Tomorrow's Treasures, Day 2 - SIGGRAPH 2006

IT TOPICS:Emerging Technology, Personal Technology

Yesterday was my second day at ACM's SIGGRAPH 2006 conference on graphics and animation, and it's been a whirlwind of a ride so far. A spectacular keynote address given earlier in the day by Joe Rohde, Disney's head Imagineer and the gentleman responsible for the company's new Expedition Everest attraction, really solidified the experience for me, and utterly convinced me that I simply must visit the Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World as soon as is humanly possible. Expedition Everest looks to absolutely rock the world of roller coaster experiences.

The conference keynote, however, was not the only attraction of interest. I journeyed once again into the bowels of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center and onto the Emerging Technologies show floor, and once again I found myself delighted that I'd been granted the opportunity to attend. I probably spent more time than I should have playing with New York University's Multi-Touch Interaction Wall, a 16-foot-long monstrosity of a user interface. It may sound outlandishly large, but let me tell you, it's worth every inch.

Picture a set of two eight-foot by four-foot screens made out of a pliable, responsive white plastic (imagine a slightly softer version of your average shampoo bottle). The screens are set side-by-side, while hidden behind them are two high-resolution projectors and two infrared cameras. When a user presses a finger against the firm but flexible material, one of the cameras picks up the heat signature, which is amplified by a scattering effect the screen possesses. The result is a very responsive, very durable touch-screen that can handle multiple simultaneous inputs, since each camera can easily track and distinguish the various scatter-patterns as they appear. The technology, though still requiring some definite refinement, works surprisingly well; at any given time, on either of the screens, I counted at least five different people using two or more fingers each to interact with the wall.

NYU used several pretty interesting programs to show off the wall's potential. One of the two screens almost always had various instances of a puzzle game running on it (the name escapes me, but it's a game where a series of circles are connected by a series of lines, and you have to move the circles around so no two lines intersect). The other screen showed off such interesting interactive features as a giant word-find puzzle; a rotateable, scaleable 3D model; a photo viewer and editor; and an extraordinarily powerful map tool that makes Google Maps' scrollable, zoomable images pale by comparison. I watched as users opened multiple instances of the same map, resized and moved the windows to partially overlap each other, set each instance to display the single map differently (one topographically, another politically, etc.), and then effortlessly scroll, rotate, and zoom the map, watching as it dynamically shifted to their easy touch.

To put it short and sweet, this is exactly the kind of technology that would be positively awesome to see in a future kitchen. Forget posting pictures on the refrigerator -- just bring them up on the wall, scale them, crop them, cut them, rotate them, and organize them at your leisure. Stop buying post-its for use in to-do lists; just use the integrated wall-keyboard to tap out animated notes for your loved ones. Need to check a map before heading out? I couldn't imagine an easier-to-master interface.

Day Two of SIGGRAPH proved eminently entertaining, but Day Three looks to beat it out; the unveiling of the main exhibition is today, and I can't wait to come back and tell you all about it.

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ACM SIGGRAPH 2006 Coverage: