Here comes a new way for advertisers to capture attention: software that turns 2D images into 3D simulations when consumers play with them in front of a Webcam.
Total Immersion's D'Fusion system is composed of a kiosk, Web cameras, and software capable of recognizing, tracking, and rendering images.
It works like this. Customers view themselves on a screen through a Webcam and hold up a 2D picture. Suddenly the 2D picture pops up and consumers see themselves holding a 3D simulation of the product in the brochure on the kiosk's video feed. Sometimes it doesn't work: the 3D image will disappear if you hold the picture at a wrong angle. Still, it's an eye-grabber for a kiosk application.
Video: CNET News.com's Hanna Sistek demonstrates Total Immersion's software. Click the image above to view.
"It's like watching a magic show; there's this jaw-dropping moment when people can't really believe what they're seeing," said Jeremiah Knight, director of digital strategy at marketing agency Tequila.
Earlier this year, Tequila used Total Immersion's technology when marketing a car at auto shows around the country. "The customers' level of engagement was exceptionally high," Knight said. "We could engage them into conversations substantially deeper than with any other advertising method."
Total Immersion kicked off seven years ago in Europe and set up shop in Los Angeles late last year. Its idea largely plays off the existing CAD/CAM and 3D models companies already have prepared in their design shops. Total Immersion takes pictures of the brochure or box and then extrapolates the 2D image into a 3D simulation. It sells kits of "magic boxes" to companies that want to amaze their customers with a new marketing tool.
The magic boxes, however, cost quite a bit and are out of range for most retailers to buy. It costs approximately $50,000 to equip a typical toy store with them, and the return on investment is hard to measure. Thus, the customers for now are the manufacturers.
Bruno Uzzan, CEO of Total Immersion, envisions many other uses for D'Fusion, assuming the price can come way down.
CEO Bruno Uzzan envisions many uses for D'Fusion.
(Credit: Hanna Sistek/CNET News.com)"We're targeting the end-consumer market," he said during a meeting at the Ad Tech conference in San Francisco last week, referring to any owner of a PC with a Webcam. "It could for instance be used in publishing. You could see a 3D character speaking to you while you're reading a Disney book," he said.
Another application could be games. "You could have chess characters go live while you're playing," Uzzan suggested.
The D'Fusion real-time visual software also does finger tracking. Point at a product in a brochure, and it starts animating that product.
The company says it also has customers in the theme park and entertainment business, as well as mobile-phone operators. Total Immersion is funded by the venture capital firms Partech International and I Source Gestion, and most recently also by Elaia Partners.
The software can be downloaded for free, together with a test printout. It isn't working very well, but if you have a Webcam it's worth checking out.
We put stuff into computers (and, for that matter, get stuff out) in pretty much the same way we have for a good couple of decades.
Of course, we still use keyboards of a fairly standard design as our primary mechanism to feed words into a computer and mice are well-ensconced as the navigational tool of choice. Over in the gaming world, it's the familiar two-handed game controller that predominates. In fact, I sense that one sees fewer joysticks, steering wheels, various oddball keyboards, and trackballs than one saw in the past. This probably reflects that "productivity" PCs are shifting toward notebooks on the one hand and that gaming is moving toward consoles on the other.
The one clear counter-example is the emergence of "thumbing" (as opposed to typing). But this is really more about making compromises in service of the form factor of handheld devices than it is a genuine innovation--however commonplace it has become.
However, we may be starting to see some genuine change.
The motion-sensing Nintendo Wii remote isn't a particularly new concept. We've see academic work in data gloves of various types going back to the 1990s. What's different is that the Wii is mass market. Volumes mean not only lower cost, but an incentive for software makers to write games and other applications that support and use the device in interesting ways. Because it corresponds to the physical world, hand movement seems a natural fit with many tasks and manipulations. As a result, I expect that we'll see descendants of the Wii in increasingly widespread use.
Another big trend we're seeing is multitouch. As CNET News.com's Tom Krazit notes, it's Apple that has pushed this technology into the mainstream--starting with the iPhone in the handheld arena and the MacBook Air in the notebook space. (On the notebook, it's the touchpad rather than the whole screen that is multitouch and it's less of a big deal as a result.) I've been arguing for a while that being able to draw a "napkin drawing" or a "whiteboard sketch" is one of the things that's largely missing today when we work and collaborate remotely. The combination of multitouch and writeable LCDs at affordable price points, and supported by software, would be a genuine step forward.
