A new exhibition at the British Library is showing off a bunch of techie research tools, and you can go and have a play. As well as a raft of multi-screened app-based computers, the British Library have also got in Twitter Dials (more on this shortly), a Sony 360 degree autostereoscopic display, and one of Microsoft’s surface tables.
The exhibition is called Growing Knowledge, and the idea is that you can pop in and have play with the future in research technology. Mostly though, it’s a great excuse to have a fiddle around with some super cool gadgets.
The Sony 360 autostereoscopic display is a prototype of some brand new tech. It sort of looks like a brain in a jar, apart from instead of just a brain, it’s a moving 3D image of brains, flowers, people, buildings and body parts. The Sony RayModeler (to use its proper name) uses gesture controls, and the outside of the jar is motion sensitive, so just by holding your hand near the device, you can control the movement of the image, spinning it left or right to get a better look. The key function it serves is in medicine, where doctors can look at a patient’s organs for example.
The Microsoft Surface table has been around for a while. It works by a touchscreen that’s not capacitive or resistive but powered by an infra-red camera. The Microsoft Surface table at the British Library contains a digitised, augmented version of the longest painting in the world, Garibaldi’s Panorama, which is about the length of a jumbo jet. If you’ve never had a go on a surface table, then it’s worth having a play.
The exhibition is free and will be around until the middle of next year, so if you fancy getting an eyeful of some fancy gadgets, head over to the foyer of the British Library.
See below for the full video from the British Library, and stay tuned for more on Twitter Dials…
