Well, that thing looks promising.
As I have told before, I love blending projection with real-life objects and touch systems (hey, this blog is full of touch stuff). So, the new HP Sprout combines an all-in-one touch pc (similar to the HP Touchsmart) with a projection system in front of the computer. Additionally, this beast claims to recognize the interaction on top of the projection and blends it with the content on the computer screen. For this purpose, it seems to use some kind of 3D detection camera stuff (surprise, surprise, we did this as well at our university). Long story short, just have a look at the video above to get the impression.
Judging from the video above (which I would really like to know if this is showing the real usage or the slightly improved by After Effects interaction), using that thing could be real fun. Or it could be a pain in the butt if the interaction is not implemented well. As this is a proprietary system for which the software is initially provided by HP, I wonder if we will see any updates and new applications for this system later on. It somehow reminds me of those giant Lenovo table PCs. Their concept is great but the system has barely seen any new table software after their initial release.
Anyway, I would really love to lay my hands on one of these Sprout PCs to figure out how well the interaction is. Even more, I would like to let my 5 year old son use it and see if it works. He would be the right test user to evaluate the intuitive interaction with the system :)
UPDATE: Seems like the multi-touch veterans from Ideum contributed to the bundled software of the Sprout. This is really good news :)