Remember Minority Report...?
 

http://www.deafpagers.com/blog/wp-co...ty_report3.jpg

More to the point, remember that weird interactive screen that Tom Cruise used to see into the immedeate future? Okay, well, this sucker can't see into the future and doesn't require bald people in a bathtub to work - but the interaction portion is the same if not better.

For the low price of $100,000, you too can own a "Online Only Media Wall" from Neiman Marcus.

The offical link below also has a FLV video, showing you the product being used along with some terrible 1998 techno music.

Neiman Marcus - Fashion's premier designers, plus beauty's best brands

I saw something like this a few months ago. It wasn't for sale, but it was really neato to watch the demo.

For $100k, I am SURE people will be buying it. But until it drops to a reasonable price, I am sure most normal people will have no interest.

I do however suspect that people would LOVE to own one of these.

Yeah, you actually have to touch this thing. I am not wowed.

On the other hand, you don't need gloves, like prissy Tom Cruise. :)

I imagine this will become really popular as the price drops over the next few years.

I wonder how they might design it for use for multiple people at one time - it'll be really interesting if, like in the video, people could collaborate on the same board and yet be able to individually retrieve files from storage, for example.

It's basically this multi-touch screen on a production level. I would love to own something like though perhaps a bit smaller and cheaper.

A step back from the mouse/touchpad for the low, low price of a hundred thousand dollars, look at that. This can only be exhibited in a modern art museum as a novelty. The only purpose of the Minority Report interface was to look cool in a movie. No one in their right mind would actually use it for daily work.

While this thing looks pretty neat, I am not a big fan of touch-screens because they get messy very quick, you have finger prints everywhere so you have to wash it a lot.

To resolve that issue I bet they will release some kind of special gloves for it.

"Say goodbye to keyboards" the video says.

Then the next screen shows a touchscreen keyboard... Uh okay. Keyboard + mouse is more productive than that anyway. It's cool, but has no practical uses yet unless they innovate some kind of control scheme that makes what we use now obsolete.

YouTube Video

Much better.

They'd have better luck marketing it as a business tool.

I could actually see this being practical for video editing. It would be beautifully robust and intuitive to have all of your media and tools at your fingertips. Fuck yeah, this would be a wonderful interface for that. It would give a whole new meaning to the term "flatbed editing."

Everything else just seems masturbatory.

I knew the Surface would get mentioned sooner or later, or I would just be satisfied with a wiimote hack

YouTube Video

(its also practical in this one)

That reminds me of the table that Microsoft are working on.

Touchscreens are not really precise tools to get work done. They are great for UIs that work with simple, huge buttons, like ticket machines, but don´t ever expect them to replace an good graphic tablet.

And, yes, when there is actually something you need to touch, it will look pretty messy after a while. Maybe that´s why Tom Cruise is wearing gloves.

Exactly.

What they showed here is little more than a glorified piece of "future technology", trying to wow people with new things that have a novelty interest period of about a half hour with virtually no practicality whatsoever. The video did all to show you can resize photos, look at maps and grids.

Wow, it's a big, non portable iphone.

And speaking of which, apple already has this technology in use. $100,000 media wall? You've got to be fucking kidding me. Apple will likely have a new wave of imacs out in a year or two with the touch-screen technology, and like sprout said, I'd absolutely love to be edit on Final Cut Pro with that sort of tech. But that's basically all it's useful for. Music Composition? Midi interface keyboard. Illustration? Wacom tablet. Editing is like the only thing I could see it being useful in.

Does the iPhone track multiple touches on its surface at the same time? I though that was part of the draw of these newer huge devices.

I could definitely see this sort of thing being useful for group collaborations. It's kinda like having a large chalkboard that you can do so much more with.

An adjustable sensitivity sort of feature would also be pretty sweet. Like, you draw a box with your fingers and it ups the sensitivity in that region so you can start to use pens/marker type objects so it could have the precision of a tablet.

It has perfectly practical applications, like the ones that Sprout pointed out - but then you say it doesn't have practical applications? So, you're just retarded or...?

Anyone old enough or smart enough knows that it won't work because of two words - "Gorilla Arms".

Neat? Yep. Very practical? Not really.

I'm sure they will find some niche that will be willing to slap down the $100k for this, but it doesn't even look like a step toward the direction appliances are going.

Best... video.... ever

They already have those keyboards specifically made for editing that the music and film industries are starting to use. They're really expensive (around $10,000 if I recall correctly), but that's probably not that big of an expense considering how much time they supposedly save using them. I don't remember what they're called though.

I don't know why anyone thinks clear/glass surfaces that many disgusting human hands will touch is actually a good idea.

Yeah, they should really design touch screens for dog butts because they're so much cleaner.

For that price it better come with lifetime warranty.

For that price it better come with Tom Cruise.

Business use aside, I would totally use one of these given the chance. Moving stuff on a screen from across the room with hand motions would make anyone feel like a super-powered big shot. It's like what Magneto must feel like all the time.

I could also see teachers using this with some sort of free-drawing software in place of blackboards, but universities, let alone public schools, wouldn't be able to afford them for several years.

Our school's classrooms basically have the same thing. Smartboards, or whatnot. There's just a bunch of digital dry erase markers (red, blue and green one) that they use to free draw or write notes in an office based program. But there's usually calibrated really bad and rather unused.