Video Project an Interactive Game on Your Floor or Wall (Video) 57
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Lumo is an interactive projector. You can use it to bore people with PowerPoint slides or you can use it as a game machine. It has a built-in (low res) camera that can detect a kick (as shown at the beginning of the video) and make a (virtual) ball move as a result of that action. 'But,' you ask, 'do they have an Indiegogo campaign?' Not yet. It launches on March 23.
The Lumo projector was originally designed for commercial use at children's museums and as a trade show attention-getter -- at $10,000 a pop. The consumer version is expected to cost less than $500, according to Lumo CEO (and Slashdot interviewee) Meghan Athavale. And while she doesn't talk much about it in the interview, if you already have a computer, a projector, and a Kinect or webcam, you can buy the a stripped-down version of the company's 'interactive-floor-wall projection' software for $39, plus games or customizable game templates.
The Lumo projector was originally designed for commercial use at children's museums and as a trade show attention-getter -- at $10,000 a pop. The consumer version is expected to cost less than $500, according to Lumo CEO (and Slashdot interviewee) Meghan Athavale. And while she doesn't talk much about it in the interview, if you already have a computer, a projector, and a Kinect or webcam, you can buy the a stripped-down version of the company's 'interactive-floor-wall projection' software for $39, plus games or customizable game templates.
Nice Slashvertisement (Score:1)
Why would I pay $500 for this when I can pay literally under $50 for a VGA projector on Amazon?
I assume that Roblimo is invested in this somehow?
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Because you'll be extremely disappointed by any $50 projector. You can't get a projector worth having at that price point. Hell, reasonable projectors don't even start until around the $300 mark.
Re: Nice Slashvertisement (Score:5, Informative)
Your assumption is wrong. Timothy made the video. I just edited and posted it. And he chooses video subjects based on what he finds interesting and doesn't get paid to make them.
FYI, if you ever see a piece of sponsored content on Slashdot, it will say 'sponsored content' or 'advertisement' or will otherwise be easily distinguishable from editorial content.
Why should everything on Slashdot be negative? Being positive (or at least neutral) about something doesn't necessarily mean someone got paid.
I wouldn't pay $500 for this thing any more than you would. If anything, I might look at their $39 (proprietary) software and try it with a computer and webcam. And probably not even that.
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The statement that the projector "plays" motion reactive games seems misleading, but for a typical consumer audience I can understand the simplification.
Meg, out of curiousity, other than not needing a stand-alone computer and video input, how does your product differ from Mandala, which was introduced by Very Vivid back in 1988, for the Amiga? It could use any video source (usually a projector aimed at a wall, but most any video output device would suffice) along with a video input from a camera to allow
Re: Nice Slashvertisement (Score:2, Informative)
That's a lot of questions! I'll try to answer them here but feel free to email me at meg@lumoplay.com if you want more info. For some reason the site's not letting me log in.
"The statement that the projector "plays" motion reactive games seems misleading, but for a typical consumer audience I can understand the simplification."
Yeah, I'm not sure how to describe this. There's an android processor inside and we built a special game player that reads motion data to create motion reactive games kids can play by
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There is some confusion in the article about Po-motion - Lumo is a different application, built in Unity and designed to run on a small processor. We used what we learned developing Po-motion (which is built in AIR) but it is a completely different platform. We'll be providing a styleguide and SDK for Unity developers, and we're planning to support them as they come up with new ideas for the system. The main challenge was making a turnkey unit that parents could afford. I'm excited to see what other people come up with for it. :)
Yes, that is my fault. I read the Po-motion page first and came to the wrong conclusion that your Lumo system was based on Po-motion. I realized my mistake after hitting send, of course. But, as I understand it, you have reduced the hardware of Mandala, an Amiga, a projector, and a camera down to one thing to plug into the wall that provides all of those features and probably a similar level of performance to what was available in 1988 (depending on CPU choice, ARM has come a long way since the 68030 was
Project onto a TABLE for restaurants and games (Score:2)
They had one of these (not necessarily this vendor) on the floor of one of the wings of the Burlington Mall in Massachusetts 5+ years ago (it may still be there). It's a fun toy, but it has little practical applications beyond games and promotions. There's no reason this couldn't be on a wall or table though.
