InteractiveTV Today (ITVT): Links to information and updates about CES 2013, via Tracy Swedlow.:

If you want a quick look at the latest news related to interactive TV, including cool stuff featured at CES 2013, a good resource is the InteractiveTV Today website.   

Below are a few quick links to posts written by Tracy Swedlow, the founder of ITVT.  You'll see that there has been a flood of news and information generated from the companies featured at the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2013) held in Las Vegas:

Interactive TV headlines Round-Up (I): Aereo, Amazon, A +E Networks, Turner, Warner Bros., Samsung, Roku, Nintendo Wii U, CBS, Microsoft Xbox

Interactive TV Headlines Round-Up (II):  ConnectTV, DDD, LG, Delivery Agent, Samsung, Magic Ruby, "Sons of Anarchy", Digitalsmiths, Time Warner Cable, i.TV

Interactive TV Headlines Round-Up (III): DirectTV, Dish Network, Ensequence, Sony, ES3, Azuki Systems, Microsoft Mediaroom

Interactive TV Headlines Round-Up (IV): Asus, Google TV, Marvell, Sony, Ubitus, Amazon, YouTube

It might take a while to catch up!

BTW, the ITVT website has a number of bloggers who share insights and news related to interactive TV and multimedia.  The ITVT Community Blogstream is a good place to start.

Knight Digital Media Center: Election shows data illiteracy is a problem for journalist. I think this also applies to some corporate board directors, government leaders, politicians....

Here is the link:

Election shows data illiteracy is a problem for journalists
Amy Gahran, USC Annenberg Knight Digital Media Center, 11/7/12

FYI:
"In 2012, the Knight Foundation broaden the KDMC mission to include community foundations and other nonprofits who are seeking to engage and inform their communities on critical issues. The KDMC provides resources and training in variety of formats including self-directed, web-based learning modules, instructor-led virtual classes and workshops throughout the country. In addition the KDMC offers consulting services for organizations in strategies for engaging and informing communities in the digital age"  -Knight Digital Media Center

RELATED:

Pew research roundup: Digital media and election 2012

Tools for Knowledge Junkies: Document Cloud, CALAIS , Linked Data

For all of the knowledge junkies out there, here are a few things that might fuel your passion for interactive information exploration and consumption. Although the tools below were adopted by people in journalism/news related fields, I think that they have potential for use in education and other fields. I'm interested in learning more about how people from different disciplines currently use these tools, and I'd also like more to this list.

CALAIS: "We want to make all the world's content more accessible, interoperable and valuable. Some call it Web 2.0, Web 3.0, the Semantic Web or the Giant Global Graph - we call our piece of it Calais. Calais is a rapidly growing toolkit of capabilities that allow you to readily incorporate state-of-the-art semantic functionality within your blog, content management system, website or application." CALAIS is published by Thomson Reuters
MORE ABOUT CALAIS
PR Video for CALAIS:

How CALAIS Works:

CALAIS for Publishers
CALAIS for Bloggers
CALAIS for Software Providers
CALAIS for Content Managers
CALAIS for Developers
Open CALAIS Content Maps by Jer Thorp

"Jer Thorp is a software artist, writer, and educator. He is a contributing editor for Wired UK. He is currently Data Artist in Residence at the New York Times."

DOCUMENTCLOUD
"DocumentCloud runs every document you upload through OpenCalais, giving you access to extensive information about the people, places and organizations mentioned in each."

DocumentCloud Blog from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.
MORE ABOUT DOCUMENT CLOUD
DocumentCloud Merging with IRE 
Amanda Hickman, DocumentCloud, 6/9/11 (Note:  IRE = Investigative Reporters and Editors)
Newsrooms using Document Cloud
Document Cloud: Not Just For Journalists?  (Excellent article!) Konrad Lawson, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 7/8/11 (Konrad is a Ph.D student in the history department at Harvard University.)
For Techies:  Document Cloud's VisualSearch.js | Autocomplete Faceted Search Queries
Losterium Posterious, 7/9/11


LINKED DATA

-linkeddata.org
"Linked Data is about using the Web to connect related data that wasn't previously linked, or using the Web to lower the barriers to linking data currently linked using other methods. More specifically, Wikipedia defines Linked Data as "a term used to describe a recommended best practice for exposing, sharing, and connecting pieces of data, information, and knowledge on the Semantic Web using URIs and RDF.""

