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Today we are taking the wraps off what promises to be our most widely adopted technology to date - Overlay.TV for Interaction.  This breakthrough technology has been in the works for some time now and we are proud to be delivering it as a first-time extension for interactive overlays that transcend online video.  Already this morning we have seen thousands of examples of it in use.

The premise is very similar to the Overlay.TV technology we have been working with in the past with one major difference - it does not require an online video and targets.  Instead real objects are placed in the path or line-of-sight for a user and they are able to fully interact with the objects.

To illustrate the difference, take a look at the two examples below, courtesy of our new user, charlesandmarie.com and their creation, Fab5TV.  In the first model, we see the person enabling interaction with the object through the use of an Overlay.TV product widget that allows viewers to get more information on, or even purchase, the product in hand.

In the second example this powerful technology takes over, and we see the person actually interacting with an object themselves - a fully tactile experience that perfectly replicates how we interact with objects in real life.

We expect to see massive adoption for this in a short time, and are already working on cases such as:

• being able to actually drive the car you see in an advertisement or movie
• shopping in physical stores for objects you see online, or interacting with them after shipping from e-commerce
• meeting people in person and shaking their hand or hugging them

This also opens up new possibilities in word-of-mouth or viral marketing, wherein people will describe the experience they have with these objects to other people.
Overlay.TV for Interaction will continue development over the course of the year, and we will keep you informed as we uncover new and exciting use cases for everyday interaction with objects new and old.

(please bear in mind that this was originally posted on April 1st)