So touch is a creative software company that has developed So touch Presention for creating multi-touch presentations for Windows 7. You can download a trial version from the So touch website. Minimal requirements are a 1.6GHz processor (Core2 Duo), 2 Gb of RAM, and a 512Mb graphic card.)
Here's the promotional video:
Here is the promotional information from the So touch YouTube site:
"Create your own multi-touch presentations! Discover the NEW So touch Presentation software!
Get your audience captivated and make your presentations more intuitive and entertaining than ever!
Manipulate images or screenshots of your usual documents with multi-touch gestures! Navigate multi- images format, scroll up and down long images. Then open the original file or document in one tap on the screen leveraging the usual Windows associated application!
Thank to its user-friendly visual administration interface, the So touch presentation software is easy to use and will bring to life your presentations on a day to day basis!"
For more information, get in touch at contact [at] so-touch [dot] com or visit http://www.so-touch.com
FOR THE TECH-CURIOUS "Sotouch Presentation for Windows 7 is developed using Adobe AIR and our unique AS3 framework for Adobe AIR and Windows 7 that is also available on our website! It is the first professional and transparent solution to develop Windows 7 compatible Adobe AIR applications. We are proud to be the first to announce it! There is some open source existing solutions but they don't offer the transparency and efficiency of SoBridge, the TUIO to Windows 7 C# bridge, included with Sotouch Framework." Contact Person: Julien Lescure Company Name: So touch Telephone Number: +44 20 3239 3912 Email Address: contact[at]so-touch[dot]com Web site address: http://www.so-touch.com
"NUITEQ's Snowflake Suite off the shelf multi-touch software product showcased on a 46" flat full HD multi-touch LCD. Available for purchase now.
Snowflake Suite is honored with a Stevie Awards finalist recognition for Best Product or Service of the Year 2009 in the category Media and Entertainment for the International Business Awards. Snowflake Suite is available to OEM's, SI's, VAR's, software engineers and end clients. Snowflake Suite comes with hands full of multi-touch applications, an API and a SDK.
Compatible with different multi-touch hardware technology platforms, including: 3M Touch Systems, N-trig, NextWindow, Lumio, Nexio, IR Touch, rear camera based systems, dreaMTouch and others."
"Natural User Interface Technologies AB (NUITEQ) is a Swedish technology company, that offers off the shelf and customized software for interactive single and multi-touch devices. Additionally NUITEQ executes large scale customization projects, concerning multi-touch technology hardware, software and services. In parallel, NUITEQ is working on other innovative emerging technologies within the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI)."
Today's News: NUITEQ wins MerlT Award for development through collaboration, growth potential and innovative thinking.
RELATED
NUITEQ Flat 46'' Multi-touch LCD
Key Features
Size: 46"
Snowflake Suite life time license included
Full HD
Simultaneous detectionand tracking of up 32 touch points
Definite and reliable detection of touch points
Real multi-touch function: no specific constraints, like temporal order or position of touch points
Particularly suitable for embedded systems: Processing of complex evaluation steps via touch controller,
e.g. keyboard emulation
Sample rate: 50 frames/s
Glass: 4 mm toughened safety glass
Slim design: only 3 cm construction depth and 5 cm frame width
USB interface and separate power supply
No drift, no calibration required
Applicable to all display technologies
Protocol: TUIO
Detection of size and position of objects in the active area
2 years warranty
Electrical
Power Supply: 19 V DC ± 20 %
Power Consumption: 11 W
Interface: USB 1.1, full speed
Functional
Simultaneous Touch Points: 32
Touch Point Size: > 10 mm
Spatial Resolution: < 2 mm
Communication Protocol : Propriatary or ·· TUIO 1.0 (2Dcur and 25Dcur profiles)
Scan Speed: 55 ms
Mechanical Data
Frame Dimensions: 1136 x 680 x 28 mm
Frame Finish: Black powder coating (RAL 9011)
Active Area: 1018.1 x 572.7 mm
Window: 4 mm double-sided anti-reflective laminted safety filterglass
Weight: 11 kg (including filter glass)
Monitor: Direct fit to SHARP PN-465E (35,5 KG)
Environmental
Operating Temperature: 0 °C to 40 °C
Operating Humidity: 20 % to 80 % (no condensation)
Also available as a horizontal solution.
