Minority Report’s visionary doing DSE 2012 keynote

October 31, 2011 by Dave Haynes

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Minority Report references in stories about digital signage tend to set my eyes rolling, but a guy named John Underkoffler gets a pass – since he’s the fellow who came up with the gesture-based user interface in that 2002 Spielberg sci-fi movie.

Most of the oh-so-tiresome Minority Report references we hear and read have to do with ad posters reconizing and pitching at Tom Cruise as he’s out in public. Underkoffler and his team at Oblong Industries are behind the other particularly iconic part of that flick, as Cruise puts on a special glove and starts driving a crime and video database seemingly in thin air by usinga waving and pointing hand.

Now Underkoffler has been enlisted as the opening keynote speaker at Digital Signage Expo in March. The chief scientist and technological visionary at Oblong will speak March 7th on “Through and Beyond: A Pixel Dialogue.” The talk will lay out his vision of the radical shift that’s coming in how we think about digital displays

Before founding Oblong, Underkoffler spent 15 years at MIT’s Media Laboratory, working in holography, animation and visualization techniques.

Obviously a very smart cat, and someone who should draw a big crowd. Kudos to Richard Lebovitz at DSE for digging up someone very diferent and intriguing for the big slot.

For what’s probably a pretty good preview of what he will be talking about, try this TED video: http://www.ted.com/talks/john_underkoffler_drive_3d_data_with_a_gesture.html