Rock the World Interaction with Guitars at Discovery Place, Charlotte!

Interactivity, Hands-on Fun!

I recently visited Discovery Place, Charlotte with my 4 1/2 year-old grandson. Discovery places is one of his favorite museums because he loves the interactive exhibits.  I have a family pass, so he knows that if there is a special exhibit coming up, he'll be sure to go.

The special exhibit, "Guitar: The Instrument that Rocked the World", runs from May 30, 2015 through September 7, 2015.  It is part of a touring exhibition of the National GUITAR museum.  

One of the first thing that caught my grandson's attention was an interactive display created by [i]cell Interactive.  The display provides an easy way to select a guitar, listen to the music it produces, and learn more about the guitar.  It was built into a tour road case for the exhibit, which was appealing, consistent with the exhibit's "road tour" theme.  The following clip shows my grandson's initial reaction when he came across the display:

There were loads of schoolchildren at the exhibit, so we couldn't get the full experience.  We will be visiting it soon when it is less crowded, and I will follow up with a related post.

RELATED
Discovery Place Museum: The Instrument that Rocked the World
The Instrument that Rocked the World is About To Rock Charlotte
National Guitar Museum
[i] Cell Interactive

SOMEWHAT RELATED
Hard Rock Cafe Interactive Memorabilia Website

Interactive Touch-Screen Technology, Participatory Design, and "Getting It", Revisited

I've been planning on updating one of my popular posts, "Interactive Touch-Screen Technology, Participatory Design, and Getting It" for a while. 


Here is a compromise - since much still rings true two years since I wrote it, the bulk of this post remains the same.   I've updated a few sections with additional video examples of interactive touch-screen applications, good and bad, along with a few links and resources, located at the bottom of the post. 


(The missing piece of information?  An update about apps for the iPad and similar touch-screen tablets.)

Sit back and enjoy!

-Images: HP; Wired

There's been some discussion over the reasons why so many people don't understand touch screen, or "surface" computing, even though research in this area has been going on for years.

As the new owner of the HP TouchSmart, I know that I get it.

The research I've conducted in this area suggests that people will "get-it" only if there is a strong commitment to develop touch-screen "surface" applications through a user-centered, participatory design process. In my view, this should incorporate principles of ethnography, and ensure that usability studies are conducted outside of the lab.

This approach was taken with Intel's Classmate PC. Intel has about 40 ethnographic researchers, and sent many of them to work with students and teachers in classrooms around the world. (A video regarding ethnographic research and the Intel Classmate project can be found near the end of this post.)


-Images: ClassematePC


Where to start?
K-12 classrooms and media centers. Public libraries. Malls. Hospital lobbies and doctor's offices. Any waiting room. Staff lounges in medical centers, schools, and universities. Community festivities and events. Movie theater lobbies. Museums and other points of interests.

I believe we need to take a "touching is believing" approach.

Here are some thoughts:
When I try to explain my fascination with developing touch-screen interactive multimedia applications, (interactive whiteboards, multi-touch displays and tables, and the like), many of my friends and family members eyes glaze over. This is particularly true for people I know who are forty-ish or over.

Even if you are younger, if you never saw the cool technology demonstrated in the movie Minority Report, or if you have limited experience with video games, or if you haven't came within touching distance of an interactive whiteboard, the concept might be difficult to understand.

The reality?
Even people who have the opportunity to use surface computing technology on large screens do not take full advantage of it. Multi-touch screens are often used as single-touch screens, and interactive whiteboards in classrooms are often serve as expensive projector screens for teacher-controlled PowerPoint presentations.

Most importantly, there are few software developers who understand the surface computing approach, even with the popularity of the iPhone and iPod Touch. Most focus on traditional business-oriented or marketing applications, and have difficulty envisioning scenarios for surface computing.  There is a need for a breath of fresh air!

Another factor is that not all people entrusted to market surface or touch screen computing fully understand it.

Despite a cool website showing off the goods, Microsoft's Surface multi-touch table has been slow to take off, limiting hope of bringing down the price tag to a price most families or schools could afford. (The picture above depicts an application for the Surface designed for health care professionals, not K-12 science education.)