These aren't the only possibilities. Six-degrees-of-freedom controllers have long been used in 3D engineering programs but they've been priced for the CAD professional. Logitech has come out with the affordable (about $55) 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator PE (Personal Edition) 3D Navigation Device version that makes a great Google Earth companion. If 3D virtual worlds ever take off in a big way, devices such as these would be a natural and obvious fit.
Then there's always voice recognition. It's getting better. But that could be a statement for just about any year. And general-purpose voice recognition remains a niche. You won't catch me betting on it (although I suspect its time will come--someday).
Every few years, some new technology or application comes along that everyone's sure will miraculously conquer every obstacle in its path and, in some ludicrously short time period, make existing technology obsolete. And then, long after all the media hype fades away and investors' checkbooks disappear, well, nothing happens.
So what? Who cares? Why bother talking about our industry's bombs, the next big things that weren't? Well, for one thing, it's interesting to note how hungry we all are for news about new technology. It gets us excited. We complain about media hype, but love the hype.
It's also fascinating how existing technology has this way of hanging on by its fingernails way past the point of its predicted obsolescence. More importantly, we learn more from mistakes than we do from successes. That's part of the scientific method: hypothesis, test, learn, repeat until you get it right.
Lastly, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Those are all good enough reasons for me. So here are my top 10 technology flops. But first, some ground rules. I stuck to the last 50 years or so. And I avoided specific company products. We've heard enough about the IBM PCjr, Apple Newton, Microsoft Bob, and OS2 to last 10 lifetimes. ... Read more
(Credit:
VirTra Systems)
If your fair-weather friends are getting bored with your in-home theater, bowling alley, and bevy of indentured pedicurists, you may want to step up to a VirTra Systems' mobile live-fire training simulation trailer.
The trailer is based on the Houston company's IVR (immersive virtual training) simulation technology and offers a three-lane marksmanship simulator and "full-featured judgmental-use-of-force scenario" with both laser-based and live-fire training, including full auto in anything up to .50 caliber. Depending on your preferred quarry, it's available in either a police or military version.
"We remain committed to offering the training community innovative, high-tech, immersive small-arms training simulation products at extremely competitive prices," retired Major Gen. Perry V. Dalby, VirTra Systems' chief executive officer, said in a press release. The company sells "situational awareness" training equipment and virtual-reality systems to military and other clientele, such as General Motors and Red Baron Pizza.
The live-fire trailer is reasonably priced at between $250,000 and $500,000, depending on accessories.
Eyeing the virtual printer.
(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET News.com)CHIBA, Japan--Canon wants to take you into a virtual world so you can learn how to change toner cartridges better.
The headgear you see in the photo, along with the cube with the squiggles, is part of a "Mixed Reality Technology" prototype coined by Canon, which showed it off over the weekend during a special future-tech exhibit at Ceatec, the large Japanese trade show here.
It's called mixed reality because virtual and real-world images are mixed into one frame. When you put the goggles on and stare at the cube, you don't see squiggles. Instead, you see a virtual 3D image of a copier. You also see your own hands move around the virtual world. You can lift the lid of a printer or copier, flip switches, etc. It was actually kind of cool.
Bang the drum slowly.
(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET News.com)Virtual reality was one of the more prominent themes in the future-tech exhibition. The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology also showed off a virtual device it concocted with the Phantom haptic tech from Sensable Technologies of Woburn, Mass., that combines virtual visual, sound and touch stimuli. Basically, you put on the virtual-reality glasses and see a drum and set of bells. Strike it with a mallet and you hear the appropriate virtual sounds over the headset. The top of the drum also "feels" rubbery, while the side is hard. Sensable did the visual and feel parts, while NICT did the sound part.
That second picture, with the guy sitting in front of what looks like a projector, is the Sensable-NICT project. You can see the virtual image above his head.
Waseda University, meanwhile, showed off something called Interactive View, which lets you manipulate and move virtual objects.
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