If you live in the US, and haven't yet heard, the U.S. government is encouraging K-12 schools to adopt interactive digital textbooks within the next five years. Are we ready? I don't think so. There is a battle of the tablets going on as I type this post. Traditional, "old-school" textbook publishers appear to be key players in this game, but I am not sure if they have the know-how to create interactive content that is fresh, "touchable", engaging, and meaningful to young people. A boring textbook, tweaked tweaked for a bit of interactivity and multimedia content will not suffice. Feel free to take your time and visit the links I've shared so far. I'm still reflecting on what I've learned so far and will share more of my thoughts in future related posts. Leaders Discuss Transition to Digital Textbooks The LEAD commission
I came across one of my old posts while putting together More Tablets, More Mobile, More Social. On The Media's The Facebook Show, Adobe's Social 'Metrics, Not Myths" Campaign. When I wrote the following post in December of 2009, the first iPad had not been released. Google Plus was just a rumor. Facebook was much smaller, worldwide. Even though many things have changed, the post rings true: From a Post-Wimp Perspective: What Happens When Post-Mass Market Goes to Market? Bob Garfield's insightful video, and more...
I realize that working for the public good has prevented me from developing a thirst for marketing competitiveness. I don't have a greedy bone in my body. The only reason that I've developed a slight interest in advertising and marketing over the past few years is my interest in technology and how our society has been transformed by recent changes. Everyone has a cell phone, everyone wants an iPhone, everyone expects that technology will help us to meet our social, political, financial, health, education, environmental, and humanitarian needs, right?
What is happening to our "mainstream" cornerstones?
By mainstream, I mean traditional newspapers, magazines, network television, cable, and brochure-like websites. All of a sudden, reporters are running to take graduate classes in multi-media journalism, a domain previously "owned" by network TV 10-15 years ago. Newspapers and magazines are now web-based, your favorite radio and television program have their own websites, and just about every one is on MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter.
The Web is easily accessed, ubiquitous, running on SmartPhones and iPhones, netbooks, and now, e-readers, right from your pocket, purse, or bag.
Ten years ago, if you had a job coding for a tech company, there wasn't an expectation that you'd have to hone your writing skills to maintain a blog, and learn how to produce short video clips to promote your work and the work of your company. If you preferred NOT to be open and social, it was fine! Now, you are probably just holding on. Maybe.
What inspired this post is a video of a presentation by Bob Garfield, an ad critic and essayist for Advertising Age. a magazine I interact with online. He is the co-host of NPR's On The Media program, and has a lot of insight regarding advertising trends and so forth. He is also hilarious. If you are viewing this in a family setting, know that Mr. Garfield uses a few "bad" words and quite a number of data and financial statistics to make his point. No traditional media institution is untouched. An eye opener. Worth every 34+ minute!
"Bob Garfield...forcasts the disintegration of mass advertising structures that have worked in perfect symbiosis for 400 years and prescribes "listenomics" as the way for brands to thrive in the digital, post-advertising age. He warns that all formerly top-down institutions cannot dictate to consumers with advertising through mass media as before, but must use digital tools to forge relationships with them--no longer seeing people as piggy banks, or eyeballs, or votes, but as genuine stakeholders in their enterprise. Amid the ruins of mass media,the choice for business is stark: listen or perish. Learn more at thechaosscenario.net."
(For those of you following the postWIMP discussion, you might be interested in looking at the post on the chaos scenario.net blog: The Problem with Acronyms. What a coincidence!)
Bob Garfield's insights were foreshadowed by the "Prosumer" video from a couple of years ago:
Google and Yahoo are getting it, and demonstrate foresight by providing free Wi-Fi service in urban environments.
Below is a short video clip of Dana Spiegel, the NYCwireless Executive Director, about Yahoo's sponsorship of free Wi-Fi in Times Square in New York City:
I've been thinking about giants like Google and Facebook and how they have been slow to figure out how to adapt to the rapid adoption of mobile technologies, such as tablets and smartphones, among their users/ad viewers/consumers. Social media marketing is a somewhat uncharted territory, and the landscape is much different from the "push" media environment of television in days past. Here is what came across my path today on this topic: This morning I was delighted to listen to "The Facebook Show". produced by On The Media. I've embedded it below for your listening pleasure: THE FACEBOOK SHOW When I got home, I turned on the TV as I put away groceries, and viewed the Adobe's recent ad, "The Slap", which is meant to convince people that there is a way to measure the ROI of ad campaigns utilizing social media. It is part of the Metrics Not Myths series. I've embedded a few of the episode below. (I'd rather see the creative effort focus on an anti-bullying campaign, but that is another story.) Warning, watching these ads while contemplating digital media consultants and marketing buzzwords might be painful! "Today, we launched a brand new marketing campaignwe’re calling “Metrics, not myths.” Our approach is to identify top myths about digital marketing that plague brands, agencies, chief marketing officers and CEOs and turn them on their head — with irony, humor, a provocative point of view and proof." - Adobe
The Slap BS Detector
Buzzwords that get zapped: Bigger picture, ripple effect, go for the key influencers, at the end of the day, halo effect, brand recognition, fine tune engagements, 360 view of the customer, cross segment synergies, likes, closed loop marketing, search, classification of our brand, SEO, click-through rates, make it go viral.....
