A New Twist to Infoviz: iPad Magic and Card Tricks to Convey Positive Stats About Stockholm

I came across a new twist to information visualization, featuring the creativity of magicians.  They were called to create short videos to promote the city of Stockholm, Sweden.  The use of magicians to convey the "magic" of Stockholm and the economic climate in Sweden was brilliant!  

It might be difficult for "pure" capitalists to understand how Sweden, with such high taxes, can provide an economic environment that supports innovation, capitalistic ventures, and a high standard of living while maintaining an efficient "welfare state".   

For those who live in Sweden, it just might be to the "magic" of the Nordic Model, an economic approach that combines capitalism with social welfare and good stewardship among government officials.   

If everone is healthy, the economy is healthy, right?   Swedish citizens feel that their high tax dollars are well-spent, and also well-managed, which is not always the case in other countries, especially in highly populated regions.

Not all is rosy in Sweden - there were riots last by "disaffected" youth last year, as the youth unemployment rate is high.  Despite the problems, there are are a number of countries who are considering the adoption of the Nordic Model.   The Economist's special report about the Nordic model has an interesting quote:  

Goran Persson, a former Swedish prime minister, once compared Sweden's economy with a bumblebee---"with its overly heavy body and little wings, supposedly it should not be able to fly--but it does."

The following video features Charlie Caper and Erik Rosales, of D1Gits, using iPads and creative magic to convey the positive economic statistics related to doing business in Stockholm:




In their most recent video to promote Stockhomlm,Charlie and Erik take it one step further, by using visualizations that seamlessly interact between iPads and a whiteboard:


In the video below, a magician spouts out interesting facts about the multiple benefits of living in Stockholm, Sweden while performing a number of card tricks to illustrate his points.


When I think about information and data visualization and Sweden, the first person that comes to mind is Hans Rosling, of Gapminder, and his talent at telling stories through interactive, animated data visualization.  As you can see from the video, an entertaining, story-telling approach to information visualization is effective!


RELATED AND SOMEWHAT RELATED
The secret of their success:  The Nordic countries are probably the best-governed in the world     2/2/13, Special Report, The Economist
Practical lessons for business from the Nordic Model
Anne Lise Kjaer, Futurist - 9/2013, SME Magazine
The Nordic Model (pdf) 
2007 MIT Department of Economics
What Can the United States Learn from the Nordic Model?
Daniel J. Mitchell, 11/5/07, The CATO Institute
Charlie Caper and Erick Rosales: Using Magic to Introduce Stockholm
The World By Road Collective, 3/2012
Charlie Caper, Magician
Hans Rosling's TED-talk videos 
Gapminder

Graphene, Nanotechnology, and Programmable Interfaces; Samsung Galaxy Demo

I've been intrigued by graphene's multiple possibilities for the future. It is a flexible, programmable material that harness nano-technology to create flexible touch screens, "wearables", efficient energy storage systems, and more.  The following videos provide just two examples of graphene's potential.  

The details?  If you are curious, follow the links at the end of this post.  




Here is a short clip of a demo of a graphene touch screen on a Samsung Galaxy:


RELATED
Graphene nanoribbons could be the savior of Moore's Law
Ryan Whitwam, Extreme Tech, 2/17/14
High-Performance Multifunctional Graphene Yarns: Toward Wearable All-Carbon Engery Storage Textiles
ACS NANO, 2/11/14
Hydrogenation-Assisted Graphene Origami and Its Application in Programmable Molecular Mass Uptake, Storage, and Release
Shuze Zhu and Teng Li, University of Maryland, ACS Nano, 2/24/14
Teng Li Group, Harvard University
Chemically and structurally functionalized graphene for real-world applications
Marko Spasenovic, Graphenea, 3/06/14
Nanoscale graphene origami cages set world record for densest hydrogen storage
Kurzweil Newsletter, 3/14/14
Auto-switchable graphene bio-interface with a 'zipper' nanoarchitecture
Onur Parlak, Anthony P.F. Turner, Ashutosh Tiwari, Nano Werk 10/31/13
Samsung files patent for graphene-based touch screen
Marko Spasenovic, Graphene Tracker, 3/7/14
Graphene: Wikipedia
Grahpene:  Flexible touch screen, made from a sheet of carbon the thickness of one atom!   
Lynn Marentette, Interactive Multimedia Technology blog, 6/23/10

