Video: A new recipe for disruption Terahertz computing, OLEDs, touchscreens and 3D software
The Coming Social Space of Video
In less than five years we could see the convergence of a potent combination of digital technologies that could disrupt the video web. There are many ingredients to this mixed reality web – here are a few to consider…
- Terahertz chips in desktop computers,
- Thin film OLED screens on glass / and flexible displays visible in daylight,
- Multi-touch displays and gesture based interfaces,
- and software that enables the layering of 3-D elements onto real streaming video.
If mainstream media saw threats around to widespread adoption of TiVo and YouTube – they might get ahead of the curve and understand a world in which users manipulate and control video in real time and treat all images (fixed or streaming) as elements that can (and should) be customized. Click on to continue..
Video continues to drive changes on the web- and may someday become the preferred format for communication and collaboration. Today video is most relevant to media companies and users looking for an engaging web-broadcast medium. But the real disruption might be in transforming video around social software and the 3D web.
Video as a social space! It sounds strange- something from the DotCom boom! But video’s evolution from broadcast to social media does make sense…
First travel back in time to our ‘pre-Internet’ days and try to conceive of using a ‘computer’ as communication tool. During that era computers were only useful for number crunching – and there was no need to have been networked beyond the office walls.
Now remember when getting an ‘email’ address seemed like a ridiculous proposition…
– “My friends don’t have computers at home. And I can just call them on the phone instead of sending an electronic message.”
Video as a social space moves beyond the image of “virtual teleconference” where business men sit across from a table talking with colleagues in
This vision of the video web is a world in which grandmothers and grandchildren touch a display screen and– interact with shared digital objects, co-edit media and engage each other around vivid crisp images. It is not simply broadcasting images – but turning the image into a landscape with 3D objects that can be manipulated.
It is also a world in which viewers manipulate streaming images in real time – helping to create a story as it unfolds. This is TiVo on steroids!
This is an old concept (at least if you consider 1990 ‘old’), but there are promising signs that these enabling technologies are simultaneously walking up the Slope of the Enlightenment of the hype cycle.
We aren’t there yet… but we should remember that the commercial World Wide Web (as we know it) is only twelve years old! And the video web is only in Beta form. Again, these are the technologies that might converge and disrupt video
- Terehartz chips
- Thin film OLED screens on glass / and flexible displays visible in daylight,
- Multi-touch displays and gesture based interfaces,
- and software that enables the layering 3-D elements onto real streaming video.
‘Tera’ Hertz Era of Computing (Trillion Flops per second)
Computing experiences in the 1990s were defined by megahertz chips; 2000s by the gigahertz era; and now we stand on the edge of the ‘Tera Era’.
Intel is confident enough to be taking out front page ‘Era of Tera’ ads on the Wall Street Journal. While we should always be mindful of the hype, we assume that the Tera Era is coming – and its waves of disruptions will be entirely new to the digital media / computing landscape. It is not ‘more of the same’ – but a computing platform that will enable entirely new capabilities for human-technology / human-human / technology-technology interactions.
Terahertz chips are capable of tracking human gestures without physical ‘body markers’, real time simulation and rendering of 3D graphics; ‘instant video communication’; ‘photo-realistic games’ (Ray Tracing); real time speech translation/recognition – and other things we haven’t dreamed up yet!
What’s driving this change? Nanoscale electronics and optical chipsets that are pushing the limits of performance… And there are concrete examples:
- Intel has designed a prototype 80 core chip capable of supercomputer processing power on a chip. “Ten years ago this same processing power existed on a Sandia National Lab supercomputer that took up 2,000 square feet, used 10,000 Pentium processors and consumed 500 kilowatts of electricity. Today’s 80 core chip equals in processing power and consumes 62 watts.” (2/07)
- IBM’s optical prototype chipset transfer data at 160 Gigabits per second!! That means a full length HD DVD in one second. (3/07)
- Sun and IBM have made announcements of high end servers capable of streaming billions of video/3D virtual world streams simultaneously. Cisco is also making significant investments in this video/3-D web infrastructure.
OLEDs – Organic Light Emitting Diodes
It would be foolish to pick OLEDs as a ‘winner’ in the display world- but they are surely going to change the landscape. Digital projection systems are great- but OLEDs have the edge in wider applications (portable devices, touch screens, etc.)
