The February 2008 edition of MediaPost had a short article about an interesting technology that was shown at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show that took place in Las Vegas recently. It’s a technology that moves us a step closer to a world portrayed in the film The Minority Report – that scene where tailored, targeted outdoor ads are delivered to John Anderton (the Tom Cruise character).
The technology, called the Reactrix WAVEscape, has been developed by two silicon valley companies – TYZX, a 3-D Imaging company and Reactrix, a point-of-sale display company. It uses a 3D camera mounted atop a display and it can capture movements, gestures and at some point in the future, speech. The system can then mainputale the image (and everything else it captures) on the screen, morphing it with whatever you like. So it sounds like a Nintendo Wii for the advertising world!
While the report claims the technology is at an early stage, you can see how it could be used in an in-mall or in-store environment (or anywhere there is high traffic) to create a bit more fun for people to play around with ads. Maybe some games for local stores, with promotions and coupons as prizes? And it is not too big of a leap to see how we could get to The Minority Report biometric recognition to talk directly at (with?) you.
– Image from gizmodo.com