ACO VIRTUAL: Interactive virtual chamber orchestra, with 3D musicians

The Australian Chamber Orchestra has unveiled ACO VIRTUAL, an installation that provides music-lovers the opportunity to experience what it is like to be surrounded by thirteen performing musicians, with the opportunity to control what you choose what is heard. The installation was created in collaboration with Mod Productions, an interactive multimedia company.

This promises to become a fantastic music education and performance tool!  To get a better understanding of ACO VIRTUAL, view the following video clips:

ACO VIRTUAL Trailer


"Each instrumentalist was filmed at Fox Studios, ACO artistic director and lead violin Richard Tognetti said, using the same "bullet-time" camera equipment used to shoot The Matrix, in both 2D and 3D. Visitors can enjoy the full stereoscopic experience with provided 3D glasses." -CNET

ACO Virtual Launch of Touring Installation

ACO VIRTUAL launch at MCA from Mod Productions on Vimeo.


CNET Interview: Building an Interactive Virtual Chamber Orchestra



How they did it:

The experience is controlled by a touch-pad app:

Credit: Will Huxley, ACO VIRTUAL

RELATED
Building an Interactive Virtual Chamber OrchestraAustralian Chamber Orchestra
Michelle Starr, CNET Australia, 9/26/13

ACO VIRTUAL

Mod Productions

Mod Productions Blog

Mod Productions ACO VIRTUAL

ACO VIRTUAL:  Play With the Band (pdf)

(Information for exhibitors)

ACO VIRTUAL iPhone App

Stanford's "Coding Together: Developing Apps for iPhone and iPad" Course Video Presentations on iTunesU

Now that the school year has ended, I've taken the first step to begin my "Summer of Code".  I have five weeks off each summer, and for me, it is the best time to brush up on my coding skills.   Since my school recently piloted an iPad program, I've developed an urge to learn Objective-C.  

So on the very first day of my summer break, I noticed in an email from Apple that that all of the presentation videos from Coding Together: Developing Apps for iPhone and iPad were made available, for free, though iTunes U. The course was designed for people who have some programming courses/experience, and from what I can see, provides a relatively "quick" and useful path for those who'd like to create an app for the iPhone or iPad.

After viewing the first video,  I am happy to say that I'm impressed with the way the professor, Paul Hegarty, explains it all.  

Course Description
"Updated for iOS 6. Tools and APIs required to build applications for the iPhone and iPad platform using the iOS SDK. User interface designs for mobile devices and unique user interactions using multi-touch technologies. Object-oriented design using model-view-controller paradigm, memory management, Objective-C programming language. Other topics include: object-oriented database API, animation, multi-threading and performance considerations. Prerequisites: C language and programming experience at the level of 106B (Programming Abstractions) or X. Recommended: UNIX, object-oriented programming, graphical toolkits."  -iTunesU Website

RELATED
iTunes U links to all course materials, including videos
Coding Together: Developing Apps for iOS Videos and Lecture Slides (iTunesU)
Website with files for course-related code
StackOverflow CS193P tagged items (Stack Overflow is an online resources for people with coding Q & As)

Interactive Displays and "Billboards" in Public Spaces; Pervasive Displays 2013

The 2013 International Symposium on Pervasive Displays (PerDis 2013), recently convened  in Mountain View, California.  Since I couldn't attend this conference, I was happy to learn from Albrecht Schmidt that the conference proceedings were recently uploaded to the ACM Digital library.  There are many exciting things going on in this interdisciplinary field!

Researchers involved with the Instant Places project, described in the video below, presented their work at PerDis 2013. The Instant Places project was part of PD-Net, a series of research efforts exploring the future of pervasive display networks in Europe. (See the "Related" section for additional references and links.)


