San Francisco — SeeSpace, the developer of a layered graphics system adapter designed to work with any 2D or 3D TV display, said this week that it has topped its $150,000 Kickstarter goal for its InAir augmented TV system.
The company may now move ahead with production and manufacturing plans for the system that is said to deliver a layered graphics experience in 2D or 3D similar to that seen on the sci-fi movie thriller, “Minority Report.”
The first InAir adapters are expected to be ready for delivery in the second half of the year at a $99 suggested retail.
SeeSpace explained that the tiny InAir HDMI device plugs into any 2D or 3D TV and “augments” the traditional presentation with rich and dynamic overlaying layers of information from the web and social media.
The InAir system uses a patented content-recognition engine, based on proprietary algorithms, that intelligently identifies relevant Internet and social content with what the viewer is watching and delivers it to the TV screen in real time. The InAir engine also allows for searching specific terms while watching a TV program, using a trackpad app on an Android, iOS or Windows mobile device or PC.
When activated in 3D mode, the layers of Internet content appear to be positioned in front of the screen and can be dynamically manipulated by the viewer, according to SeeSpace. “These foreground layers of information appear to be holograms, and floating in air,” hence the product name.
A preferred 3D experience is supported on a 2D screen in anaglyphic mode using common red/cyan 3D glasses, or in “side by side” mode on a 3DTV using the set’s supporting glasses.
“But it is important to note that the same dynamic, layered experience can work in 2D mode on any television. The interface and UX of InAir were designed to simulate dimension whether that experience space is inside the TV (in 2D mode) or extended into the room (in 3D mode),” according to SeeSpace’s Kickstarter descriptor.
The system is said to offer a variety of applications, including enhancement of the second-screen experience through the design of a centralized platform for application multitasking on a single screen.
SeeSpace said the InAir TV user interface “is very simple to use, and is designed with gesture in mind, for touch gesture on smartphones and for hand gesture.”
The InAir device is a smart HDMI cable that plugs in between the TV and a set-top box. The InAir then connects to a home Wi-Fi network with no complicated setup process.
It intelligently identifies what a viewer is watching on TV, automatically gathers relevant Internet and social content, and then processes and places the information as layers of web information in front of the TV screen in real time, on demand, SeeSpace said.
InAir can use readily available free content on the Internet to enrich the viewing experience at launch.
Data manipulation can be controlled in a number of ways, including touch gestures and simple swipes on a mobile device via an InAir trackpad app available for free on Android and Windows and iOS devices, and via hand gestures (“Minority Report” style) when paired with Kinect or Leap Motion systems.
