One UX Guy's Cool Infographic Resume

I came across a link to Mike Dunn's post about the re-make of his UX resume and was intrigued by his use of infographics to represent his multi-faceted skills and career experiences:


You can find more details about this process on Mike Dunn's post, Building a better UX resume.


I like his statement:


 “Good UX isn’t about ‘getting it done’, it’s about seeing the potential in every interaction.”

Infographics:





Final Version (pdf):

ART BY CHANCE: Ultra Short Film Festival, running on flat panel digital signage in the wild!

The Art by Chance festival will take place on digital screens in public places all over the world! Here is the promotional material from the Art By Chance website:

LOOK AROUND! Films leave cinemas for the streets

"ART BY CHANCE is a brand new Ultra Short Film Festival will take place from7 May to 4 June 2010 in more than 20 countries and over 100 cities worldwide. 
For this festival, you don't need to buy a ticket or go to a movie theater! Movies just pop into your lives in subways, buses, airports, shopping malls, trains, sports centers, art galleries, museums, plains, campuses, cafes and bars! Internationally selected and "TIME" themed creative short films catch you unexpectedly while traveling in the subway, waiting at the airport, shopping or just strolling around.

Art by Chance 2010 has set out to explore how the perception of time is unique to every individual and how time can influence the narrative of city life, one of modern man’s greatest challenges. Films touching the untouchable theme of time in their own time. 

Digital screens scattered around the city your host for this festival. ART BY CHANCE simultaneously air in Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, The Netherlands, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, South Africa, Turkey, UK, USA and It reachs the largest audience ever, allowing art to break into the lives of millions around the world."

ART BY CHANCE 2010 Selection
17.01.1922 / Emilia& Marek Straszak / Poland
Before the Game is After the Game / Henriette Vogtherr / Germany
Contemplate Impermanence / Thomas Zachmeier / Germany
Cyclist / Serhat Dogan- Jeff Treves / Turkey
Eindeloos / Emmy Storm / Belgium
Eye / Todd Herman / US
Follow the white rabbit / Sylvain Favardin- Ludmila Korenarova / Belgium
Half a minute of eternity / Frank Becker- Bernd Straub Molitor / Germany
How to Use Time Flexibly / Eckhard Kruse / Germany
Irreversible / Appu N. Bhattathiri / India
Is this your limb? / Michael Ramsey / US
Mechanism / Michal Wojtasik- Agnieszka Kosinska / Poland
Melt / Kathryn Maguire / Ireland
Movemento / Ahmet Serif Yildirim- Davut Toy / Turkey
No Time / Caroline Arce Herrero / Spain
Parallel Spaces / Georgi Krastev / Bulgaria
Portrait and temporality / Pouya Ahmadi / Switzerland
Prelude to A Symphony (in Sweatch) / Christopher Dax Norman / US
Solid/ Liquid / Ozgür Erman / Turkey
Temp Mort (dead time) / Manas Bhattacharya & Madhuban Mitra / India
Thanks Warhol / Caley Jane Dimmock / Canada
The best Buddhist / Wiracha Daochai / Thailand
Time cubed / Alexander Schmutzler / Germany
Time makes every static image dynamic / Justin Lincoln /US
Timebank / Arttu Lehtovaara / Finland
Trains, dames&timetables / Daniel Coss & Neill Staines / Ireland
Twentyfour seven / Aaron Rositzka- Julius Krenz / Germany
Until, after / Emre Ozerden / Turkey
Up and down at day / Bele Albrecht / Germany
Waiting / Amila Galappatthi / Srilanka
Wake Up / Zane Raudina / Latvia

View videos on the ART BY CHANCE 2009 website:

Multi-touch application developed by an all-women team from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology for the Imagine Cup Competition

According to a recent article from the Microsoft News Center, "statistics from high schools and universities suggest that percentage won’t change any time soon. Only 17 percent of Advanced Placement (AP) computer science test-takers in 2008 were women, even though women represented more than half of all AP test-takers. At the college level, fewer than one in five computer and information science degrees were awarded to women."


