Photos: Accenture gets touchy feely with its interactive wall

Get your sticky fingers on this...

There were shades of sci-fi film Minority Report as Accenture showed off its 'interactive wall' at its Technology labs in France.

The giant touch-sensitive displays can be used by many people at the same time and can already be found in Chicago and New York airports. Tapping on the screens allows people to access information or video, navigate menus or play games.

Accenture predicts a wide range of uses from interactive hospital floorplans that allow managers to co-ordinate staff, patients and equipment to interactive services in bank foyers.

Photo credit: Nick Heath

The touchscreens stand at a whopping seven feet by 10 feet, with the system being scalable over multiple displays. The interactive wall in Chicago's O'Hare Airport (seen here) is made out of nine rear projection high resolution DLP (digital light processing) screens.

Photo credit: Accenture

Any screen can be made touch-sensitive using the system and it allows many people to interact with a single display at the same time. Webcams are attached to each screen which are linked to a computer and track the movement of fingers on the display's surface - doing away with the need for a touch-sensitive coating.

The displays are driven by multiple Microsoft XP-based workstations equipped with high-end graphics cards.

Photo credit: Accenture

Accenture demonstrated an interactive hospital floorplan based on the system.

Positions of staff, patients and equipment tagged with RFID chips were instantly visible and tapping each zone would call up more details on each individual such as their position and training.

The screen allowed the operator to page hospital employees, order equipment to be moved or set alarmed zones, for example if a piece of expensive equipment was removed from that area.

It showed how the screen could display information from multiple sources and help manage large operations.

Photo credit: Nick Heath