Take some Xbox APIs, do some clever stuff, hook it up to a display and what do you have? Big potential for interactive out of home advertising, according to Webling interactive. See the customer move, watch the display react to them, draw them into the store. "It's almost like virtual hawking" said MD Deniz Nalbantoglu.
The firm's been demonstrating its technology at the film festival in Sydney this week with a booth for computer firm Acer. It has installed a mob of virtual paparazzi that spring into life when people walk past, whistling, jostling and calling as they do. The technology, based on Microsoft Kinect, recognises movement. If people don't strike a pose or interact, the mob sighs collectively and shrinks away (that's where it differs from real life paps).
Nalbantoglu said the technology has broad commercial applications, and is not expensive to put together. He said out of home publishers are interested, and that Webling has just finished an installation for a shopping centre. He wouldn't say where just yet. "But it's a bit like the Minority Report," he said, cryptically. "It is human gesture recognition. Real commercial usage is not far off. I can see it [going] everywhere."
If that doesn't have Philip K Dick turning in his grave, the next version of the technology will have emotional recognition, according to Nalbantoglu. It will recognise facial gestures, eye movements, the lot. Microsoft announced the new version last month at the launch of the Xbox. So it is coming. And there is no escape.
Check out the Acer project here.
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