Although you can't buy a Surface table for your family room, it is possible to buy a TouchSmart.  HP's TouchSmart website is engaging and highlights some examples of touch-screen interaction, but most people don't seem to know about it. (Since this post was last written, there are many more touch and multi-touch options available to the public, such as the  Dell, the iPad, etc.)

Unfortunately, you wouldn't have a clue that the HP TouchSmart exists browsing the aisles at Circuit City or Best Buy!

When I was shopping for my new TouchSmart, I noticed that from a distance, the TouchSmart looked just like the other larger flat-screen monitors filling up the aisles. The salespeople at both stores were not well-informed about the system. The only reason I knew bout the new TouchSmart was related to my obsession with interactive multimedia touch-screen applications- designing them, developing them, studying them, reading about them, blogging about them.... ; }

More thoughts:

After studying HCI (Human-Computer Interaction), and relating this knowledge to what I know as a psychologist, my hunch is that the "Window Icon Mouse Pointing-device" (WIMP) and keyboard input mind-set is embedded in our brains, to a certain extent. Like driving a car, it is something automatic and expected. This is true for users AND developers. (Update - See The Post WIMP Explorers' Club: Update of the Updates for a review of a discussion among passionate post WIMP folks)

Think about it.

Suppose one day, you were told that you no longer were allowed to control your car by turning on the ignition, steering the wheel, or using your feet to accelerate, slow down, or stop the car! Instead, you needed to learn a new navigation, integration, and control system that involved waving your hands about and perhaps speaking a few commands.

For new drivers who'd never seen a car before, this new system would be user-friendly and intuitive. Perhaps it would be quite easy for 16-year-old kids to wrap their heads around this concept. For most of us, no. Imagine the disasters we would see on our streets and highways!

When we think about how newer technologies are introduced to people, we should keep this in mind.

In my mind, spreading the word about surface computing is not a "if you build it, they will come" phenomenon, like the iPhone. We can't ignore the broader picture.

From my middle-age woman's vantage point, I believe that it is important that the those involved with studying, developing, or marketing surface computing applications realize that many of us simply have no point of reference other than our experiences with ATMs, airline kiosks, supermarket self-serve lanes, and the like. (The video clip at the very end of this post provides a good example of touch-screen technology gone wrong.) -UPDATE: additional videos were added to this post.

Be aware that there are substantial numbers of people who might benefit from surface computing who prefer to avoid the ATMs, airline kiosks, and self-serve grocery shopping.

Realize that the collective experience with technology, in many cases, has not been too pretty. Many people have had such user-unfriendly experiences with productivity applications, forced upon them by their employers, that any interest or desire to explore emerging technologies has been zapped.

My own exposure to interactive "surface" related technology was somewhat accidental.
A few years ago, a huge box was deposited into the room I worked in a couple of days a week as a school psychologist at a middle school. After a week or so, I became curious, and found out that it was a SmartBoard. Until then (2002!), I did not know that interactive whiteboards existed.

The boxed remained unopened in the room for the entire school year, but no worry. I played with the only other SmartBoard in the school, and found a couple at the high school where I also worked. I hunted for all of the applications and interactive websites that I could find, and tried them out. That is when I was hooked. I could see all kinds of possibilities for interactive, engaging subject area learning activities. I could see the SmartBoards potential for music and art classes. With my own eyes, I saw how the SmartBoard engaged students with special needs in counseling activities. (By the way, if you are working with middle school students, PBS Kid's ItsMyLife website activities work great on an interactive whiteboard.)

A few years have passed, and reflecting on all of my fun experiences with interactive whiteboards, with and without students, I now understand that many teachers still have had limited exposure to this technology.

This school year, many teachers are finding themselves teaching in classrooms recently outfitted with interactive whiteboards, scrambling along with educational technology staff development specialists, to figure out how it works best with various groups of students, and what sort of changes need to be made regarding instructional practice.

For the very first time, interactive whiteboards were installed in two classrooms at one of the schools I work at. One of the teachers I know thanked me for telling her about interactive whiteboards and sharing my resources and links.