Microsoft's Imagine Cup competition is a way to encourage female students that they can use technology to help make the world a better place, and that computer science is a field that provides an outlet for creativity a innovation.

One of the teams that participated in the Imagine Cup Competition was "Team Blob". The young women in this team attend South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. Their work can be seen in the video presentation of Team Blob's Multi-touch Designer, which allows teachers to create multi-touch presentations for their students. The application was written in C# using Windows Presentation Foundation.


The team developed a interactive timeline to highlight history's famous women in math and science, and demonstrated it on a 40-inch multi-touch table to girls who visited their university campus. The time-line can be seen in the video clip at about 3:34.

"Team Blob members, from left, Lori Rebenitsch, Robyn Krage and Jaelle Scheuerman demo their application that aims to bring emerging multitouch technology into K-12 classrooms. The all-woman team is from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology."

Thinking Like a Storyteller: Words of Wisdom from Cindy Chastain on the use of storytelling in for interactiondesign (IXDA 10 Video)

Cindy Chastain is a Creative Director, Experience Architecture at Rapp, a global, full-service agency in NYC. Her background is in screen-writing. She also is a film-maker and technology consultant. The video below is of her presentation at IXDA 2010. It is well worth the 47 minute watch!


Here is a quote from Nasir Barday's post on the IXDA blog about Cindy Chastain's presentation:


"Designing with a narrative in mind can make a difference between a product that merely functions well and a product that engages the minds, emotions and imaginations of users." Nasir Barday, IXDA 2/26/10


Here are a few quotes from the presentation:
"How can we, as designers, provide cues that will deepen that narrative connection?"


"What can we learn from the discipline of storytelling that will help us design for more meaningful and engaging product experiences?"

"If we can move away from thinking of products in terms of interfaces and start thinking of them as representations or environments, in which agents perform actions,  we will get us to a place where we can design more fluid and engaging dialogues/experiences."



Cindy Chastain-Thinking Like a Storyteller from Interaction Design Association on Vimeo.

Near the beginning of this video, Cindy discusses the concept of the user's narrative, described as a stream of self-talk occurs when someone interacts with a design product. Two types of narratives are likely to occur.  According to Cindy, this phenomenon was noted by cognitive scientists.  One is narrative of use,  and involves the person's self-talk about  the products features and affordances. The other is a personal narrative, which focuses on what the product means, how it might fit into one's life, and how it might be used.

Interactive Multi-Touch for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Research and Apps by Juan Pablo Hourcade, Thomas Hanson, and Natasha Bullock-Rest, University of Iowa

Dr. Juan Pablo Hourcade heads a team of researchers at the University of Iowa who are creating multi-touch applications and other technologies to support communication, collaboration, creativity, and self-expression for young people with Autism Spectrum Disorders.  The picture below is a screen shot of the team's web page that includes a few videos of the team's important work: (Videos can be found on the Technologies for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders webpage.)

RELATED VIDEOS

pymt demo reel from Thomas Hansen on Vimeo.


Multi Touch @ University of Iowa from Thomas Hansen on Vimeo.


RELATED
Hourcade, J.P., & Hansen, T.E. (2010). Multitouch Displays to Support Preschool Children's Learning in Mathematics, Reading, Writing, Social Skills and the Arts (pdf)


Dr. Hourcade is organizing the Digital Technologies and Marginalized Youth workshop on Satuirday, June 12, 2010 at the 9th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC), which will be held this year in Barcelona, Spain.


Other workshops that will be held at IDC 2010:
Interactive Storytelling for Children
Extended Abstract: Interactive Storytelling for Children (pdf)
Designing Tangibles for Children
Play and Technology:  How does technology initiate and facilitate physical play?


