Perceptive Pixel

This past election year brought us many firsts.  In the primary season America had to decide whether they wanted to back the first African American candidate or the nation’s first woman as a candidate on the ballot.  Then we watched a close race between a war hero turned politician, and our now President Obama.  There were very few moments that anyone could watch a bit of news without hearing about the election.  The constant attention to the very long election season caused the cable news network’s to start using abnormal tactics to draw viewers.  Lucky for us, the folks as CNN decided to share some new technology with us.  I want to share my thoughts on one of those products with you.

Now, if you think I’m going to talk about the so called hologram they used… I’m not.  Until they can beam a guy named Scotty to a ship in space, I’m not interested.

I was excited to actually see Perceptive Pixel technology being used in a practical application.  Perceptive Pixel technology is an “interface-free” multi touch computer screen.  One of its main developers is Jeff Han, a research scientist for New York University.  His excellent presentation on some if its basic uses is located on YouTube.  He also did an interview with Wired News a year after his presentation. 

CNN’s use of the Perceptive Pixel monitor was very basic.  They merely used it like it was a SMART board interactive white board.  The most practical use to date is by the Department of Defense.  They use it to sort through the thousands of images they take using satellites and drones around the world.  They may also be updating a map similar to the one you see in Jeff’s presentation video.  This would allow them to easily visualize regions around the world accurately. 

I would love to see one of these in my workplace.  Currently, I sit in front of 2 – 3 computer monitors daily.  This is because I need to see several windows at the same time on each monitor.  If I had a Perceptive Pixel display I could easily move around, or zoom in and out of all the windows I need using only 1 display.  Of course, it would also be cool to play with the lava lamp application.

With that, I’m going to leave this with a question.  Can you think of any other practical applications for Perceptive Pixel?

-Andrew