If I hadn't let her know about this technology, she wouldn't have volunteered to have one installed in her classroom. It has transformed the way she teaches special needs students.

In the few months that she's used the whiteboard, I can see how much it has transformed the way the students learn. They are attentive, more communicative, and engaged. The students don't spend the whole day with the whiteboard - the interactive learning activities are woven into lessons at various times of the day, representing true technology integration.

Now let's see what happens when all-in-one touch-screen PC's are unleashed in our schools!

UPDATE:  Take a look at a post I wrote for Innovative Interactivity just after SMART Technologies acquired NextWindow - the post describe in detail how interactive whiteboards are transforming learning and teaching in a program for students with special needs.
SMARTTechnologies Acquires NextWindow: A "smart window" to the world


There are some interesting changes going on at the intersection of HCI and educational technology research.  I participated in a workshop at CHI 2010 last April and was impressed by what is going on in this area, around the globe:   Next Generation of HCI and Education

Value of ethnographic research:
Ethnographic Research Informed Intel's Classmate PC
"Intel looked closely at how students collaborate and move around in classroom environments. The new tablet feature was implemented so that the device would be more conducive to what Intel calls “micromobility”. Intel wants students to be able to carry around Classmate PCs in much the same way that they currently carry around paper and pencil." -via Putting People First and Ars Technica

The video below is from Intel's YouTube Channel. Information about Intel's approach to ethnographic research in classrooms during the development of the Classroom PC is highlighted. This approach uses participatory design and allows the set of applications developed for the Classmate PC to reflect the needs of local students and teachers. Schools from many different countries were included in this study.




FYI: TOUCH SCREEN DISPLAYS:  NEED FOR IMPROVEMENT!

Touch Screen Coke Machine at the Mall: 90 Seconds to get a Coke


User-Unfriendly Interactive Display in the Rain (Ballantyne Village Shopping Center)

User-Unfriendly Information Kiosk Interactive Map

I encountered this puzzling and frustrating interactive directory/map at the Cleveland Clinic.  When I went to visit a relative at the hospital a year or so later, the map was no longer there.


BETTER EXAMPLES OF INTERACTIVE SCREENS:

Here are some interesting pictures from lm3labs, which are in my interactive usability hall of fame:

Samsung's new Omnia SDG i900 was re-created in a much larger size, using lm3lab's Ubiq'window touchless technology.For more about lm3labs, including several videoclips, take a look at one of my previous posts: Lm3Labs, Nicolas Leoillot, and Multimedia Interaction

Midwife Toad App on a Microsoft Surface, Discovery Place Science Center


TellTable:  Digital Storytelling on the Surface:  Microsoft Research, UK


DECEMBER 31, 2009 -Interactive Soda Machine for Fun

The interactive screen on the Coke machine attracted the attention of this young child. He loved spinning the image of the bottle. So did the dad! He said, "I'd like something like this for my home!". I told him about the HP TouchSmart - both the dad and the mom did not know that there were affordable all-in-one touch screens available, but they knew about SMARTboards, because their children's classrooms had them.  Note:  No one from this family actually purchased a soft drink.  I was hoping to time how long it would take them to do so!

Some resources:

Multimedia, Multitouch, Gesture, and Interaction Resources (Mega-list, work in progress)

lm3labs (catchyoo, ubiq'window)

NUITeqNUI Group (See member's links)

Sparkon (See members links and multi-touch projects)

3M TouchNextWindow

Fingertapps

thirteen23

SmartTechnologies

SMARTTable

Perceptive Pixel - Jeff Hans

Microsoft Surface

InfoStrat

Reactable

RENCI Multi-touch

iPhone

iPad

Stantum

DELL MultiTouch

Vectorform

HP TouchSmart PC website, with demo

HP's TouchSmart YouTube videos

(More information and resources can be found by doing a "multitouch" or related search on this blog or The World Is My Interactive Interface.)

If you have plenty of time, take a look at my Post WIMP Explorers' Club YouTube playlist.
"Natural user interfaces, gesture interaction, multi-touch, natural interaction, post WIMP examples and more..."