Dr. Hourcade's publications

STEIM- Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music: Interactive Music + Technology (Video clips and links)

I came across the STEIM website today and was impressed by what I saw on the videos embedded/linked below.

What is STEIM?  According to the website, "STEIM (the studio for electro-instrumental music) is the only independent live electronic music centre in the world that is exclusively dedicated to the performing arts. The foundation's artistic and technical departments support an international community of performers and musicians, and a growing group of visual artists, to develop unique instruments for their work. STEIM invites these people for residencies and provides them with an artistic and technical environment in which concepts can be given concrete form. It catalyzes their ideas by providing critical feedback grounded in professional experience. These new creations are then exposed to a receptive responsive niche public at STEIM before being groomed for a larger audience."


"STEIM promotes the idea that Touch is crucial in communicating with the new electronic performance art technologies. Too much the computer has been used, and designed, as an exclusive extension of the formalistic capabilities of humans. At STEIM the intelligence of the body, for example: the knowledge of the fingers or lips is considered musically as important as the 'brain-knowledge'. STEIM has stimulated the design of extremely physical interfaces and is widely considered as the pioneering place for the new live electronic concepts."

STIEM offers a limited number of internships and residencies. Also available are orientation workshops, and guest house accommodations for visitors participating in the workshops who come from abroad.

If I had the chance to visit STEIM, I would definitely want to play around in the Electronicmusicalinstrumentsexhibition (formerly the Electro Squeek Club), "an exhibition in the form of an arcade where visitors can playfully discover the major directions in the tactile approach within STEIM's instrumental objects."
Mobile Touch:  Finger Web

STEIM Finger Web from STEIM Amsterdam on Vimeo.

SONIC ALADDIN

STEIM Sonic Aladdin from STEIM Amsterdam on Vimeo.

Watch for the interesting iPhone app:

STEIM Hotpot Lab #3 from STEIM Amsterdam on Vimeo.

Presentations by: Alan Macy / BIOPAC;   Jeff Snyder / Snyderphonics
Performances by:  Jan Trützschler von Falkenstein;  Joker Nies and the Benjolin Orchestra
27 March 2010 STEIM, Amsterdam NL

RELATED
The Benjolin:  Build your own electronic fun-box, by Rob Hordijk & Jocker Nies
Making of the Benjolin
STEIM concert curated by John Dikeman: MISSING DOG HEAD & KRK

Why does this interest me?   When I returned to school to take computer classes, my first class was computer music technology.  I have an electronic MIDI workstation/keyboard and I love sound synthesis.  

SMART Technologies Acquires NextWindow

Here is the scoop from PR Web:

