Photos: HP looks at future tech

There is too much raw footage for the user to process and select manually so HP developed image filtering and automatic analysis technology to do the hard work for them. The saved footage is downloaded to a PC, where sophisticated head motion detection algorithms determine which bits are most likely to be of interest to the user and whether a still, panorama or video clip is the most appropriate format.

The user can then review the edited footage and raise the "interest threshold" rating so that only highlights are selected or lower the threshold so that more footage is shown.

Anthony Sowden, project lead on the e-books devices at HP's Bristol Labs said: "We envisage the device as a media viewer."

HP is also looking at integrating audio and video into the devices, which are relatively light and easy to use and have a battery life of around five hours on full brightness.

The latest prototypes use "riffling" technology that allows the device to show digital book pages that can be turned in a realistic way similar to physical books as seen in the photo above.

Books can be viewed in one-page portrait mode or two-page landscape and the device has touch strips around the edge for scrolling up and down and turning pages.

Some Jane Austen books, which are out of copyright, have been loaded on to the prototypes and HP is currently talking to the Daily Telegraph about the digital newspaper viewer.

Representatives from HP Labs India were in Bristol to demonstrate some of the latest products to come out of the labs in Bangalore.

One of these is called a "gesture keyboard," which allows people to input text on PCs in Indian scripts without knowledge of English or typing. It can be used for inputting data in a local language, Internet search, Web browsing and e-mail.

There are 1,500 combinations of syllabic units in Hindi so a conventional keyboard with language overlay is not a good solution for those who don't speak English.

It took a year for HP Labs in India to develop the handwriting recognition technology for the keyboard and it has a patent for the character positioning and gestures.

HP claims the keyboard will help address the problem of poor PC and computer literacy among non-English speaking people in developing countries.

It takes just 10 to 15 minutes for a Hindi speaker to get to grips with this gesture keyboard, which was officially launched last month. HP licenses it to a third party and it costs around $50.

Print applications such as this are more relevant in emerging markets such as India and China, where TV and radio broadcasting are much more pervasive than the Internet. In India, 650 million people have access to a TV compared to 15 million who have access to the Internet.

HP Labs India is doing field trials with ISRO, the Indian government's satellite company, and a state government broadcaster. It has been tested in 10 schools in the town of Tumkur near Bangalore.

The software embeds the print document into the TV signal. A decoder then unwraps the document from the TV signal. At the appropriate point during the TV program, the teacher can then print out the relevant document and share it with the pupils.

HP plans to license the software to set-top box manufacturers and the initial use is likely to be for government education programs. But HP admitted that future uses could allow advertisers to let viewers print information related to the advert they are watching.