There is no doubt we are heading to a future where the physical and the digital world start to intersect with each other more and more. Early Monday morning I saw this piece of news that shows that we are getting closer and closer to this reality. Adidas today launched a new kind of in-store window shopping experience with a big giant screen that allows you order clothing and other products. Here is how they describe it in their press release.

The new storefront window is a fully functioning virtual store with life-size products. The intuitive interface of the touch-screen window lets shoppers explore, play and drag life-size products they are interested in directly into their smartphone for easy and convenient purchase from adidas NEO online.

By visiting a simple URL via their smartphone and typing in a one-time PIN, the shopper’s mobile becomes interlinked in real time with a shopping bag on the window, showing a live view of its contents. Any product dropped into the window’s shopping bag instantly appears on the mobile. The shopper can edit product details, save products for immediate or later purchase and share with friends through social media or email.

Shoppers can also play with a life-size digital model showcasing NEO’s fashion range in a fun and engaging way. By touching hotspots on the window the shopper can make the mannequin show product details, interact with the product and make playful actions and movements.

The new technology is being uses as part of a six-week pilot test at the adidas NEO Label store-front in Nürnberg. The implications of such technologies on the “future of retail” are going to be pretty far-reaching. For starters, the idea of what is a retail store could shift towards more experiential. It would be good news for companies such as LA-based startup, Oblong which is in the business of making screens and devices for such large immersive experiences.

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“The next disruption will come with big advances in UI because that’s all you have,” he said. Behind the scenes, computers and networks are still abstract machines that essentially flip switches, but people don’t think in the abstract. So the user interface is a way to turn the abstract into concrete efforts that humans understand. How does one “de-abstract” the machine?

The biggest clue, Underkoffler says, is space, and pointing is the simplest human gesture that applies to space. We point for the benefit of others, who can determine what space we’re trying to reference. Applying that idea to computers is what Oblong does, and the key is giving tangible space coordinates to every pixel on any screen in a room. Essentially, an entire room around you can be a desktop.

But you can’t drive three dozen screens with a single piece of hardware, so Oblong is focused on the operating environment to create a user interface that works across networked computers in a way that multiple workers can collaborate. This “removes the tyranny of meeting rooms and conference rooms where one person owns the experience,” according to Underkoffler. Screens for input and output — such as an iPad – can be used as a two-way screen to control main and add data.

We might be using one or two screens today in a desktop environment, but in the near future, every available screen in a room could extend our workplace beyond the constraints of an old user interface.

Photo by Pinar Ozger.

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