I will be devoting a few upcoming posts to tablets, larger smartphones, and other mobile computing devices. I'll be hearing from the folks at Stantum later today. This morning I woke up and turned on the TV as I was getting ready for work, and the first thing I saw on my local station was this cute family-focused ad for the new Google Chromebook, which at $249.00, is affordable: I especially like the scene were a toddler stomps on a Chromebook left on the floor.
Creative Applications.Net "CreativeApplications.Net reports innovation and catalogues projects, tools and platforms at the intersection of art, media and technology"
I plan to get my hands on the IdeaPad Yoga and ThinkPad Twist someday soon. I'm curious to see how Windows 8 plays out the new touch-tablets. In the following video, David Schmook, of Lenovo, demonstrates the new IdeaPad Yoga and Twist, running Windows 8.
Bill Moggridge, co-founder of the design company IDEO and director of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, passed away on September 8th 2012 of cancer at the age of 69. If you are familiar with human-centered design, user experience, or design thinking, it is likely that you've have been influenced by Moggridge's work, ideas, and heart! I encourage you to take the time to view the following video:
To learn more about Bill Moggridge and his contributions to the people of our world, take a look at the "Remembering Bill" web pages on the Cooper-Hewitt website, and also the Celebrating Bill Moggridge website. RELATED Bill Boggridge's presentation to K-12 educators about design: Bill Moggridge is the author of the following books: Designing Media (book/DVD/website), featuring interviews with a range of people from various disciplines related to media. Designing Interactions (book/DVD/website). In this book, Moggridge introduces a number of of people who have influenced interaction design. It also covers the evolution of the interactive design approaches at IDEO.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project website is a treasure trove of statistics about the use of the internet and related technologies. I especially like the following infographic which outlines how smartphone ownership has reached the "tipping point". My hunch is that this will lead to some bigger changes in our future! For more information, see Lee Rainie's article: Smartphone Ownership Update: September 2012
The RSA is the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, a charity organization founded in the 1800's, and located in the UK: "At the heart of the RSA's contemporary mission and public debates about the future prospects for the human race is the question: 'Can we go on like this?' Will the ideas and values which transformed our world in the last two centuries be sufficient to find solutions to the challenges we now face or do we need new ways of thinking?" One of the ways the RSA shares information is through events that feature renown speakers. Some of the presentations are transformed into animations, known as RSA Animates, and are some of the most popular videos uploaded by RSA to YouTube, spreading the word to hundreds of thousands across the globe. Here are a few: RSA Animate: The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, Dan Ariely RSA Animate: The Power of Networks, Manuel Lima
Manuel Lima is the senior UX design lead at Microsoft Bing.
For more information, see The Power of Networks: Knowledge in an age of infinite interconnections. and the presentation slides.
The following video was released by SAP to introduce its new Mobility Design Center. The video uses animated infographics to outline the key features of the SAP mobility design process.
Today I attended Web Afternoon Charlotte and was impressed by many of the presentations, including a talk by Nick Finck, of Deloitte Digital. Throughout the day, common themes emerged, centered around facing our fears and creating a better (digital) world that includes a good measure of disruption. As I reviewed information for this post, I came across a
nicely-prepared video by Deloitte Australia. It provides a number of animated infographics to highlight key factors related to digital disruption. Although the narrator focuses on the business world in Australia, given our global economy, the concepts ring true for the US and other countries. (An infographic on this topic, created by Deloitte Digital can be found at the end of this post.)
I haven't had a chance to play with the Kurio, a 7 inch Android tablet designed for children and their families, so I haven't formulated an opinion about the device, or the applications that it runs. I thought I'd share the promotional video and related information/links:
Kurio Tablet from CIDE on Vimeo. Parents can view a number of "how-to" videos to get the tablet up and running. Developers can apply to be part of the Kurio store. From what I can see, the Kurio is in need of some creative, child-friendly apps. Below is a hands-on demo:
My grandson is nearly 22 months old and loves it when I visit with my "pad pad". Here is a sneak preview:
Although I have no intention of becoming the 21st Century Piaget of interactive technology for children, I plan to share some of my observations in a systematic way sometime in the future.
Joshua Mauldin, founder of Invisible Interface & Awesome Gifs, and app creator/manager for The Business Journals, gave a talk about best practices in touchable mobile design at a recent Charlotte User Experience meet-up. I especially liked his use of clips from Arrested Development to remind us of the wide range of emotional responses people get when they use technology, good or bad. (Take a moment and look over the slides for the meat of Joshua's talk.)
