Sprout
sprout.hp.com
sprout.hp.com
"It's a unique machine that combines an all-in-one Windows 8 PC with a set of 3D scanning cameras, a giant tactile touchpad and a downward-facing projector (for displaying graphics on said touchpad). The design is built around a concept HP is calling "blended reality" that blends the 3D physical world with our 2D digital one. The obvious target audience is creative types. You know: makers, tinkerers, designers, etc... Rather than the traditional method of control built around mice and keyboards, Sprout focuses on touch and pen input. The 23-inch LCD serves as the primary display, but it's the bottom display, the 20-inch capacitive pad positioned under the camera and projector that serves as the primary point of interaction."
I don't like the lower screen with a projector - then the image is obscured by the shadow your hands make...
That being said, I think a second screen would be preferable all the same, but it would probably bump the cost significantly.
I could see some applications taking advantage of this when it comes to working with physical items
In a two screen scenario, I suppose the user would have to image the paper, then composite it digitally. It's an interesting approach although I wonder how often it would be used.
In my opinion, the killer app is digitisation of paper documents, tracking changes, and live multi-user editing. The 3d scanning stuff is a neat addition on top of that, but a much more niche use case.
e.g. My colleague writes a document and emails it to me. I open it, print it out, and bring it to Sprout, placing it on the capacitive mat. As I'm reading it, I'm annotating it with pen on paper. Sprout tracks my annotations, digitizes them, and adds them as a digital layer to the original document.
While I'm annotating, my colleague joins the "session" and wants to make more changes and incorporate some of my suggestions. I see that notification, chuck away my piece of paper, and have Sprout project the digital document onto the capacitive pad. While I watch, my colleague makes changes which are live-updated to my document. I see her copy my hand-written notes which have been digitised and OCR'd. She takes my notes, changes the font, and sticks them into one of the paragraphs. Likewise, I can use the stylus to make more annotations that my colleague sees in real-time, or, since the document is digital this time around, I can just edit the paragraphs directly too.
Think Google Wave + Collusion for iPad + the ability to do fairly seamlessly with both digital and physical documents.
How does Sprout do great OCR or facilitate joint collaborations?
These are both problems that need solving but have nothing to do with Sprout. PR often has things like this ‘solved’ for their mockups which people then falsely associate with the product.
See the mass delusion many people have with the Minority Report interface.
Why not just edit the email/document using a keyboard, you can even do it in a google doc so the other person can live collaborate, but as we know live collaboration is fine in movies but in real life is very very hard to do. Humans are just not build for it.
This isn’t about applications or Sprout, it’s about solving very hard problems.
Yes, it'd be a very complex application, solving some fairly hard CS and CV problems, along with probably needing to invent a whole suite of new UI paradigms.
Actually find a workflow that allows live collaboration to be more efficient than working individually might be hard to capitalise but would be revolutionary and change the world. I’ve never seen Pair programming in XP really work, for instance. It’s certainly not common practice for most workers.
Each solution would be amazing for plant earth, Sprout doesn’t help solve either.
Because some people prefer a pen to a keyboard when trying to mark modifications to a draft?
Surely you can imagine of at least one situation where a pen is a useful input device.
The first 40! seconds of the video didn't show the product in action, the first image of it was from such an odd angle that I didn't even know it was an image of it at first, and the later images don't actually show the camera that seems to be an important part of it.
Part of me thinks this is a solution in want of a problem, designed by the kind of person who uses a spoon for soup and a fork for their main course and thinks "If only I had a combination fork-spoon, my life would be so much simpler".
I'm not convinced either - the demo could have been done with a smartphone app (take a picture, then allow you to manipulate objects via touchscreen).
Maybe there's more depth information that this device can capture that would be difficult to do with a normal camera? Maybe the project can do neat projections onto objects placed underneath it?
Seems like this could find success in specific niches (things needing tactile design?). Not sure if that's where HP wants to go with this.
