From the NUITEQ (Natural User Interface) Gallery, via Harry van der Veen

Kids take to multi-touch interaction naturally!

The following photos are from Harry van der Veen's Multi-touch blog. (Harry was one of the founding members of the NUI-Group, and also is the CEO of NUITEQ-Natural User Interface)

The last two pictures are of the HP TouchSmart running NUI Suite Snowflake software, developed by the Natural User Interface Europe AB (NUITEQ) for think LCD, Plasma, and FT displays.

NUI-Group's Christian Moore Interview-Podcast on the Interactive Display 2009 Conference website

As I write this post, the 2009 Interactive Displays conference is underway in San Jose, California. The home page of the conference website provides a series of interviews of many of the conference participants and presenters, including Chris Moore, a member of the NUI group. Chris discusses the importance of the open-source NUI (natural user interface) community in moving interactive display and NUI-based technology forward.

Interactive Displays 2009 Conference Website

Interview Participants:
Mats Johansson - EON Reality
Guillaume Largillier - Stantum
Christian Moore- NUI Group
Brent Bushnell- Tapcode
Steven Bathiche - Microsoft
Jerry Bertrand - Microscent
Henry Kaufman- Tactable

If you are at the conference and you have some video clips to share of a presentation, demonstration, or anything else that might be of interest, please give me the link so I can share it on my blog.

Below are some pictures from the companies represented by the people who were interviewed for the Interactive Displays 2009 conference:


Eon Reality


Tactable


Microsoft's Surface


NUI-Group


Tapcode


I don't usually put company logos on my blog, but if you are a visiting my blog searching for links to companies that are involved with interactive display technologies, this will save you some time. (I received no payment for this gesture.)

More for Multi-touch: NextWindow Plug-in for Natural User Interface's Snowflake Multi-touch Software -and more.

Those of you have an HP TouchSmart, Dell Studio One PC, or NextWindow displays might be interested in the new NUI plug-in that supports NUI Suite Snowflake software. Here are the features of the plugin, according to information from the Natural User Interface website:

• Detailed user manual included with FAQ
• Developed on fast and reliable C++ platform
• Intuitive
• Customizable
• Gesture recognition library
• TUIO/OSC (Open Sound Control) support (sending and receiving events)
• Low level API
• Hardware accelerated rendering
• Support for wide variety of media types
• Advanced window handler that supports scaling and rotation
• Suitable for Windows® XP and Windows® Vista (Mac OSX and Linux can be developed on request)
• Audio support
• Single, dual support
• Multi-threaded resource handler (For fast data visualization)

"NUI has partnered up with NextWindow™, an international leader in the development of optical multi-touch technology and the manufacturer of optical multi-touch screens, overlays and OEM touch components."

"NextWindow™'s integrated technology allows for natural and intuitive interaction of digital content on flat TFT, LCD and Plasma solutions."

"The NUI NextWindow™ plug-in can be used with any programming language that supports TUIO, i.e. C/C++/C#, Java, Flash, Python, VVVV etc, meaning that software developers can run their own applications on NextWindow™, utilizing the NUI NextWindow™ plug-in."

Comment:
I became a fan of NextWindow touch-screen displays in early 2007 when I worked on a couple of touch-screen projects in my HCI and Ubicomp classes at UNC-Charlotte.

I've been using my HP TouchSmart PC at work with students with disabilities. I'm experimenting with the NUI Suite SnowFlake on my TouchSmart, and found that interacting with the Particles application delighted students with severe autism. The activities provided opportunities to establish joint attention. I also noticed an increase in the number of vocalizations and/or verbalizations among the students. Of course, this was NOT a scientific study.

RELATED
Definition of Joint Attention from UConn:

"Joint Attention is the process of sharing one’s experience of observing an object or event, by following gaze or pointing gestures. It is critical for social development, language acquisition, cognitive development…"

Establishing joint attention is an important step in the development of social interaction skills among young people who have autism spectrum disorders.

More about joint attention:

Joint Attention Study Has Implication for Understanding Autism
Science Daily, 9/29/07

Asperger-Advice: Joint Attention

Autism Games: Joint Attention and Reciprocity

Why is joint attention a pivotal skill in autism?
Tony Charman

Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2003 February 28; 358(1430): 315–324. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2002.1199.

