Imagine a large interactive window that can act like a movie screen, a computer screen and a touch screen. Your hand is the mouse, and by brushing the screen you can manipulate images on it. The screen, thinner than two inches, can range from the size of a big-screen TV to as large as 12 feet high and 12 feet wide.

The product, called Impulse Window, takes touch-screen technology to a bigger dimension and opens up a new world of interactive applications, says Mark Ginsberg, an Iowa City jeweler who came up with the concept.

For the past four months, Ginsberg has been testing a four-by-six-foot model at the Sheraton Iowa City Hotel, where about 400 people a day are interacting with it, he said. Now, after three years in development, the patent-pending technology is ready to be marketed.

From a survey of potential users earlier this year, “what we learned was, this has multiple applications,” Ginsberg said. “I think it’s limited only by the creativity of the user. Basically what it does is replaces the mouse, and creates an environment where multiple users can either see or participate with this. The nice thing about this versus a small (touch-screen) kiosk – everyone walking past it can see it.”

Kirk Blunck, a principal with Herbert Lewis Kruse Blunck in Des Moines, said Ginsberg has developed a product that his fellow architects will appreciate.

“It’s hard to impress us with technological things, but I was impressed,” he said. “I was impressed also because Mark and his technical partners have done a better than average job of answering questions, particularly when it comes to fitting into a piece of architecture. They’ve developed something that’s very, very thin, which is very appealing. It’s really impossible to understand how you’re getting this immense computer screen to interact with you.”

Blunck said the technology should be considered for several projects his firm is designing, among them the new downtown Des Moines Public Library, the John Pappajohn Higher Education Center in Des Moines and the Figge Arts Center in Davenport.

“We’d be remiss not to share this technology with our clients,” he said. “We’ll make a serious presentation of this technology to each of these clients.”

Ginsberg, who owns the M.C. Ginsberg jewelry and contemporary art galleries in Iowa City and West Des Moines, was originally looking for a creative way to entice people passing by his store windows after the galleries were closed and most of the displays were put away.

“I wanted something to engage people about our products, our history,” he said. “There was nothing in the market that would engage them in a conversation.”

Ginsberg contacted Adam Brown, a professor at the University of Oklahoma specializing in multimedia art and presented him with the idea of a large-format, interactive environment.   That led to a patent search, which found there were no existing applications that use touch-screen technology beyond a screen of about two feet by three feet. He applied for and received patent-pending status, and spent the past summer conducting surveys of potential users.   The applications for Impulse Window are “endless,” said Chuck Goldberg, general manager of the Sheraton Iowa City Hotel.

For the hotel, “I’d like to see it as almost a virtual concierge,” he said. “I think a device like that can be used to tell visitors what’s exactly what’s in our community, with full-motion video combined with words, to give them a full tour of the community. I also think it can be used to tell guests about our services and about our other hotels in this area.”

Ginsberg said he has assembled a seven-person team composed of engineers, multimedia specialists, three-dimensional programmers and a chief financial officer that will probably locate in Iowa City.

An Iowa venture capital group has expressed interest in backing the start-up company, he said, but it may be possible to keep it self-financed because it’s so close to rolling out the products.

Though the devices are now being built one at a time, Ginsberg’s plan is to make kits available that people with little technical knowledge can purchase and set up on their own. The unit cost hasn’t been determined, but could range anywhere from about $20,000 to $30,000, depending on whether the user provides his or her own projector or plasma TV.

The window is compatible with any computer operating platforms and can be used with programs such as Flash, Java, PowerPoint, HTML or virtually any multimedia software, or it can receive information via the Internet.

The fledgling company has already received one order for a unit, and has heard from a clinic in California interested in buying three units, Ginsberg said.

“We’re talking to everybody,” he said. “There’s a lot of interest right now. I think people are trying to figure out what it is.”

More information on Impulse Window is available at www.impulsewindow.com.