Spielberg’s Technology Guru is Now Making Sci-fi into a Reality
April 28, 2016
Original article posted on thenextweb.com
As Steven Spielberg’s technology advisor on the 2002 tech-noir thriller Minority Report, upcoming TNW Europe speaker John Underkoffler completely transformed the way we imagined interacting with information in the future.
You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who wasn’t convinced that Tom Cruise’s performance forecasted our future – his movements engaging with holographic screens as if conducting an orchestra. The data seemed completely responsive to his gestures, as if it was an extension of his body. It was the definition of intuitive.
Underkoffler’s reputation as a technology visionary scored him his next Hollywood stint a few years later, namely for the Iron Man movies. As Robert Downey Jr., who plays protagonist Tony Stark, explained to Fortune magazine:
“I was looking to Underkoffler for straight technology [advice]. […] If Tony had designed his own software and his own programs and the machinery to operate them, what sort of language would he design to be able to manipulate his environment? And over the course of all these movies, that’s been as much a part of Tony’s character as anything else.”
Now, Underkoffler’s turning these groundbreaking ideas into actual products.
As the founder and CEO of Oblong Industries, John is using the expertise that recently won him a National Design Award to remodel the way we interact with meeting spaces in the digital age. The so-called Mezzanine is an interactive computer similar to the one seen in Minority Report, which seamlessly combines hand gestures and space to offer an intuitive, immersive experience.
We have a feeling it’ll not only revolutionise the way meetings are held, but ultimately the way we engage with technology.
