The future of tablet touch is gesturing

Have you ever been in the situation where you were cooking up a storm in the kitchen following your grandmothers 100 year recipe, your hands were covered in ingredients and you didn’t want to touch the recipe because you didn’t want to get it dirty.

Qualcomm comes to the rescue by showing off the power of their new Snapdragon processor and there practical integration of gesture and head tracking technology that hopefully soon will make it into your tablet.

The technology is not new, but as the videos below show, using the device’s front-facing camera, we will be able to control onscreen avatars, page forward and back through recipes, setup profiles and even wake their slates all with simple hand or head movements.

Check out the videos below

I for one wouldn’t mind having this little add-on on my tablet.

@maniac13

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This is how you buy a car–Audi City

We have been playing around with new ways of interaction for a while and touch and Natural user interfaces always played a big role in it.

Some of the work we can done can be found on our blog here and here, on the razorfish emerging experiences blog here and there is plenty more as well.

So we are always interested when this kind of technology and innovation makes it into the real world. Yesterday the Audi City in London opened up and is showing off how you will buy your next Audi by using touch, Kinect and RDID.

Audi at the moment sells 36 different new cars and with all of the customization you can do there are something like 200 million possible iterations of those and obviously you can’t have that many cars in the show room.

So what if you could customize your new car the way you want and then see if life size drive past you on a 210 inch screen – awesome, yes!

Audi City has multiple levels, with the upstairs level having 4 of those floor to ceiling screens. Check out their vision in the video below:

2 of the screens have kinect sensors connected to them so you can interact with it with gestures, a directional sound system makes sure you are not disturbed by other potential buyers on the other screen (or vice versa) and it lets you experience the engine sound and the sounds of closing doors.

A touch screen then takes over where you can easily customize every single aspect of your new car, down to the colour of your gear stick. Spin it, turn it, zoom it – all of that is possible with high resolution imagery and the touch panel.

Paint, leather and cloth samples on RFID-enabled swatches can be grabbed from the wall and placed next to the 32in touch screen, automatically updating your vehicle with the choice you’ve made.

Once you’re happy with your choices it generates a mood board with hi-res snaps and videos of your chosen car, which can be shared on Facebook and Twitter, emailed to a friend, or stored on a USB key.

Audi plans to roll the 3M multitouch screens out to dealerships all over the world, and to create 20 Audi Cities by 2015. I for one can’t wait for the one in Australia to be opened.

@maniac13

Everything will be touchable with Touché

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.

@maniac13

future touch screens have no lag

Most touch panels and controllers today suffer from about a 100ms delay and while most people got used to it, I still find it really annoying.

And so does Microsoft as they are putting money into the task of getting rid of that lag. Microsoft Research has figured out a way to get the delay down to 1 ms.

check out the video below to see the difference.

Pretty awesome and I can’t wait to see this technology going mainstream and into all kinds of touch devices.

@maniac13

Beautiful way to combine art and technology

We have all been to a museum and had to fight the urge to touch the painting we are looking at.

That might have been what Petros Vrellis thought, so he went ahead and created an interactive version of Vincent van Gogh’s painting Starry Night.

Hi project is a flowing simulation of the painting that when you touch it reacts and synthesizes sound. If left alone it slowly returns to its original state. Displayed at about 30 frames per second at 1920 x 1080 I am sure Vincent himself would have been impressed by it.

check it out in action here:

@maniac13

The window of the future

CES in Las Vegas is on and like every year I am jealous of everybody who can go to it.

But nevertheless I still get to see all the cool new gadgets and while I have seen prototypes of this before, but this seems to be ready to be installed in my house.

The Samsung Smart Window – a transparent display that is touch enabled and a one sided pane which means people on the outside can’t see what you are seeing.

here are some videos of it in action:

 

 

I love the blinds, also word on the street is that mass production is starting in the next few month, but no word on price yet.

