This is how desktop computing was meant to be! Take a look at the amazing LuminAR system, developed by a team at the world famous MIT Media Lab. Basically, it’s a lamp that turns your desktop surface into a tablet computer.
The AR stands for for Augmented Reality and the system comprises a Pico-projector, camera and a wireless connection to a computer that can project interactive images onto any surface. The key bit, though, is that is small enough to fit into a standard light fixture.
To be precise, the team is the Fluid Interfaces Group and is led by Natan Linder, and GizMag is covering its work.
Jason Falconer writes:
Besides tracking your hands and fingers, the camera and image processing software could detect objects in the work space, such as a canned soft drink, and automatically display targeted advertising around it. One potential application would be projecting rich media, including product information, in a retail setting. In effect, browsing a store’s display could incorporate the same media and interactivity as a product web site.
Apparently, it can also scan and share your work area to multiple devices, and it also lets you move around and optimise the layouts of the functionality…
This self-contained system enables users with just-in-time projected information and a gestural user interface, and it can be screwed into standard light fixtures everywhere. The LuminAR Lamp is an articulated robotic arm, designed to interface with the LuminAR Bulb. Both LuminAR form factors dynamically augment their environments with media and information, while seamlessly connecting with laptops, mobile phones, and other electronic devices. LuminAR transforms surfaces and objects into interactive spaces that blend digital media and information with the physical space. The project radically rethinks the design of traditional lighting objects, and explores how we can endow them with novel augmented-reality interfaces.