Does Microsoft’s Project Ripple Hold Any Merit For Use With Projectors?

Wednesday, June 4th, 2014

rippleI’ve always been the type of man to embrace innovation and new ideas. It’s who I am as a person. While I’ve not done the most work with projectors, I do understand enough about them to carry a conversation. I also know well enough to know when I see a good product or marketing idea. Again, I’m all for trying new things, but then there are certain ideas that I see that I feel could have been… better executed I should say. The idea I’m talking about is one of Microsoft’s new projects. The newest idea budding from the tech giant company is “Project Ripple”.

To understand what Project Ripple is, you really need only look at the video to get the basic understanding of it. It’s much like what you may have experienced as a kid when you went to the museum or what ever “family fun learning facilities” you might have went to. The screens you would stand in front of to and flail your body about to make waves on the screen or see yourself in “thermal vision”. That is essentially what Project Ripple is, albeit with a bit more finesse. You’ve even seen things like these at the mall. I know I’ve seen something like that at one of the malls by my house.

What Microsoft is referring to it as, is a “projector-based infotainment center”.  The difference between their system and the ones you’ve seen at shopping centers and museums? It works with two different projectors and is mainly operated by your feet. No, I’m not kidding. While Microsoft has said that it is, in fact, similar to what we’ve seen around publicly, they’ve also admitted to a few sources that they don’t feel that the public technology isn’t living up to its full potential.

Now this may be a true statement, but Microsoft feels that their Project Ripple will be the one to bring that technology’s true potential out onto the surface. What you normally see when dealing with these types of interactive projectors is one screen. The “screen” would be directly at your feet facing from overheard. Microsoft’s version will be dealing with 2 separate projectors. You will now have a screen in front of you and a screen at your feet. The display in front of you will be utilized with the company’s Kinect motion tracking camera. You’ll use your feet for the bottom screen and your hands for the screen in front of you.

One thing that Microsoft noted, was that this wouldn’t be a product. This will be a free open-source program. Microsoft is still designing a multitude of editing tools that will allow users to create just about anything in terms of what they may want. Everything from video content, to Flash, and even HTML will be able to be edited directly in the program. This could lead to specialized ads that could be interactive or even add some flare to a special occasion or presentation event. The ideas are there, that’s for sure, but it still begs the question of practicality. In today’s world, if it’s not practical, it’s not marketable.

If the community is very receptive of this type of software, and want to take the time out of their day to work with it and create something very cool and amazing, then yes this could definitely be a useful tool for projectors. Then again, you have to think of why people get projectors in the first place. Many don’t have a need for this type of software, so Microsoft may be catering to a very small audience. Only time will tell if Project Ripple will actually make some waves.

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