Rick Barraza of Cynergy playing with thin air Credit: Photo by Richard Whittaker

Remember Minority Report? Remember the uber-cool control gloves that Tom Cruise used? Remember thinking “I wish I had those?”

The guys at Cynergy Labs were displaying their prototype in the Interactive Trade Show of a real version of the technology. The great/scary thing? They actually work. Running Windows Vista on a Mac, the demonstrators digitally (pardon the pun) manipulated a series of images on a test grid, from a 3D map of the Louvre to a stack of snap shots. The shocker for everyone that was expecting some super-duper high tech solution is that the backbone of the sensor system is a WiiMote. That’s exactly the kind of innovation that Enspire’s Patrick Sanchez talked about in the interactive issue. Apparently, Microsoft are very, very interested in the results.

Now if we can juuuuuust get that funky projected display Cruise had as well …

This article appears in March 7 • 2008.

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The Chronicle's first Culture Desk editor, Richard has reported on Austin's growing film production and appreciation scene for over a decade. A graduate of the universities of York, Stirling, and UT-Austin, a Rotten Tomatoes certified critic, and eight-time Best of Austin winner, he's currently at work on two books and a play.