Same about the microsite: "We believe hands can do amazing things. What will you do with yours?" - So what is the site about? I scroll down one screen - "Blending the physical and digital worlds that you live in, Sprout unleashes your creativity like never before." - I still got no idea, it's just marketing gibberish.
The visual design is certainly beautiful, but there's a lesson: First of all, tell me what the site is about!
Obviously that's no help to blond people who would prefer text, but in fairness they're highly unlikely to use such a product anyway.
On screen no. 1, there's a picture of sunlight shining through somebody's hand.
On screen no. 2, there might as well be a picture of an iPad with a fancy case.
On screen no. 3, I see that this machine can be operated in desktop mode, but I still know nothing about what makes it special. Is it an Android tablet with an innovative desktop stand?
On screen no. 4, there is a matrix of six little images; two of them finally (and way too late) let me guess the mode of operation.
On screen no. 5, there finally is a clear view of the machine.
> who would prefer text
This is not about text vs. pictures. What I'm saying is that if you try to advertise a new kind of product to me, you should just go ahead and tell/show me what the point is. When you have done that, show me pictures of sunlight and trees (if you think that's necessary).
1: a hand, text about creativity, so it's something I can manipulate?
2: it's an electronic device of some kind.
3: it's a computer with some sort of tray instead of a keyboard...?
4: (small pictures of people) oh, that's a second screen of some sort, it looks like there's touchscreen action going on with both screens, and it's some sort of projector?
5: OK, it's definitely some sort of a second screen, that looks like a board game so I suppose it must be interactive and the thing on top is a camera or something
6: Some hipsters I am supposed to identify with but I don't care
7: that top thing looks more elaborate than just a projecter, looks like a Kinect so it's probably a camera and/or motion detector
8: it's on sale now plus that's a pen so it must have pretty decent resolution on the lower part, maybe it's also a tablet
9: Accessories, oh it's called a 'touch mat'
10: I can 'grab' and 'mash' things? OK it's definitely got a camera in it then.
All I did was scroll, without clicking on the alternative buttons or + buttons (which turn out to have specs, now that I have tried them).
I found it perfectly simple to work out what was going just on the first look. Personally I am OK with having my curiosity stimulated. The 'Tour' thing (in the second section of the page) is self-explanatory, had I clicked on that first.
What is a bit problematic for me is the position of the projector/camera relative to the monitor. I really don't want to have to extend my arm out to interact through touch. I f-ing hate having to interact with touch at a distance. I don't think it works for extended periods because it puts a strain on your arm.
I would have much more liked a design that allowed you to rotate monitor vertically so the projection/camera surface is off to the side or something. Or maybe they should make the projector/camera surface a separate device.
I hope they sell the camera part separately, that's the awesome part. The touchscreen doesn't seem to serve a purpose, that would be just as good or better with a mouse or trackpad.
The touch idea is cute, but I don't see the point in touch when there's no tactile feedback.
Hilariously, if you do an google ngram search for "spork,foon"[1], you'll find that in comparison, foon is incredibly popular, completely drowning out uses of spork.
I looked at the book results. It's apparent that the ocr has misconstrued ye olde "s" as an "f"; a mistake I also make, on those rare occasions I read something printed before 1800 or so.
[0]: https://www.google.com/patents/US147119
[1]: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=spork%2C+foon&...
Whilst a spork is great for the singular task of "I'm eating minestrone", the benefits of it don't make it worth it having been created.
Much like this project. Why not use your already-good wacom and computer and webcam, which you already have, instead of buying a product which is probably a bit shoddy in at least one of those areas?
They also should have taken a real necklace, placed it on the touchpad and had it instantly digitized, then manually manipulated around the woman's neck.
Very cool product. I love seeing highly imaginative products, especially coming from well established companies.
Suggestion: Maybe whoever was in charge of this development project could push thru that super-cool HP logo and branding that HP was too scared to implement: http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/14/please-save-hp/
Which is probably just a demo thing, and nothing that users can or will do in real life.
