Last Thursday on the eve of the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony, Acer invited me to the opening of their Interactive Pavilion in the Olympic Park.
To get in I needed an Olympic Park ticket.
Located within the Olympic Park, the Pavilion is a 1200 sq meter building with two floors dedicated to visitors, offering interactive areas and displaying Acer's latest technology and products. The third floor, dedicated to Acer's guests, offers a panoramic view of the park.
This was the view from the third floor of the Acer pavilion looking out across the Park. Not too bad and one certainly worth a look at!
The inside of the Pavilion is great, with lots of areas to relax and interact.
Chris Holmes is Britain's most successful individual Paralympic swimmer who has won nine Paralympic gold medals, including six at a single Games. He talked to us for a while about the 2012 Games and the Paralympics.
Also on hand was Leon Taylor who is an Olympic medal-winning diver and mentor to Tom Daley.
The outside of the Pavilion has a number of screens that can be used individually or all together. Opening all of them together only takes a few moments and the results are extremely good.
The Acer Pavilion has been designed to excellence in sporting achievements and technological innovation, leading visitors on a journey through the outstanding accomplishments that challenge the limits of human capabilities. When entering the Pavilion visitors will receive a smart card that will enhance their journey in the pavilion allowing them to track their experience and collect points and interact with their personal avatar.
In the "Fast, Faster, Fastest" Challenge, players can dare their friends in a race against time using tablets placed around a raised floor that displays a projected track. The experience is triggered by the visitor's smart card. As the user inserts the card, their avatar appears on the track. Players must move their avatar as fast as they can while jumping over obstacles. The tablet ICONIA A510 acts as the control device for the experience.
Another striking feature of the Pavilion is the Journey Sphere, a huge globe 'alive' with moving atoms and streaming data. Visitors can navigate through the content thanks to tablets placed around the sphere and acting as a touchpad. On activation, a bright glow and a title tag will appear and the user will be invited to explore content such as challenges and videos.
The visitor's journey can continue on all computers displayed: from the ultrabooks to the professional all-in-one dektops. Acer also teamed up with ISM to offer a unique gaming experience around the official video game of the London 2012 Olympic Games that visitors will be able to experience on Acer Predator G7 the ultimate gaming computer.
The Pavilion is a lot of fun, and I recommend a visit if you get a chance.
Have you been to the Olympic Park yet? If so, let us know what you thought of it by leaving a comment below.