SMART Acquires NextWindow Acquisition extends SMART’s presence into broader consumer market and strengthens IP portfolio Calgary, AB (Vocus/PRWEB ) April 25, 2010 -- SMART Technologies, the world’s leading provider of interactive whiteboards, announces the acquisition of New Zealand-based NextWindow (Next Holdings Limited), a leading designer and manufacturer of optical touch technology for integration into all-in-one computers, computer displays and large-format screens. The acquisition reinforces SMART’s own investment in optical touch research and development, and combines the two companies’ significant optical touch patent portfolios. The NextWindow acquisition is expected to have minimal impact on both businesses’ day-to-day operations, offices and company structure. Both SMART and NextWindow are privately held companies. NextWindow supplies optical touch components to manufacturers of PCs and other interactive displays. Its touch components are used in PCs and monitors sold by Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Medion, NEC, Samsung and Sony. The acquisition extends SMART’s current presence in the education, business and government sectors into the broader consumer market. SMART is also expanding its business in Asia, where NextWindow has already been active. In the past year, NextWindow has developed an Asian presence in Singapore, Taiwan and Korea. SMART serves a range of markets, and it is timely to diversify our revenue base beyond the sectors we already serve NextWindow‘s core values, business model, patent portfolio and focus on the consumer market make it an attractive acquisition for us. We are combining two companies with complementary expertise and a remarkably similar culture focused on innovation and excellence NextWindow’s development of optical touch technology complements SMART’s efforts, and I’m delighted that we are becoming part of SMART. “SMART serves a range of markets, and it is timely to diversify our revenue base beyond the sectors we already serve,” says Nancy Knowlton, SMART’s CEO. “NextWindow‘s core values, business model, patent portfolio and focus on the consumer market make it an attractive acquisition for us.” “We are combining two companies with complementary expertise and a remarkably similar culture focused on innovation and excellence,” says Al Monro, NextWindow’s CEO. “NextWindow’s development of optical touch technology complements SMART’s efforts, and I’m delighted that we are becoming part of SMART.” In the transaction, RBC Capital Markets were financial advisors to SMART and Cowen and Company, LLC were financial advisors to NextWindow. About NextWindow Founded in 2001, NextWindow is a designer and manufacturer of optical touch screens for integration into all-in-one computers, computer displays and large-format screens. NextWindow is a leader in optical touch technology, enabling OEMs, ODMs and resellers to add touch-screen capability to their products. With offices in New Zealand, Taiwan, Singapore and the United States, the company provides cost-effective manufacturing for PCs as well as customized solutions for kiosks, digital signage and interactive education. www.nextwindow.com About SMART SMART Technologies, the global leader in interactive whiteboards, develops easy-to-use integrated products and services that can improve the way the world works and learns. For more than 20 years, innovation and commitment to excellence have been at the core of our business. We help educators achieve better results with technology products that support student-centered learning. We help businesses become more productive with easy-to-use collaboration solutions that enable better results. Our success is driven by our deep commitment to and engagement with both the education and business communities. www.smarttech.com For more information, please contact: Marina Geronazzo Manager, Public Relations SMART Technologies Phone +1.403.407.5088 Cell +1.403.605.6607 Web www.smarttech.com ### RELATED Calgary's Smart Technologies acquires high-tech rival. Dan Healing, Calgary Herald, 4/26/10 SMART Technologies acquires NextWindow to move into the touch screen business Dean Takahashi, VenureBeat 4/25/10 NextWindow, shunned by local investors, goes to offshore buyer Chris Keall, 4/26/10, The National Business Review (NZ) [UPDATE: A spokeswoman for NextWindow told NBR the company's NZ office would be retained in the wake of the Smart Technology deal, and that there would be no change to staff.] "NextWindow revenue surged to $40 million last year (from the previous year's $6.5 million) as Microsoft’s Windows 7 software helped push its touchscreen technology toward the mainstream.  The Auckland-based company sells its touchscreen panel to Dell, HP, Sony, NEC and other large computer companies. HP’s TouchSmart series (pictured above) is one line of PCs that features technology made by NextWindow."

LM3Labs' Catchyoo Interactive Koi Pond; release of ubiq'window 2.6 Development Kit and Reader

Catchyoo Koi FX, from LM3Labs

Catchyoo Koi FX from Nicolas Loeillot on Vimeo.

The music on the video clip is by the band Remioromen, from Japan.

LM3Labs recently released ubiq'window 2.6 Pack, a development kit and reader that handles gesture interaction for proximity touch-less technology based on computer vision.  It includes a calibration mode, usage statistics, and is compliant with Windows 7.  In the near future, LM3Labs will release new software for their partners and ubiq'window developers.

About LM3Labs:
"Focused on fast transformation of innovation into unique products, LM3Labs is a recognized pioneer in computer vision-based interactivity solutions. LM3Labs is a fast growing company based in Tokyo, Japan and Sophia-Antipolis, France."  -LM3Labs Blog 

Game Creators and Cartoon Network: More games to create, play, and share online -Star Wars Clone Wars, Ben 10, Batman the Brave and the Bold, and More!