There is nothing artists (and scientists) like better than a new toy. The win here is a camera with a standard fixed orientation towards its subject; high-quality optics are sacrificed for reproducibility. I can think of numerous creative/education applications for this just from looking at the still pictures, and I haven't clicked on any of the videos yet.
- let ants walk on it to study swarming behavior
- put petri dishes on it and leave them overnight to measure bacterial growth
- liquids with different viscosities/specularities for artistic purposes; I've tried 'painting' with dishwashing liquid squirted out of the bottle and a camera, but it's difficult
- rolling marbles around for stochastic video effects
- make arty models of things in whatever medium you like and then wave them around and have them scanned into 3d without any tedious calibration/scaling
- massive possibilities for gestural control of music/animation
I could go on and on. Think of this like a 'macroscope.' The advantage of a microscope is not just the lenses that let you look at very small things, but the form factor that makes it easy and efficient to put your samples in position and focus upon them. You could make an effective microscope that was like a telescope and that you held in your hands to look at small objects, but as soon as you think about it you realize what an utter pain in the ass it would be to use because of the constant refocusing and reframing.
I think it's too expensive and there will be an app shortage at first, but I feel comfortable predicting that this (or an iteration by a competitor) will be a fixture in any creative/educational/lab environment in short order. In fact, this is what has been missing fromt eh 3d-printing side; most of the desktop printers are Not Very Good and building CAD models is tedious for most people. How much nicer to have a high quality interactive scanner and just send the refined model to a facility with a high-quality printer, CNC or sintering device for delivery or pickup.
Yeah, but this isn't Apple. HP doesn't have its own OS that they're putting on this thing - it won't be nicely integrated and it will be a pain in the ass to use. I predict it will be quickly abandoned.
No, it probably was someone else. I immediately grapsed the significance of the iPad as the ultimate connectivity machine for the sofa and the crapper (not joking).
That said, I'm not sure this thing will get anywhere. I get the possibilities you mention, but I think the crucial thing to get to them is mass appeal (and a mass market), which this wont have IMHO.
The capabilities this affords already exist with existing laptops and tablets + some external peripheral, but they haven't seen widespread use because few bother.
So, the extra convenience for the uses you describe that this device allows, won't help sell it. Only if this is sold on its other merits (and after it sells enough), would the "macroscope" become something people start to use.
* Not just computing; it predicts a zero-emission, high-performance sports car that will sell 80K+ units in the first year.
It does look slick though!
Pretty nifty, but also extremely specialized. Daring move!
"1024 x 767 DLP projector"
Then I studied the images a little closer. It seems that thing on top the monitor projects an image on the mat on the desktop. The mat seems to be touch sensitive which means you're primary interface is no longer a keyboard/mouse combo but a new interface that will be unique to each application.
Sounds interesting but unless other manufacturers starting selling the same thing, I doubt it'll be widespread enough to attract a large enough group of developers to build apps for it which will probably mean it might be niche product. Still cool though.
One would like to believe that the product, if good enough, will always win out, but that's probably not the case, especially if it relies on an ecosystem to develop around it to be fully viable.
If brand quality matters severely, then an interesting question is whether or not startups have an advantage against large corps with bad reputations. Is it better to be StartuppyMcstartup nobody's ever heard of or Microsoft?
The first thing I thought of was whenever you see something like this, its to goose the stock price. Generic investor types will fall for anything, as generations of AT&T and IBM advertisements have shown. I checked finance.google.com and this must be either very new news or older than a week news.
Any way Sprout looks very interesting and promising.
Interesting, I agree completely. Promising? I dunno about that. Given the price, I'd be afraid to buy it, given the high likelihood that HP forgets it exists in 6 months. Unique hardware like this requires serious development effort to utilize it properly, and if this doesn't get traction—and at almost $2,000, I think it's unlikely to get any traction—then nobody's going to bother writing that software. It's a chicken-and-egg problem; without sales, there won't be much custom software, and without that custom software, there's no reason for most to buy it.
