The “Multiplayer Roulette system developed by Sweden’s TouchTable with built-in 56-inch touch LCD and a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 can accommodate up to seven players and can even recognize each person’s bet separately. Developed with intensive research and company’s proprietary technology this touch- screen roulette table is already making waves in various casinos and roulette clubs.

Different digital products for enhancing the fast play in casinos have been developed in recent years to speed up the games and decrease the chances of any cheating and discrepancies in the casinos games. Besides being fast aced and sleek in its outlook this touch screen tables are going to increase the efficiency of the game handling more numbers of players simultaneously on single table which will significantly increase the business of casinos.

Already touted as digital avatar of casinos this roulette Touch screen tables may not see the real world as soon because many veteran players are going to oppose it because of its fast paced games which won’t allow them using their cheats and hacks which they have learned after years of experience.

The Digital Touch screen roulette tables can change the way a game is played in casino which might simply eliminate the use of chips and money on the tables. Decreasing the time of a game cycle it will also reduce the chances of any dealer cheating in the game. Bets can be placed effortlessly with repeated bets making in their way back to the game. Besides that built in features like Help functions and other tools can help a newbie player’s use and play the game more easily.

The biggest problem, these touch screen roulette tables are going to face is from the traditional players who prefer to play using chips and money in hand. They would certainly not be interested to lose their grip on games and allow the casinos to take over their experience with any digital devices. Besides that there will also be chances of casinos molding the software in the game to their own favor which can seriously change the games at crucial point of time.

Toy story Midway Manis is the first phase of billion dollar investment by Disney land to bring in chain of amusement park along the Disney Land which will be coupled with 3-D gaming experience and ultra modern technologies.

Today’s house of the future

Disneyland has opened up the Innovations Dream home in the Tomorrowland Area. It is a mixed blend of technology, fantasy and, marketing by Disney and its partner Microsoft, HP and home automater Life/Ware and Taylor Morrison.

Built with an investment of $15 million in 5000 square foot housed, this is the latest avatar of Disney Staple of 1950s and 1960s. The house features innovative technologies which are not found in market for sale. The giant Microwave oven and television that hung on the one wall showcases how will be the future of our home and devices used in it.

Disney’s new house also showcases future technologies that are being built by Microsoft like Surface table computer and touch screen PCs. Each company paid Disney heavily to participate in the Disney’s Future Home for next five years.

According to Jonathan Cluts, director of strategic prototyping for Microsoft, The future home of Disneyland is not that future anymore. Anyone can go and purchase 80% of its item in the market and remaining are on their way to development. so, within next 4-5 years most items displayed in the Tomorrowland will be available for sale in the market and anyone with money in hand can invest in these items and built their own future Home.

Visitors in Disneyland can now play long with Elias family actors alongside mingling with Microsoft’s Surface computers and can even experience touch screen HP computers while working in its kitchen and home office. These all products have a sense of innovative technology and with aggressive production from their manufactures you can see them within your home in next few years.

This new role of ‘Tech Advisor’ on the part of Microsoft for CSI had also earlier witnessed many successes. CSI has successfully implemented Microsoft’s Surface technology earlier in the script CSI: Miami; where the audiovisual lab was reconstructed to incorporate layout tables based on Microsoft’s Surface tabletop computers.
And this unique collaboration is sure to create history in terms of mutual respect and business advantage. And the most intrinsic part of this association is that, no money has been exchanged in the Microsoft-CSI relationship. This of course goes beyond the traditional product assignment and Microsoft is hopeful that this sizzling chemistry and unique collaboration will be first of many impending alliances of the future.