Instant Places: Tools and Practices for Situated Publication in Display Networks

Below is information from the Instant Places video and website:
"The video describes a novel screen media system that explores new practices for individual publication and identity projection in public digital displays." 

"Instant Places has been developed by the Ubicomp group of the Information Systems Department, at the University of Minho, and has been funded within the scope of pd-net: Towards Future Pervasive Display Networks, by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 244011."

Saul Greenberg was the keynote speaker at PerDis 2013.  His keynote, "Proxemic Interactions: Displays and Devices that Respond to Social Distance", highlights how far off-the-desktop our digital/physical lives have become, and how this has influenced recent research in human-computer interaction. Saul is a professor at the University of Calgary and leads research in Human Computer Interaction, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, and Ubiquitous Computing.

Although the video of Saul Greenberg's presentation below is not from PerDis 2013, it touches on the same topics and is worth taking an hour to watch.  In this video, Greenberg presents an overview of the history of human-computer interaction. He also offers up a discussion how an understanding social theory, perception of spatial relationships, and embodied interaction can be applied to the design of natural user interfaces and interactive systems.  Useful examples of interaction design explorations, within an ecological context, are provided later in the video.

Proxemic Interactions: the New Ubicomp?

RELATED

My Backstory

Regular readers of this blog know that to subject interactive displays in public spaces holds my interest. When I was taking computer courses during the mid 2000s, I focused some of my energy on projects designed for large interactive displays, inspired by reading articles like "Physically Large Displays Improve Performance on Spatial Tasks" (Desney S. Tan, Darren Gergle, Peter Scupelli, and Randy Pausch) and "Dynamo: public interactive surface supporting the cooperative sharing and exchange of media" (Shahram Izadi, Harry Brignull, Tom Rodden, Yvonne Rogers, Mia Underwood).  

Jeff Han's 2006 TED talk was another inspiration. I remember my excitement as watched his demonstration of an interactive multi-touch touch screen the size of a drafting board, before the iPhone/iPad was born.  Another inspiration was Hans Rosling's TED Talk  about health statistics, with his animated interactive data visualizations presented on a huge screen.

The following year, I stumbled upon the  NUI-Group while searching for information about multi-touch displays, and was inspired by many of the early members of the group.  I also became acquainted with a world-wide network of people who share similar interests, such as Albrecht Schmidt and his team of researchers at the Unversity of Stuttgart. This busy group recently presented at PerDis 2013 and at CHI 2013 and are involved in a wider range of ongoing projects.

INTERACTIVE DISPLAYS

Alt, F. Sahami, A., Kubitza, T., Schmidt, A.  Interaction Techniques for Creating and Exchanging Content with Public Displays. In: Proceedings of the 2013 ACM Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 

Hinrichs, U., Carependale, S., Valkanova, N., Kulkkaniemi, K., Jacucci, G., Moer, A.V., Interactive Public Displays   Computer Graphics, Vol. 33(2) IEEE Computer Society (25-27)

The International Symposium on Pervasive Displays (PerDis 2013)

PerDis 2013 Program
Sample Papers:
Otero, N., Muller, M., Alissandrakis, A., and Milrad, M. Exploring video-based interactions around digital public displays to foster curiosity about science in the schools. PerDis 2013 (pdf)
Alt, F., Schneegass, S., Girgis, M., Schmidt, A. Cognitive Effects of Interactive Public Display Applications. Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Symposium on Pervasive Displays. 2013
Langeinrich, M., Schmidt, A., Davies, N., and Jose, R.  A practical framework for ethics: the 

Note:  Members of ACM have access to all of the proceedings of PerDis2013 in the ACM Digital Library. Non-members have access to the abstracts.