NUITEQ Wiki Harry van der Veen's NUITEQ Blog (I've been following Harry van der Veen's journey since he was a university student. At the time, he was a leading member of the NUI-Group, creating a DYI multi-touch table as part of his studies. This was before Microsoft Surface was born.)
I've been so busy writing reports* that this almost passed me by!
I found out about 6rounds because they use Twitter as a promotional platform. I happened to notice that this company was following me and clicked on the link.
6rounds started out as an outgrowth of a speed dating website, and the application was initially designed for people to use while waiting for speed dating sessions. According to the 6rounds website FAQ's, "6rounds is a live meeting point, offering users a variety of experiences that they enjoy together using a combination of webcams, real-time games, social activities and media engagements."
Since I'm a happily married middle-aged woman, I'm not sure 6rounds is up my alley. I think social singles, college students, and others who don't mind flashing their faces through a webcam would like it.
If I had time, I might like to play around with GixOO, the opensource API that underpins 6rounds. GixOO has the potential for developers to develop games and activities. The application allows the users to track each other as they move their mice, and also enables people to see the same things as their friends as they interact online.
6rounds looks like it might provide possibilities for collaborative projects in education, but I won't be sure until I give it a try.
So what is 6rounds?
FOR THE TECH-CURIOUS
The following information was quoted from the Openomics blog from Sun Microsystem's ISV Engineering:
"6rounds is the first product built on the GixOO live social platform, initially developped on the LAMP stack. As a member of the Sun Startup Essentials program, GixOO connected with Sun's ISV Engineering team to test the scalability of their platform on SAMP --the Solaris-based AMP stack, available in an integrated and optimized package from Sun, the Sun Glassfish Web Stack f.k.a. CoolStack. At the time, we ran the benchmark on a Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 server --featuring the 64-way CoolThreads processor UltraSPARC T2-- running Solaris 10 and CoolStack 1.3. GixOO loved the DTrace kernel instrumentation of Solaris 10 --DTrace gives unique insights into how the application performs, live on a production system-- and the Containers technology a.k.a. Zones --this light-weigth virtualization layer of Solaris allows multiple applications to run in isolation from each other on the same physical hardware--, and quickly adopted them for their internal use.
"At GixOO, we use Sun SPARC-based server, powered by Solaris 10 for our R&D environment. The system gives us the required flexibility and components isolation that we need. Thanks to SPARC's great SMP abilities, we achieve high performance for many development environments running on one single 1U server.
Solaris Zones are very comfortable and simple to configure, and allow the full utilization of the great power hidden in this small machine, which makes Solaris 10 an excellent choice for system administrators. We are using Sun MySQL Server which gives our application high speed data storage solution, and in the future we might migrate to the MySQL Cluster solution to get even faster results."
Dmitry Shestak, CTO, GixOO"
Somewhat Related
2/26/10: Oracle bought Sun in 2009. Here were the latest results when I did a search to get more information:
Not Really Related
*For those new to this blog, I'm a school psychologist who returned to her day job full time a year and 1/2 ago, when the economy was taking a nosedive. Before that, I was working part-time and taking computer and technology classes, initially to learn how to create interactive multimedia applications and games.
Since some of the kids and teens I work with have a range of abilities and disabilities, including autism, I developed an interest in accessibility. How can universal design principles be applied to games and emerging interactive technologies? I'm also fascinated by interactive displays and surfaces of all sizes, especially ubiquitous systems that support cognition, collaboration and communication.
One of my pet projects:
My vision? A collaborative multimedia, multi-modal interactive time-line might help us to understand complex, interrelated factors and events more effectively. It would provide an opportunity for the inquisitive to view things from a broad perspective, and also explore things in rich detail. Ideally, the time-line would support multi-touch, multi-user interaction on larger displays and interactive whiteboards, and allow for people who are remotely located to participate in the process.
Now that one of my schools will be getting a multi-touch SMARTTable, I'd like to experiment with time-line concepts and interactions on a table surface. I'd also like to figure out how this can work seamlessly with the existing SMARTBoard that is in the classroom. Of course, this would have to take place during after work hours!
David Pogue, a technology writer for the New York Times, recently wrote a detailed, entertaining post about pocket projectors, also known as pico projectors. According to Pogue, the LG Expo cell phone comes with an (almost) built-in projector. The Aaxa, another pico, uses lasers to generate high-resolution images, comes with speakers, and allows for projecting from a range of sources, including DVD players, TiVo, camcorders, laptops, computers, and soon, iPods & iPhones.