……………most of my short demo was buggy, even for a beta. The machines, powered by various Apple PCs (Macbook Pros, etc.) were housed in wooden cases that looked like lower-end furniture. Probably fiberboard stuff, on par with Ikea, by my initial judgment. The UI itself is based around floating or aligned icons, with no text labels, for control of many things by RS-232 or IR, like many home theater gear and home automation equipment. You drag icons to the enter button, or click the enter button and click enter, to open em. I saw demos of a touchscreen satellite TV controller, with a favorites mode that showed off TV station icons and a easy channel scroll bar on the bottom. The software has iTunes interfaces that can turn album art into these floating icons, too. The multitouch is pretty shoddy, and the refresh rate is not too good on the screen. Multitouch is defined here as being able to have things like your hand on the screen while still being able to select other items. I saw one screen that was very buggy. The other Rosie was not so bad, but not great either. I think I saw a picture application, as well. But I also saw icons for a Gameboy Micro and YouTube. Huh? Gameboy? Making floating icons is one thing, making applications for a touchscreen UI is another—who knows if these are currently functional. I attempted to push for more info, but the man cut off to talk to someone else. We’ll report again when Savant has more info or pushes past beta, but for now, it seems like Wonky custom installer gear.

 

Comments at Gizmodo

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Electronics maker Savant Systems, of Osterville,Massachusetts specializing in home automation, has developed a new coffee table that resembles that Microsoft Surface Technology Concept.

They call it the ” Rosie Coffee Table “, that has a 40-inch wide touch screen panel, ability to sync iTunes libraries, IP network digital cameras, and business card readers from the graphical user interface (GUI).
Savant says their Rosie coffee table is “Apple-based”—although they aren’t too clear about what that means. (Previous Rosie products are based on the company’s RacePoint OS, which they describe as an “open, multilayered graphically based operating system.”

Victor Saverino – director of product management,Savant Systems Says.. “The Rosie Coffee Table brings the converged functionality of a touch panel to an interactive surface technology that is practical on the one hand, entertaining and exciting to use on the other,the Rosie Coffee Table is truly the evolution of interactive technology—it can seamlessly download photos from digital cameras, play music, movies, and TV shows as well as accomplish complete home control all from within one elegant forty-inch interface.”

Savant Systems target customers list is more towards individual homeowners. Other products from Savant Systems include massive multi-room audio/video control sets and plasma HDTV monitors with built-in IP connectivity features. According to Savant, the coffee table will be available “in a number of different furniture styles ranging from contemporary to traditional.”

Savant plans to offer the Rosie table in a variety of styles to match contemporary and traditional decor…although there’s no word on pricing or availability yet.

Triggered by motion, this table delightfully comes to life when something moves over the top of it!

Made of 100% sustainable wood and water-based finishes, our interactive tables are kind to the environment, and look great in your place!

This Coffee Table is large enough for a big room at 62″ long by 31″ wide by 18″ high and comes with either a with a nice thick glass or plastic top. A striking wood lattice underneath, spanning the side waves, forms a strong shelf for storage.

The LEDs are only activated when they see motion. As you can see in the pictures, even though the cat is on the table, only his moving tail is setting off the lights. Without motion it calms down to a very slight attractive twinkling.

The entire table pulls a total of 35 watts when it is fully active. That’s less than a single common household light bulb!

Using a network of 32 active and passive near-infrared optical sensors, it detects motion above the table and changes in ambient light. Made of fully analog circuits, the light patterns sweep outwards from your motion with perfect fades, glowing stronger the closer the movement is, rippling across a pool of 480 super-bright white LEDs. It works in full sunlight or total darkness.

Made with our good friends the Evil Mad Scientists! Choose a clear top to show off their incredible electronics, or a frosted top to make it a delightful surprise to all who sit by it.

Price: $2800 Buy Now at Becausewecan.org

Josh Roberts got his first video game system — Atari — when he was 4, and since then, “I’ve had all the latest and greatest systems,” said Mr. Roberts, 27, an advertising account executive. The roster includes various versions of Nintendo, Sega and Sony PlayStation, the original Microsoft Xbox and now its latest iteration, Xbox 360.

Last year when Mr. Roberts moved with his wife from Los Angeles to Memphis, he didn’t have cable for several months. So he began using his Xbox 360 for something more than his standard fare of games like Guitar Hero II and Madden NFL: he downloaded episodes of his beloved “South Park” as well as the occasional movie in high definition, for fees running from $2 to $6 through Xbox LIVE Marketplace, the emporium accessed through the console’s interface.
“I’ll sometimes also look and see what the top downloads are and check them out too,” he said.

