THE HARDWARE
Wall Screens
Four 42” HD (1080p) dual point multi-touch LCD screens utilising diffuse IR overlays adorn two of the room’s walls. Each screen is driven by a dedicated computer triple booting Windows 7, Mac OSX and Linux.
Presentation and Collaboration Screen
On the center wall is a 46” HD (1080p) true multi-touch LCD screen built by multitouch.oy, pioneers in computer vision multi-touch techniques. The screen is capable of detecting finger and hand orientation as well as distinguishing between different users.
Interactive Table
The room’s centrepiece is the bespoke 104” true multi-touch rear projection boardroom table. The one piece 2.4 meter by 1.2 meter tabletop forms a fully interactive, orientation independent, multi-touch surface which allows for total room control as well as interactivity with all other screens. The table can recognise and interact with objects placed on its surface such as mobile phones, laptops or books using infra red fiducial markers. The table serves as the room hub and has a panel on either side for people to plug in usb flash drives, ipods, digital cameras or their laptops for display on any screen.
Remote Collaboration
Typically people install high end expensive but most importantly proprietary video conferencing technology. We're going down another route. The room has 3 HD networked webcameras which can be remotely viewed and controlled whilst also serving as the eyes into the room. Using ooVoo the room allows any external person to simply enter a URL and begin a video conference session from any computer with a webcam and mic, in fact 6 parties can simultaneously video conference with one another all without downloading any software. More than just communicating with the room they can also interact with a remote desktop allowing for shared experiences of reviewing documents, websites, presentations in fact you name it!
Digitally Augmented Analogue Mainstays
Ignoring the fact that people are used to pens, notebooks and whiteboards would be a mistake. Rather than simply removing these from the environment the ICE digitally augments their functionality. All notes are digitised and can be automatically displayed on any of the screens, shared with remote sources or simply emailed to the note taker. Any item on any of the screens can be digitally annotated using augmented whiteboard pens. In addition, three large wall spaces, approximately 2.5 meters by 1.2 meters serve as traditional whiteboards with a twist as anything written on them is digitised and can be stored and shared in the same way as the output of the digital notebooks.
A Wireless World
The ICE surfaces can be controlled by wireless tablets and keyboards and the video and audio outputs of any laptop can be wirelessly sent to any screen as well as the room’s surround sound system. There is also a wireless printer and scanner which can connect to any screen or laptop in the room.
The Mobile Developers Kit
Consists of a 42” lightweight rear projection FTIR multi-touch system driven by a multi OS laptop (Mac OSX, Windows 7, Linux) which can be disassembled and transported easily to allow student and research demonstration and development work.
Not forgetting...
The room has audio and video recording and playback (7.1 surround sound, 8 channel wireless recording and 3 networked cameras), and everything is stored and backed up on an 8TB networked redundant array.