PD-NET

PD-net approach to supporting ethics compliance in public display studies. Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Symposium on Pervasive Displays. 139-143
PD-Net 
PD-NET Publications - a great reference list, with links to many papers
Reading List on Pervasive Public Displays
About Instant Places
About the Living Lab for Screens Set

DOOH-DIGITAL OUT-OF-HOME

Digital Out of Home (DOOH): Screens Large and Small at the Mall (and some touch-screen Coke machines!) Interactive Multimedia Technology, 1/1/10

Daily Digital Out of Home post "Billboards That Look Back" : Could miniature cameras embedded in ads lead to Big Brother at the mall? The World Is My Interactive Interface, 5/28/08
J. Müller et al., "Looking Glass: A Field Study on Noticing Interactivity on a Shop Window," Proc. 2012 SIGCHI Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 12), ACM, 2012, pp. 297–306
Michelis, D., Meckel, M. Why Do We Want to Interact With Electronic Billboards in Public Space?  First Workshop on Pervasive Advertising, Pervasive 2009, 5/11/09
The Rage of Interactive Billboards
The Print Innovator, 11/28/12
10 Brilliant Interactive Billboards (Videos)
Amy-Mae Elliot, Mashable, 8/21/11

SOME INTERESTING EARLIER WORK

Jeff Han's 2006 TED Talk (This is worth revisiting, as it came out before the iPhone, iPad, etc.)

Tan, D.S., Gergle, D, Scupelli, P., Pauch, R. Physically large displays improve performance on spatial tasks. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, V13(1) 2006 (71-99)

Revisiting promising projects: Dynamo an application for sharing information on large interactive displays in public spaces (blog post)
Lynn Marentette, Interactive Multimedia Technology, 09/16/07

Brignull, H., Izadi, S., Fitzpatrick, G., Rogers, Y., Rodden,  T. The introduction of a shared interactive surface into a communal space. Proceedings of the 2004 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work (CSCW'04), Chicago, ACM Press, 2004 (pdf)

Izadi, S., Brignull, H., Rodden, T., Rogers, Y. and Underwood,M. Dynamo: public interactive surface supporting the cooperative sharing and exchange of media. In Proc. User

Interfaces and Software Technologies (UIST’03), Vancouver, ACM Press, 2003, 159-168. (pdf)

Proxemics (Wikipedia)

Why Do We Want to Interact With Electronic Billboards in Public Space? 

WHY DO WE WANT TO INTERACT WITH ELECTRONIC BILLBOARDS IN PUBLIC SPACE? from danielmichelis

Leap Motion and Google Earth Experiment: Cute Doggie Photo-globe Mashup

Leap Motion and Google Earth Experiment: Cute Doggie Photo-globe Mashup 

I finally experimented with my Leap Motion controller and Google Earth, using a mashup I created a few years ago with pictures of cute dogs from my Flickr photo-stream.  In the video below, you can see that my gesture navigation skills still need some practice!

I should have watched the following video of Leap Motion in action with Google Earth before trying this experiment at home : )  

I am pretty sure that developers will be able to tweak Leap Motion + Google Earth interaction in the near future.  I'd like to adapt it for use with kids as well as adults who have mild motor impairments.

Cute Doggies Photo-Globe Mash-up using Google Earth and a Flickr Set (How-to)

If you'd like to make your very own photo-globe using Google Earth and Flickr photos, here are the directions, ported and updated from a previous post:

This photo is a screen shot of photos of just about every dog I know, and some that happened to cross my path. In this post, I'll share some information about how to create a photo-globe in Google Earth. 

The first step is to make sure you have lots of pictures related to your theme uploaded to a site such as Flickr.  (You can also create a photo-globe using pictures from your computer's hard drive.)

To get the pictures into Google Earth, I used the Image Overlay feature, and in the "link" textbox, I entered the image URL for each picture that I'd previously loaded as a set in Flickr.

To do prepare for this, make sure you go to "view" tab on the upper left-hand section of your screen, and make sure that "toolbar" is checked. Also make sure that "Grid" is selection, as this will help make it easier to arrange and align your pictures.  You can turn off this feature later. Near the top of the screen, click on the Image Overlay icon. (I've highlighted it in the picture.)

You'll have to enter the URL of the image you'd like to add to the globe in the "Link" textbox, which I've highlighted in the above picture.  In this case, I've used a link to one of my pictures in a Flickr set I created for this project.