Restaurants: I see this technology as the future of table service at restaurants; consider your white tablecloth as your touchscreen, capable of breaking down into one screen per patron (the camera
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That said, I'm looking forward to seeing what Taco Bell and McDonalds do with their web / app-based ordering and payment in advance systems...
Not again (Score:4, Insightful)
Problems with this story:
1. They haven't even stated how much they want to collect
2. They claim to have done over 4,000 installations of an earlier variant:
"Lumo's founders come from game development, engineering, and interactive interfaces. In 2011, the company started selling an interactive projection display platform (Po-motion.com) that includes a complete creative suite and a remote content management system. This system has been used in over 4000 commercial and museum displays worldwide by clients such as Google, Adidas, Coca-Cola and Air New Zealand."
Notice how misleading that statement is? A different platform, owned by someone else, has sold over 4,000 units. They themselves may have sold a few of them, but this in NO way shows that they have the ability to produce such a system themselves.
3. I smell legal problems for what is clearly a knock-off.
These crowd-funding stories are becoming more of a joke every day.
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"These crowd-funding stories are becoming more of a joke every day." So true.
That's probably why I get more and more cynical about them.
When a game called 'Exploding Kittens [kickstarter.com]' raises over $8 million on Kickstarter, you know crowdfunding has become totally surreal.
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When I see one of these in the firehose and it looks suspicious when I check them out, I down-vote it. But obviously there are plenty of people who disagree. What can I say :-)
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Which just brings up another question - IF the parent company has sold over 4,000 of these, why do they need ANY crowd-funding? Bad management causing low return on capital for reinvestment in the business? Marginal profitability leading to inability to secure funding through regular channels, such as bank loans? The need to put up legal and financial barriers between the two businesses so if one goes bust ...?
Sales of 4,000 units at $10k a piece is $40 million in gross sales. Sounds like bad management to
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So if they've sold $40 million of their previous product, why can't they just fund it out of profits?
1. There are no profits? (smells of bad management or a dying or no longer competitive product)
2. Wanting a free ride by pretending to be at arms length to both the parent and sister companies? (smells of fraud by not revealing such a relationship to investors)
3. This is just a cheap and easy way to test the market and hopefully get some pre-orders and free advertising, as well as no-risk capital? (sme
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From what I can see, the "10,000 a pop" includes travel. setup, operational cost (someone to run it), break-up, and shipping costs. The product itself is just a projector and some software controlled by a laptop and webcam.
People at trade shows and events pay for the whole shebang because they only want it for a short time, no hassles, depreciation, cleanup costs, no liability if it falls on someone's head, etc.
Anyone can buy a better-quality projector from tigerdirect for $500 (1024x768) and jury-rig the
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That gives revenue of less than $10k per employee per annum. They must have been selling services instead (setup and breakdown, running the show, etc).
Or maybe they got some funding from the Manitoba government?
1998 called (Score:2)
It wants its projector/webcam games back.
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Won't change anything. (Score:2)
The project is interesting and ambitious. However it's still a projector, and a projector with motion sensing capabilities at that. This is almost certainly going to put it in to the $1000+ price range. You can't change the world if nobody can afford your product.
An *interactive* game, you say? (Score:5, Funny)
Project an Interactive Game on Your Floor or Wall (Video)
And here's me playing non-interactive games like a chump.
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Enhanced Pool Table (Score:2)
I've always wanted something like this projector + camera shining down on a pool table.
It could record all of the shots, and easily show you a prior table position so you could "un-do" a shot as well as re-play slow motion video of a "break" or other action. Based on varying games, it could count and keep score (cutthroat, multiple iterations of "4 ball run", etc etc) by just displaying the scores somewhere on the table.
For interactivity, it could "visualize" the line of an intended ball strike by view