Panasonic's 103-inch plasma repurposed as multitouch air hockey table

With VIZIO and Pioneer jumping out of the plasma game, we can totally foresee sales of Panasonic's 103-inch PDP skyrocketing. All kidding aside, a startup arcade would be ludicrous to not shove one of these into the center of the action. What you're looking at above is a mutltitouch air hockey table, made possible by Panny's ginormous plasma and a U-Touch overlay from uicentric. The table was on display over in Amsterdam at ISE 2009, and quite frankly, we're intensely envious of the attendees who were able to blow off some steam by grabbing a game on this. Obligatory video is just past the break.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 17th 2009 8:40PM]

that is one expensive ass air hockey table...well i guess its not actually air hockey anymore is it?

[Slty Posted Feb 18th 2009 1:19PM]

Not all that impressive. It's just a life sized version of the same software that already exists on the iPhone.
(Of course, the iPhone version sucks to play, but whatever, this is nothing new.)

[FILA Posted Feb 17th 2009 10:00PM]

nah i need my little paddle things, the way i play air hockey there would be to much of a delay, lol. that and you cant get no bloody knuckles when you play, no fun in that

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 17th 2009 10:14PM]

Could this do more damage to a TV than flinging a Wiimote at it?

[leafflash Posted Feb 18th 2009 12:28AM]

What the heck?! How on earth is this better than the real thing? And how could anyone play a game when there's a lag (watch the vid, the paddle is slower than the hand)?

[alan089 Posted Feb 18th 2009 1:08AM]

remind me to invest in a company that manufacturers bionic index and middle fingers it seems like that's all we're gonna need in the future

[CapnShiner Posted Feb 18th 2009 5:41AM]

If this technology gets cheap enough I could see it eventually replacing most card, table, and board games. You could have almost every single such game in a single device. With a little Bluetooth/RFID action, I could see this being used for a virtual pool(billiards) table.

Could you imagine strategy games on this? Something like Starcraft, Warcraft(prior to WoW), Age of Empires, etc. How about Warhammer with Bluetooth/RFID in the little figurines?

What about trading card games? Add some RFID to the cards and play as you would now, only on a multitouch table. Just place your deck on the table and watch the cards transfer to your virtual deck. Tournaments could be easily tracked and monitored, games could be watched online in realtime, and stats could be easily uploaded too.

Virtual whack-a-mole, anyone?

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 18th 2009 6:15AM]

I have to agree with those calling this a redundant heap of nonsense.

The whole point of Air Hockey is the unpredictable physics and throwing the paddle at your little brother.
As for the other suggested purpouses for it, any physical game, like air hockey, billiards, pool, couronne, fussball etc can't possibly give the same experience in a digital form as the real world.

I would like to play RISK, etc on it though. Board games with lots of pieces is the only purpouse of this device.


And porn ofc.

[djmere Posted Feb 18th 2009 10:46AM]

i thought they said that u should never lay a plasma down

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 20th 2009 5:56PM]

This is the most awesome thing I have ever seen. My kids love the air hockey link on my iphone and play it constantly. I have a business on Kauai, an outdoor movie screen and I am always looking for cool things to add to it. I have used jump castles and ping pong tables, but if I could have little tournys with this table, that would be off the hook.