SPARSH: DYI demo of an open-source multi-touch table and applications by NUI-group members

The following video is a demonstration of "Sparsh", an interactive multi-touch FTIR table built in eight weeks by a group of engineering students in India. Most of the information regarding the hardware and software you see running on this low-cost system can be found on the open-source NUI-group website, forums, and wiki.


Sparsh Multitouch Display from anirudh on Vimeo.

I especially like the multi-touch DJ application!

For more information, view the posts related to the NUI group on this blog.

Sparsh Website

More Multi-touch Multimedia: Video demonstration of applications created with Snowflake and Flash

This video showcases the work of Natural User Interface-AB, using NUI Suite 1.0 Snowflake and Flash.

Here is the plug from the company's website:
"Natural User Interface (NUI) is a Swedish innovative emerging technology company specializing in commercially available advanced multi-touch software, hardware and service solutions. NUI's solutions can convert an ordinary surface into an interactive, appealing and intelligent display that creates a stunning user experience."

For more information and links:

For Techies and the Tech Curious: Multi-touch/Gesture from the NUI-Group

Search this blog!

For Techies and the Tech Curious: Multi-Touch/Gesture from the NUI-Group

If you are a new visitor to this blog and interested in interactive multimedia, you'll need to know more about the NUI-Group. Natural User Interface or ~ NUI Group is an interactive media group researching and creating open source machine sensing techniques to benefit artistic and educational applications.
(For related information, please read my recent post, Usability, Accessibility, and User Experience in a Win7 Environment.)

Seth Sandler, of the NUI-Group, sent out a great email with links and resources for people who are interested in multi-touch/gesture interaction, hardware, and/or software development. The list of NUI-Group members who have completed projects is listed below, with links to project websites as well as related threads on the NUI-Group forum.

(The information can be found on the NUI-Group Wiki, which boasts a nice icon based front-page)

Thanks, Seth, for organizing this wealth of information!

The following projects are divided up by type. (Links to information about the various types of multi-touch and gesture systems can be found near the end of this message.)

FTIR - Frustrated Total Internal Reflection

Name: Seth (cerupcat)
Project Name: AudioTouch
Project Website: http://ssandler.wordpress.com
Project Thread: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/1352/ http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/2309/

Name: bassmang5
Project Name: Æ-table
Project Thread: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/3144/

Name: Daniel (Zin)
Project Name: Prometheus
Project Thread: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/2612/
Name: Carsten (carschdn)
Project Name : aTRACKtive
Project Thread: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/3223/
LLP Laser Light Plane



Name: Denis Santelli(dsan)
Project Website: http://www.touchwall.fr/
Project Thread: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/3051/

LED-LP Light-Emitting Diode Laser Plane

Name: Nolan - (PeauProductions)
Project Name: PeauProductions (LCD)
Project Website: http://peauproductions.blogspot.com/
Project Thread: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/3291/

DI - Diffused Illumination

Name: Seth (cerupcat)
Project Name: MTmini
Project Website: http://ssandler.wordpress.com/MTmini
Project Thread: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/1731/

Name: Fairlane
Project Name: ORION v2
Project Website: http://orionmultitouch.blogspot.com/
Project Thread: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/1709/

Name: Abdullah (EfeNDy)
Project Name: EfeNDy’s Diffused Illumination MT
Project Thread: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/3176/

Name: Sandor
Project Name: EXPO REAL 2008
Project Website: http://vimeo.com/2240537
Project Thread: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/3576/

Name: Matthew (MatthewW)
Project Name: Design Garage
Project Website: http://www.gotuasciencecenter.org/
Project Thread: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/3730/

Touchless

Name: Jimi Hertz
Project Name: Touchless Wall
Project Website: http://sassexperience.org/projettouchwall.html
(try: http://sassexperience.org/multitouch/inprogress.html )
Project Thread: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/2414/
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCFbWPf37jw

Other Types:
DSI Diffused Screen Illumination




RELATED LINKS

Tips for Success

• Read the FAQ
• Know Your Terminology
• Understand the Techniques
• Start Small
• Study Completed Community Projects
• Plan, plan, plan

Resources

• NUI Group Tools

• NUI Group Wiki
• Play a Part - Contribute
• Frameworks and Libraries
• Multitouch Business Directory

Thanks to all NUI-Group members who have been working so hard at this mission!

I'll end this post with a YouTube video created by Jimi Hertz, a NUI-Group member. "MULTI-TOUCHLESS WALL HOW TO?"

I especially like the music!

Bloom - Play Music with Colors: Seth Sandler's relaxing little on-line application!

Bloom: Play music with colors (link to application)

For more information about Seth Sandler's work, visit his AudioTouch website.

Here are a few pictures of his applications:








Seth integrates music into his multi-touch applications, as he has a background in both music and art. He is a member of the NUI-Group.

Update from Multi-Touch Barcelona and Guten Touch: Multi-Touch Space Invaders

Multitouch Space Invaders Basic Demo from multitouch-barcelona on Vimeo..

For more sights and sounds from this group, visit the Red Bull Music Academy Barcelona 2008 website.

For more about multi-touch technology, including DYI instructions for creating multi-touch tables and displays, open-source code,and tutorials, visit the NUI Group website.

Multi-touch and Flash: Links to resources, revisiting Jeff Han's TED 2006 presentation

Despite the increase in interest in systems that support multi-touch, multi-user multimedia interaction, there is a need for creative, tech-savvy types to develop innovative applications. Why? This technology has the potential to make a powerful impact on how people learn, communicate, solve "big picture" problems, and do their various jobs.

CNN's Magic Wall was one of the first applications to gain the attention of the masses, as it was used as an interactive map during the US presidential election process. Touch-screen interaction gained even more notice after the recent SNL parody by Fred Amisen.

If you think about it, the multi-touch applications you see on the news aren't much different than what you'd get from a "single-touch" program.

Fancy, yes. Truly innovative, no.

Just imagine a 3D multi-touch, multi-user, multimedia version of Google Search. I did. I put my sketches in my idea book and hurt my brain thinking about how it could be coded.

Jeff Han, the man behind Perceptive Pixel and CNN's magic wall, had much more up his sleeve when he demonstrated his work at TED 2006. Even if you've previously seen this video, it is worth looking at again. (I've provided a link to the transcript below.)



Transcript of Jeff Han's TED 2006 Presentation

This video presentation had a transformational effect on me as I watched for the first time. Jeff Han brought to life ideas that were similar to my own as a beginning computer student thinking about collaborative educational games and multimedia applications that could be played on interactive whiteboards.

Here are some selected quotes from the video:

"I really really think this is gonna change- really change the way we interact with the machines from this point on."

"Again, the interface just disappears here. There's no manual. This is exactly what you kind of expect, especially if you haven't interacted with a computer before."

"Now, when you have initiatives like the hundred dollar laptop, I kind of cringe at the idea that we're gonna introduce a whole new generation of people to computing with kind of this standard mouse-and-windows pointer interface. This is something that I think is really the way we should be interacting with the machines from this point on. (applause)"

"Now this is going to be really important as we start getting to things like data visualization. For instance, I think we all really enjoyed Hans Rosling's talk, and he really emphasized the fact that I've been thinking about for a long time too, we have all this great data, but for some reason, it's just sitting there. We're not really accessing it. And one of the reasons why I think that is, is because of things like graphics- will be helped by things like graphics and visualization and inference tools. But I also think a big part of it is gonna be- starting to be able to have better interfaces, to be able to drill down into this kind of data, while still thinking about the big picture here."

So now what?

A recent post by "Alex", on the AFlex World blog discusses a few solutions. Alex had a chance to meet with Harry van der Veen and Pradeep George from the NUI Group, and Georg Kaindl, a multi-touch interaction designer from the Technical University of Vienna. The focus of the discussion was to come up with ideas to encourage Adobe/Flash designers and developers to learn more about multi-touch technology and interaction, and take steps to create innovative applications.

I especially like the following quote from the post:

"...A quick quote from our conversations: “When our children will walk up to a display, they will touch it and expect to do something.”

As a techie and a school psychologist, I see an immediate need for innovative applications. I know that there is a built-in market in the schools, at least for low-cost applications. Despite economic constraints, many school districts continue to invest in interactive whiteboards (IWB's). They are cropping up in preschool and K-12 settings, and teachers are searching for more than what's currently available.

