LED displays have already begun a revolution in the way that advertising is delivered to the public. Static hoardings are increasingly being overlooked in favour of the innate dynamism of an LED sign, that can be used to catch the attention of consumers with greater effectiveness.

 

Now a report from New Scientist, has found that a new generation of LED display technology is going to take things to the next level, by enabling increased interactivity with the advertising itself.

 

Experiments carried out at the Technical University of Berlin have resulted in the creation of gesture-sensing applications which, when combined with LED displays, can allow people to influence advertisements in real time like never before.

 

Projects spokesperson, Robert Walter, said that he envisages a future in which almost every surface in a public area will be an interactive LED display of some kind. He foresees that this will create a need for various systems which allow for an intuitive and engaging way to actually facilitate these interactions.

 

One of the apps created by the academics, known as StrikeAPose, gives people the ability to harness a variety of LED displays, ranging from those mounted on bus shelters, to large scale screens of the kind you can readily find in New York's Times Square or London's Piccadilly Circus.

 

Using depth-sensing camera technology, the displays can register a user's movements and translate this into onscreen interactivity.

 

Meanwhile, Screenfinity is the second app being developed at the university, this time with the intention of allowing long LED ribbon displays to actually present users with content that can follow them as they walk past it.

 

This brave new world of advertising is being created in various labs across the world at the moment and paints an intriguing vision of the future.