Tim Berners-Lee: The Year Open Data Went Worldwide

"....Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. For his next project, he's building a web for open, linked data that could do for numbers what the Web did for words, pictures, video: unlock our data and reframe the way we use it together." At TED2009, Tim Berners-Lee called for "raw data now" -- for governments, scientists and institutions to make their data openly available on the web. At TED University in 2010, he shows a few of the interesting results when the data gets linked up."-TED

LDOW2011: Linked Data on the Web workshop


COMMENT
I plan to share more information related to this topic in future posts.  I welcome input and links from my readers!

NEWSEUM, a highly interactive museum in D.C. with an online component -I want to visit!

What is a newseum?

"The Newseum -- a 250,000-square-foot museum of news -- offers visitors an experience that blends five centuries of news history with up-to-the-second technology and hands-on exhibits.  Within its seven levels of galleries and theaters, the Newseum offers a unique environment that takes museum-goers behind the scens to experience how and why news is made."

"The Newseum is one of the most technologically advanced museums in the world. The Newseum ordered 100 miles of fiber-optic cable to link up-to-the-second technologies that include electronic signage and interactive kiosks, two broadcast studios, 15 theaters and a 40-by-22-foot high-resolution media screen."


Below are some examples of what visitors can experience at the Newseum, located in Washington, D.C.:


Bloomberg Internet, TV and Radio Gallery

-Newseum
Time Warner World News Gallery

-Newseum


The New York Times --Ochs-Sulzberger Family Great Hall of News 
Surrounded by the flow of information

-Newseum
"Around, above and below, visitors to the Great Hall of News are surrounded by a continuous flow of news. Instant, breaking, historic news that is uncensored, diverse and free."


NBC News Interactive Newsroom

Photo by Maria Bryk/Newseum

"In this 7,000-square-foot interactive gallery, visitors can select any of 48 interactive kiosks or experiences where they can immerse themselves in the many roles -photojournalist, editor, reporter, anchor — required to bring the news to the public. The gallery features eight “Be a TV Reporter” stations that allow visitors to choose from a variety of video backdrops, take their place in front of the screen, read their report from a TelePrompter and see themselves in action." -Newseum










NEWSEUM exhibits have an on-line component.  Here are a few:

Time-Warner World News Gallery Press Freedom Interactive Map

Online Virtual Tour of the Newseum

Newseum Online News Trivia Game

Newseum Microsite (Great for use on an interactive whiteboard to introduce students to the museum.)

Video:  How to Be a TV Reporter

Bloomberg Internet, TV and Radio Online Exhibit

Pulitzer Prize Photograph Gallery

Newspaper Biz and 21st Century Tech: Great post by Tracy Boyer (Innovative Interactivity)

My solution to the failing newspaper business plan
Tracy Boyer,  Innovative Interactivity  (11/10/10)


Take some time to read Tracy Boyer's thoughtful post on the Innovative Interactivity blog covers some of the key issues facing the newspaper industry today, even if you don't read the newspaper.  She brings up some points that are worth thinking about, no matter what your field, since technology is rapidly changing the way everyone does business--and life.


I read the printed newspaper every day, but I also scan an assortment of "news widgets" I selected for my browser's home page.  I get much of my new news from tweets.   


My morning paper delivers old news, but that's OK, since it satisfies my addiction to newsprint.   But that's not all.  It brings up fond memories of my childhood when I looked forward to the Sunday paper so I could use it to build forts around the coffee table with my brother. 

Good News: Unity 3D (Game Dev Co.) and Electronic Arts Join Forces

I discovered Unity 3D a few years ago and was impressed by the company's great game development products.  I especially liked the company's Unity Web Player- it makes web-based 3D interaction come to life.I shared my impressions of the company on a post,  Chill in an on-line 3-d tropical paradise from Unity 3D.  At the time, Unity 3D was a very new company.

A lot has changed since then!  

I learned today that "the companies are announcing that EA has signed a multi-year enterprise deal with Unity: EA will be using Unity’s platform across multiple franchises, and all of EA’s developers will have access to the “entire range of Unity products from web and mobile to consoles and beyond”. The timing is also good: Unity is launching its 3.0 upgrade next week."   -Jason Kincaid, TechCrunch 

What I like about Unity 3D is that it was created to support cross-platform development.

