By merging a plain overhead projector with a more modern digital video projector and a computer vision system, Golan Levin and Zachary Lieberman have developed (well, in 2004) what they call Manual Input Sessions. Essentially interactive and dynamic shadow puppets, the vision system analyzes the shadows you cast over the analog project with your hands and augments the output via the digital projector, adding sounds and graphics based on the movements and forms of your hands. Even though this is the sort of thing that’s more proof-of-concept than on its way to the market (for now), if Fisher Price could produce a budget version all-in-one unit, this would make a phenomenal children’s toy—one I would quite possibly have to steal from neighborhood children in exchange for candy. Check out the video and watch through to act 2 (at least) to understand how awesome this stuff is.
Project Page [Tmema via WMMNA]
