New advances in gesture, touch displays unveiled

The next step in retail shopping is a window display that responds to touch.

Moreover, it looks back at you and can tell what you are looking at. Intel unveiled it this week, at its annual developer gathering in San Francisco.

"It's a brand new type of interface for the consumer," says Vikas Gupta. "Gesture and touch."

That was the theme at this year's Intel Developer forum -- interacting with smart devices without clicking or pressing a button.

"That adds a dimension of fun and entertainment," says Gupta. "And, from a gaming perspective that holds true even more."

His company TransGaming has done Nintendo's Wii one better, with a remote that enables you not just to play games with a wave (you can even start a game on TV and finish it on your phone), but to change channels and otherwise control your home theater.

At another demonstration in Moscone Center, Chris O'Malley tells us, "When I touch on a shoe, it pulls the data right away and renders the shoe on screen in real-time."

O'Malley is Intel's Director of Retail Marketing. The wall he is demonstrating is a new way to shop. It could be part of a window display, or a billboard, or in this case a wall inside a retail store. As I walk up to it, it knows whether I'm male or female, my approximate age, even how much time I spend looking at it. And it responds to my touch.

"There are cameras embedded in that wall," O'Malley explains, "that are actually tracking the audience. So an Adidas store, for example, at the end of each day, can actually look and see how many people were looking at the wall, what was the age breakdown, what was the gender breakdown? And that's really crucial business data for a business."

All thanks to new chips that until recently cost a fortune.

"I would have had a bank of servers three or four years ago," O'Malley laughs.

If it's not in stock, you can custom order on screen for 48 hour shipping, says Intel. The smart retail wall is already being used in Europe, and is destined for the US next year.

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LINKS:

adiVerse Touch Wall in action Gesture Controller for games and TV remotes

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