@maniac13

May any screen be a touch screen

That’s what the ITRI (Industrial Technology Research Institute) in Taiwan thought when they dreamed up this little hardware extension to any size screen.

a couple of right now still bulky attachments to your screen and suddenly you have a multi-touch display. Right now it is still a prototype, but hopefully it will make it into mass production sooner rather than later.

Check out the video:

Multi-touch to real time sales

 

Swedish telecom company 3 Sweden together with Swedish company B-Reel have bridged the gap between Internet commerce and brick and mortar with 3LiveShop.

The new site features employees interacting with customers, live, over video screens. It was made possible with custom-built touchscreens that look like they’re right out of The Minority Report. Using the screens, the online salespeople are able to bring up images of phones the company sells and field questions about them.

I personally think it is a pretty cool thing, but I usually go shopping online so I don’t have to deal with a sales person.

Check out the video for a cool demonstration.

@maniac13

Ultimate list of Cool Touch and Gesture Based Video Walls

So who has the best interactive walls? Here’s some of our picks below. As we move into a world which is transitioning to devices using the NUI (Natural User Interface) there’s a lot to keep an eye on. If you know any more please post them in the comments.

1.University of Groningen:
Pros: Looks awesome, very responsive. Multi-user capable.
Cons: You can’t go out and buy one off the shelf. Touch based only?

2. Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect AND Windows Phone 7, working together!
Pros: Kinect SDK on the way for PC (fingers crossed) so a very affordable way to develop. Multi user. Facial recognition. Supports second screen in this video.
Cons: None. Seriously! SDK pending, this will be the easiest entry point to start building your first video wall.

3. Toyota Vision Multi Touch Wall:
Pros: Massive 82 inch screens at high res. Very responsive.
Cons: Expensive setup.

4. HD 18 Screen 20 ft Paint Wall with iPad integration.
Pros: Very cool. Huge. HD. Responsive. Works with a second screen (iPad)
Cons: Looks a bit like a one off application for now. Can’t go out and buy one.

5.Yahoo’s Gesture based Video Wall. http://vimeo.com/19177169
Pros: Looks good, hi-resolution and seems responsive.
Cons: Tiled screens. Looks like only one user at a time?

6. Microsoft LightSpace
Pros: It’s a true 3D interface for an entire toom. It projects working interfaces onto your arm/ hand.
Cons: Early days. Long way to go here (but still very cool).

7. Hard Rock Cafe Vegas:
Pros: Multi user. Smooth and responsive. Great content.
Cons: Looks expensive?

8. Ring Wall http://vimeo.com/6648869
Pros: It’s a massive 425 square metres in size. Enough room for everyone to play.
Cons: With 15 HD projectors we’re betting the ongoing running costs might stack up? 

9. The Schematic TouchWall with RFID
Pros: It recognises RFID cards allowing you access to personal info. Social integration.
Cons: Nothing obvious. This wall is pretty cool.

10. The BendDesk.
Pros: It’s horizontal AND vertical.
Cons: Not quite wall sized! It’s a prototype so a little rough round the edges.

 

11. Canon’s big wall – Expo 2010
Pros: It’s looks big and multi user.
Cons: We can’t quite tell if this is a ‘smoke and mirrors’ job. This video is more about the camera than the wall itself.

12. HP’s video wall of touch (link):
Pros: Nice tight looking tiled screens. Cons Already looking a bit dated compered to the others. Touch only. Touch looks a little laggy.
 

13. The Giant iPhone – Table Connect
Pros: Pretty simple concept. Just plug in your iphone and mount it on a wall!
Cons: Do they make a wall sized one yet?

We’re pretty sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of these soon. Please send us any good ones we might have missed! 🙂

Getting one step closer to a minority report future

Microsoft Research always has some cool stuff to show and this time it is called Light Space.

Just imaging a room that is monitored by depth sensing cameras and projections that react like a surface table on any old surface.

But not only that – just grab some content from the table projection and move it to the wall by simply touching it. Not quite as smooth as Tom Cruise did in Minority Report, but it is a first step.

Sounds futuristic? Check out the video below

@maniac13

MetaMirror & The Future of TV

MetaMirror is a concept, a culmination of our involvement in the Digital Home space, designed in response to new television watching behaviors.

