Light Space: Interaction with digital content across all sorts of surfaces! (Demo video: Hrvoje Benko and Andy Wilson, Microsoft Research)

Hrvoje Benko and Andy Wilson from Microsoft Research demonstrate a system that uses 3D depth support tracking and interpreting the interaction between people,  It also allows for manipulating digital content across a variety of surfaces.

Information Visualization Meets Augmented Reality?

Watch the video to find out:

CCC/CRA Roadmapping for Interactive Technology: Series of 3 Game Changing Workshops

The following information is from the CCC/CRA Roadmapping for Interactive Technologies website, describing an upcoming series of three three-day workshops that I think have the potential for changing the way interactive technology is designed and implemented in the future:

"The modern computing experience is shaped by the ways in which people interact with their computers. Underlying that interaction are the technologies of input, sensing, interactive techniques and interactive architecture. This is a series of workshops that will create a research agenda for revolutionizing these foundational technologies."

Workshops

Interactive System Architecture - August 11-13, 2010 - Jackson, WY http://icie.cs.byu.edu/CCCWorkshops/InteractiveArchitecture.html

Dan Olsen - Brigham Young University  

The last few decades have produced many new interactive technologies and many interactive techniques. Few of them are making their way into actual use because they are so hard to integrate. This workshop will create an agenda for new architectures for building interactive systems that integrate basic interaction in powerful new ways and provide new opportunities and foundations on which to build usable systems.

Persuasive Experiences - September 23-25, 2010 - Burbank, CA   http://icie.cs.byu.edu/CCCWorkshops/Persuasive.html

Joe Marks - Disney Research

A culture is defined by its shared stories and the messages that people communicate with each other. Computing has created new ways for stories to be told in entertainment and education. This workshop will outline how we can bring digital storytelling from the realm of multimillion dollar productions down to the practical needs of everyday social, educational and political discourse.

Ultra-large-scale Interaction - October 25-27, 2010 - Chicago, IL http://icie.cs.byu.edu/CCCWorkshops/Ultra-large-scale.html

Mark Ackerman - University of Michigan

A byproduct of the Internet's success is that large numbers of people can interact with each other and with large stores of loosely interconnected data. This workshop will create an agenda for interactions that involve thousands of participants.

NOTE:  Organizers for the Interactive System Architecture Workshop include Dan Olsen, from Brigham Young University, Andy Wilson, from Microsoft Research, and Celine Latulipe, from the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.  (Dr. Latulipe was my HCI professor.)  Joe Marks is a VP at Disney Research.  The organizers for the Ultra-large Scale Interaction Workshop include Mark Ackerman and Mark Newman, from the University of Michigan, Keith Edwards, from Georgia Tech, and Scott Klemmer, from Stanford.


I'd really like to attend all three workshops.  I will try to learn all I can about these workshops and share what I find during periodic blog posts over the next several months.


RELATED
Links on the CCC/CRA Website
Welcome
Approach/Participation
Workshop Attendence Information

Events

Interactive System Architecture Workshop

Aug 11-13, 2010
Submit: June 14

Persuasive Experiences Workshop

Sept 23-25, 2010
Submit: July 1

Ultra-large-scale Interaction Workshop

Oct 25-27, 2010
Submit: July 19

Links  NSF   CRA / CCC  ACM / SIGCHI

CCC Liason: Elizabeth Mynatt - Georgia Tech

Pictionaire Multi-touch Collaborative Design Table from Microsoft Research (CSCW 2010) Found on Andy Wilson's Site

Pictionaire Table
(This looks like it is in the testing stage)


Link to video and information on Andy Wilson's website


Link to paper:
Pictionaire: Supporting Collaborative Design Work by Integrating Physical and Digital Artifacts (pdf)

Thorsten Blum and Johann Korndörfer's Multi-touch 360 Sphere for Art Installations- and Space Invaders!

I came across the Multi-touch 360 project today and I thought it would be the best surface for a prototype I worked on a couple of years ago. Multi-touch 360 would be great for travel planning and teaching geography. I could see one of these interactive spheres in the lobby of every cruise ship!

This


on this!

The Multi-touch 360 project is the work of Thorsten Blum and Johann Korndorfer, based on their previous work on the Space Invader's 360 game, featured later in this post. It is similar to Microsoft's Sphere project.

Multi-Touch 360 First Tests Video:




Picture Collage of Multi-Touch 360 In Process:

Multi-Touch Materials Research

SPACE INVADERS 360 VIDEO

SPACE INVADERS 360


Space Invaders 360: An Interactive Multplayer Gaming Installation That Makes You Move (pdf)
MindTrek 2008 October 6-9, 2008, Tampere, FINLAND ACM

ABSTRACT "Space Invaders 360 is a tribute to the video game Space Invaders designed by Tomohiro Nishikado in 1978. While the original version is a two-dimensional arcade shooter game, we have created an interactive gaming installation combin-ing the fun and thrill of the classic video game with experimental concepts of display technologies and new ways of user interaction.
Beside the technical aspects we also want to discuss the social aspects of our work. How does the gameplay change in the 21st century? What new ways of user interaction can be thought of? The success of Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS [7] shows the interest of professional and casual gamers in new methods of user interaction. While the last decades have been dominated by video games on fixed screens, over- sized gamepads and realistic graphics, gamers are now moving towards video gaming with a focus on physical interaction."


Thorsten maintains another blog, which is worth a look. I like the links he posts:

• Better Programmer Art
• How to Prototype a Game in Under 7 Days
• A Global Phenomenon: Andersson and Judd on Capcom/GRIN’s Bionic Commando
• The Megatrends of Game Design, Part 3

More about Microsoft's Sphere prototype:

"Our prototype device builds on a commercially available globe projection system (Global Imagination’s Magic Planet). We have added touch-sensing capabilities with an infrared camera that shares the optical path with the projector. This novel configuration permits us to enclose both the projection and the sensing mechanism in the base of the device and allows for easy 360 degrees access to the device and high degree of interactivity without shadowing or occlusion problems. We have also developed a custom graphics projection pipeline that solves the distortion problems and enables projected data to be correctly visualized on the curved surface.

The applications developed for Sphere currently include a picture and video browser, interactive globe visualization, finger painting, globe visualization, and an omni-directional video-conferencing application (360 degree panoramic video from Microsoft RoundTable device). These applications are designed for highly interactive public space environments (e.g., museums, lobbies, information booths) and highlight the appeal of the device as well as its visualization and interaction capabilities." Hrvoje Benko, Andy Wilson, Ravin Balakrishnan, Billy Chen

Note: Microsoft's RoundTable 360 video conferencing application is now known as the Polycom CX5000 Unified Conference Station, optimized for the Microsoft Office Communicator. More information can be found on the Polycom website.


Microsoft's Sphere