I’m not surprised too much by the idea of putting interactive technology in every place imaginable.  I don’t think it will be too long before we find games in urinals at bars.  

The example on the right is demonstration of an interactive floor that was created for Swarovski Kristallwelten called Ice Passage.  There’s a nice video on the site if you follow the link.

It was made possible using vvvv

vvvv is a toolkit for real time video synthesis. It is designed to facilitate the handling of large media environments with physical interfaces, real-time motion graphics, audio and video that can interact with many users simultaneously.

It seems to me the current technology coming out of Microsoft such as Seadragon, Deep Zoom and Photosynth have created a foundation for doing extremely rich real time data driven visual experience that can be extended to any medium.

I could see something like  a “mirror” at a shoe store that could put virtually any shoe on your foot as you walk by and even learn from you as you shop.  All you would have to do to see a specific shoe would be to hold it as you walk by.  It could also update based on what shoes you currently have on and what parts of the store you’ve been browsing.

There are so many uses, not just sales related, that it boggles the mind.  I think we are on a precipice of a new level of interactive technology.