Touchco, Ken Perlin & Ilya Rosenburg's Multitouch Company, Bought By Amazon

Here is the scoop:
Amazon buys touchscreen startup Touchco, merging with Kindle division
Ross Miller, Engadget, 2/3/2010

Amazon Said to Buy Touch Start-Up
Nick Bilton and Brad Stone, New York Times, 2/3/2010


Is Amazon Building a SuperKindle?
Nick Bilton, NYT, 2/3/2010
"Unlike traditional capacitive sensors, our patent-pending system can detect any object — not just a finger — and can determine how much pressure is being applied to every point on a sensor simultaneously. IFSR sensors are natively multitouch, use less power than capacitive sensors, and are much less expensive to produce, making them a highly disruptive technology with widespread market applications."

RELATED
Here is my Aug. 29 post:
Natural User Interface Surfaces:  TouchCo - IFSR Technology company, founded by NYU Media Research Lab's Ken Perlin and Ilya Rosenburg


TOUCHCO GUI:

Touchco GUI example from Nick Bilton on Vimeo.

A Touch of Ingenuity:  Inexpensive pressure-sensitive pad could make surfaces smarter
Kate Green, MIT Technology Review, Sept-Oct


Multitouch Screens Could Enliven New Devices
Nick Bilton, NYT, 12/20/09


TouchCo was an outgrowth of the UnMousePad research at NYU.


Photo from the UnMousePad website:



Photo from NYT:

Photo from NYT:

Photo from NYT:



Ken Perlin

Microvision's SHOWWX Laser Pico Projector: I want one!

Microvision's SHOWWX laser pico projector is not yet available in the U.S. This mobile projector connects to a variety of devices and looks like it would be quite useful in a variety of situations. The picture below is from the Microvision SHOWWX website, where you can find additional information, a photo/video gallery, and a place to sign up for further information.

Acording to ubergizmo, the Microvision Show laser pico projector "connects directly to laptops, mobile phones portable media players, digital cameras, and other devices to project large, high -resolutions onto any surface"

Dan Saffer's Book: Designing Gestural Interfaces; Gregory Siegal's LifeMap Photo App

Dan Saffer's new book, Designing Gestural Interfaces, is out!




Dan Saffer's company, Kicker Studio, specializes in touch screens and gestural interfaces. Chan Wook sent me a link to Dan's recent blog post, Concept: Desktop Touchscreen System. The post includes a variety of illustrations of various touch-screen interactions and features, including a "haptics keyboard when you need it". (Thanks, Chan Wook!)

If you are interested in multi-touch and gesture interfaces and interaction, join the Multi-touch Book Club at Jonathan Brill's site, Point & Do, for more information. The discussion will center around Dan Saffer's new book.

Dan Saffer is the author of Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices, one of my favorite books in the field of interaction:

Chan Wook also recommended a look at Gregory Siegal's LifeMap concept:


According to Siegal's website, "The LifeMap is a touch -screen digital photo storing and organization product. After tagging photos with people, places, and keywords, the LifeMap organizes the images in a way that users can document their lives over time..."My inspiration for the LifeMap came from noticing the lack of intimacy in the interaction with most everyday products. Family photographs are very important and currently the process of storing and organizing them is tedious and boring. I wanted to create a product for families that would promote a meaningful interaction and attach more intimacy to digital family photos."

(Gregory Siegal is working on a BFA in Industrial Design from Carnegie Mellon, with an expected graduation in May of 2009.)