Meta-Mirror is a concept application that delivers an enhanced television experience without disrupting the conventional expectations of home entertainment. It allows viewers to access content relevant to the program currently being viewed.

Metamirror & The Future of TV Article

 

@danKrause

Play any game on a multi touch display with Magic

iBuyPower created a new system that will enable any game to played via multitouch, regardless of whether the game’s creators gave it so much as a thought.

Magic, which is short for Multitouch Advanced Gaming Interface and Control, is a proprietary piece of code designed specifically for the company’s own touch-enabled laptops, and it works by linking a multitouch gesture to a command the game already understands, emulating multitouch commands by mapping keystrokes or mouse clicks. Best of all, it’s available now as a gratis download

Right now it is only for their own hardware, but no doubt hackers will have this working on Dells, Alienwares, Lenovos and HPs etc.

simply awesome

found on engadget

@maniac13

The future of the touchscreen

Imagine being able to feel the buttons on your mobile when you slide them across the screen or feeling the material as wood, metal or stone.

Toshiba’s working on just such a project, which operates on the basis of a film affixed to your smartphone’s touch panel. Electrical currents are sent through this layer, and your fingers are shot up with the simulated sensation of touching those various surfaces.

And it is not fiction anymore as they have a working prototype and they weren’t shy to show it off.

@maniac13

The future of touch includes a stylus

Even though Apple’s Steve Jobs was very clear about not liking a stylus, it looks like Microsoft Research went back to it to combine it with touch input and give the user new tools that weren’t possible before.

Of course this comes from the research department and might never see the day of life, but it looks awesome and I can see this “addition of the past” bringing some useful things to the end user.

check out the video

@maniac13

Light touch is like surface on any surface

The CES is on in Vegas and everyone is just flooding you with new and exciting gadgets.

And one of the things that caught my eye is the Light Touch by Light Blue Optics.

It is a laser projector that turns any flat surface into an auto-focused and image-adjusted 10-inch touchscreen with WVGA resolution thanks to its laser- based pico projection engine dubbed HLP (holographic laser projection) and infrared touch-sensing system.

When I first saw the press release and all its nice staged photos I thought it can’t be that great and responsive, but engadget had a hands-on and it looks pretty cool.

They show off a few apps and the picture one is a lot like  surface if you ask me.

Unfortunately there is no price anywhere.

A new way to type on a touchscreen phone

The inventor of the T9 predictive typing system has created a new way of typing on a touchscreen called Swype.

You type with Swype by literally swiping your finger from one letter to the next as fast as you can.

check out the comparison with iPhone

Phones with Swype built in will be launched next year. the first phone to use the technology will be the Samsung Omnia II (a Windows Mobile phone). But Swype will be included in a new Android phone in the first quarter of 2010.

found here

The future of the multi touch interface

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.

check out the video:

  Here is the site

Massive Multi touch screen in Las Vegas

This 18 x 4 foot “monster” was installed in the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas and it is awesome.

3 HD projectors are beaming the content onto the glass.

but videos say more then words – I want one:

Touch my holograms

Reading engadget tonight and came across this pretty cool project from the University of Tokyo.

The project, called Touchable Holography, involves the use of Wiimotes placed above the display to track hand motion, and an airborne ultrasound tactile display created in the university’s lab to create the sensation of touch. The result is a holographic image that produces tactile feedback without any actual touching, and without degrading the image itself.

But don’t take my word for it – check it out here

this is sooo cool

Now you can touch CGI objects

a new research project called the H.VR Editor allows you to "touch" and interact with CGI objects. Objects respond according to a pre-programmed graph of hardness values, and the system is capable of simulating texture and events like button presses.

No more building mockups – just put the right values in the program and off you go.

Imagine trying out the feel of a keyboard on your new phone without the phone ever being build or the feel of your new carpet at home without the carpet being manufactured first.

sounds pretty interesting to me – wouldn’t mind having a go at it.