For more details:

Electronic Arts Gives Unity's Game Development Platform A Big Wet Kiss 

(Jason Kincaid, TechCrunch 9/22/10)

Unity Technologies and Electronic Arts (EA) Announce Deep Partnership 

Unity to Be Used Across Multiple Franchises; New Unity Enterprise License Gives Every EA Studio and Developer Access to All unity Products 

(MarketWire Press Release, 9/22/10)

Unity 3D

Electronic Arts

Unity 3D Demo Reel

Unity Spring 2010 Highlight Reel from Unity3D on Vimeo.

Unity Technologies Motto:  
"Taking the Pain out of Game Development"

Touch Screen and Interactive Displays Biz News, Part 1: NextWindow; Schematic

Here is more news from the interactive touch-screen industry:

NextWindow Introduces 2700 Touch Screen Overlay for New Wave of Education and Entertainment Applications

NextWindow Touch Screen News 2009 - Earns Windows 7 Certification

NextWindow Multi-TouchCreativity

Schematic Multi-touch Wall for Cannes

I wish I was at the Consumer Electronics Show! (Links to CES info and updates, also MacWorld)

There are plenty of people reporting and blogging about CES 2009, and I won't have time to digest it all for a while. I've embeded the CNET overview video below, which includes a demonstration of some interesting interactive technologies and applications.

If you want the latest scoop, your first stop should be CNET's CES 2009 website. It is almost as good as being there, and you won't have to deal with the crowds.



Here is the overview video from the site:

Lots of cool stuff, like 3DVU's Way2Go 3D mobile mapping and GPS system:



3DVU's Way2Go Website

(By the way, if you are interested, here is a link to CNET's MacWorld site.)

Multi-Touch News from WinHEC and PDC

I received the following videos and links from Anthony Uhrick, who happens to be at WinHEC this week and was at PDC 2008 last week. Touch screen, multi-touch, and gesture technology is starting to catch on. (Anthony is the VP of sales for NextWindow, the company that created the touch screen for the HP TouchSmart and other multi-touch enabled displays.)

Below is a video clip of a multi-touch photo presentation system running Windows 7: Gesture + Touch - has gesture and physics engines.

Apparently the application can run on Vista, Win 7, and Win 7 Touch.

Here is an HP TouchSmart PC, running a Touch Map application on Windows 7:


The following clip is of a newscaster using a multi-touch transparent screen.The display is from U-Touch Ltd. a partner of NextWindow. In my opinion, the application enhances the viewers understanding of the various news topics, and is visually appealing as well.


The graphics engine used in this application was developed by Vizrt, the same folks who were behind CNN's video hologram. Here are a few pictures from the Vizrt website:

The workflow behind the CNN hologram (click to enlarge)

The holograph "transporter" room.

For more videos using Windows 7 apps, see creamhackered's YouTube channel. (Videos appear to be from NeoWin Net.)

Windows 7 Design Concepts and Usability Tests

Interactive information visualization: Digg labs website

I thought I'd share a view examples of information visualization as it relates to on-line news. Stories are grouped in various configurations over time. Click on the images below to see each example in real-time:

NEWSMAP

Click on the image to link to Newsmap.

" Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator. A treemap visualization algorithm helps display the enormous amount of information gathered by the aggregator. Treemaps are traditionally space-constrained visualizations of information. Newsmap's objective takes that goal a step further and provides a tool to divide information into quickly recognizable bands which, when presented together, reveal underlying patterns in news reporting across cultures and within news segments in constant change around the globe."

DIGG

Click an image to see digg visualizations in action!
STACK
"Diggers fall from above and stack up on active stories." If you click on a story, you'll get a pop-up that provides more details about the story, including information over time.


SWARM

Digger swarm around different categories of stories and make them grow. You can look at popular stories, newly submitted stories, or all activity. Click on a circle, and you'll get more information, and the option to keep or "kill" the story.

BIGSPY

"Bigspy: Active stories appear at the top when people digg them. Bigger stories have more diggs..." If you click on a story, you'll link to more information about it from the digg website.


ARC

"Stories arrange themselves as users digg them. Larger stories have more diggs." If you click on a story, you'll link to more information about it from the digg wesbsite.

Check back for more examples- and leave a comment if you have others to share.

Related Link:

Article from PBS.org's Idea Lab, by Rich Gordon, about information visualization and journalist-programmers. "Idea Lab is a group blog by innovators who are reinventing community news for the digital age..."