Okay…so this is pretty super-cool.

IBM are going all Sci-Fi with their new interactive billboard which they’re trialing as part of their Smarter Planet initiative (designed to make more efficient systems using the latest technology). The billboard changes its appearance based on what the person standing in front of it is wearing. It uses sensors and LEDs to dynamically update its color, urging the viewer to consider how technology could improve supply chain systems and retail experiences today.

So is this all just a great big multi-coloured nonsense or is there real merit in it?…

Well, as it stands now the messages you could use it for are obviously limited to the fact that it only recognises colour (even though that is still pretty awesome), but seeing as it’s all driven by software, the possibilities are endless. Imagine using facial recognition software to decide whether the ad is being viewed by a male or a female and then displaying a different, gender-specific message? Or utilising speech recognition to ask you a question, process what you say and then answer you with a targeted message?

Ok..so that’s all a bit Minority Report – as much PKD as it is WKD – and the thought of hundreds of people having conversations with shopping centre advert displays would have given Freud an erection…”Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar sir…Tobacconists are on the 3rd floor, have a nice day”. But the fact is, if you’d been told a few years ago that the aforementioned Interactive Sensitive Colour Billboard was to be the next ‘big thing’, you’d have found it laughable. And yet, here it is.

Well, almost.

Watch a video demo of it here.

Courtesy of Fubiz.