Interactive, collaborative applications are needed in fields such as health care, patient education, finance & economics, urban planning, civil engineering, travel & tourism, museums & exhibitions, special events, entertainment, and more.

Smart Technologies, the company behind SmartBoards, has a new interactive multi-touch, multi-user table designed for K-6 education, the Smart Table. Hewlett Packard has several versions of the TouchSmart PC, which can support at least duo-touch, if not multi-touch, multi-user applications. There are numerous all-in-one large screen displays on the market that support multi-touch and multi-user interaction.

Quotes from Harry van der Veen, of Multitouch NL:

"In 10 years from now when a child walks up to a screen he expects it to be a multi-touch screen with which he can interact with by using gestures."

"...multi-touch screens will be as common as for children is the internet nowadays, as common as mobile phones are for us."


Here is a quote from a conversation I had with Spencer, who blogs at TeacherLED.

"It was interesting this week as I was in a classroom with a teacher who I've not worked with before... he had 2 students using the whiteboard who kept touching it together by mistake. The teacher, exasperated, said to himself, "Why can't they make these things to accept 2 touches without going crazy!"

Proof of the demand! I think you are right when teachers spot the limitations and then see the technology on visits to museums, that might stimulate demand."

Spencer creates cool interactive mini-applications, mostly for math, using Flash, that teachers (and students) love to use on interactive whiteboards. (He's interested in multi-touch, too.)


So what are we waiting for?!

Related:
Natural User Interface Europe AB meets Adobe
Georg's Touche Framework
NUI Group
TeacherLED
Interactive Touch-Screen Technology, Participatory Design, and "Getting It".
Hans Rosling's 2007 TED talk

New multi-touch "Gravitoy" application from NUI; Multi-touch Space Invaders from Barcelona; "Open source" touch-less multi-touch SDK on CodePlex

NUI (Natural User Interface) recently unveiled Gravitoy, a multi-touch physics application that offers two modes of interaction. Below is a picture of children engaged in collaborative play on an interactive table running Gravitoy in the Sandbox mode. The children can draw objects that interact using principles of physics. (Photos are from NUI co-founder Harry van der Veen's blog)



Below are table-shots of the Sandbox mode:



See the triangle?

The second mode of Gravitoy is "Stacks". Two players play a game of stacking objects of various sizes. The difficulty level can be adjusted by changing gravity options.



This would make science lab engaging for students!

In addition, NUI developed a 3d model viewer application, which looks like it would be fun for budding architects and designers.

Visit the NUI website to learn more about the company and NUI's partners.

Take a look at Multi-touch Space Invaders from Multi-touch Barcelona. It looks like a fun game to play during a rainy recess:

Multitouch Space Invaders! from Multitouch Barcelona (NUI-Group members) on Vimeo.

If you are interested in learning more about developing multi-touch applications and systems, visit the NUI Group website for opensource resources, code, and "how-to" support forums.

Video clips and links related to the work of NUI-Group members, such as Christian Moore, Harry van der Veen, and Seth Sandler, can be found on a previous post:
More Multi-touch from Members of NUI Group!




Touchless Multi-touch...
I recently learned of another "open-source" touch-less "multi-touch" resource. The Touchless SDK was developed for a college project by a Columbia University student, Mike Wasserman.
You will need Visual Studio 2008, the code, and a webcam to get started. From what I can tell, the code will work with in the XNA development environment.

The Touchless SDK website has links to a video demonstration, demo code, FAQs, and more. The discussion list has a lot of good information.

Mike Wasserman is now working at Microsoft Labs.

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

PLEASE SEE THE UPDATED VERSION OF THIS POST:
Interactive Touch Screen Technology, Participatory Design, and "Getting It", Revisited

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.)



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 in which surface computing would be a welcome 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.

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.

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.)

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!

Some resources:
HP TouchSmart PC website, with demo
HP's TouchSmart YouTube videos
lm3labs (catchyoo, ubiq'window)
NUI Group (See member's links)
NextWindow
Fingertapps
thirteen23
SmartTechnologies
Perceptive Pixel - Jeff Hans
Microsoft Surface
iPhone
(More can be found by doing a search on this blog or The World Is My Interactive Interface.)

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:

Need for Improvement: User-Unfriendly Information Kiosk Interactive Map

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