The Future is Transparent (PR is as well)
Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
We are not sure why this story about the gesture based interaction screen for Orange has suddenly made a number of blogs and signage sites cos’ it’s old news, with the video itself being up on YouTube since 20th December 2007…
About This Video
Christmas shoppers are getting a treat in Central London as Orange launch their interactive shopping window! (more)
Added: December 20, 2007
The Gesture based interaction is quite cool (we wrote about hand waving technology at CES a week or so ago) but as a couple of comments on other blogs have also pointed out this is NOT new, not the FIRST and not ground breaking as a lot of the PR around it has suggested.
It is good though and nice, so hats off to The Alternative agency that created it but please, less of the superlatives.
UK based agency ‘The Alternative’ has developed a gesture based interaction screen for Orange. It is for the first time that such a technology is showcased to the general public says a spokesman for the agency. The large projected image has a touch free interface and provides users a new way to activate news, film clips and music videos.
The Alternative creates the world’s first no-touch interactive shop window for Orange.
The Alternative, a London based Engagement and Creative Agency, has developed a unique way to engage passers-by on busy London streets.
This ground-breaking innovation really does appear to be a world-first, so naturally it’s hard to create suitable comparisons….
errr NO!! ubiq’window has been providing touchless interactivity since 2003 and has been deployed by NTTDoCoMo, AU/KDDI, Vodafone, NZTelecom and Cellcom so there are in fact plenty of comparisons available.
See also http://www.ubiqwindow.tv/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uixUmxH-Z0
January 23rd, 2008 at 14:38 @651
fair comment. We’ve gone to the effort of developing this technology, rather than buying another and selling it on, all the software is bespoke – therefore this is the first time OUR own development has been seen by the public. We’re aware of the efforts of companies like gesture tek, et al – indeed, we spoke to them about this project sometime back. In order to overcome limits of some other system we then developed our own unit which circumnavigates a lot of restraints or issues others had.
We’re not saying there’s no-one else working in this space, and we’re not claiming that we’re the best.! For us its a world first, on the high street it appears to be a first in terms of the touchless technology, the uncontrolled nature of things and the capacity it has.
What the window does offer the passer- by is a fun experience, with free content and information services that may be of interest (eg. ITN news feeds, film clips, music videos etc).
Users seem to enjoy an experience that is all about using some new technology in a fun way, rather than just looking at the static traditional store window and it being salesy or bland.
The idea really is for people to first and foremost know about it, use it and hopefully enjoy it.
January 23rd, 2008 at 15:04 @669
The key ideas of the window are to
a) let people know that its out there if they want to use it so therefore a bit of pr is necessary. Yeah it was brought out without too much fanfare in December and there’s no hiding that, the date is clearly on the You tube News feed. Its only old news once you know about it and right now alot of people don’t.
and
b)For people to enjoy an experience that is all about using some new technology in a fun way, rather than just looking at the static traditional store window and it being salesy or bland.
We’ve gone to the effort of developing this technology, rather than buying another and selling it on – therefore this is the first time OUR own development has been seen by the public. We’re aware of the efforts of companies like gesture tek, et al – indeed, we spoke to them about this project sometime back. We had clear ideas on what we wanted to produce and in order to overcome limits of some other system we then developed our own unit which circumnavigates a lot of restraints or issues others had in terms of meeting the needs of us and our client.
It is NEW for us and because its not mainstream with everyone doing it, i’d suggest it’s new technology without wanting to get into semantics.
It is the FIRST for our client and from our limited research it appears to be the first that offers free things like content and information services(eg. ITN news feeds, film clips, music videos,games etc).”
We’re not saying there’s no-one else working in this space, and we’re not claiming that we’re the best… simply that this is rather good and we hope people like it and use it!