'Minority Report' tech becomes a reality at Napier

Edinburgh Napier University have launched a sci-fi look boardroom that is inspiring comparisons to Minority Report and Bond film Quantum of Solace.

The £150,000 boardroom, or Interactive Communication Environment, comprises five multi-touch screens on the wall and a multi-touch table. It interacts with touch in a way similar to an iPhone, using an impressive array of technologies.

Oli Mival, head of the Centre for Interaction Design and the ICE project said that the initial response to the system had been positive: “The biggest user issue is distraction, people tend to start playing around with something on the table. They’re doodling, they're gesture doodling rather than using it to it’s full capacity.”

The table is backlit by an infrared projector according to a principle called “diffuse illumination”.

This allows infrared tags to be put on objects such as mobile phones so that the table can “recognise” them and connect to them wirelessly.

This allows for a seamless transfer of audio, video, and text files straight onto the surface.

It was designed and laid out to be as intuitive to users, using technology called Digitally Augmented Analog Mainstays. The ICE uses familiar objects such as markers, whiteboards, and touch to shape itself around users’ needs.

All of the screens on the walls are able to track movement and allow users to write on them as though they were ordinary whiteboards, with the advantage that the writing can be digitally captured, copied onto the table and passed around by touch.

One of the screens uses a “multi-touch cell” which is the same as diffuse illumination but on an LCD screen.

Theoretically it could process as many touch points as it has active pixels. Despite the number of cameras and projectors, the processing demand on touch detection is minimal.

What is demanding is the software for the interfaces. Notwithstanding, the table is run from two Mac Minis that split the tasks of detection on and projection onto the surface.

In an exclusive interview with The Journal, Oli Mival  said of the price: "If you think about it, it's the same price as a lot of boardroom tables," adding that prices for most of the components have been “dropping by 10 percent every year and we expect that to continue. Within three to five years it should be something that most businesses can think of putting in their offices.”