With the continued rise of video gaming — sales of the Xbox 360 have hit 10 million — consumers in that highly prized demographic of males from 18 to 24 are being drawn away from the entertainment provided by the small screen and the multiplex. To bring them back to the fold — and to compete with Apple’s iTunes — Microsoft and its content providers, among them Paramount Pictures, New Line, Warner Brothers, MTV, CBS, A&E and ABC are engaged in some serious outreach.

“We need to find viewers wherever they are,” said Michele Ganeless, the executive vice president and general manager of Comedy Central. “Some of them are firing up their Xbox rather than their cable box. They have so many entertainment options. Being on Xbox is a perfect way for us to reach them in their own environment.”

Since late last November, through the console interface and a points card available in $5 increments from chains like Best Buy, Xbox LIVE Marketplace has offered video-on-demand downloads of movies, often in high definition, and download-to-own episodes of television shows. Microsoft declined to give revenue figures for the service, but claims it has grown by double-digit figures each month since it was introduced. Membership at the basic level is free and as simple as signing up on iTunes.

“We allow a consumer who’s very engaged in games to shift, with the same box, to watching ‘The Departed,’ ” said Ross Honey, senior director of the media entertainment group at Microsoft, referring to Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning movie.

Xbox LIVE Marketplace also has some exclusive content, for example, a no-cost high-definition version of a “South Park” episode and some first-look content. Before “The Sarah Silverman Program” appeared on Comedy Central, the first episode was available free in the Marketplace.

There’s a similar plan in place for “American Body Shop,” a series that begins on Comedy Central on July 8; starting yesterday, its premiere episode was available for free download to Xbox LIVE’s more than six million members.

The service currently offers more than 2,000 hours of programming. To prevent piracy, consumers have 24 hours to watch rented material before it is automatically expunged from the console’s hard drive.

“The people we’ve partnered with see this as a good way to re-connect with the consumer,” said Mr. Honey.

For example, the high-definition “South Park” episode which has, thus far, been downloaded almost 400,000 times, contained a message urging viewers to watch for the series’ new season. Warner Brothers promoted the theatrical release of the film “300” on the Marketplace interface.“We’ve seen tremendous results,” said Michele Edelman, vice president of marketing for Warner Brothers digital distribution whose offerings include current television shows like “Supernatural” and “One Tree Hill,” classic fare like “CHiPs” “The Dukes of Hazzard,” “Scooby Doo” “Yogi Bear,” as well as movies.

And some platforms encourage their own hits. When Warner released “Beerfest” to the rental market, the gross-out comedy became the No. 1 offering on the VOD Xbox platform, according to Ms. Edelman.

“It might be buried in a video store, and on Xbox it’s been able to rise to the top,” she said.

The visual sophistication of gamers is such that they are largely unsatisfied by traditional television broadcasts, said James L. McQuivey, a principal analyst at Forrester Research. “It’s very smart of Microsoft to realize, ‘We’ve got the customers, we already have an Internet connection for millions of boxes, let’s see what other visual treats we can feed them.’ ”

Mr. McQuivey added, “From all the data I’ve seen behind closed doors, it does work.”

What is good for Xbox’s best consumer, the young male gaming enthusiast, Mr. Honey hopes will be good for other segments of the population.

The goal is to broaden the consumer base with younger offerings like Nickelodeon’s animated series “Fairly OddParents.” According to Mr. Honey, Microsoft did a brisk business with a high-definition version of “Happy Feet” when a few weeks ago it was added to the offerings on the service.

“We absolutely believe that ‘Happy Feet’ being available brought families to use Xbox in a way they haven’t used it before,” he said. “And when you bring them there, they start to browse around.”

Indeed, Mr. Roberts of Memphis says that although his wife does not play video games at all, “the movie and TV service on ‘Live’ has her using the Xbox. Because of the service she knows how to navigate the user interface to download the content she wants.”

Anita Frazier, an industry analyst for the NPD Group, a sales and marketing research firm, says Xbox’s expansion of services makes sense.