FYI: I visited the Ballantyne Village shopping center a couple of months ago to follow up on the interactive displays, including the one I tried to use while it was raining.   The shopping center changed ownership, and the displays were replaced by the old-fashioned kind, pictured below:

2010 SID (Society for Information Display) International Symposium, Seminar, and Exhibition: Display Week

 I love interactive displays, and if I could, I'd attend the following conference:

2010 International Symposium, Seminar, and Exhibition
May 23 - May 28, 2010
Washington State Convention Center, Seattle, WA, USA

The SID International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition, now in its 48th year, is the premier international gathering of scientists, engineers, manufacturers, and users in the electronic-display industry.

The event provides access to a wide range of technology and applications from high-definition flat-panel displays using both emissive and liquid-crystal technology to the latest in OLED displays, flexible displays, and large-area projection-display systems. This is where to find state-of-the-art information on image processing, systems software and display processor hardware, human factors and applied vision, and exciting new applications such as multimedia and the electronic cinema.

As the must-see event for the worldwide information-display industry, the SID International Symposium, Seminar, and Exhibition is host to hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of attendees each year.

The hours of the 2010 exhibition are:

Tuesday, May 25 10:30 am - 6:30 pm
Wednesday, May 26 3 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
Thursday, May 27 4 9:00 am - 2:00 pm

Key Dates
FAQ's

Courses offered during Display Week:

Times	2AB	3AB
Wednesday, May 26
8:30 - 10:00	A-1: Emerging Touch Applications Geoff Walker NextWindow	A-2: Flexible Display Technologies and Their Applications Ruiqing Ma Universal Display Corp.
10:30 - 12:00	A-3: Various Light Sources for General Lighting Sungkyoo Lim Dankook University	A-4: Mobile Multimedia Displays Jyrki Kimmel Nokia Research Center
3:30 - 5:00	A-5: Introduction to PicoProjectors Ian Underwood University of Edinburgh	A-6: Image Sources for Near-to-Eye Display Applications James Melzer

3D In-Home Cinema:
"A special 3-D Cinema Event will be held on Tuesday, May 25, from 7:30 to 10:00 pm. 3-D film shorts will be exhibited stereoscopically on a special 30-ft. silver screen, with featured talks by 3-D filmmakers and other members of the rapidly growing industry. Attendance at this session is free for anyone that is registered for the Tuesday-Friday Symposium. The fee for attending only this session is $100 ($15 for full-time Students or Life Members). The fee includes refreshments, plus access to both the Symposium Keynote Session on Tuesday morning and the Exhibit Hall, enabling 3-D film enthusiasts to see the cutting edge in display technology that is bringing 3-D into the home."


I'd like to highlight the people who will receive awards and honors during the conference:

Awards & Honors

EACH YEAR, the Society for Information Display (SID) honors individual scientists and researchers for outstanding achievements in the field of electronic information displays and for outstanding service to the Society. Only a small number of the preeminent members of the industry are nominated and fewer still are finally chosen as recipients. This year's winners will be honored during Display Week 2010 at the annual awards banquet to be held on Monday evening, May 24, prior to the Symposium.