According to Pogue, "pico projectors have a very bright, high-resolution future".
For the tech-curious:
DLP Pico Projector Developoment Kit-Part 3- Another Geek Moment "Part 3 of Another Geek Moment series on the DLP® Pico™ Projector Development Kit provided by Digi-Key and Texas Instruments. In this episode, Jeremy explains some of the capabilities of the Pico projector and how to manipulate them."
Chris Yanc, of Cyan Design, has been creating multi-touch applications for a while. His work, "Multi-touch Experiments" was included in the Collider Exhibition Series in Akron, Ohio. Below is a video of his experiments, a video of a demo app for an interactive touch conference map, info about his work with the 36 Views of a Bridge project, and links to his tutorials and code.
About the Collider Exhibition Series (info taken from the website): "The Collider Exhibition Series examines the impact, implications and inspi- ration of the phenomenon generally categorized under the umbrella term New Media within the design practice and fine arts.Collider: Interactivity and New Media is an initial exploration into this realm. The exhibition seeks to provoke an awareness of the pervasive nature of New Media as it is applied in every function of our society and immerges as a forum for the highest expressions of our contemporary culture. It explores the results of collisions between humans and machines, biology and com- putations, art and technology, thought and process. What is New Media? And what are the implications to artists and designers when worlds, cul- tures and even identities collapse, build and collide."
Chris Yanc's Multi-Touch Demo App: Tokyo Game Show 09 Conference Map
Chris was involved with the 36 Views of a Bridge at the Bridge Project in Cleveland, Ohio. His post, 36 Views of a Bridge, explains in detail how his work was created, and also observations of groups of people interacting with the multi-touch table that was part of this project.
The sliding list widget demonstrated in the above video was created using Flash and can be downloaded from Chris's website: Sliding Lists ~ TUIO Flas App Widget. The link will take you to "how-to" information, a code example, and also to a link to download the widget.
Chris was kind enough to share his repository of tutorials and code: http://www.cyancdesign.com/tutorials/ His tutorial page has lots of good links!
I'll be highlighting more work by innovative individuals, groups, and companies from time-to-time in future posts.
I've come across more news about telepresence and video conferencing lately. The technology is getting better, and businesses are finding that this provides a great way to save money and time.
Here are some videos and pictures from the Telepresence Options Network about ways large displays are used in a variety of settings.
Starwood Hotels & Resorts and Tata Communications are installing telepresence meeting suites in a variety of settings. Public rooms can connect with public rooms anywhere, any time.
Here is an excerpt from the promotional materials:
"Providing a user experience similar to industry-leading mobile devices (like smart phones, mp3 players, etc.), the Polycom Touch Control's seven-inch color screen allows casual and power users to easily navigate key functions from basic dialing and content sharing, to advanced features using finger gestures to touch and slide universally recognizable icons and navigate intuitive arrows and tabs. The graphical interface makes it easy for users to locate contacts and dial video calls using a corporate directory, local address book, or presence-enabled contact list. The Polycom Touch Control also makes it easy for anyone (even visitors without network access) to share content during a video call or to present content using the room's audio/visual systems during a non-video meeting. Multiple content sharing methods are available with Touch Control to allow users to quickly and easily share content using the integrated USB ports."
The Human Productivity Lab is hosting the Inter-Company Telepresence and Videoconferencing Conference and Working group on Thursday, April 22, 2010, in Reston, Virginia.
Several high schools in my school district have distance learning sites. I noticed that Polycom video encoders are part of the package. The following is information from the UCPS Distance & Online Learning website:
"In Union County Public Schools, distance learning students are located in traditional classrooms throughout the district's high school distance learning sites, connected via conferencing to a teacher and students located in a distant classroom (the host/sending site).
Our distance learning labs feature modern Polycom equipment designed to enhance students' learning experiences. Our distance learning classrooms include:
3-42" NEC plasma displays, 1serving as a rear monitor
"Maryland Public Television (MPT) and MIT Education Arcade teamed up with FableVision to create Lure of the Labyrinth, an innovative gaming-meets-storytelling approach to improve math and literacy among middle-school students. Plunge into a shadowy, moster-filled factory on a mission to rescue your missing pet. Can you maneuver through math problems and find your beloved pet in time!?"