Summer will be here before we know it, and there will be school kids with lots of time on their hands.  I'm sure kids (and parents) will be happy to learn that the The Cartoon Network has beefed up its Game Creator Central website and has expended the number of games available that allow users to build and play their own games. This should keep would-be game developers busy on rainy summer days.

Although some teachers might frown upon cartoon-related content, the creating games is a learning process and can help young people become more interested in "STEM"-related studies and careers.  (STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math)

About Game Creator Central

"Game Creator Central is a free games site that lets you build your own games with your favorite characters from Ben 10: Alien Force, Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Star Wars: The Clone Wars and then send them to Cartoon Network's online game gallery for everyone to play. Plus, you can play tons of games made by other players, rate your favorites or share your creations with your friends. Welcome to the biggest user-generated game site in the world!"

Links to games for playing and building:
Ben 10 Alien Force Game
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Screen Shot of Instructions, from Cartoon Network's Game Creator's Website:

RELATED
The Cartoon Network is affiliated with TimeWarner and Turner, and they are hiring!

Exploring the Design Space in Technology- Augmented Dance at CHI 2010: Celine Latulipe's team from UNC-Charlotte

I was at the CHI conference in Atlanta for a few days earlier this month, where I participated in a workshop on on the next generation of human-interaction and emerging technologies for education.  While I was at the conference, I managed to attend several interesting presentations, which I'll be including in future posts.  I was not able to stay for the entire conference.  The good thing is that many of the conference participants provided links to video, photos, slides, and related papers!

I had a chance to see a performance of dancers from the Dance.Draw team, headed by Dr. Celine Latulipe from UNC-Charlotte.  Dr. Latulipe is involved in several related projects that explore creativity, interaction, dance, music, and art:

Description of the performances held at the April CHI 2010 Conference, Atlanta, Georgia:

Layered Surveillance - A Collaborative Interactive Art Installation 
Celine Latulipe, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Annabel Manning, New Media Artist
View Video Demonstration
Artist Annabel Manning explores the world of immigration and identity, and explores imagery related to border crossings and surveillance. Computer scientist Celine Latulipe explores embodied, collaborative interaction. The intersection of these two worlds leads to research in embodied collaborative interaction and an interactive art exhibit in which participants can explore both static images through interactive layers, and moving video through interactive surveillance lenses. Participants can explore alone or with others, using gyroscopic mice to control different aspects of the artwork. The participants are led, through interaction, to contemplate the (in)visibility of the immigrant and the agency of surveillance.


Photos from the Layered Surveillance Flickr Photostream (Annabel Manning)



Exploring the Design Space in Technology- Augmented Dance (Dance.Draw)
Celine Latulipe, Sybil Huskey, David Wilson, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA
Mike Wirth, Queens University of Charlotte, USA
Berto Gonzalez, Arthur Carroll, Melissa Word, Erin Carroll, Vikash Singh, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA
Danielle Lottridge, University of Toronto, Canada


Video demonstration of the Dance.Draw project (mp4 file)
"This performance is part of an ongoing Dance.Draw project at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, which investigates lightweight methods for integrating dance motion with interactive visualizations and enhancing audience interaction with dance."



-Photo from the Dance Draw website 


RELATED

References for Layered Surveillance:

	C. Latulipe, I. Bell, C. L. Clarke, and C. S. Kaplan. sym-Tone: Two-handed manipulation of tone reproduction curves. In GI 2006 Proceedings, pages 9--16. Canadian Information Processing Society, 2006. C. Latulipe and A. Manning. Interactive surveillance: Audience interaction with moving digital paintings. Interactive Installation at the (re)Actor3 Digital Live Art Conference, September 2008. http://www.digitalliveart.com/. L. Loke, A. T. Larssen, T. Robertson, and J. Edwards. Understanding movement for interaction design: frameworks and approaches. Personal Ubiquitous Comput., 11(8):691--701, 2007. D. Maynes-Aminzade, R. Pausch, and S. Seitz. Techniques for interactive audience participation. In ICMI '02:Proceedings of the 4th IEEE International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces, page 15, Washington, DC, USA, 2002. IEEE Computer Society. S. S. Snibbe and H. S. Raffle. Social immersive media: pursuing best practices for multi-user interactive camera/projector exhibits. In CHI '09: Proceedings of the 27th international conference on Human factors in computing systems, pages 1447--1456, New York, NY, USA, 2009. ACM.

