Elevating Interactivity

One of the more interesting things to come out of the NRF convention last week was a retail digital signage proof-of-concept from Intel.

The prototype system combines a translucent holographic overlay display next to a more traditional LCD screen, allowing for different types of interactive content to be delivered on the different screens. The concept demo shows contextual information on the holographic display, overlaid onto the physical items that are visible through the glass. The LCD portion of the installation is evidently intended to have screens on both sides, allowing the unit to support up to three simultaneous users.

The interaction evidently relies heavily on gesture more than on touch. According the Intel’s documentation on the concept, the LCD screens allow customers to use a swipe gesture to scroll through the available advertisements or digital media. The holographic screen, while it behaves like a touchscreen is also evidently gestural, recognizing “pointing” gestures that function the same as touches. This informational overlay onto the physical space behind is basically augmented reality, very similar to a number of mobile experiences that have been gaining traction of late.

Finally, all of the screens use embedded cameras in order to both customize the experience and capture analytics for future analysis. Placement of the selection interface on the holographic screen is adjusted to the customer’s height, for instance. The cameras can also recognize gender and approximate age, so the content on the LCDs can be targeted to the customer. And the system can capture dwell times for the content providing marketers a feedback mechanism for how well each ad is being received by viewers, and the related demographic info. This functionality is all evidently powered by CognoVision, a Canadian company focused on that space.

Intel, while not a manufacturer of interactive signage hardware directly, of course has a vested interest in seeing more powerful computing systems installed in more places, especially if they are powered by Intel processors. This particular concept, which was also briefly presented during Paul Otellini’s keynote at CES the week before, is evidently all driven by a single dual-core i7 chip.

Intel has actually built a number of interesting proof-of-concept units to demonstrate the power of the i7. At CES this year they had a dual-screen touch wall that allowed multiple people to touch little cubes of content.

And at last year’s CES show they debuted a holographic touch screen similar to the one in the retail concept above. It’s primary function was to show off a real-time 3D rendering engine that was powered by an i7 processor.

It’s not Intel’s first stab at envisioning what the future of retail digital signage will be either. Earlier this year they published some renderings and documentation of another concept intended for stores. This one also seems designed for three simultaneous users, although it’s definitely more pedestrian.

Although not intended to actually hit the streets, Intel’s latest retail concept is an interesting vision of the relatively near future of digital signage installations in retail environments.  In contrast to a lot of the digital media that has made its way into retailers thus far, Intel’s concept is highly interactive, and because it’s multi-user it offers the potential to build collaborative experiences as well. It incorporates a number of innovative technologies that we have been paying attention to – gestural interfaces, face tracking, augmented reality.

Along with presenting this concept, Intel also announced a partnership with Microsoft for its Windows Embedded Standard 2011 operating system and a stronger commitment to the digital signage space in general. That’s good news for those of us who depend on more capable and more reliable hardware platforms on which to develop the next generation of interactive experiences in public spaces.