I've been wrapping up the loose ends of the last few weeks of what turned out to be quite a busy school year, so I haven't posted in about 10 days! I have lots to cover, including interesting updates about a variety of tech companies I follow.
Today, I'm sharing a video from Sony that highlights the features of the company's iPad-like tablet in a creative way:
The video is the first of a 5-part campaign to promote the S1 and S2 Android tablets For more information:
"Here's a preview of our two tablets - codename S1 and S2.With the S1 designed for comfort and S2 built for safe portability Sony enters the Tablet arena with two very distinct offerings."-Sony
Note: If you are a new visitor, I work as a school psychologist in my "day job", which can spill over to evenings and weekends at times... I returned to school to take computer and technology courses back in the '00s, and started to blogging because it was a requirement for one of my courses.
I never stopped.
My blogs still serve me well as on-line filing cabinets, since I have a fairly wide range of interests and I like to drill down deeper into topics that strike my fancy. I'm curious that way. Because of my interest in interactive multimedia technology, most of my posts include video clips, photos, and links to interesting websites.
During today's visit to Best Buy, I noticed that there were more display centers in various departments in the store, and many of the displays had useful and informative content. The Kinect demo was up and running, too.
Within the store, I noticed a strong emphasis on HDTVs with internet capabilities. I was hoping that the new Internet HDTVs would come with user-friendly touch-screen controllers, or at least an app for use on touch-screen smartphones, iPads, or other touch-screen tablets.
What I found was disappointing. On display were traditional-looking multi-button remote controllers, controllers that looked like PC keyboards, and of course, Sony's confusing multi-featured contribution to the Internet TV scene.
None of the controllers seemed to be easy-to-use, or capable of supporting web-navigation and other web interactions on HDTVs from a distance, especially when the goal is to watch movies and video from a recliner in a darkened family room.
Below is a partially annotated slideshow of pictures I took of some of the displays and other things I encountered at Best Buy. Enjoy!
Close Encounter with Kinect Bowling It wasn't easy trying to bowl and take video with a phone at the same time! (Please excuse the shaky video effects and the view of my fingers.)
Today we switched from DISH to Time Warner Cable, and tonight I had to battle with a new remote control, the UR5U-8780L. The experience with this remote led me to search for something better. What a coincidence! In this day and age of touch-screens, I was hoping for something better than....
It is 2010, and with TVs connected to the internet, we'll be interacting with content in ways we could only dream of in the recent past. Interactive TV is here. Do I really have to push a lot of buttons in order to have the best "interactive" experience?
The video below gives a demo of Sony's RayModeler, "A 360-Degree Display that doesn't require glasses". The video shows how the auto-stereoscopic 3D content is filmed. It also shows how items within the display respond to gesture interaction. The first prototype was introduced in 2009 and then brought out at the SIGGRAPH conference this summer.
According to an article written by Richard Lawler, Core77 created "Breakout" for the RayModeler, a game similar to Pong. I'll have to think more about this technology before I form an opinion!
"Google TV brings everything you love about the web to your television"
INTRODUCING GOOGLE TV
Transcript of the Google TV video:
"Back when there were only a few networks, watching TV was pretty simple. You turned on the TV, and if you didn't like what was playing, you changed the channel. But these days, TV can be pretty complicated. Figuring out what you want to watch is hard enough, and that's only the beginning. Once you've chosen a program, you have to figure out when it's playing, and which of hundreds of channels it's on. It's like you have to change your schedule to fit your TV's schedule. In fact, many of us end up watching videos on the web, because it is easier to find things that you want. I mean think about it, more and more of our favorite shows and videos are showing up online these days, and you can get to them really easily, whenever you want, just by typing in what you're looking for."
"The problem is, these smaller screens don't really compare to our home entertainment systems. Which leads us to a pretty big question: If the web is so smart, and our TVs are so fun to watch, why do we have to choose? Why can't they work together?
"Well, now they can. Introducing Google TV. Google TV brings everything you love about the web to your television. Some new TVs will come with it built-in, or you can get a separate box for the TV you already own. Either way, the way it works is very simple. Right on your TV screen, you simply type in what you're looking for...anything you're looking for, and Google TV will find it."
"It's basically an entertainment hub that searches all of your channels, recorded shows, YouTube, and other web sites. If you find something you like, you can add it to your home screen where you will always see your favorite channels, shows, websites, even music playlists and photo albums. That way, you can get to things really quick. And with a full web browser, you get unlimited access to the entire Internet, so you can do stuff like browse photos or update your status. And that's just scratching the surface."
"By opening up your TV to all of the improvements and innovation that the web has to offer, Google TV will make your TV smarter and easier to use. So you'll be able to spend a lot less time finding what you want, and a lot more time watching what you want."
Google TV is a new experience made for television that combines the TV you know and love with the freedom and power of the Internet. Watch an overview video below, sign up for updates, and learn more about how to develop for Google TV.
"Google TV is a new experience for television that combines the TV that you already know with the freedom and power of the Internet. With Google Chrome built in, you can access all of your favorite websites and easily move between television and the web. This opens up your TV from a few hundred channels to millions of channels of entertainment across TV and the web. Your television is also no longer confined to showing just video. With the entire Internet in your living room, your TV becomes more than a TV — it can be a photo slideshow viewer, a gaming console, a music player and much more."
SOMEWHAT RELATED I wonder what the user interface will be for navigating around Google TV. This just might be the opportunity for a next-gen universal remote control to emerge. I hope so, because I've had usability issues with the current state of my remote controls and my DVR + HDTV viewing experiences.
FYI: A few of my previous posts related to remote controls, web-browsing on HD TV's, and so on:
Sony will be introducing a full high-definition interactive table, a result of a collaboration with the Swiss company Atracsys.
(At about 2:14 in the video below, there is a demonstration of an application that recognizes facial features and expressions, which are used to control and manipulate images on the screen.) Images from the Sony Stand at Vision 2009
Here is an "overview" video that shows a number of uses for the Attractable:
Here is a version of the atracTable, using a tangible user interface to create music:
Here is the "Nespresso" table, which provides people with information about the type of coffee that you are drinking. It makes more sense as demonstrated in the video. Atracsys @ Baselworld 2010
beMerlin: Interactive gesture-based application for retail:
