Intel introduces kiosk with gesture recognition

Intel showed a retail information kiosk at the National Retail Federation’s 100th show in New York City this week. People with a need to know more about products on display around the vertically-positioned 60+ inch interactive display with full-motion video simply stand facing the kiosk and, following the on-screen prompts, use one of their hands to move a rather large circle-shaped cursor that appears on the screen. Once recognized, when the hand moves, the cursor moves. Hovering the cursor over an option presents that information. It takes only seconds to learn and doesn’t require human instruction for a successful interaction.

Technologies that involve customers in product selection and education offer retailers a behind-the-scenes benefit. The computer software that presents the information also captures consumers’ choices. Their clickstream (series of on-screen choices made) helps marketers and researchers better understand the wants and needs of their customers at an aggregate and at an individual level.