The next step in multi-touch surfaces?  Have no surfaces at all to rely on but rather a device (in this case a puck) a person can hold and turn any surface into a multi-touch surface!  That’s exactly what this Puck device does.  It’s still rather crude to be called a full multi-touch device but still, it’s a good beginning and we think it might be the future of multi-touch devices where the surface no longer exists but you can carry a quarter-sized device to turn any surface into a multi-touch surface.  Was that too long?

I’ve been working with Brent Bushnell on a new device we call the PUCK. Its a wireless RFID reader which transmits detected tags to a computer using an wireless radio. Its also got an accelerometer on-board, which allows us to turn any RFID tag mounted against a wall into a “virtual knob.” In the video below, you can see I’m controlling the relative mix of red, green, and blue in my LED parcans using an interactive surface which is nothing more than RFID tags hidden behind a piece of paper.

Beyond the “interactive surfaces” demo below, we also built a scavenger hunt game (using many hidden laminated cards, each bearing an RFID tag) which we unveiled last week at the H+ Summit in Irvine, CA.

via engadget

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