One thing to keep in mind is that the picture will take up a much larger space than you might prefer, so you'll have to adjust the size using the green markers:


The following directions are from the "Positioning the Imagery in the Viewer" section in the help section:

1. Use the center cross-hair marker to slide the entire overlay on the globe and position it from the center. (Tip: do this first.)
2. Use the triangle marker to rotate the image for better placement.
3. Use any of the corner cross-hair markers to stretch or skew the selected corner. If you press the Shift key when selecting this marker, the image is scaled from the center.
4. Use any of the four side anchors to stretch the image in or out of from the selected side. If you press the Shift key when doing this, the image is scaled from the center.

TIP:  Try positioning the center of the image as a reference point first, and then use the Shift key in combination with one of the anchors to scale the image for best positioning.

Directions updated to reflect latest version of Flickr, as of 5/27/13:

To find the image URL for a photo in Flickr that you wish to link on your photo-globe, select your desired photo and right click "Copy Image URL".

Put your curser in the Link section of  the "New Image Overlay" dialog box in Google Earth, and right click to select "paste" from the drop-down menu

Then repeat the process.  It helps to name each picture so that you can find it easily in Google Earth.

To enhance your mash-up, you can add place-marks that contain URLs that link to additional information about the subject of a picture, such as blog posts with embedded videos and/or text related to a picture, and so forth. Directions can be found in Google Earth's help section.

The process of building a photo-globe in Google Earth is a bit tedious.  If someone has a short-cut to share, please let me know!

RESOURCES
Google Earth
Flickr
Programmable Web (My hunch is that this site might provide some information about shortcuts for creating a photo-globe in Google Earth.)
LEAP Motion

Xbox One and Kinect 2 for the Playground of the Future

Xbox One and Kinect 2, Playground of the Future

The big news in tech today is the unveiling of the new Xbox One/Kinect 2 system.  For now, the video below might be the closest you'll get to the system.  Wired's senior editor, Peter Rubin had a chance to interview Scott Evans, of Microsoft, as he demonstrated the fascinating technical details in a family-room type setting.

Wired's interview of Scott Evans and demo of the new Xbox One and Kinect 2, using Active IR technology.

From what I learned, the new Kinect sensor has six times the fidelity of the previous version. Paired with the new Xbox One, it can do amazing things.  Engineers from around the world collaborated on this project, providing expertise in facial recognition, digital signal processing, speech recognition, machine learning, and computer vision.  The Xbox One is fueled by an 8-core x86 processor, supported by 8GB of RAM, which is sure to handle the hardest gamer's needs. It also includes a 500GB hard drive and an HD Blu-ray player.


The new system was designed to enhance the gaming/user experience. The 1080p camera provides a field of view that is 60 degrees larger than its  predecessor, and can handle a high level of detail.  It provides a better means of interpreting movement and orientation, and it processes skeleton and hand movements more precisely.  The system features "muscle man", a human-based physics model that is layered over the skeleton and depth map. It senses and calculating the forces the player uses while moving in a game. 

What I find interesting is that the camera can detect the player's pulse by measuring subtle changes of the skin that can't be perceived by the naked eye.  It also can quickly identify each player (it handles up to six), and identify facial expressions.  The active IR (infrared) system provides the system with better accuracy than the original Kinect. 

I wasn't able to find out much information regarding privacy issues with this system.  This is a concern, since it can sense your physiological responses, movement patterns, and facial expressions.  Over time, a good deal of very personal information would be gathered about each user. I shudder to think about the consequences if the data fell into the wrong hands.  

Possibilities for Special Needs Populations

I can see that the Xbox One + Kinect 2 system has the potential for games and other interactive applications for use in physical rehabilitation and fitness.  Since it can interpret facial expressions, it could also provide a way to support social skills learning among children and teens who have autism spectrum disorders.

RELATED

Microsoft invests a good deal of attention to proof-of-concept projects that may or not become part of a commercial product.  Below is an example of IllumiRoom:

Hrvoje Benko, of Microsoft Research, discusses the IllumiRoom concept during an interview at CHI 2013.