The Lure of the Labyrinth middle-school pre-algebra game is linked to state and national math standards and comes with good resources for teachers. On the For Educators page, teachers (and parents) can find information about how students can play the game, how it can be incorporated into the classroom setting, how to prepare the students for playing the game, how to use the game to support working in pairs and group, and more. Below is the introductory video:
Scot Osterweil and his team at MIT's Education Arcade, designed Lure of the Labyrinth. Scot is the research director of the Education Arcade, and has worked on software such as InspireData (Inspiration Software). He is the former Senior Designer at TERC, an R & D for math and science education.
RELATED
Klopfer, D., Osterweil,S., Groff, J., & Hass, J. (2009) The Instructional Power of Digital Games, Social Networking, Simulations, and How Teachers Can Leverage Them. Education Arcade, MIT (pdf)
Regarding barriers to adopting digital games, social networking, and simulation technologies in the school, the article reviews the work of Groff and Mouza: "Groff and Mouza (2008) discuss six central factors, each with its own critical variables, that interact with one another to produce barriers to implementing technological innovations in the classroom: (a) Research & Policy factors, (b) District/School factors, (c) factors associated with the Teacher, (d) factors associated with the Technology- Enhanced Project, (e) factors associated with the Students, and (f) factors inherent to Technology itself.
Gee. J.P, & Levine, M.H. Welcome to Our Virtual Worlds (pdf) Educational Leadership, Literacy 2.0, March 2009, Vol. 66, (6). ASCD "The United States is witnessing a growing student engagement crisis. With dropout rates approaching 50 percent in many urban school districts (Swanson, 2008) and recent education surveys showing that students are overwhelmingly bored in school (Bridgeland, DiIulio, & Morison, 2006; Yazzie-Mintz, 2007), we clearly need to find new ways to motivate learners."
"A crucial first step in promoting student engagement is to rethink literacy for the 21st century. One path to this new learning equation comes, perhaps paradoxically, from popular culture. Many young people today play long and difficult video games that involve complex thinking and problem solving married to complex language. Although the most frequent criticism of video games is that many involve shooting and killing, a good many focus on other things. Civilization and Rise of Nations force players to think on a large scale about history, development across time, and civilizations. SimCity, The Sims, and, for very young children, Animal Crossing ask players to build and sustain cities and communities. Age of Mythology players regularly read and write about mythologies across the world, specifically from Greek, Egyptian, and Norse civilizations. Some gamers write strategy guides for the games they play—technical writing at its best—and share them over the Internet."
"Scot Osterweil, a pioneer in learning and game play, shares his thoughts on the concept of "The Four Freedoms of Play." Scot Osterweil works at MIT as the Education Arcade Research Director. Here Scot presents to the Harvard Business School in Cambridge, MA in a weekly education technology forum called BrainGain."
Kurt Squire did his doctoral research on the use of Sid Meier's Civilization to teach social studies. Resources for how the game can be used in education can be found at the CivWorld website. Kurt is the co-founder and current director of the Games + Learning + Society (GLS) website, University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is an assistant professor.
There are an increasing number of universities offering coursework related to the design and development of games for learning and education.
"Globe4D is an interactive, four-dimensional globe. It's a projection of the Earth's surface on a physical sphere. It shows the historical movement of the continents as its main feature, but it is also capable of displaying all kinds of other geographical data such as climate changes, plant growth, radiation, rainfall, forest fires, seasons, airplane routes, and more."
Publication:
Companje, R., van Dijk, N., Hogenbirk, H., Mast, D., Globe4D: Time traveling with an interactive four-dimensional globe. Proc. MM '06, ACM
One of the schools I serve as a school psychologist will be getting a SMARTTable. We've decided to enter the SMART Table multi-touch application contest, which means that we'll have to put our ideas into action soon, July 1st, to be exact. (We will be working on this project after work hours.)
The purpose of this post is to provide a spot to keep videos related to the SMARTTable, as well as other multi-touch tables used with students, so team members watch the table in action. (I will move this content to a special website for this project when I get a moment!)
Our school recently received about 8 SMARTBoards, and since every classroom is geared for students with severe disabilities, including autism, I thought I'd share the following video first. The students have started to work cooperatively and have begun to develop more communication skills:
SMARTBOARD AND STUDENTS WITH SEVERE DISABILITIES
(The teacher in this video uses theZACH browser, designed for students with autism, to help them independently navigate to interactive websites. The Zac browser can be navigated with a Wii remote controller, too.)
