A New Software to create touch screens out of any large surface

Mir Abid Husain and Mohammed Azharuddin have created a surface computing mechanism undeer which large surfaces can be made touch screens capable of performing various computing tasks

EMO2 World (whereas emo2 is a statistical measure of your emotions), the creators explain, is a device that can be fitted anywhere, mounted on any surface, and the surface changed into a touch screen catering for multiple users.

After the magic that Pranav Mistry's Sixth Sense stirred at TEDIndia, we have something now that seems to sizzle as much. Mir Abid Husain and Mohammed Azharudin have designed software to create touch screens out of any large surface, including tabletops and walls.

“It's like a giant iPad meant for more than one person to use,” says Abid Husain. “Imagine a broad, flat tabletop. It is made of sturdy wood and translucent plastic. A touch of a button, and it comes to life. It can then depict anything, ranging from a schematic of the city, as a tactical military array, or even a reconstructed human skull. If this sounds like something out of Minority Report or William Gibson, it is entirely intentional. Basically what this does is to bring mute surfaces to life.”

“The best way to understand this is to see how ATMs work. You touch the screen to select your options. Here, many more options can work at the same time. It supports many applications, thanks to its multi-user, multi-touch capabilities,” Azhar explains.

Home grown

A home project of Abid and Azhar, two Anna university graduates, EMO2 World started from a moulded teapoy that formed their first working prototype. The creators used this to browse through photos from Flickr and to play games at home.

Abid and Azhar see application in various industries for this technology: hospitality, defence, healthcare, education and entertainment. The device's 42- inch size allows it to be used as a war room table or a scan assimilator in a hospital or a simple display in a hotel room to take one's orders. Its applications in education are myriad, with a single tabletop surface hosting applications for learning the keyboard, creating a collage, and even playing board games.

With venture capitalist and mentor Sameer Guglani vouching for the possibilities of the device, funding and partners were easy to get. EMO2 World was unveiled at a CII conference, in which visitors, who were mailed plastic invitation cards earlier, were asked to place them on a tabletop. The table immediately recognised the bearer and completed the formalities of event registration.

The device won an award for technological innovation at the NASSCOM product conclave in 2010.