Minority Report had a lot of cool ideas, but one of the most intriguing was a holographic touch panel. Researchers are slowly working on getting holograms right, but we can now interact with floating touch panels using only a Kinect, a projector and an $150 app.
Ubi Interactive announced the launch of its new app that turns any surface into a touch display. Of course, it’s not like the wall magically becomes a touch sensitive panel. Instead, a projector works in tandem with a Kinect sensor to give the illusion that you’re interacting with the display.
Does Ubi sound like something you could use? Well, you should know that the base $150 app only includes support for a single touch point and display sizes up to 45 inches. If you want something bigger, you’ll have to fork over $379 for 100 inch display support, but it still only supports one touch point. You can upgrade to two touch points for $799, and 20 touch points will cost you $1,499.
The prices are obviously indicative of an app that’s intended primarily for enterprise use. Sure, you could use Ubi to play a game of Angry Birds on your wall, but that seems almost like a waste. I’d be more inclined to see developers buy the software and see what kind of new technologies they can think up with it. It might even encourage researchers to start putting more work into holograms that we can physically interact with.
[h/t: Gizmodo]