	Name: Dwight Berreman Award: Jan Rajchman Citation: For his many contributions to understanding electro-optic effects in liquid crystals and especially for his pioneering work on developing the 4 x 4 matrix method for simulating and optimizing the electro-optical properties of LCDs.
	Name: Philip Bos Award: Slottow Owaki Prize Citation: For his pioneering educational efforts in the field of LCDs, including the development of curriculum and student research topics for the latest LCD-technology innovations for high-speed response, bistable operation, the design of wide-viewing-angle films, and diffractive devices.
	Name: Frederic Kahn Award: Karl Ferdinand Braun Citation: For outstanding innovative contributions to the development and commercialization of flat-panel LCDs and projection systems.
	Name: Makoto Maeda Award: Lewis and Beatrice Winner Citation: For his exceptional and sustained service to the Society for Information Display, especially his outstanding leadership as Chapter Chairman, Director, and Regional Vice-President, all of which contributed significantly to the growth of the Japan Chapter.
	Name: Eli Peli Award: Otto Schade Prize Citation: For his many outstanding contributions to vision science and their application to image-quality evaluation and enhancement, including pioneering efforts in improving display performance for populations with special visual needs.
	Name: Wei Chen Award: Fellow Citation: For his many contributions to the advancement of liquid-crystal displays, including the pioneering development and commercialization of high-performance LCD computer monitors, multi-touch displays, and computer displays with LED backlights.
	Name: Edward Kelley Award: Fellow Citation: For his outstanding leadership in the theory, methods, and technology of display metrology and his many contributions to international flat-panel-display standards.
	Name: Haruhiko Okumura Award: Fellow Citation: For his outstanding contribution to the research and development of TFT-LCD driving technologies, especially overdrive and low-power technologies and for significant contributions to the advancement of the display community.
	Name: Roger Stewart Award: Fellow Citation: For his many contributions to display science and technology, including the first amorphous-silicon TFT-LCDs with integrated scanners ("SASID"), the first single-crystal silicon active-matrix EL displays, polysilicon AMLCDs, and compensation circuits for AMOLEDs, and for his creativity in TFT-LCD design.
	Name: Andrew Watson Award: Fellow Citation: For his outstanding contributions to both basic and applied vision science, including applications to image quality metrics, image compression, and psychophysically based display measurements.
	Name: Joyce Farrell Award: Special Recognition Award Citation: For her outstanding contributions to the human factors of imaging systems and technology, including the development of the first successful quantitative metric for display flicker and for her exceptional service to the Society for Information Display.
	Name: Hiroki Hamada Award: Special Recognition Award Citation: For his outstanding contributions to the development of display devices including red laser diodes and polysilicon TFT-LCD light-valves for projectors.
	Name: Michio Kitamura Award: Special Recognition Award Citation: For leading technical and entrepreneurial contributions in putting simulation techniques to practical use as a standard tool for designing LCDs.
	Name: James Larimer Award: Special Recognition Award Citation: For his many contributions to vision science related to displays and image quality, including the development of display-performance algorithms.
	Name: Ryuichi Murai Award: Special Recognition Award Citation: For his leading contributions to the research and development of large-sized plasma displays, especially his commercialization of the 103-in.-diagonal PDP.
Special Recognition Award Citation: For the technical and commercial development of high-dynamic-range displays and the pioneering of local-dimming display technology. Names: Helge Seetzen, Gregory Ward, Lorne Whitehead
	Helge Seetzen
	Gregory Ward
	Lorne Whitehead
Special Recognition Award Citation: For their outstanding contribution to the development and commercialization of super-large-area film-type display, utilizing technology that incorporates an array of plasma tubes. Names: Kenji Awamoto, Manabu Ishimoto, Tsutae Shinoda
	Kenji Awamoto
	Manabu Ishimoto
	Tsutae Shinoda

NOTE:

I sometimes use this blog as a resource for supporting career education activities for high school students.  By sharing information about the people behind various technologies, I hope to inspire young people to consider careers in STEM-related fields. (STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.)

UX of ITV: The User Experience and Interactive TV (or Let's Stamp Out Bad Remote Controls)

I prefer to watch our flat-panel HDTV in the dark, and usually I watch something I've DVR'd.  Because of the nature of my remote control, I often have to interrupt the immersive experience, turn on the light, poke at the buttons, and start over again.


Not long ago, I had the flu and I thought I'd try out the interactive channel from my satellite TV provider.  My interactive experience was about the same as interacting with the DVR!

What the satellite TV company offered was not really ITV.  It was BIRC.  Bad Interactive Remote Control.  You know what I'm talking about.  In the era of the WiiMote, most of us still have to interact with our TV systems as if were 1982.

