Multi Touch Products at CES 2013
CES, January 2013, Las Vegas—We talked with Timo Korpela from MultiTouch Americas about their latest offerings in displays and couch controls. They offer industrial grade displays in wall and tabletop formats.
On their wall displays, they now have one version with a 6mm total gap on stacked panels. The close spacing images reality and makes interactions easier, since you don’t have to cover large gaps when tracing motion. Their basic technology uses infrared emitters and detectors to get reflections of contact points on the surface.
The active optical sensing enables information transfer through coded cards or other objects. For high brightness areas, they have a hybrid tracking system which combines images from the IR emitters and also from external sources to locate contact points. Because the image detection is active, they can handle unlimited contact points on the surface and maintain fairly high resolution at the same time. Other interfaces like NFC are possible, but not in the works at present.
The ability to discern multiple images simultaneously allows them to use personalized markers for bidirectional interactions. A coded card can be used on any of their systems to provide personalized information to the viewer, and also allow the operator to detect that individuals presence. Signage with their displays can have as much interactivity as NFC devices.
They currently offer 42 and 55 inch, both with the ability to be used as tiles. In addition, they also have a desktop model in the same sizes. One of the first potential applications for the desktop model is an education, where interactive digital content and personalized instruction are combined. Eventually, these desktop versions will move into the living rooms, integrated into coffee tables. For these applications they will need a new user interface for personalization.
Increasingly, displays are being driven by more software. The management needs for interactive displays grows more complex as the end-point capabilities continue to improve. Management capabilities are also expanding to include analytics, to help the display owners take better advantage of the users’ encoded cards. Now, displays are configured as wall tiles or desktops, and the multiple displays may need to work together. As a result, they are advancing their products by making a developer SDK available, and developing software to manage multiple displays. They currently have versions for Windows 8 and Android devices.