Apple are innovating. I like the way all my iDevices are becoming 'as one'. Not quite to Mark Weiners vision yet - but its compelling and builds on Apples core value proposition: non-fragmentation.
Sprout is a 'gilding the lily' kind of innovation. Its impressive (in my humble opinion) and could open up a new type of product if there is sufficient demand for HP to continue. But it feels more like a marketing led shot in the dark, than HP building on their strengths in the touchscreen PC space.
-- Anecdotal cul-de-sac: My assumptions about innovation were overturned on a college summer project (EE). Having been told to 'innovate', I produced a thing + bells + whistles. My comparatively low marks & tutors comments showed me (rightly) that innovation should have focused more on 'thing'. The rest was not so important.
I now think of it as an Overton window in the product lifecycle (Im sure theres a term for this, but I don't know it). 'Just because it can be done, doesn't mean it should.'
So in the long run its a good move for them.
That is really cool, but I can't help but think how limited its uses are. The real-world objects need to be relatively small (like a coffee cup, not a car) and you are limited by taking pictures from the top-down angle. However, that kind of interaction is really natural and would be easier to learn than say Photoshop.
Right now, it's a really niche product, but I'm looking forwards to see if this is improved and adopted more widely.
Also, the main video doesn't show much. This is much better:
I really like the idea of kids putting a physical 3d object into something 2d and build a simple blue print. STEM tool for children seems perfect to me.
HP contact me :)
"augmented desk" "InteractiveDESK"
This idea is introduced roughly every 4 years at least since the first time I saw it in the early 90s.
There has been some limited commercial success.
The local mall had a 100 sq ft model for kids to play with in one of the walkways. Balls bounce around and react when people walk into them.
Its more or less a kinect with substantial changes in scale and optical path.
Anyway if I have the opportunity to play with Sprout I will!
I can't predict a mass market destiny to this but it warms my heart to see a huge company release some kind of engineering chimera
3d cam is what is a perfect addition to 3d printers. Well, 3d printers prove pretty useless without 3d cams. It also enables 3d movement detection.
Something bugs me though, how is it possible for the 3d cam to see beneath the object (bird origami) to come out with such a perfectly scanned shape?
Although at first I was a bit skeptical of the replacement of a touchscreen with a projector, there are some capabilities of a projector that you just don't get with a touchscreen – mainly, projecting images on real objects placed on the pad. This, combined with a 3D printer, could allow designers to create 3D shapes and project surfaces onto these objects.
It had a sensor to detect the depth and positions of your hands above your desk. Its software would then cast a hand-shaped shadow on your screen, so you could see what you were about to interact with. The UI was like a touchscreen, but you'd abstract the touching away from the displaying for ergonomics.
It was a cool concept. Bummed it never went anywhere. Sprout could be interesting, but it would be a lot more interesting if it came from a brand that moved platforms (like Apple). I don't know if HP has the developer mindshare (or sales volume) to have a "revolutionary" product that people get excited about. There are too many other Windows machines (both inside and outside HP) for this to get the attention it deserves.
I think the tablety-thing was an L shaped touchpad, where the depth sensors were in the | part of the L.
In my opinion it's no better than a touchscreen because you have to wave your hands in the air which is more work than keeping it on a desk. I wouldn't buy it.
That being said, this looks like some real innovation and makes for an interesting creative workspace setup.
Soon we'll have flexible flexible displays to close the gap between the screen and the projected area (see the moment in the video where she flicks an item from the screen on to the projected area? Quite literally, a gap in interaction).
I can imagine this being used in some of the user interface research labs which have been working with similar hand-made setups before.
Good move, HP.
[0]: http://store.hp.com/wcsstore/hpusstore/Treatment/sprout_meet...
Let's see how the dev community reacts to non-Apple/Google new platform.
I scrolled through the entire landing page, tried to watch the video which got stuck at 24 seconds before revealing something, then finally managed to get some frames from later on. Really terrible marketing since they are hiding what it is, but whatever. Seems inferior to a Wacom Cintiq in every way so far (an LCD with pressure sensitive pen with buttons that graphics artists use).