(Photo by Brad E.)
Slide-share of Joshua Mauldin's Mobile Design Best Practices talk:
The event was hosted by MyJive, located at the NC Music Factory. I was fortunate to grab a comfy spot to sit - there were about 85 in attendance.At the end of the meetup, I won a ticket to Web Afternoon!
It seems that the weekend is ripe for sharing interesting things on Facebook, judging from what I've seen from my FB friends. These are just a few that came my way:
This picture below is from the World is Beautiful FB page. Where? The Igloo Village of Hotel Kakslauttanen, in Finland. The igloos are made of glass, and according to the description, provide views of the Aurora Borealis:
In case you missed this--- at about 1:45 the dolphins appear. Beautiful!
Patent application for "peripheral treatment for head-mounted displays", for the above device. Michael Husted's post: Shared by Barbara Bray, via Smart Apps for Kids, via Success in Learning: My comment: "It doesn't hurt to take a few self-defense classes. I took kickboxing for the exercise and I do not feel defenseless. As adults, we encounter criminals who are beyond the bully stage, who don'e care if they hurt (or kill) when they want to engage in illegal activities. It makes sense to do the things that make us strong, healthy, fit, and safe. This means having the strength to help others during a crisis, such as the shootings at the movie theater and other seemingly "random" acts of local terrorism." I shared the following picture on Facebook: I set up the XBox 360 and the Kinect in the Activities of Daily Living room (it is also the music room), and when I went to take a picture of my rafting adventure, the system took a picture of me!
I happened to be listening to the radio and heard an interesting interview featuring on Dennis Baxter, the sound designer/engineer for the 2012 Olympics. The interview, along with examples of sounds, are provided on the NPR website:
Becky Sullivan, 7/28/12, NPR Listen to this story (All Things Considered featuring r, 5 min, 54 Sec)
Not all of the sounds you'll hear during the Olympics are "real". There are a few sports that are impossible to capture accurately, and for this reason, Dennis Baxter explains, special techniques are used.
If you'd like to dig deeper into the world of sound, take a look at "The Sonification Handbook", edited by Thomas Hermann, Andy Hunt, and John G. Neuhoff. The editors have backgrounds in computer science, physics, interactive sonification, multi-touch, music, psychology, auditory percpetion, and neuroscience, collectively.
Below is a description from the book's website: "This book is a comprehensive introductory presentation of the key research areas in the interdisciplinary fields of sonification and auditory display. Chapters are written by leading experts, providing a wide-range coverage of the central issues, and can be read from start to finish, or dipped into as required (like a smorgasbord menu)"
"Sonification conveys information by using non-speech sounds. To listen to data as sound and noise can be a surprising new experience with diverse applications ranging from novel interfaces for visually impaired people to data analysis problems in many scientific fields."
"This book gives a solid introduction to the field of auditory display, the techniques for sonification, suitable technologies for developing sonification algorithms, and the most promising application areas. The book is accompanied by the online repository of sound examples.The book is a comprehensive introduction to this interdisciplinary field."
I have a secret. I enjoy watching Extreme Sports HD videos. This one is from has breathtaking scenery. On a large screen, it might lure you into believing that you are the longboarder, gliding around the hills and curves!
"Put a longboarder at the top of that same hill with a longboard designed to handle it and he will get to heaven first, every time, no death required. A longboard is a stress relief, a mode of transportaton, and a sorce of surf, snowboard inspiration. Anyone can learn, it is safe, there are no age barriers and no one is going to charge you for a lift to the top."
Riders in the video were Petter Reinem, Axel Serrat, Brett Ciabattini, Will Stephan, Aleix Gallimo, Daniel Harris, Brian Bishop, Michael Virgin Jr. , Molly Lewis, and Scott Imbrie. Filmers were Nick Patrick, Brad Imbrie, Jay Cagney, Aleix Gallimo, Axel Serrat Dunia Vidal, and Sam Weaver. The video was edited by Nick Patrick.
One of the things I like to do is share updates about the world of multimedia, multi-touch, gesture, screen, surface, and interactive technologies, focusing on off-the-desktop applications and systems. When I started this blog, I had to put forth quite a bit of effort just to FIND interesting things to blog about.
These days, there are so many sources that focus on emerging - and now commonplace- interactive technologies, my main challenge is to filter the noise. Where do I begin?
My archives are vast. I randomly picked the year 2009 and came across one of my previous posts, "News, Videos, and Links about Multitouch and Screen Technologies." The post is long, and contains a number of videos and links that probably will be of value to a future curator of the history of technology.
I welcome comments from readers who might be able to help me update information about various applications and systems I've featured on this blog in the past.
The pictures are screenshots from the results of an image search for "interactivemultimediatechnology". Over the past 6 years, I've posted quite a few!
