Google Releases Open Source Software Library For Interactive Displays
June 3, 2016 by Dave Haynes
I’ll leave it to people who code, and their masters, to determine if this is, in some way, relevant to the digital signage market, but from my unschooled perspective this new open source interactive display software from Google looks pretty interesting.
Google’s Creative Lab describes AnyPixel.js as “an open-source software and hardware library that makes it possible to use the web to create big, unusual, interactive displays out of all kinds of things. Anyone can fork the code and the schematics to create their own display at any scale.where anyone can create their own large, interactive displays.”
Well, anyone who knows what “fork the code” means …
The idea here is that a straightforward hardware/software framework, as AnyPixel is described, makes it easy for developers to build any type of display where each pixel is an interactive element. So instead of the display canvas being LCDs or LEDs, it might be light-switches or other objects.
The project you see here is in the Google NYC office. It’s made from some 6,000 gaming arcade buttons.
Developers can grab the code base from GitHub here …
Dave–you might take a look at Google Cast Remote Display which is a developer platform for driving any HDMI-equipped display with a Chromecast stick. Really useful for iOS and Android developers or so it appears. It’s in beta now and I have no personal experience, but it might present the most cost-effective way to drive digital signage for certain apps.