At CeBIT, Jørgen Sundgot pulls a Minority Report with Panasonic's 65" Plasma HDTV, fitted with an infrared frame turning the display into a giant touch screen.
Remember last year's Tom Cruise blockbuster, Minority Report? For those who haven't seen the movie, it takes place in the near future where Mr. Cruise has at his disposal a crime-busting high-tech arsenal of toys which, among other things, includes a giant, semi-transparent screen where input is controlled by a pair of specialized gloves worn by you-know-who.
Fast forward (or is that backwards?) to 2005, and we have what amounts to the first step towards realizing this notion courtesy of a combination of Panasonic's TG-65PHD7EK 65" Plasma HDTV and its accessory, the TY-TP65P6-S infrared motion sensor frame (catchy model names, no?).
Shown for the first time here at CeBIT 2005 in Hannover, Germany, the combination of these two appliances turns a 65" Plasma display from Panasonic into a giant touch screen, for which Panasonic had developed an application tracking weather at central locations around the globe, allowing visitors to look up London, Tokyo, New York and other cities - as well as famous landmarks, and navigate these from a bird's eye view.
Just so we're clear: this is dangerously fun to play with. Essentially, the TY-TP65P6-S frame is mounted around the 65" Plasma display, and tracks the user's finger as it traces the screen by means of infrared ray interruption, delivering a precision of 2 x 2 mm. It's not exactly pixel-per-pixel accuracy, but good enough for most purposes - possibly even including navigating your average operating system.
At approximately 5.5 KG, the TY-TP65P6-S mounts around the exterior of the 65" display, adding only minimal bulk and weight, and so should be fairly easy for any existing owner to add - there are also versions for 42" and 50" models. It's USB powered, and can detect a user's input point, continuous movement and end point detection - enough to allow for navigation traditional Windows based systems, although whether it's rapid enough to detect double clicks is another matter.
The specialized interface developed by Panasonic for the application running at CeBIT was based around larger buttons and the ability to rotate 3D objects, working flawlessly for the entire period I was playing with it. Having never tried anything on a similar scale before, I must admit I found it eerily intuitive and excellent fun - as did everyone around me, oohing and aahing over the concept. If this thing ever starts selling outside Asia, I'll be first in line to pick one up.
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