“It’s where entertainment delivery is headed. It’s a natural evolution for any of these boxes, whether it’s a computer or an Xbox or a PlayStation 3 or Apple TV to deliver a variety of content and whether it’s games or music or TV or movies.”

But, she added, “a lot of it is going to hinge on the user interface and how easy it is to accomplish the downloads.”

Not always so easy, according to Mr. McQuivey. “The movie feature as currently arranged is no better than traditional video on demand. The titles are hard to find,” he said, adding, “There are operational things that need to be resolved before they can take it to the next level.”

Mr. Roberts has downloaded a few high-definition movies and “it took hours,” he said. “I don’t think the broadband technology is there yet.”

He also finds the Microsoft points card (80 points equals one dollar) an annoying and slightly confusing system.

“It’s like at a carnival where you need two tickets to buy a drink and three tickets to buy a hot dog,” he said. “I’d rather know what I’m paying, and I’d like to see that transaction made in dollars rather than points.”

Xbox LIVE Marketplace, he added, “is not yet at a place where I think it’s made my life easier or more entertaining in my leisure time, but I’m excited for the potential. When it moves faster and the bandwidth is great, then I think it will be very cool.”

Via: NyTimes

JazzMutant is emphasizing its new Multi-Touch tech as “Mutli-Touch Interaction Techniques for Visual Content Creation”

Enhanced Life
Because of their versatility, multi-touch displays are appropriate for both productive and entertaining computing. By providing ergonomic design with optimized workflow, they improve user experience and make interaction with computers much more intuitive, playful, and efficient.

Goals
JazzMutant delivers advanced control solutions for musicians and sound engineers, but video and graphic artists have requested similar systems for their applications. This system demonstrates early attempts to fulfill those requests.

Innovations
The JazzMutant resistive technologysystem differs from optical systems in its form factor. Because it is both scalable and portable, it can be integrated in a wide variety of devices. It is exceptionally reliable, even in harsh environments. And it can be used in conjunction with other pointing devices such as stylus. This enables richer interaction techniques that can not be achieved with touch input alone.

Vision
In the past two years, many good multi-touch interaction techniques have been introduced, but most of them are merely focused on zoomable user interfaces. This approach is only the tip of the iceberg. The key to success for future multi-touch systems is multi-modality: appropriate integration of several input devices.

Well Lets hope JazzMutant can show us something different and unique.

Fibratus Tactile Sensor

A new interface device that uses the property of reflection to evaluate the sense of gentle touch, which is not possible with current tactile sensors.

Enhanced Life

When users stroke the Fibratus Tactile Sensor, their fingers create dynamic flows that can be used as inputs to computer systems. When softer fibers are utilized, the sensor is even capable of sensing air motion. This enhanced sensitivity could enable new types of interfaces. For example, in near-future robots, the sensor could evaluate softer contact sensations than existing tactile sensors, which could encourage adoption of robots in daily life.

Goals

To develop a new tactile sensing system that supports:

• Multi sensing, contact-less interactive devices
• Sensing by means of active patterns
• Thin device and rapid sensing

Innovations

This new optical tactile sensor can detect surface deformation with high precision by applying the principle of an optical lever. Transparent silicone rubber is used as the flexible mirror surface. Because of the distribution of the refractive index between air and the silicone rubber, the boundary surface has a reflection characteristic similar to that of a mirror. The flexible mirror surface is implanted with fibratus salience, the hardness of which is a little greater than that of silicone rubber. From this salience, the surface of the fibratus is considered to be the contact surface, and the reflection characteristics remain unchanged.

Vision

Future work involves additional applications of the Fibratus Tactile Sensor and further exploitation of its properties.

“The demo presented by Microsoft shows how you will be able to create interaction between the Zune and your ‘Surface table monitor’. Just by leaving the Zune on the ‘Surface table monitor’, it will automatically be recognized by the Surface technology. You will then be able to use the content in your Zune, add, remove or even exchange content from another Zune on the table. And that, just by dragging and moving the content with your fingers.”

More….