Continued from Emerging Technologies:  Experience the Future (Part I)

Besides displays and electronic ink, the stars of Emerging Technologies at SIGGRAPH this year were based around the sense of touch and various ways to use it as an interface with machines. In their more mature form, touch technologies take the shape of Interactive surfaces.

With a New Multi-Touch Interaction Techniques for Visual Content Creation, Jazz Mutant, a pioneer of multi-touch technologies since 2002, showcased the first multi-touch device in a tablet-pc format. Their unique system allowed them to develop small scale interfaces to control multimedia performances and have been used in concert by artists such as Daft Punk or Björk. It was particularly interesting that one of the main applications they are focusing on are tools for graphical content production. Looking at their choice of colors and symbols, their visual interface brings us very close to the famous LCARS system from the Star Trek universe.

 

 

More recently interested in multi-touch technologies, Microsoft showed the scale of their investments with a demo of two of their Surface tables. Using a system of four cameras inside each table, Surface was fascinating to watch. The demos showed how polished the technology has become and clearly demonstrated the potential of Microsoft’s vision to dramatically impact our daily lives. One could easily imagine such tables in restaurants, clubs, casinos and maybe even living rooms. It was worth waiting through the crowds amassed around the tables to get a glimpse. Although there was a finger painting application, the demos themselves were closer to carefully scripted commercial talk about Microsoft strategy and commercial partners than the usual, hands on, e-tech experience. With this level of maturity, it would have made more sense showing the technology on the main Exhibition floor instead.

 

 

On the other hand, the Diorama table presented similar concepts in a more intuitive way. The table is a form of ambient entertainment, a sort of electronic fish-pond where virtual fish, birds, flowers and cars interact with physical objects placed on the table. A piece of string is a road for the cars to follow. A loop in a string creates a pond where birds land to take a rest. Forks and spoons add more cars to the scene.

One remarkable change this year was a more seamless transition between the Emerging Technologies and the Art Gallery sections. It was sometimes difficult to know where one stopped and the other began. Technically, the Diorama table was part of the Art Gallery, but it could have been easily included in the e-tech area.

Similarly, Globe4D’s simple, robust interface begged to be used. Very kid friendly, its simple design projects maps and timeline information onto a very solid sphere and ring made of thick wood. Simply spin the ring around to change a time frame. This installation would have a rightful place in any natural museum.

 

 

Other touch technologies were more exotic. For example, TransPen & MimeoPad brought a physical form to a digital drawing in the way of a digital rubbing of an electronic pen, burning small marks into the paper as the pen moves over dark areas of the picture underneath. Freqtric Game brings back human contact in video games, using touch as a way to add control to a game. Having to make contact with a total stranger was an experience in itself. Mixing touch with other senses, The Sound of Touch turns textures into sounds with familiar tools and brushes.

 

 

Finally, in some sort of roles reversal, the third theme of e-Tech this year revolved around giving senses to machines to better extend our reach and what we are capable of.

Fibratus Tactile Sensor gives machines the sense of touch by capturing images on the deformation of a flexible silicon surface. This technique extends touch from the flat surface of a screen or table to more tangible objects such as fibers and feathers. As you can see in the official e-Tech video, they even used Poser in their presentation.

In a very simple and subtle example of how emerging technologies can eventually blend into our daily environment, Fuwapica Suite is another example of ambient system, in the form of ‘aware’ furniture that change color based on perception of people in the room.

 

 

Better use of senses allow robots to become playful partners. The little bots from CoGAME: Manipulation by Projection are guided on a virtual field using light projections as remote control. Alternatively, the GlowBots don’t even need to be guided. They build relationships by themselves, forming ever evolving patterns of light and symbols in another possible evolution of an artificial fishpond.

Better senses also allow robots placed in remote situations to better communicate their surroundings to us through Telepresence applications. TORSO enables a direct interaction with a remote environment. Gravity Grabber promises to give us a better sense of mass in objects manipulated remotely. A more exotic application, BYU-BYU-View even communicates remote wind.

2007 was an excellent vintage in the Emerging Technologies department, with surprises for all senses. It will be interesting to see which of these technologies will appear in a more polished form in our daily lives.

 

Laurent Alquier (agiel) has been moderator of the Vue Forum at Renderosity since 2004. When he is not in the forum or the galleries, he finds himself busy with the balancing act of a day job as a Software Engineer and personal explorations of Information Visualization and Computer Graphics.