Xbox One Website
The new Xbox One Kinect tracks your heart rate, happiness, hands and hollers
Matthew Panzarino, The Next Web, 5/22/13
Kinect 2 Full Video Walkthrough: The Xbox Sees You Like Never Before
Kyle Wagner, Gizmodo, 5/21/13
Hands-on with prototypes of the Xbox One and New Kinect Sensor
Ben Gilbert, engadget, 5/21/13
Efficient Human Pose Estimation from Single Depth Images
Shotton, J., Girshick, R., Fitzgibbon, A., Sharp, T., Cook, M., Finocchio, M., Moore, R., Kohli, P., Crinisi, A., Kipman, A., Blake, A.   Video
Consumer Depth Cameras for Computer Vision:  Research Topics and Applications
Fossati, A., Gall, J., Grabner, H., Ren, X., Konolige, K. (Eds.)
Xbox One: Microsoft's supergeeks reveal what's inside the hardware
Dean Takahashi, VentureBeat, 5/21/13
Next Xbox Will Face New Array of Rivals
Nick Wingfield, New York Times, 5/21/13

Astronaut Chris Hadfield's Awesome Music Video from Space - in case you missed it!

Amazing Music from Space

I finally got around to watching Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield's wonderful remake of David Bowie's Space Oddity, created on the International Space Station.  Hadfield makes the music his his own, changing a few words, to share his experience with the world.  

I was impressed with the quality of this video, from the editing to the sound mix.  



Chris Hadfield spent the last several months in space, and during this time, he connected with thousands of people, young and old, around the globe.  Although he is now known for his space music video,  many school children learned before his video went viral. His tweets, pictures, and video clips from space were followed by students in classrooms around the world.  (See "Related" section at the bottom of this post for links to related information about Chris Hadfield.)


I really liked the images from the video. Below are screen shots of some of my favorite scenes:

:49 Chris Hadfield looking out towards Earth and space

1:12 Guitar floating in space station

2:31 Chris Hadfield playing guitar

2:41 View of Earth and clouds from space

2:47 View of Earth at night

4:10 View of earth and darkness of space from window

RELATED

Chris Hadfield Twitter

Chris Hadfields Google+ Page

Chris Hadfield's Facebook Page

Biography of Chris Hadfield, Canadian Space Agency

5 things Chris Hadfield did that amazed us

John Bowman, CBCNews Your Community Blog, 5/14/13

How Chris Hadfield Made Us Care About Astronauts Again

Kyle Wagner, Gizmodo, 5/13/13

Pixel Press: Draw, create, play, and share games, without code, now on Kickstarter

Drawing and Playing with Pixel Press

Pixel Press is an early stage video design platform that supports the creation of DIY video games, without requiring coding skills.  The project was recently approved by Kickstarter, with an initial funding goal of $100,000.00.  The first version targets the iPad. 

Robin Rath, the creator of Pixel Press, was inspired by his memories of creating his own drawings for games when he was a kid in the 1980's, and it shows.  Pixel Press might appeal to gamers across generations, and looks suitable for use in school settings.

According to the Pixel Press website, there are just a few things to learn in order to create a basic video game within the Pixel Press environment, making it an ideal activity for kids and others aspiring game designers:

"You are designing five floors of a video game level.  Your hero will start at the bottom and attempt to overcome the obstacles you create to reach the elevator at the end of each floor to advance up to the next floor.  Your objective is to create a five floor level that is progressively more challenging from top to bottom." 

Pixel Press: Draw your own video game 

Pixel Press: Draw Your Own Video Game from Robin Rath on Vimeo.


The video below provides an overview/tutorial of how it works:

Pixel Press Walkthrough (For Website) from Robin Rath on Vimeo.

RELATED
Playing with paper:  with Pixel Press, design your own game by drawing it
Andrew Webster, The Verge, 5/3/13
This code-free design tool lets you freehand your games
Kris Ligman, Gamasutra, 5/3/13

Pixel Press Back Story
Pixel Press FAQ

Robin Rath's website
Robin Rath works at Coolfire

Quick Post/Videos: Evolving Soft Robots (Cornell's Creative Machines Lab); Leap Motion + Google Earth Experiment (PO-MO)

Evolution in Action: Soft Robots!