I am going to write a specific post about why OLEDs are important to future digital lifestyles. But briefly, OLEDs could enable mass market adoption of high definition video displays- flooding our physical environment with screens. Flexible OLEDs could transform how and where are we use digital media since they are readable in sunlight. Here are some videos that explain OLEDs technology and future applications…
- GE Labs explains OLEDs – and advantages of inkjet printing of organic materials
- Amazing video demonstration of flexible OLEDs, punching a hole into the substrate and it still continues to emit light?!!!!
- More flexible examples; Mini OLEDs with unbelievable images; CNET interview with Universal Display
Multi-touch screens & Gesture Interfaces
Pointing and touching are more intuitive to human users than typing or clicking on a mouse. Because of its simplicity multi-touch screens could lead to wider adoption of technology around the world- and help bridge the generation gap.
I know that everyone has seen Tom Cruise demonstrate this interface on The Minority Report, but we are talking about technology systems closing in on real commercial applications within the next two to five years! So we need to get out our heads out of a
Just if you video projects worth noting:
- Jeff Han’s recently formed company Pixel Perspective – video!
- Home version TouchScreen and XGL on Linux! vere;
- From CEBIT 2006 – video of kiosk
- From LM3Labs – video
Software for Mixed Reality
Software drives most changes on the web… and the most relevant applications for video deal with the manipulation of images that are either the 3-D synthetic creations or real photographs/streaming pictures.
Streaming Video – meet Streaming Curtains
There is a popular viral video on the Internet called ‘Everything you see if Fake’
- I think that everyone in the media and advertising industry should sit and contemplate this video as their medium-term future landscape. This gives a whole new definition to ‘user generated’ media that goes far beyond YouTube…
Forget about TiVo. Avoiding commercials is one thing- changing what the commercial looks like is an entirely different challenge- or opportunity.
Terahertz chips and advanced software systems will go far beyond simply recording images off the Web. They will allow us to control what these images look like as they stream into our world. Think of users able to place synthetic layers or curtains over real images and insert their preferred elements. Imagine a parent being able to control what peer celebrities look like to their young children.
I use ‘streaming curtains’ because in their application – that’s what this software enables users to do. Cover or replace a real view with one that fits their preferences.
Augmented reality / Mixed reality video projects are popping up on the web. While a handful were produced from commercial laboratories, most are graduate students in developing advanced prototype systems. We are only at the beginning of this wave of video applications.
But looking ahead to five years I find it difficult to imagine a world where this type of video driven interface is not commonplace in the workplace and education environments-not to mention homes around the gaming community and virtual world citizens
Here are a few things to consider in this space…
- Microsoft could steal Apple’s thunder in the personal digital media space with its new applications under development in its Live Research Lab. My favorite application is Photosynth – (a video explaining Photosynth) – and I look forwarded to seeing its integration into Virtual Earth.
(Google’s tool will likely be Sketch Up – and is obviously capable of beating Apple, Adobe and Microsoft in any 3D application) - Another Microsoft Project creating video based shared space- playing Chess with someone - video; Also video/photo images manipulated via ‘High Range Image Hallucination’ - video
Examples worth watching…
Pretty amazing…
Augmented Reality – by Daniel Wagner –
Video via Stumble!
- This project was done on the ill fated Gizmondo handheld gaming device… But the idea is being replicated in other places and across multiple platforms. Including next generation PDA! Now imagine an ultra thin flat OLED screen with a camera – and transforming real world landscapes with a virtual layer! I am a big believer in this form of location-based augmented experiences…
- Another Gizmondo game of augmented reality - video clip
Child’s play – Philips “Drag & Draw” demonstration video
We might expect that the preference to manipulate streaming images of video will arise in youth culture. This demonstration by Philips explorers a somewhat similar concept..
Others…
- Stumble video – not sure of source?!
- Mixed reality – video holding a sneaker;
- 3D Face tracking software… looks legit but I can’t confirm the project name
- White paper from
- Bringing ‘analog’ world into digital space – (’06 project)
Amazing video – Blue Eye table –from Eindhoven University of Technology - Software that turns 2D into 3D models – video
- MITs Assist Drawing systems – video
- Drawing Program Teddy Sketch (circa 1999) – video clip
- ‘InterfFlash tool for creating textures on websites – ‘Power cursor’
- Interactive DOM/DHTML – examples are here… (Great site)
- Java Applets for manipulating things like ‘cloth’ – see here…