SMARTTable- Engaged Students from Davie County
ALIVE OR NOT ALIVE
ANIMAL NEEDS:
ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION
1MORE, 1 LESS
"In this table activity 1 More, 1 Less students work on a series of touch exercises in the tables Multiple Choice, Hot Spaces and Hot Spots applications where they can practice simple addition and subtraction."
WHAT IS REAL ABOUT PLANTS AND ANIMALS?
ALPHABET
"In this table activity Alphabet students work on a series of touch exercises in the tables Multiple Choice and Hot Spots applications where they can learn about different letters of the alphabet."
HOW-TO VIDEOS FOR THE SMART TABLE
Adding background images from SMART Notebook using Windows XP
SMARTTable Toolkit: Adding background images from SMART Notebook using MAC OSX
Here are a few quotes from the students who had a chance to try out a 3D learning experience in their classroom:
"I think it would really stay in your brain more, because you're having fun with it."
"It's really interactive and exciting"
"It lets you focus on the details of it."
Students usually don't give this sort of reaction when they are asked to open up a traditional textbook! "Book work is boring. (With 3D) you get into it...and then you can play back that picture in your mind when you're taking a test" - Student, Rock Island, IL (track 3).
DLP Enables 3D in the Classroom at FETC (Promotional video)
RELATED:
The Classroom in 3D THE Journal, February 2010 "In assessing the classroom potential of 3D, experts point to its capacity to enhance visualization. That could prove useful in classes such as geometry, in which the third dimension could illustrate complex spatial concepts, and biology, where 3D could be used for frog dissections or to show images of cells. Subjects such as astronomy, history, geography, art history, and earth sciences would be enriched as well."
Brian Storm, the founder and president of MediaStorm, recently was a presenter during UNC's Photo Night, an event that celebrates various forms of photo-journalism. Tracy Boyer, author of the Innovative Interactivity blog, recently posted about her experience attending the presentation and her chance to chat with Brian Storm over lunch.
Tracy's post provides a good overview of MediaStorm's business model, which has four main components - multiple platform publication, project-specific multimedia agency, an interactive production studio, and evangelism/training. I think that MediaStorm's business model will hold well for the future, given the rapid changes in technology, journalism, and cross-platform interactive media. Despite the economic downturn, MediaStorm had their best year, according to Tracy.
Below is an example of what you'll find on the MediaStorm website:
"On July 2, 2002, Jean and Harlow Cagwin watched as their home — the last remnant of their 118-acre cattle farm in Lockport, Illinois — was torn down clearing the way for a new housing development. Several years later, Ed and Amanda Grabenhofer and their four children moved into the new Willow Walk subdivision, their house just yards from where the Cagwin's home once stood.
Common Ground introduces us to the lives touched by this land, as photographer Scott Strazzante takes us on a visual journey exploring the differences and similarities of these two families while simultaneously asking us to look at what is common among us all."
What I liked about the videography and photography is how the photography juxtaposed similar pictures depicting the commonalities between the older couple who once lived on the farmland that was transformed into the suburban home for young families.
RELATED ABOUT MEDIASTORM (from the MediaStorm website) "Originally founded in 1994 at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, MediaStorm relaunched in March of 2005 with a focus on creating cinematic narratives for distribution across a variety of platforms.
In November 2005, MediaStorm premiered its award-winning multimedia publicationhttp://mediastorm.org. Utilizing animation, audio, video and the power of still photography, we publish diverse narratives that speak to the heart of the human condition.
MediaStorm is widely recognized for the quality editorial work we've produced for our manyclients. We have created award-winning multimedia projects, interactive applications, and web sites for media companies, foundations and advocacy groups. Our clientele includes Starbucks, Council on Foreign Relations, and National Geographic Magazine. MediaStorm projects have also appeared on numerous websites including MSNBC, Slate, NPR and Reuters and have been broadcast on PBS..."
"MediaStorm is a multimedia production studio based in Brooklyn, New York and collaborating virtually with creative resources around the globe. MediaStorm's principal aim is to usher a new era of multimedia storytelling, via our publication, our advanced workshops and our industry-leading production and consulting services. The people we hire and the culture that we have created for quality and innovation at MediaStorm are the keys to our success." MediaStorm Founder Brian Storm advises journalism community to partner and collaborate
Tracy Boyer, Innovative Interactivity, 2/17/10 Bloggers: If you link to MediaStorm, be sure to send an email to info@mediastorm.org with your URL.
