XRay, by Stimulant, recognizes the position of iPhones on the Microsoft Surface, and allows those phones to see through images. Layers of imagery are revealed, synced in real time with the upper image layers shown on Surface. The only limit to how many iPhones can be used at once is how many iPhones you have handy.
When Microsoft showed SecondLight at PDC 2008 last year, we were inspired to make something similar work with our current Surface unit. What you see here is a prototype that takes advantage of Surface's object recognition capabilities to recognize the position of one or more iPhones on the Surface, and allows those phones to "see through" the images and reveal a second layer of information.
The possibilities here are fairly extensive; what's most interesting to us is the potential for adding a layer of personalized information on top of a public computing experience. This could enable users to capture content and take it with them, or to have the system display a personalized information layer (translated text/larger-print type/private messages) for individual users of a multi-user system.
When Microsoft showed SecondLight at PDC 2008 last year, we were inspired to make something similar work with our current Surface unit. What you see here is a prototype that takes advantage of Surface's object recognition capabilities to recognize the position of one or more iPhones on the Surface, and allows those phones to "see through" the images and reveal a second layer of information.
The possibilities here are fairly extensive; what's most interesting to us is the potential for adding a layer of personalized information on top of a public computing experience. This could enable users to capture content and take it with them, or to have the system display a personalized information layer (translated text/larger-print type/private messages) for individual users of a multi-user system.