A team from Cornell's Creative Machines Lab have been researching simulations of evolutionary robots, and as a result, have come up with an entertaining video of what they've discovered so far.  According to the project's website, the work was inspired by developmental biology, to use evolutionary algorithms as a tool to develop locomotion.

The following description of the video was quoted from Jeff Clune's YouTube site:

"Here we evolve the bodies of soft robots made of multiple materials (muscle, bone, & support tissue) to move quickly. Evolution produces a diverse array of fun, wacky, interesting, but ultimately functional soft robots. "

Link to the paper.
Unshackling Evolution: Evolving Soft Robots with Multiple Materials and a Powerful Generative Encoding. Cheney, MacCurdy, Clune, & Lipson. Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference. 2013. (pdf)"

LEAP Motion + Google Earth
Meg, from PO-MO, has a LEAP Motion developer kit. Earlier this week, LEAP Motion provided support for Google Earth integration, and asked developers to submit videos of their experiments.  I like the Superwoman theme of this video!

LEAP Motion & Google Earth = Superhero Flight Simulator from PO-MO Inc. on Vimeo.

RELATED
Watch as these adorable robots evolve the ability to walk
George Dvorsky, io9, 4/25/13
Virtual, Squishy Creatures Evolve to Run Using Evolutionary Algorithms
Science Daily, 4/23/13
Cornell Creative Machines Lab Website
PO-MO
LEAP Motion

UPDATE: What's New for Kinect? Fusion, real-time 3D digitizing, design considerations, and more.

The Evolution of Microsoft Kinect

I've been following the evolution of Microsoft's Kinect, and recently discovered a few interesting videos that show how far the system has come. According to Josh Blake, the founder of the OpenKinect community and author of the Deconstructing the NUI blog,  the Kinect for Windows SDK v1.7 will be released on Monday, March 18th, from http://www.kinectforwindows.com.  More details about this version can be found on Josh's blog as well as the official Kinect for Windows blog.


It is possible to create applications for desktop systems that work with the Kinect in interesting ways, as you'll see in the following videos. I think there is potential here for use in education/edutainment!

Below is a video of Toby Sharp, of Microsoft Research, Cambridge, demonstrating Kinect Fusion.  The software allows you to use a regular Kinect camera to reconstruct the world in 3D.



KinEtre: A Novel Way to Bring Computer Animation to Life
According to information from the YouTube description, "KinÊtre is a research project from Microsoft Research Cambridge that allows novice users to scan physical objects and bring them to life in seconds by using their own bodies to animate them. This system has a multitude of potential uses for interactive storytelling, physical gaming, or more immersive communications."




The following videos are quite long, so feel free to re-visit this post when you have time to relax and take it all in!

Kinect Design Considerations
This video covers Microsoft's Human Interface Guidelines, scenarios for interaction and use, and best practices for user interactions.  It also includes a preview of the next major version of the Kinect SDK. 


Kinect for Windows Programming Deep Dive
This video discusses how to build Windows Desktop apps and experiences with the Kinect, and also previews some future work.




RELATED
Kinect for Windows Developer Downloads
Kinect for Windows Blog
Deconstructing the NUI Blog (Josh Blake)
Microsoft Kinect Learns to Read Hand Gestures, Minority Report-Style Interface Now Possible
Celia Gorman, IEEE Spectrum, 3/13/13
Kinect hand recognition due soon, supports pinch-to-zoom and mouse click gestures.
Tom Warren, The Verge, 3/6/13
Microsoft's KinEtre Animates Household Objects
Samuel K. Moore, IEEE Spectrum, 8/8/12

Kinect Fusion Lets You Build 3-D Models of Anything Celia Gorman, IEEE Spectrum, 3/6/13
Description of Kinect sessions at Build 2012
Kinect for every developer!
Tom Kerhove, Kinecting for Windows, 2/15/13
Kinect in the Classroom
Kinect Education

Note: Although I recently received my developer kit for Leap Motion, another gesture-based interface, I haven't lost interest in following news for Kinect.