Digital Innovations That Could Change The Way We Work, Live And Play

The Emerging Technologies exhibition at the Siggraph conference (Aug 7 to 9) exhibited an array of digital innovations that could change the way we work. These innovations simply enrich us with glimpses of a high-tech future to come. Here are some of the picks from the exhibition.

1. Byu-Byu
byu byu
The system aims to add another innovative element dubbed ‘Wind’ to the communication via video screens. It comprises fine-meshed screens that allow air to pass through them but also display images projected on to them. The screens, which are equipped with 64 sensors, bend when blown upon.

The tiny mirrors attached to the back of the sensors rebounds the light and helps the system determine how hard someone is blowing and where. Small fans that sit beside the sensors are able to send burly or gentle breezes back through any section of the screen.

Masahiro Furukawa, one of the persons behind Byu-Byu said that this technology could be used to play games such as virtual air hockey or blow out birthday candles from thousands of miles away. Anyway, Byu-Byu is a Japanese phrase that means ‘howling wind.’

2. Freqtric

The ingenious interface hopes to add zing to computer gaming and musical performances by making triumph reliant on touching other players or artists.

The game controllers ooze a small electric current through a player’s body. When the player is touched by another player, the current is disrupted and spotted by the sensors in the controller.

Tetsuaki Baba, the designer of Freqtric, is a student in the graduate school of design at Kyushu University. During the testing process, four or five people become living instruments triggered a particular note when they were touched.

3. Gravity Grabber

This system has been designed by post-graduate student Kouta Minamizawa and colleagues from the Information Physics and Computing department at the University of Tokyo.

They have made a lightweight wearable ring fitted with tiny motors that slip on a narrow band of cloth. The users get these rings onto their index finger and thumb with the band lengthened across the tip of the digit. The very moment the tiny motors drag the band tight around the pad of the finger, the users start feeling the weight of virtual objects.

Minamizawa thinks of this system to be used in games to enrich players with realistic sense of what their character was holding.

4. Soap
soap
SOAP is a futuristic replacement for the computer mouse and other interface devices for people who are using wall displays or sit far way from a screen, very much like the Logitech’s recently announced MX Air mouse.

It is the size of a soap bar and boasts a loose outer skin that is able to move freely above the inner hull. The hull of the Soap features an optical sensor. Simply slide the fabric skin around the hard hull and you could move the cursors on the screen. Pressing and releasing the hull lets you click an onscreen button.

The creator, Baudisch from Microsoft Research, says that the mock-ups have already been tested with large wall-based displays.

5. String Walker

This system lets people walk through the virtual environment while being in the same place.

In the String Walker, there are four strings that are attached to two shoes. The users put on the shoes and move as if they were strolling somewhere. The strings then pull the shoes in opposite direction and cancel the step. While the walker is still in the same place, he or she feels to be walking in a virtual world.

Created by Hiroo Iwata and colleagues from the University of Tsukuba, the system could be used initially in training simulators for safety courses.

6. Interactive 360-Degree Light Field Display
360 degree light field display
This interactive 360-degree display delivers the light field of an object by projecting images at 5,000 frames per second onto a whirling anisotropic reflector. This motion-tracked vertical parallax is utilized to allow for unobstructed 3-D movement with correct geometric cues.