Yes, indeed, Engadget.com said it correctly, this isn’t the newest idea around, but very well executed: The Sensacell reactive floor installation at the Comunitat Valenciana in Spain is a beauty, super reactive and very flat in construction. I could see myself spending hours playing around with this thing. Make sure not only to check out the video below, but also the Sensacell Website, which shows detailed product information and application examples.
via Engadget
The people over at Obscura Digital pulled off another nice piece of installation. Using their own multi-touch software and combining it with the holographic projection technology of Musion’s Eyeliner 3D System they created quite some magic. If you look closely at the end you can see that the operator has tiny LED lamps in his hands that, if i’m guessing correctly, light up once he squeezes them, which then will create a blob for the system to recognzie.
via Engadget
By the end of this year we might be able to take control over computers just with your thoughts. That’s what Nintendo’s president and CEO Satoru Iwata promises in an interview with Times Magazine (german summary on macnews). The australian company Emotiv has developed “neuroheadsets” equipped with 16 head-mounted sensors that read mind activity, the so-called EPOC. It will cost $299 according to the website of EPOC (they mention it in the GDC video). For sure we have to wait 20 years until this technology really works well and whole games can be mind-controlled, I guess. But according to reports mentioned in the interview, this technology is the tip of the iceberg and a glimpse of what will be possible in human-computer interaction.
Another product in this category is the nia - the Neural Impulse Actuator - from OCZ Technology. It can be used as a normal PC periphery via USB, and converts bio-signals from your brain into keyboard signals. They state it cuts your reaction time in computer games by 50%. Yeah, right. But it is only recommended to use it as additional input for a more immersive gaming experience.
“As soon as we think something in our brain, it will appear within a video game”: for Nintendo, the next step after the Joystick and the Wiimote is the thought-controlled computer game. Well, I’m looking forward to christmas! I wonder what kind of world this is where everything you think appears in the game. Solaris? Firefox? Strange Days?
PS: The tagline of Emotiv is kinda scary: “We know what you’re thinking.”
The french company Stantum, formerly know as Jazzmutant and developers of the infamous Lemur (Gregor wrote about it), have developed a 15,4″ multi-touch TFT screen. This was released in January already, but since then there have not been any news on this - we still try to get hold of one. I am sure that it works as smooth and responsive as the Lemur, but allowing to display whatever you need on a 1280×800 TFT, which is just what we need for interactive terminals, media browsers, games… and development of applications for our big multi-touch table.
This is a small dream come true: an affordable z-depth camera, with a decent framerate (60 fps!) and a good resolution (1.3 Mega-pixel, which is more than enough for interaction), all wrapped up in a webcam-sized case. We’ve seen various of chunky, slow z-cams before, but this seems to be promising - for sure we will get one and try it out, and hope we can give a report on how it works with vvvv soon. We just hope this is not a hoax, but the website of 3DV looks quite professional. Still, we haven’t received a reply concerning the availability and price. According to engadget (article from January) it is expected until the end of 2008.
Including the z-depth opens up various possibilities in interaction, these are the most important I can think of at the moment:
The Z-Cam by company 3DV Systems from Israel works with the so-called “Time-of-Flight” principle, where “the Depth information is captured by emitting pulses of infra-red light to all objects in the scene and sensing the reflected light from the surface of each object.” (from 3dv website) This is the most obvious way (similar to echolocation done by dolphins, bats and so on, I guess) and most of the cams work that way - but mostly below 15 fps, which is not suitable for interaction.
Some more info and videos are available on the website of 3DV Systems (be warned: poor video quality, but you get the ideas what you can do with this camera).
20 fingers, originally uploaded by gregorhofbauer.
Our multitouch project has received an update during the last days, and we’ve managed to improve hard- and software. This is a quick test that Thom wrote for our table. More images on multitouch.at.
