The Hindu Business Line : Living room 2.0

“…we will see a range of coffee-table displays, which allow easy Web browsing via a display that has a similar size to a magazine, and about the same weight.”

It's all on the table.

Janani Krishnaswamy

Remember the monochromatic displays of, say, 30 years ago that had poor resolution and could basically only show text? We’ve come a long way since, with today’s high-resolution full-colour displays. And our viewing experiences are all set to radically change in the next couple of years.

Different media, same room

In two years’ time, our living rooms will be full of possible viewing surfaces; no one will have to even fight over a remote control. Microsoft is already making your breakfast table-top your computing screen. You might even be able to hang your loudspeaker like a wall-hanging. University of Warwick engineers have come up with a new loudspeaker that is less than 0.25-mm thin, just using tin foil and an insulating layer of baking paper. Lightweight and inexpensive to manufacture, the speakers can be concealed inside ceiling tiles or car interiors, or printed with a design or hung on the wall.

In future, you’ll be able to have a variety of media experiences with your family members, all in the same room. OLED wall-hangings can turn into your telly. General Electric recently demonstrated a rollable organic screen that’s so ultra-thin that it can also become your newspaper. Yes, we are talking about a slightly advanced version of the OLED.

Sony displayed a razor-thin flexible prototype at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) at Las Vegas this year. With polymer screens and OLEDs starting to take off, it is likely that in a few years from now, our homes will have displays on many flat surfaces, such as tables, walls or probably even fridges. GE’s kitchen of the future already gives us an insight into the possibility.

The Future Laboratory, a UK-based trend forecasting company, recently predicted that it’s highly likely that we will see usable rollable displays in the near future. These displays could be used for any purpose, and we will routinely be able to direct any form of media onto any display.

When eWorld contacted Ian Pearson, an independent futurologist who advises and speaks on everything futuristic, to get an insight into feasibility issues, he e-mailed back saying “I think that we will see a range of coffee-table displays, which allow easy Web browsing via a display that has a similar size to a magazine, and about the same weight. We will pick them up and browse the Web, read electronic newspapers or magazine, play games or read our e-mails.”

However, for all these products to come into our homes, their costs will have to come down. OLED sheets are currently expensive, but they probably offer the greatest scope for price drop and would certainly be best for many of these applications. Even windows could be replaced by displays, if the view isn’t very pretty. Why not look out onto a nice beach instead of an office block wall?

Gestures in open air

Remember Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report, in which John Anderton operated a complex forensic computer display simply by moving his hands in thin air?

There has been a growing preference for the multi-touch, gestural interface pioneered by the iPhone, since then. The next logical step has been taken by Hitachi along with Canesta — with the world’s first television that can be controlled by open-air hand gestures.

The prototype, which uses a tiny Canesta 3D sensor for gesture recognition, was unveiled at CES this year, and can be controlled at distances up to 3 metres by simple hand gestures. For example, a rapid wave will power up the set and a circular motion will change either the video source or the channel.

While Nintendo pioneered the wave of gesture recognition, many others have been quick to follow. Beyond taking pictures, CMOS (and CCD) cameras now have greater capabilities in detection. As is apparent from Microsoft’s Natal Project, a 3D interaction system built for the Xbox 360 that recognises full-body gestures (including facial expressions), and voice.

More than meets the eye

Perception-changing goggles.

Video goggles are no staple of science fiction anymore; a lot of people out there already use them. Near-to-eye display experts are coming up with cool looking semi-opaque see-through goggles which you might just love to flash around. No one will ever know you are streaming a video from an iPod as you spend time with your family. Vuzix displayed a new version of its wearable eyewear at the CES this year. You can actually see through the Wrap 920AV when not watching videos.

In another couple of years, you might not even have to bother with this. An article in The Guardian talks about an active contact lens prototype made by Babak Parviz, Nanotechnology expert, University of Washington.

The electronic contact lens houses a display screen just 1.2-mm across, packed with LEDs to generate detailed images or text right in front of your eyes. It will use the same Wi-Fi technology on your cell-phone to download new data on demand. The lenses are powered by radio waves, which they pick up from their surroundings using tiny on-board antennas. However, research is still under way and it is not available commercially.

Responding to an e-mail, Babak says “We are working hard on functional contact lenses and have demonstrated some key technologies needed to one day have a stand-alone contact lens display. High resolution contact lens display will take a bit of time, but is definitely bound to happen.”

Pearson says that such lenses might be in market by the next five years, and we should see such lenses in common use by 2020, for TV, computer or communication purposes.

Networking from your living room

It’s not just the display options and the way we interact with our gadgets that are going to change, the way we entertain ourselves will also change simultaneously.

Forget Orkut-ing on your PC or Facebook-ing on your phone, social networking is all set to enter the living room. In the future, even watching movies might become a form of social networking.

Researchers and futurologists predict that our screens might be networked to the Internet; so your neighbour will get to know which romance flick you watched last night with your beau. All of us will get to see each others’ preferences and this might be yet another way you can find those common-minded people, who are perhaps living in some remote part of the world but will be able to make suggestions.

Consumer electronic brands have moved beyond the convergence of individual products and categories to the convergence of these solutions with the lives of consumers, which in turn demands the creation of new user experiences.

At the CES this year, Samsung entered into an agreement with Yahoo!, and with the launch of the Internet@TV - Content Service, Samsung flat panel televisions will allow users to enjoy a vast array of rich digital content through a series of widgets available.

Samsung’s 2009 LCD and plasma TVs will support the new service, which can be accessed via either the built-in Ethernet port or using an optional Wi Fi dongle. To start off with, the Yahoo! widgets service will cover brands such as eBay, Flickr, Showtime Networks, Yahoo! and YouTube. So, you’ll get to track stocks, check news headlines, browse and share videos and photos, and interact with friends.

While an exhilarating future lies ahead, there’s still technology that can make our entertainment exciting enough for the present moment.

janani@thehindu.co.in

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