There is hope!
A good number of researchers are working hard to make the UX of ITV, including mobile TV, a reality.   If you are reading this post, you most likely will appreciate some of the articles and links below:
Konstantinos Chorianopoulos. Research Methods in Interactive TV (pdf)
(Konstantinos Chorianopoulos is a lecturer and  Marie Curie Fellow in the Department of Informatics at the Ionian University, Corfu, Greece.  He founded UITV.INFO,  a site that has research and information about interactive television.)
Enhancing Social Sharing of Videos: Fragment, Annotate, Enrich, and Share (Proceedings of the 16th ACM international conference on Multimedia) Pablo Cesar, Dick C.A. Bulterman, David Geerts, Jack Jansen, Henrick Knoch and William Seager (This research paper includes a discussion of the concept of "personal secondary screens" on mobile devices that display information that can be shared and annotated while watching content on a large display.)


Sample of presentations and workshops at EuroITV 2009:
The Connected Home Redefines the TV Experience  Jan Van Bogaert (Alcatel-Lucent) 
The Internet Revolution Will Be Televised   Rich Exekiel (Yahoo! Conntected TV)
Needs, emotions, experience!  Marc Hassenahl (Folkwang University)
Marian F. Ursu, Pablo Cesar, and Doug Williams.Enhancing Social Communication and Belonging by Integrating TV Narrativity and Game Play
Rodrigo Laiola Guimaraes. Telling Stories and Commenting on Media:  The Next Generation of Multimedia Authoring Tools (pdf)
Ana Vitoria Joly.  Designing iTV Interfaces for Preschool Children
Claus Knudsen and Roel Puijk. Television and Presence: Experiments in interaction and mediation in a digital environment

Marianna Obrist, Henddrik Knoche, Damien Alliez Tutorial: User-Experience in TV-centric Services: What to consider in the Design and Evaluation?(pdf) 
David Geets Tutorial: Designing and Evaluating the Sociability of Interactive Television (pdf)
Artur Lugmayr Tutorial:  Ambient Media - An Introduction by Case-Studies(pdf)
Janez Zaletelj, Mladen Savic and Marko Meza. Real-time Viewer Feedback in the iTV production.
Skylla Janssen. Interactive Television Format Development – Could Participatory Design Bridge the Gap?
Jan Hess and Volker Wulf. Explore Social Behaviour around Rich-Media: A Structured Diary Study 
Dimitri Schuurman, Tom Evens and Lieven De Marez. A living lab research approach for mobile TV

RELATED 
Ana Vitoria Joly. Design and Evaluation of Interactive Cross-platform Applications for Pre-literate Children.  IDC 2007 Proceedings: Doctoral Consortium
Ana Vitoria Joly. Interactive Cross-platform Environments for Young Children (pdf)
C. Hesselman, W. Derks, J. Broekens, H. Eertink, M. Guelbahar, and R. Poortinga, "Facilitating an Open Ecosystem to Enhance Interactive TV Experiences", Workshop on Sharing Content and Experiences with Social Interactive Television, co-located with the European Interactive TV Conference (EuroITV2008), Salzburg, Austria, July 2008
R. Kernchen, P. Cesar, S. Meissner, M. Boussard, K. Moessner, C. Hesselman, and I. Vaishnavi, "Intelligent Multimedia Presentation Delivery in Ubiquitous Multi-Device Scenarios," IEEE MultiMedia (IEEE MM), 17(2), April-June, 2010 [in print]
P. Cesar, D.C.A. Bulterman, and J. Jansen, "Leveraging the User Impact: An Architecture for Secondary Screens Usage in an Interactive Television Environment," in Springer/ACM Multimedia Systems Journal (MSJ), 15(3): 127-142, 2009

P. Cesar, D.C.A. Bulterman, and Luiz Fernando Gomes Soares, "Introduction to special issue:  Human-centered television-directions in interactive digital television research"  ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications, October 2008

Somewhat Related
My preliminary thoughts about  Adobe's Open Screen project

libTISCH, a multi-touch development framework with multi-touch widgets and more!

For techies and the tech-curious who like technologies that support collaboration and multi-touch interaction,  this is great news!

