with camera and mobile web capabilities is a fantastic step into an innovative, digital future. Better yet, it should fit in your pocket.
Here at Amnesia we come across great things all the time and if we would have the time we would probably write more and more posts about it for you to read.
So over the past few years I have been looking into interactive displays and we have collected quite a large collection of different ways on what is out there and what we can offer to our clients. but I don’t want to bore you with those as yesterday I came across this little project from Norway.
Students from the university of Tromsø developed an interactive wall, constructed from 28 projectors and driven by a display cluster of about 30 computers, each projector creates a 1024×768 resolution image, which when tiled together with the others form a 7168×3072 resolution display.
The cool thing is that it supports multi-touch, but you have to be careful using that term as you don’t actually touch the wall to interact with it. cameras on the floor determine the position of your hand and the movement and make things happen.
Another thing that is very interesting is that this wall is already 5-6 years old and it is using technology that only now seems to be coming into the markets.
Update: I just read that the cofounder of the company, John Underkoffer, was the lead of the team that came up with the interface used in the movie in 2002.
In the last 10, the world has moved into digital. The word “digital” itself underlines the major role of technology. This year our Razorfish team led by our CTO Ray Velez created a report of 5 Technologies that will have great significance this year.
Cloud services and open APIs will become essential for social brands, making it easier for businesses to tap into the consumer’s social graph.
Reliance on the cloud’s infrastructure will continue to grow as the need for real-time scalability becomes increasingly critical for survival.
Multi-touch technology, which has already become mainstream in consumer devices, will infiltrate retail and business environments so extensively that it will become expected.
Improved hardware and connectivity will help mobile make the final transition into cloud-based data that allows the user to learn the world around her in real time.
Agile and iterative Web development will open new doors for innovation by allowing developers to innovate and adjust products based on immediate customer feedback.
Ok Ok I don’t know anything about the tablet, but I read this article on crunchgear and FingerWorks, a company Apple bought a few years back, has an interesting patent about how to extend multitouch gestures.
Check out the video where some of them are explained – funnily enough with the help of a Microsoft Surface table.
It’s going to be even more confusing if all that gets implemented.
The MIT Lab has shown off a new kind of display that not only is capable of the usual multitouch functions, but also recognizes gestures in front of the device like we know from minority report.
Pretty cool I say – still a bit slow in the video, but already pretty awesome for a prototype.
Everywhere you go now you see touch interfaces, phones with touch screens, computers based on touch screens, maps in shopping centres are touchscreens and Windows 7 will support multi-touch.
Something we saw in Minority report would give you aching arms after a while and a tablet would just destroy your neck.
So the guys at 10/GUI came up with their own version of the future of Multi-touch and I think it is rather nice. It will take a while to get used to but so did the mouse when it first got introduced.
i was doing some research today about Multitouch on Windows 7 and I came across this article here on how to Emulate a multi-touch device for Windows 7.
All you need is a webcam, a cardboard box, some tracing paper and a photo frame.
I thought, surely we have all that in the office somewhere. After a short stroll around the office I was able to gather all of the above and within 1 hour we had it all up and running.
and it works
So I wanted to thank Szymon Kobalczyk for his blogpost and for making my Friday a little bit more exciting.
Now I am even more excited about all the stuff we will be able to do with Windows 7.
Microsofts SideSight research project promises to do away with that pesky need to actually touch the screen. To do that, Microsoft proposes to employ a whole range of proximity sensors around a device, which would be able to detect gestures up to ten centimeters away, with a quick motion towards the device representing a click, for instance, or a twisting motion letting you rotate an image.
While Microsoft has actually built a prototype of sorts using an HTC Touch (seen above), it still has quite a ways to go, as the sensors on the prototype actually just connected to a PC via USB and then relayed back to the phone using Bluetooth. Eventually, however, Microsoft says that the system could allow for multi-touch to be used on very small devices, which could possibly even use printed sensors that would cover the entire casing.
Posted by stephanlange 
Amnesia Blog 
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