Amazing 18-Foot Wide Super-HD Multi-User Multitouch Display

via Gizmodo by Danny Allen

It is probably the highest resolution interactive display outside of the military: Obscura Digital's newest, longest multitouch wall, revealed this weekend at the Hard Rock in Vegas, uses three projectors to handle 100 hi-res images and videos simultaneously in realtime.

This isn't the first Obscura Digital creation to catch our eye. We've seen 3D multitouch holograms, crazy building projections and an 8-by-4-foot Missile Command-playing multitouch wall.

The new 18-foot long wall scales across GPUs seamlessly, and automatically splits the workspace for up to 6 users to flick through Hard Rock photo and video memorabilia, with image resolution upwards of 12 megapixels.

Complementing the video tech, an audio system creates a pinpointed local audio experience, so that each user can interact with content without interfering with others.

Medion X9613: A Multitouch PC that Longs to Be Your Home Theater

via Gizmodo by Mark Wilson

If you can handle its 24-inch screen, the Medion X9613 all-in-one certainly looks the part of a perfectly contained HTPC.

Loaded with Windows 7, the X9613 features a multitouch screen, Core 2 Quad Q9000 processor, Nvidia GT240M graphics, 4GB of RAM, Blu-ray drive and even a second Sideshow monitor (that box you see on the bottom, we believe). But it's the system's glossy, touch-button and fingerprint-friendly design that would make it an aesthetically welcome addition to one's typical array of home theater equipment.

Announced for Europe only at the moment, the X9613 is priced between $2,100 to $2,700 after conversion.

CRISTAL: Control Your Living Room from a Surface Table

via Gizmodo by Dan Nosowitz

CRISTAL is a research project that moves the universal remote to a Microsoft Surface-type table with incredibly intuitive gestures. Want to watch a movie? Drag the cover to your TV. It even lets you trace a path for your Roomba.

The awkwardly-acronymed CRISTAL, which stands for ""Control of Remotely Interfaced Systems using Touch-based Actions in Living spaces," uses a camera to take an overhead shot of your living room setup, and you designate the compatible parts: TV, speakers, digital photo frame, HTPC, Roomba. Then you simply touch, swipe, drag and drop to control the room. Your digital media collection shows up as almost a Cover Flow-type design, and can be dragged either to the speakers or TV, or just examined more closely on the Surface-type screen itself. I love that you can watch a preview right there on the table, or quickly toss it to the TV to output it.

The system, right now, would cost a prohibitive $10,000-15,000, but the team says costs could definitely be lowered. Presumably they're not using an actual Surface, which costs about that much by itself. Still, it looks awfully responsive and just a blast to play with, so we hope they can figure out a way to get those costs down enough that, say, I can get one.