Florian Echtler announced the first stable releas of libTISCH, a multi-touch development framwork, which can be found on Sourceforge.  TISCH stands for Tangible Interaction Surfaces for Collaboration between Humans.  libTISCH, a C++ software framework, is included in this project.  It provides a means for creating GUIs based on multi-touch and/or tangible input devices.

Here is how it works:

Here is information from libTISCH announcement:


Highlights of this release are, among others, the following features:

- ready-to-use multitouch widgets based on OpenGL
- reconfigurable, hardware-independent gesture recognition engine
- support for widely used (move, scale, rotate..), pre-defined gestures
 as well as custom-defined gestures

- hardware drivers for FTIR, DI, Wiimote, DiamondTouch..
- TUIO converters: source and sink

- cross-platform: Linux, MacOS X, Windows (32 and 64 bit)
- cross-language: C++ with bindings for C#, Java, Python

libTISCH has a lot to offer for the multitouch developer. For example, 
the textured widgets enable rapid development of applications for many
kinds of multi-touch or tangible interfaces. The separate gesture
recognition engine allows the translation of a wide range of highly
configurable gestures into pre-defined or custom events which are then
acted on by the widgets. While the lower layers of libTISCH provide
functionality similar to tbeta, touche etc. (you can interface existing
TUIO-based software with libTISCH in both directions), it goes far
beyond.

More information about the library and underlying architecture can be
found on http://tisch.sf.net/ and in the Sourceforge wiki at
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/tisch/

TISCH Project Wiki

RELATED
Florian is on the scientific staff at the Technisch Universitat Munchen in Germany. Be sure to check out his  webpage.

I especially like the concept of the MeTaTop: "A Multi-Sensory Table Top System for Medical Procedures" that is linked from Florian's website.

Interactive Touchscreen Displays at the Chicago Botanic Gardens

 
"15 letters, a Chicago-based interactive design company developed eight interactive, educational touch-screen kiosks that will enable Garden visitors to get a hands-on experience in understanding the essential role plants play in every day life and the critical role garden scientists are playing to preserve and better manage natural plant communities."


“Each of the eight interactive touch-screen exhibits in the new Rice Plant Conservation Science Center is dedicated to a specific lab in the facility,” Rattin continued. “We created interactive game-like simulations that will allow visitors to manipulate an environment and see the outcomes of their actions. This hands-on approach to education is becoming more commonplace as museums and research centers are encouraging the development of the next generation of scientists.”

Research laboratories featuring interactive kiosks include:
• Harris Family Foundation Plant Genetics Laboratory
• Economic Botany Laboratory
• Reproductive Biology Laboratory
• Dixon Tallgrass Prairie Seed Bank Preparation Laboratory and Seed Bank
• Herbarium
• Population Biology Laboratory
• Soil Laboratory
• Abbott Ecology Laboratory


For more information, there are a number of videos regarding the Chicago Garden Interactive Kiosk Project



Plant Conservation Science Center Fly-through Simulation



I plan on visiting Chicago again, and I'll make sure I visit the Chicago Botanic Gardens!

Touch Screen and Interactive Displays Biz News, Part II - LocaModa

From LocaModa:

Visit the Web Outside: "Get Your 15 Seconds of Face Time in Times Square!"

The above picture shows Viacom's MTV screen located in NYC's Times Square, linked to the web. User-generated text messages and photos can be submitted by mobile phone or the web, and displayed for 5 minutes an hour. Email notifications are sent to the senders when messages and/or photos have been approved and are on the giant screen.

Take a look at the website, and view the screen in real time.

WIFITI

"Wiffiti publishes real time messages to screens in thousands of locations from jumbotrons to jukeboxes, bars to bowling alleys and cafes to colleges.You can interact with Wiffiti from your mobile phone or the web."

"Wiffiti 4 by LocaModa has been used at thousands of large-scale events (concerts, gallery openings, corporate conferences, nonprofit fundraisers, several major inauguration events, South by Southwest, and political conventions -including both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions). It is also used extensively in digital signage networks ranging from huge jumbotrons in Times Square to thousands of screens in bars, cafes, schools, entertainment centers and even churches! We've used our deep understanding of user experience in digital out-of-home, web, and mobile to distill your feedback and requests for new features into this latest release."

