Will the HP Sprout Change the Way We Compute?

Jelly Beans - Sprout by HP

When will computing become immersive?

What if your computer let you touch your data — not just on a flat vertical monitor, but on the desk space in front of you? What if your friends and coworkers could remotely throw words, data, images or objects from their computer straight to your desk area where you could integrate it into your own work with a flick of your fingers? What if you could compile and rearrange all the elements for documents, images, slideshows and movies by grabbing objects with your hands and pushing and pulling them around on the table in front of you?

What if you could scan any physical object in your house and immediately see it in 3D, manipulate it with your hands in 3D, and make changes to it for aesthetic improvements or to serve a new function? What if in the future this 3D desk space could work in tandem with 3D printers, so your 3D virtual designs could translate immediately to the real world?

Is your PC finally due for a reboot?

We’ve all been using desktop and laptop computers for three decades now. They’ve advanced a lot over the years, boosting storage and processing power to let our applications get more complex and useful.

But the way we physically use our computers hasn’t changed much at all. How often have you wondered “When will my computer respond to my gestures and connect with the world around it, like Tony Stark’s JARVIS computer in Iron Man 2?”

Sprout by HP: jump into the future

Origami by hand, connecting the digital and physical worlds - Sprout by HPHP has opened the door to that future with the Sprout by HP. And you can step through that door right now.

Reinventing the desktop computer, Sprout is a rare breakthrough — truly a first-of-its-kind. It connects the digital world with the physical world, to let you interact in both at once using “blended reality.” HP says it’s ideal for prosumers, for “makers,” and indeed for all consumers. “We believe that it doesn’t take a creative person to generate creative projects. Everyone wants to create cool stuff,” said Brad Short, distinguished technologist at HP and the inventor of Sprout. “We are targeting the maker in all of us.”

And what kind of storage would such a computer have? Of course, a Solid State Hybrid Drive (SSHD) because you’d need big 1TB capacity for those enormous data-hungry files, apps and high-res 3D images, and near-SSD speed to get at it quickly, at a price everyone can afford. That’s why HP decided to equip Sprout exclusively with Seagate SSHD drives. All the components are top tier — check the full specs here.

Sprout creates a digital environment optimized for “creative expression and human interaction.” It looks a bit like other all-in-one computers but it adds several tools normal PCs don’t have that enable breakthrough abilities.

Two monitors — one is your desk space in 3D

Besides the usual touchscreen monitor, there’s the HP Touch Mat — a big, flexible capacitive multi-touch mat in front of you that acts as a second display on which you can manipulate everything you see. “Multi-touch” in a big way: it accepts input from 20 touch points — which means two people could use all their fingers at once to manipulate data.

This alone is truly revolutionary. Touch Mat is a virtual desktop and sketchpad like previous tools never were. Using your finger, you can grab an image from the vertical display and flick it down to the Touch Mat, then handle it, rotate it, grow or shrink it, add to it, change the positions of layers, all with your hands — no need for mouse or keyboard. Sprout also comes with the Adonit Jot Pro stylus to write and draw comfortably, a premium wireless chiclet-style keyboard (or just use the virtual keyboard) and an optical mouse.

Sprout also has not only a high-res webcam, but also the HP Illuminator: a scanner and projector mounted from the screen above the mat with high-resolution 2D and 3D cameras in it, and a depth sensor — it can really read 3D, not just photograph it. Using Intel’s RealSense camera, Sprout projects varied black and white line patterns over an object on the Touch Mat, then reconstructs a 3D “snapshot” which is more of a model in Sprout’s memory than it is a mere photograph.

The workspace makes it all possible

And it comes with Sprout Workspace, a new operating system that integrates Sprout’s dual-screen 2D+3D experience with your Windows work.

What does all the new hardware and software mean? So many things. It means computing may never be the same — besides improving the way you interface your usual work applications, choose new apps that best serve your workflow and you’ll find you’re working in ways a normal PC simply can’t enable.

It means you can scan and capture real-world objects in 3D and manipulate the digital rendering of those objects using your hands. Using the touch mat as your canvas, the projector makes the object appear to be in 3D physical space in your hands.

It means you can collaborate with people around the world not only by seeing each other and seeing what they see, but by touching and manipulating each other’s data, images, 3D-imaged objects in real time. You lay out your work, invite your team to touch it, they manipulate it on their system and you see the results in 3D on your own mat.

HP shares lots of fascinating stories about how customers are already using Sprout. Check out Comic Book legend Stan Lee and his team as they work to recreate the “Stan Man” character using Sprout:

And see how designer and author Sophie Conran uses Sprout to blend the physical and the digital to breathe new life into her renovation project:

The start of the immersive future

Does Sprout represent the beginning of a new more immersive future of computing? Ron Coughlin, senior vice president for HP Personal Systems, says it does. As he told The Telegraph, “You will see Sprout and Sprout’s capabilities go onto new form factors, go after new segments, and even project into new services, so consider this the beginning of a much more expansive ambition.”

2018-08-27T15:14:29+00:00

About the Author:

John Paulsen
John Paulsen is a "Data for Good" advocate, with more than 20 years in the data storage industry. He's helped launch many industry-firsts including HAMR technology, 10K-rpm and 15K-rpm hard drives, drives designed specifically for video and for gaming, Serial ATA drives, fluid dynamic HDD motors, 60TB SSDs, and MACH.2 multi-actuator technology.