Saga of the 'Malaysian' multi-touch screen
By
20 Jan 2010
You may have noticed the slew of comments underneath the news article ‘Malaysian multi-touch screen pioneers with awards’ on the front page of our portal at the time of this post.
The comments seem to be from representatives of three Malaysian multi-touch screen firms (SmartSurface, Kreateevee, and DragonSoft) engaged in a heated debated about (a) who put out the first multi-touch screen in the country and/or (b) offering said screen that was completely Malaysian.
Before we go any further, you may ask what this multi-touch niche is about. Briefly, multi-touch screens on offer are for hotels, banks, restaurants and the like, allowing transactions—whether as part of a business or a consumer-driven process—and are often large table-top devices.
Back to the saga: the first news article ‘Malaysian company launches interactive multi-touch table for global market’, which appeared on 31 July 2009, featured MSC (Multimedia Supercorridor) Malaysia status firm Kreateevee that initially said it was first in launching an award-winning Malaysian-grown multi-touch screen.
In the best interactive tradition, comments appeared disputing whether this company was first to market. Representatives from a second firm—Smart Surface’s co-founders, Faysal Abdulaziz (managing director) and Homam Alghorani (executive director)—said that not only were they the first Malaysian firm to put out a multi-touch screen but also that their product was wholly home-grown and had won awards. In the interest of balanced news, we naturally featured the firm (see the first news link above).
What now matters is the future?
In December last year, our publisher, Andrew Smart, invited all three firms equal space (up to 500 words) to state their case and with a deadline that ended 5pm on 7 January 2010.
Perhaps it was the holiday mood or some such, as we received just one response to some simple elevator pitch questions so far, which was from SmartSurface reiterating their stand as per the news article, despite two reminders to all concerned. As promised, the responses by SmartSurface's MD are published below.
The real challenge for Malaysian players in this niche is the next step: fresh innovation may be more critical than whether a firm's employees are Malaysians or simply entrepreneurs who have chosen Malaysia as a base, or whether who got their product in first? In other sectors, it is usually version 2.0 and what comes after that wins market share?
To re-coin a phrase: in the interests of balance, we welcome comments from the multi-touch entrepreneurs, as always.
AvantiKumar is the Malaysia correspondent for Fairfax tech brands and deputy editor of Computerworld Malaysia.
Responses to the interview questions below are by -
Faysal Abdul Aziz
Managing Director,
Smart Surface Sdn. Bhd.
Provide an 'elevator pitch' about your touchscreen solutions and unique benefits and selling points.
SmartSurface is an award-winning start-up that solely specializes in research, development and production of surface computers and multitouch solutions. We can turn any flat surface, such as a wall, coffee table or shop front, into an interactive interface. These surfaces are not the conventional single-touch screens; rather, they are large surfaces around us made responsive to multitouch interaction. Through these surfaces, users can communicate directly with the computer using just their hand gestures and finger movements. Multiple users can control separate virtual objects on the same surface at the same time.
In addition to the infra red technology that all other surface computers use, SmartSurface have developed and is patenting several original and unique technological solutions incorporated into its products, such as lasers for movement detection, a specially designed LCD display, and overlay multitouch frame system.
Please give other unique aspects of your product, your service, your target markets, your pricing.
SmartSurface has developed its own multi-camera tracking module, which is the heart of any multitouch recognition system. We have taken a distinguished step by allowing applications to be created by other parties with the software development kit (SDK) that is provided with our products. Furthermore, as multitouch solutions and surface computers are our core and sole business, we are able to provide both modular and highly customized products at affordable prices. An organization can turn their coffee tables into an interactive multitouch surface computer for as little as couple of thousands USD or turn a glass wall into a huge interactive multitouch medium for less than fifteen thousand USD. Overlay frame solutions sell starting from few hundred USD.
Give the top three key messages why you are passionate about your own product/solution offering.
With SmartSurface’s technological breakthroughs in terms of hardware and software, our surface computers are much faster in their responsiveness to user gestures and much smoother in their performance.
SmartSurface celebrated 2009 with a score of achievements, including the inauguration of our company, winning several prestigious awards, and establishing a diverse line of both modular and customized products.
On top of this, we have developed a unique multi-camera tracking module and application development kit, and have established our name in the Malaysian market through over ten deployments of our technology in the past few months alone.
Give a rundown on any exciting plans you have for 2010.
In 2010, SmartSurface is launching two development projects to create multitouch applications for the medical industry. One project is in collaboration with a national university and the second is a joint effort with a company specializing in medical technology. The products from both these projects will be patented jointly with our partners upon completion.
Since SmartSurface's inception was based on both in-house research and work done by the open source community, 2010 will witness the release of our tracking core to the open source community under the GPL or MIT license. We will also continue to be actively involved in spreading multitouch knowledge through providing source code and training.
We anticipate entering into more close partnerships with MIMOS and MDeC, with whom we already started cooperation in 2009. We are also looking forward to taking our first step towards launching our business in countries outside Malaysia.
