A prototype floor that senses
your every step and displays interactive video could one day bring strange
sights and new possibilities into your home. This mirror world is one of the
applications researchers at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany,
developed after building an 8-square-metre pressure-sensing floor that can
recognise people by their weight, track their movements and display video for
them to interact with. The idea is that the pressure-sensing technology could
lead to a raft of ways to control objects in your home, play games, or assist
older or disabled people.
For instance, to play a version
of indoor soccer, the floor generates a CGI football that can be kicked about
by the people in the room. Or if someone sits on the floor, the system
recognises who they are by their precise weight and flips a TV on to their favourite
channel. Similarly, an elderly person's activity levels could be monitored. The
team's prototype consists of a slab of 6.4-centimetre-thick glass installed in
a hole cut into a standard floor, and an infrared camera and high-resolution
video projector in the room below that tracks footprints and beams video up
onto the glass.
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