Below is a post I wrote about Dance.Draw in 2008:

DANCE.DRAW: EXQUISITE INTERACTION
(Updated)

"The movement of the visualizations are artifacts in real-time of the movements of the dancers. They draw while they dance, they dance together and they draw together. Every performance generates a new visual imprint." -DanceDraw website

Interactive multimedia technology, blended with the arts!

Dr. Celene LaTulipe, from UNC-Charlotte's Software and Information Systems Department, Professor Sybil Huskey, from the dance department, dance students, and others collaborated to create an amazing performance that I had the opportunity to see performed during the Visualization in the World Symposium in April (2008).

If you look closely, you will see that each dancer holds two wireless mice, one in each hand. The mice trigger the visualization that is projected in the background. Dr. LaTulipe has focused some of her research on two-handed computer interaction. It is interesting to see how her work has been applied to this beautiful "off-the-desktop" application.

Dance.Draw is a work in progress- visit the following links for more information:

Website (Updated)
Movie
Technical Info
Dr. Kosara's Eager Eyes post about Dance.Draw

Note:
Dr. LaTulipe was my HCI professor- Dr. Kosara was my Visualization/Visual Communication professor.

Children and Technology: "A 2.5 Year-Old Has A First Encounter With An iPad"

Handing his daughter a new iPad, the daddy says, "We have a new toy. Are you ready for a new toy?!" Of course she's ready!


Info from Todd Lappin's YouTube Channel:

"A fascinating UI experiment. My daughter likes playing with my iPhone, but this was her very first encounter with an iPad. As you'll see, she took right to it... although she too wonders why it doesn't have a camera! More critical comment on her user-interface test here: http://laughingsquid.com/a-2-5-year-old-uses-an-ipad-for-... PS: The spelling apps she uses in the video are FirstWords Animals and FirstWords Vehicles. They're great... except for the fact that the splash screen UI is non-intuitive for her. ;-)" -Todd Lappin (the dad in the video)

RELATED

Todd Lapin's Laughing Squid post: A 2.5 Year-Old Uses an iPad for the First Time

"If you’re good at understanding kid-speak, you’ll also notice that she immediately saw its potential as a video-display device. She lamented the lack of a camera, and wondered about its potential for playing games"

CHI 2010 Course 

New Methods for Designing for and with the iChild: Strategies for Today's Mobile, Social, and Internet Technologies

I took this class when I attended the recent CHI 2010 conference. We worked in groups and I was assigned the role of a 7 year-old child, designing an iPad app for "kid reporters".  It was fun.  Note:  For the iPad to be used this way in education, it really needs to have a camera/video camera.

The Children of Cyberspace

(Brad Stone, New York Times, January 9, 2010)

"...But these are also technology tools that children even 10 years older did not grow up with, and I’ve begun to think that my daughter’s generation will also be utterly unlike those that preceded it.   Researchers are exploring this notion too. They theorize that the ever-accelerating pace of technological change may be minting a series of mini-generation gaps, with each group of children uniquely influenced by the tech tools available in their formative stages of development."... “People two, three or four years apart are having completely different experiences with technology,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. “College students scratch their heads at what their high school siblings are doing, and they scratch their heads at their younger siblings. It has sped up generational differences.”..." -Brad Stone

... (more info)  

Mark Zuckerburg's Recent Keynote at f8 about Facebook's OpenGraph: The goal is to create a connected, mapped web that is more "social, personalized, smarter, and semantically aware".

