We have spent a number of years implementing touch and multitouch experiences in public spaces and the like. But the success of multitouch on mobile platforms like the iPhone has definitely gotten a lot more people talking about whether it might come to replace the mouse in personal computing like it is replacing the stylus in mobile computing.

Of course touch has been available on various tablet PCs for a while, but that’s still closer to mobile than it is to desktop computing. These days, there is the HP TouchSmart, which has a lot of built-in multimedia capabilities and handles multitouch. Now that Windows 7 is out, with native multitouch support, expect to see some interesting new multitouch applications.

But touchscreens, while they solve a lot of problems for simple, public experiences, have inherent issues for desktop computing. (Note that the TouchSmart above still comes with a mouse.) Which brings me to 10/GUI. 10/GUI is a thoughtful evaluation of those limitations (along with the limitations of the window paradigm of modern operating systems) and a set of proposed solutions. It’s well reasoned and deserving of attention. It may not end up being the solution that’s eventually adopted, but if nothing else it will further the conversation.

Video:

When walking on the sidewalk, passersby will notice a cute (because of its behavior more than its looks) 3D dog avatar that clearly wants some attention. This dog is looking for a few minutes of your time, to play with in the window as you would a real dog.  But how do you play with a digital dog in a window? This answer to that question is revealed during this activity.  The part of this experience that I’m most interested in is the realistic behavior of the dog. This behavior unfolds through a back and forth interaction between the visitor on the sidewalk and the dog avatar in the window. It is achieved through a natural body/gesture interface.

The technology leverages a 3D camera that can detect a person’s location, proximity, motion, speed, etc. Using this information, applications can be made to respond to a user’s body motions. In this case, the dog is programmed to behave in certain ways to particular movements. This creates the illusion that the dog is a live animal who is reacting to your specific body language, akin to the way a real animal would respond. This behavior is executed well and is quite believable, enough to make the average visitor ask “How did they do that?”

Sniff is an art installation. Brand messaging is not currently part of the experience, but you could see how it could easily be applied to similar experiences for products such as a dog food or pet medication, or any brand that could be be represented by a “living” avatar.  The experience is satisfying and short, as most IOOH experiences should be – keep it simple.

Basically the system uses cameras and overhead projection to display an image of the room onto your coffee table. You can then interact with this image using your fingers and control the various devices in the room. This is pretty similar interaction-wise to other overhead projection surfaces we’ve written about. They work well in environments like restaurants and bars. And living rooms. Take a look at the video to see the system in action.

Personally I think this kind of system is more compelling for X10 enthusiasts and home automation applications than to replace your TV remote. I don’t know about you, but when I’m watching television or a movie I like to have my remote handy, to adjust the volume, rewind to catch a line I missed, or pause to get more popcorn. But I tend to do it lying down or at least leaning back on the couch. I don’t really want to have to lean over my coffee table mid-movie. And I probably don’t want a big bright coffee table between me and the screen either. So I probably wouldn’t use something like this replace my TV or DVD player remote even if the current high cost ($10-15k) wasn’t prohibitive. But I might use it in conjunction with a standard remote.

Using it with a media server, as shown in the video, is a great application because you can view lots of metadata about the movie before deciding to watch it. That’s one of the downsides of digital storage of media that will probably require a solution of some sort before media servers become the norm. And using a system like this to control environmental elements that may not even be remotely controlled by default – lights, thermostats, blinds – is also pretty cool. But this is typical home automation stuff and it’s pretty readily available already and still not that many people make use of it. But I could see a system like this having a place in a high end home theater a few years from now.

Now holography itself is pretty old hat to us – we were implementing it more than a decade ago. And combining gestural vision systems with display elements to make them respond to user interaction was done a decade ago as well. Refer to the interactive artist Camille Utterback. (Thanks to the Communication Arts group on LinkedIn for the reference.)

So combining holography with gestural interaction using Wiimotes is cool, but not groundbreaking. The thing that really pushes this little prototype over the top is step 3 – the addition of ultrasound fields for provide tactile interaction for that interaction. In other words, when you wave your hand in front of the holograph to smack the ball away, you will actually feel the ball hit your hand. Think of the possibilities of that. I can’t wait until it’s commercially viable.

It’s seems that at least two different groups are attempting to commercialize such an approach. I just happened to stumble across both of them within the span of a couple of days. The one I heard about first (probably because they are making a bit of a PR push) is YrWall, out of the UK. I’m not sure if this is an offshoot of another organization, but from their site YrWall seems to be a one-trick pony exclusively devoted to pushing this one product. I’d say they are the more commercial of the two, which I suppose could be either good or bad depending on your needs.

The other, Tangible Interaction out of Vancouver, is more of a general purpose experience designer (not all that different from Operand) that lists a digital Graffiti Wall amongst its specialties. They also mention a Graffiti Can that seems a lot closer to the original GRL LASER Tag project I mentioned at the top. It seems like both companies have adopted a rental model to make this fairly hardware-intensive technology viable for events, which makes a lot of sense. It’s impossible for me to tell which system would be better since I haven’t been hands-on with either one, but take a look at the videos.

Interestingly, if perhaps irrelevantly, the term “virtual graffiti” has already been claimed for another, earlier, technology wherein people created tags that could be viewed online or via mobile devices but used geolocation to tie them to specific places in the real world. And even more irrelevantly, the URL is owned by a Network Security company of the same name. Perhaps “digital graffiti” will stick.