JUMBLI

"The game is displayed several times per hour on Clear Channel’s Spectacolor screen in New York’s Times Square, located at 48th Street and Broadway. When Jumbli is live in Times Square, all other connected screens (including those on iPhones and in Facebook) indicate that the game is live in Times Square, and all plays made during that period are displayed in real-time on the Spectacolor Jumbotron, giving players one of the world’s most prominent screens for their plays."

Convergence: Mobile content, Interactive Displays, Digital Out of Home, & Danoo

Danoo: "Location scouting and scalable web technologies combined to create a targeted DOOH experience".

If you are tech-savy and a member of the digital signage/interactive display/AV end of things, you probably know what this means. If not, you should. Things are pairing, merging, and converging in the world of "out and about" technology.

Technology, especially digital signage, is ubiquitous, and has targeted you and your neighborhood.

So what's the fuss? A company from Danoo, from China, is ramping things up in the Digital Signage/DOOH (Digital Out of Home) arena. Fast.

Danoo has rapidly up with exisiting companies, such as National CineMedia, Blue Bite, Electronic Arts, and the HISTORY channel to create and push off-the-desktop and off-the-TV content and interactive user experiences. Bill Gerba, of Wirespring, and Manolo Almagro, CTO of Show + Tell in NYC (think Times Square digital signage experiences), and others have recently written about this phenomenon, right after Danoo released the following press announcement:

Danoo Inc Announces a Breakthrough in Mobile Content Delivery (7/11/09, Business Wire)
"Danoo partnered with mobile technology company Blue Bite to enable the campaigns, and is actively rolling out its mobile interactivity capability to all of its venues. The first 200 Danoo locations will be live in Los Angeles and New York by July 1^st. At full deployment, Danoo will give advertisers the ability to get their content into the hands of more than 200,000 consumers in an average two-week campaign. In addition to content downloads, Danoo offers multiple ways to pair its screens with mobile interactivity to maximize campaign effectiveness, such as SMS call-to-actions, social gaming and mobile application promotion."

"Visitors to Danoo locations viewed video content on Danoo’s digital screens accompanied by an on-screen prompt to download exclusive content such as sneak peeks and ringtones from their Bluetooth or Wi-Fi-enabled devices via the Danoo network."



Here are a few related articles:
How Significant is the Danoo-IdeaCast-National CineMedia Deal?
(7/14/09, Bill Gerba, Wirespring)
A Watershed Moment for DOOH Media
(7/12/09, Bill Collins, Daily DOOH)

Pictures from Danoo's Website:
Danoo's IdeaCast- "Captive TV".


I've probably encountered Danoo's technologies numerous times, judging from my archive of pictures of displays and related technologies that have crossed my path. The TV screen on the treadmill looks just like the one I saw on a treadmill in the fitness center of a Princess cruise ship last year. The picture in the middle looks like it was taken in an airport. The picture on the right is of a system in a coffeehouse. According to information on the Danoo website, the system is interactive and includes "content downloads, social gaming, mobile couponing and more via SMS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi".

Blue Bite's website is worth looking at. It demonstrates their concept very well through animation:

Blue Bite: "Take the Ad With You"



Things are ramping up in my region, too.
T1 Tapas, a restaurant north of Charlotte, N.C., in the Birkdale Village in Huntersville, has majority owners with a technology background. Mike Feldman and Jim Morris started up Digital Optics Corporation, which focused on optics for computers and imaging, and after they sold their company, they teamed up with Denise Feldman to establish their company.

T 1 Connection Booth with Multi-User Touch Screen, HD TV, Sound System, Computer, & more:

"T1 Connection Booth seating gives you access to music, photos, and videos through built-in touchscreen tabletops, brilliant monitors, speakers, and computers." -Picture and taken from the T 1 Tapas website

The restaraunt serves as a test bed for T 1 Visions to try out their software and hardware designed to enhance the digitally connected dining experience. The restaurant was featured in May of this year on CNN:

Here is the link to the video: "High Tech Tapas"