When Microsoft Surface was first unveiled, we were fooled into believing Minority Report-style interfaces would infiltrate every aspect of our lives. Hotels, bars and restaurants would be wired wonders. Every table top and wall would dance with our finger tips. The world was supposed to be blanketed in a sultry neon mystique. While the touch experience has been widely incorporated by mobile phone manufacturers, it’s rare to see large scale touch installations in our everyday lives. One startup company is skipping the everyday and targeting your nightlife.
Touch Taste Technology creates Surface-like experiences for late night party goers. The company got its start at Madpoison Bar in Chicago. The above large-scale wall installation was created just in time for the restaurant’s launch and since then, Touch Taste has worked with a number of nightlife groups including Rain and Ghostbar in Las Vegas.
President Rhoniel Daguro describes Touch Taste Technology as a “self service point of sale multitouch ad network”. The fact that he doesn’t mention nightclubs, suggests a number of uses for the service. On that same note, Razorfish also offers a number of large-scale point of purchase services. When ReadWriteWeb covered the agency’s early August acquisition by Microsoft it was unclear as to the direction it would take. Earlier this week, the company launched a German program where users design their own Audi A4 atop Microsoft’s Surface.
Razorfish has also built a retail fashion app and integrated the Lonely Planet travel brand into Microsoft Surface. Nevertheless, the best Surface apps seem to be less about sales, and more about education and exploration like this Davinci Physics Illustrator. So the question that begs to be answered is this: In today’s market, does Surface’s ability to draw impulse sales justify the overhead for a high end installation? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