During the mid-2000s I took a few courses related to web-development and internet programming.  This was before the twitterfacebookyoutube era.  There's a lot of catching up to do.

Today, I'm watching a few videos from the recent f8 conference. It took place on April 21st, 2010 in San Francisco.

So what is f8?

"f8 is a Facebook conference where developers and entrepreneurs collaborate on the future of personalized and social technologies. At f8, members of the Facebook team and the developer community will explore a variety of topics including new tools and techniques, business growth strategies and open technologies." -Facebook

Mark Zuckerburg

You can find more f8 videos by following the link below:
http://apps.facebook.com/feightlive/

Here are some tidbits of info from the first video:

• The number of people using Facebook on mobile devices is rapidly increasing.
• More than 400 million people are on Facebook.
• One step permission is now available for developers and users, users will be clear about what permissions they are given.
• New policy allows websites to store Facebook users' permission data beyond the previously imposed 24 limit.
• Facebook is ramping up to handle monitory transactions:  See http://developers.facebook.com/credits

During the first video, Open Graph is discussed:

• "Open Graph puts people at the center of the web, becoming a set of personally and semantically meaningful connections between people and things".
• Facebook maps out people and relationships of the online "social graph".
• Pandora maps out music connections, Yelp maps out small businesses.
• News websites map out current events and news content
• The goal is to create a connected, mapped web that is more "social, personalized, smarter, and semantically aware."

Closing keynote remarks:  "The world can be a lot better, and we can make it that way."

Somewhat Related:
Microsoft announced Docs.com the day of the f8 conference. The description is in the fourth video.  It links with Facebook and was designed to be "social".

More Multi-touch: Multi-touch Table at Schlossmuseum Linz, by Strukt Design Studio

Schlossmuseum Linz / Multitouch Installation from Strukt Studio on Vimeo.

Info from the Strukt website:
"The first game Strukt produced is called “Solar Land”. The visitors can place solar panels on a map of Upper Austria, guessing where they would be most efficient according to the altitude of the sun in the area. After all items are placed, the participants can start a simulation of the insolation over the duration of an entire year. The game shows how much energy is produced during that period of time, and the top simulations are listed in a high-score. The results encourage people to discuss their decisions and to play the game once more, using the knowledge they gained to reach a better score."





-Picture from the Strukt website


Strukt studio is located in Vienna, Austria, and is a design agency that specializes in interactive media for events and exhibitions.  Strukt has an innovative portfolio of interesting work.

I missed this one: Winscape by RationalCraft: Digital Views from Realistic Scenery Movies for Fake "Windows": Works on exisiting HD TVs.

Winscape, by RationalCraft



How WindScape was built:


For city dwellers who have window views of cement walls, this would be a welcome addition to the abode.

Thanks to Stefano Baraldi for the link!

Stefano is the author of the On the Tabletop blog.

Games for Health Conference, Games Accessibility Day, and Games Beyond Entertainment Week! (Via Ben Sawyer, Digital Mill, Serious Games Initiative)

The Games for Health Conference and Games Beyond Entertainment Week are coming soon.

Register now at: http://www.regonline.com/gbew2010

We can now reveal our excellent keynotes for the 2010 Games for Health Conference:

Day 1: Wednesday May 26

THE MIND-BODY EXPERIENCE OF SONY MOVE: Relationships between Gaming, Play, Exercise, and More!
Dr. Richard Marks
Senior Researcher Sony US R&D group

Dr. Marks also known as the "father of the EyeToy" will discuss the relationship between gaming, play and exercise, referencing his work in the development of Sony’s new motion controller system, PlayStation Move, as well as his previous work with Sony’s EyeToy, PlayStation Eye and other interfaces.

