[jadedoto]

There's a project here in my town by a couple of my fellow engineering students working on a related idea they're calling awesometouch. They've installed a few in our city already as far as I know.

I don't believe they're running Android, and the machines are pretty special purpose, but still similar in concept as far as huge touchscreens go: http://awesometouch.org/

[aerosuch]

Thanks for the mention @jadedoto. You're correct, we're not running Android on our screens, but there is an Android port for MT4j, the Java multitouch framework we use: http://www.mt4j.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry110404-105831 If this Android x86 port comes further along (and there's some way to do remote administration for Android), maybe we can start developing for Android first, and porting that over to the large screens.

On the hardware side, one of the unfortunate limitations with most large touchscreens in that price range is that they only accept 2 touchpoints. For most applications, that's sufficient, but Martin mentioned that one of his goals is to enable multiple users to simultaneously interact. While the opportunity for that is a bit limited on his Acer screen, the larger screen size alone does make it easier for two users to view the screen simultaneously, and it's easier for them to alternate in usage without passing the screen back and forth.

[oflannabhra]

Yeah, awesomeTouch runs some custom Java on top of Linux, although both their hardware and software have most likely evolved since last I saw.. They just did betaSpring, I believe.

Also, hail from Lexington!

[aerosuch]

LexKY in the house! Our team just got back from Betaspring, we have come a long way since our early days hacking with the NUIGroup / CCV tools: http://nuicode.com/projects/tbeta

We've narrowed our focus to indoor map applications. We're still deploying them on giant touchscreens with AwesomeTouch, but have also started a project called BuildingLayer to aggregate & crowdsource maps for the insides of buildings (because people always get http://lostinabuilding.com). And just ask John King from CNN, the only thing better than games on a giant touchscreen are maps!