Touch-sensitive screens, or touchscreens, might soon vanish – Moscow specialists are preparing to unveil gesture-controlled displays to the general public. A Metro correspondent visited “Technopolis Moscow” to personally test the innovation.
A future without contact: the Stephen Spielberg concept perfected in Moscow
Controlling what’s on the screen without touching it – why not?!
How the new technology functions
A display managed via touches is something encountered everywhere – from personal gadgets (smartphones, home appliances) to public electronics (information kiosks, ATMs, and much more). However, at NexTouch, part of the “Neks-T” Group, a resident of the “Technopolis Moscow” special economic zone, they decided to advance further and devise an interactive screen that responds not to touches, but to gestures.
According to Vladimir Krikushenko, the company’s CEO, the concept for such displays emerged right at the start of the pandemic when public touchscreens began to be viewed as a means of catching a virus. Development—from the initial idea to the first prototype—took about eighteen months.
The 65-inch demonstration unit I was allowed to try out initially looks like a standard television, albeit with a transparent matrix—through the videos and interfaces playing on it, the office where people were working was clearly visible. Finger movements were shown on the screen as a dot, which a special sensor caught 15–30 centimeters from the display. To press a switch, one had to move the dot into a specific square and point forward. Initially, it was hard to gauge how close I needed to be to the screen, but the intuitive interface became manageable within just a couple of minutes. In the vending machine simulator, I effortlessly added all sorts of items to the cart—I inexplicably threw in 16 water bottles and just as easily removed them.
A fine way to feel immersed in a futuristic science fiction movie.
“The application of this technology is truly limitless. For instance, in a museum, an exhibit isn’t just placed under glass but under a transparent display that can show information or even an interactive model of how the exhibit was used or looked in earlier times. And all this without using projectors or other supplementary tools,” explains Krikushenko. “There’s an idea to integrate such displays into public transport. Say, you are riding a bus, and route or stop information is displayed right on the window without obstructing the view outside.”
It turned out that creating a transparent display in Russia was the hardest part. In regular televisions, the “black” field is formed by a set of filters and backings behind the LCD module, but a transparent screen lacks all that—illumination only comes from below, and the creators struggled for a long time to ensure the picture remained rich and sharp even in bright lighting. Interestingly, the technology can be adapted to any size.
Observing all this, one cannot shake memories of the film “Minority Report.” Released in 2002, it showed Tom Cruise’s character literally conducting images on transparent monitors floating in the air around him.
The film required special gloves for gesture control; we won’t need those.
Vladimir admits he watched the film and is certain that science fiction truly inspires many technological breakthroughs. For instance, by the end of next year, the company plans to present a display controllable from anywhere in the room using a special built-in camera, without requiring a remote.
Hitting the switching square with the dot—a game that’s easy to get hooked on.
Does such a future exist for these screens?
Are Muscovites ready for such novelties? We decided to ask Eldar Murtazin, lead analyst at Mobile Research Group. According to him, Samsung attempted to implement similar technology in their televisions several years ago, but the innovation did not attract significant interest—people were far more accustomed to using a regular remote. The expert considered the idea too costly for vending machines but deemed it quite workable for museum artifacts.
“Such developments have a right to exist—because if someone doesn’t want to touch the screen, why not create an interface accessible via gestures?” Murtazin remarks. “It’s noteworthy that touchless buttons, those that respond even before being pressed, appeared immediately after COVID, but I’ve noticed people still tap them even when it’s unnecessary—habit takes over. The popularity of this technology here can only succeed if the application scenarios are clearly thought out and simple to operate. If people try it and find it convenient, success will be guaranteed.”
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