That's how I found this guy's work I posted a couple days ago [1].
Anyway, turns out HP has done the hard work for me. Now I just need to waste some $2k USD to verify my silly idea... :p
also, an even older demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnL34XwTgag
I'm actually a bit surprised they didn't stress the collaboration features more, guess there's an initial fear of how many people will own the same device.
1. A vertical touch screen! my arms hurt just from watching the video showing that lady stretching her arm and dragging objects across some presentation slides. You simply can't do that for more than a few seconds.
2. I'm fearing a chicken and egg situation with the software aspects. I mean the photo editor they show looks nice and original but pretty limited. Without wide adoption from software makers you won't have more professional grade apps, and without professional grade apps, you'll still have the limited set of toy apps and no adoption.
Just the first reaction to some of the videos that are mostly bleh marketing. Might have to revise my opinion once I see some more.
Looking forward to seeing someone do a hands-on video, or just create something for 30 minutes with a camera looking over his/her shoulder.
This is one of the most innovative products I have seen in the last several years.
Could you talk a little bit about what kind of things you'd like to use it for and how that either couldn't be done before, or is better than what you could do before. The videos didn't really do it for me.
I want something for doing actual creative work, and that's the only metric that matters for a product like this anyway. Maybe Bret should give it a try (http://vimeo.com/97903574).
1) This should be a sold as a peripheral, not with its own CPU
2) Turn the bottom into a matte finish Cintiq monitor that can be quickly shut off
Someone should hack together an open source version. The hardware should be pretty straightforward: a commodity projector, a couple webcams, and perhaps an Xbox Kinect or similar.
Edit: Only primary Call to Action doesn't load the video. I got it to load when I randomly clicked on something. Here is a link: http://bcove.me/gqbyor0d
The user never actually hits the letter P but somehow it magically appears!
I still think it's an interesting concept, however. If they want it to gain traction, they should sell it as a peripheral.
A cursory look at the SDK shows that it's mainly WPF and C++ (QT?) which might make it easier to develop apps. Looks interesting.
The intro video tells zilch about the product. Tries to sell some grandiose vision about hands. As if they have evolutioned hands for snakes. That's a sore sign that there's not much to the product.
"A creativity station. A fully functioning PC. Whatever you want to call it, Sprout can do it. " I want to call it the spaceship voyager on a mission to the planet of the MBAs.
"Blending the physical and digital worlds that you live in, Sprout unleashes your creativity like never before." if by that you mean it makes you want to rant creatively, sure.
I'm kinda intrigued by where it'll go.
Ambitious in any case, glad HP is trying!
So much that it would make sense that HP starts supporting Ubuntu by default.
Apple seems to lead the way in making things thinner, and following behind in making "new" things. Its a clear void.
Still, it's good to see a big consumer-oriented company like HP trying (at least) to innovate in some new way.
An iMac with an i7 of roughly equal speed, same 8GB RAM, a screen 2" smaller diagonal, similar nVidia graphics, same native resolution display (without touch capability), similar 1TB hybrid SSD/HDD, and none of the fancy projector/camera stuff would cost $1899.
Obviously these are going for different users and the iMac comes with Apple's trademark thin, industrial design whereas the Sprout adds the touch screen, pad, camera, and projector. Still, if you wanted an all-in-one and had $1900 to spend, I can see how you might pick up one with equivalent "guts" which came with the unique input options.
Worst case you don't get much use out of the projector stuff and still have a solid all-in-one on par with an iMac of similar price.
A more Apples to Apples (sorry) comparison would be the non-fusion drive iMac for $1699
That said, the added hardware on this still seems to make it a relative bargain.
My main interest was whether this was drastically more or less expensive than the most popular all-in-one PCs out there even if you don't care about using the unique Sprout stuff all the time.
I guess when you have cash that needs to be spent, you do stuff like this? I can't imagine this is the best innovation HP can come up with.