Emerging Technology Venue

I had a chance to tour the Emerging Technologies floor with John Sibert and Kathy Ryall, the co-chairs for this venue. Kathy mentioned that many of the displays are at various levels of readiness with some being commercially available and others still in early stages of development. Regardless of their stage, these technologies represent not the cutting edge, but the “bleeding edge” of technology.

The Emerging Technology venue showed off several new technology developments including several that were curated by the show’s co-chairs, such as Microsoft Surface, which was being shown for the first time on the west coast. Many other curated developments focused on display technologies. The co-chairs for this event mentioned that 1/3 of the 23 available exhibits were curated.

The first display showcased a system of motion detectors used to determine the movement of crowds of people through the conference floor. This technology could be used someday to create smart buildings that adapt their layouts based on the flow of people.

Other displays included a lens-less stereo microscope and several haptic interface devices that provide feedback to the user. These devices could make a big splash in the gaming world where feedback could help players make critical decisions.

Several display technologies showed backlit monitors that can be readily seen even in bright sunlight. Another monitor had embedded optical sensors making the screen able to detect touch and even track a laser pointer.

Another display, developed by a team at the University of Southern California, showed a 360 degree view produced by lights traced at 5000 rpm. Although the display is only black and white, it could be seen from any angle without any sweet spot in true 3D. Another display featured an HDR display side-by-side with a normal display where you could really see the difference that High Dynamic Range images make.

Another clever interface device was called a Soap mouse. It worked by surrounding an optical mouse with the mousepad so the mouse can be used without requiring a surface to be placed against it. One of the developer’s showed how his game play improved using the Soap mouse by storming through an Unreal Tournament level.

In the way-out there arena was a device that executed specific commands to the game when the two players touched or clasped hands together. It worked by issuing a small electric current through the game controller. When two players touched hands, the circuit is completed and the touch is detected (Figure 1). This could be really interesting if two side-by-side players needed to give hi-fives in order to launch a special attack.

Another way-out design was an wind interface that could detect wind created using a hand fan and simulate the same wind using an electric fan along with a video feed to another computer.

There was also a device called the String Walker (figure 2), presented by a team from the University of Tsukuba, that lets you walk endlessly using a VR system without moving by sliding the feet back and forth over a surface.

One of the coolest displays showed off a real-time 3D geometry capture system that worked by using an optical camera to scan any object, including a hand, placed in the detection field along with its motion and display it back on a monitor (figure 3). The detected object could then interact with the virtual objects.

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