Day 2: Thursday May 27

THE HUMAN PLAY MACHINE

Chaim Gingold

Chaim Gingold, a longtime independent game developer and original designer of Spore’s creature creator will discuss how existing game genres map onto the human brain and body and how design decisions affect who will be attracted to the game and how they will play.

You can see the nearly full schedule at: http://www.gamesforhealth.org/schedule.htm

Two of our May 25: Pre-Conference Events also have schedules posted:

Out & About: The Mobile Serious Games schedule: http://bit.ly/9MbEEF

3rd Annual Games Accessibility Day: http://gamesaccessibilityday.org/schedule.html (See below)

Complete details of both http://www.gamesforhealth.org & http://www.gamesbeyondentertainment.com

Games for Health
http://www.gamesforhealth.org/brochure.pdf

Games Beyond Entertainment Week
http://www.gamesbeyondentertainment.com/brochure.pdf

Best,

Ben Sawyer
Digitalmill
Serious Games Initiative
Games for Health Project
@bensawyer on twitter

Here is the schedule of the Games Accessibility Day,  May 25, 2010:

Tuesday, May 25, 2010
8:30 am to 9:00 am	Coffee
9:00 am to 9:50 am	Opening Ceremonies Introduction of the Day, Mark Barlet  Keynote Address: Chuck Bergen – Making a commercial game targeting at the disabled community, and how he sold the idea to the biggest game company on the planet.
9:50 am to 10:00 am	Break
10:00 am to 10:30 am	Presentation: Tobi Saulnier - Winter's Tale : A Case Study of Designing for Game Accessibility on the Nintendo DS
10:30 am to 10:45 am	Presentation: Katherine Mancuso - Best Practices for Accessible Communication Using a Virtual World
10:45 am to 11:00 am	Presentation: Tim Holt: Game Accessibility in Special Education.
11:00 am to 11:15 am	Break
11:15 am to 11:30 am	Introduction to the “Hacker Hardware Challenge” Adam Coe Ben Heckendorn Suzanne Robitaille
11:30 am to 12:00 pm	Presentation: Halimat Alabi - Making the Fantasy Real: Giving Good User Interface
12:00 pm to 12:20 pm	Presentation: Mantha Sadural - SPREAD: Appreciating Speech through Gaming
12:20 pm to 1:30 pm	Lunch
1:30 pm to 1:50 pm	“Hacker Hardware Challenge” the reveal and Q&A
1:50 pm to 2:10 pm	Presentation: Johnny Richardson - The Social Construction Model of Interactive Gaming for Disabled Users: Benefits and Developmental Evaluation
2:10 pm to 2:30 pm	Presentation: Eleanor Robinson - Game Accessibility and the Aging Community
2:30 pm to 3:00 pm	Group Activity: Break out into groups and solve the world’s problems How could we pass up the opportunity to flex the massive amount of talent assembled in one room. Take on a challenge and help develop a solution.
3:00 pm to 3:10 pm	Break
3:10pm to 3:40 pm	Group Activity: Presentation of the breakouts
3:40 pm to 4:10 pm	Presentation: Rock Vibe - Rock Band for People with No or Limited Vision
4:10 pm to 4:30 pm	Break
4:30 pm to 5:00 pm	Presentation: Suzanne Robitaille and Mark Barlet - Reviews for All, A New way of looking at things for our community
5:00 pm to 5:20 pm	Presentation: Heidi Silver-Pacuilla - Unleashing the Power of Innovation for Assistive Technology
5:20 pm to 5:30 pm	Closing Ceremonies

WIRED's Gallery: Eight Tablets That Aren't Made by Apple; HP Slate video teaser)

The following thumbnails are from a recent article in WIRED:
Gallery: 8 Tablets That Aren't Made by Apple
Priya Ganapati, Wired, 4/16/2010



Web, Flash & Air on Slate Device from HP:



The HP Slate would be very useful in education, especially for students working in pairs or small groups during activities such as digital storytelling, "kid-reporting", and so forth!