Please tread on the ads
EyeClick’s ads lie quietly in the floor, waiting for someone to step on them, when they transform themselves into an interactive show.

Gali Weinreb 15 Feb 06

Globes online - Israels Business Arena

We zapped television ads, so we got billboards back. We learned to ignore billboards, so they gave us telemarketing. We slammed down the telephone, so we got pop-up ads on our computer screens, until we learned how to block them. Advertisers have almost despaired of finding new ways to grab out attention, but EyeClick Ltd. wants to restore their hopes.
On the face of it, EyeClick’s product seems to be friendly for both advertisers and consumers. The company projects light beams onto a platform, and when a person steps on it, the technology senses the movement and a picture responds accordingly. “We basically know how to take a computer’s multimedia content and display it in an open space, on the street, at an airport, or at a train station,” says EyeClick founder and CEO Ariel Almos.
“We have three main types of solutions, to which we add innovations. The first type is products that react to motion, like huge corn kernels that explode when stepped on, or a picture of a piano that can be played with the feet. The second type is solutions for stores, such as a computerized product catalogue in a display window, on which the different items react to touch to display additional information, in the same way as a computer. The third type includes fast-moving interactive games, which are mainly designed for sales promotions when the target audience only has time to interact with the product by way of entertainment.”
The most advanced versions of the technology can be used to play virtual football with a non-existent ball on a field of light. A game like this requires the system to analyze every detail of a player’s movement and understand whether the object approaching the “ball” is the player’s foot, hand, or knee, and from what angle. The system then has to respond in real time to that movement. It’s complicated.
How does this work? “EyeClick has developed a very sophisticated motion detection system,” says Almos. “The location from which light beams are emitted has a sensor taking a video picture of the platform. The sensor identifies movement on the picture displayed, and derives from it exactly what the person standing on it, or in front of it, is about to do.
“Our patent is on the software’s ability to identify movement, and distinguish between images and background; in other words, between the movement of a person and the movement of the picture itself, which always moves in tandem with the person. The system works in conditions of poor visibility, stormy weather, or variable lighting. We can also supplement missing details. In football, for example, we can predict what a player momentarily hidden behind another player is doing, from the way he was moving when he was still visible.”

Você pode ver o resto da matéria e uma entrevista com o CEO Ariel Almos aqui