Media Facades: "When Buildings Start to Twitter" video timeline, via Thomas Schielke, of arclighting, plus lots of related links!

This morning I received a message from Thomas Schielke, of arclighting about his recent work.  Included in his message was a link to this awesome video, Media Facades: When Buildings Start To Twitter, which is a video timeline of this history of media facades. 

Below is a description of the video, by Thomas Scheilke:
"The timeline depicts international media facades with their different artistic, social or brand messages up to interfaces like iPhone Apps or brain sensors for public participation. The movie is a shortened version of the lecture, The semiotics of media facades - When buildings start to twitter" that was presented at the Parsons The New School for Design in New York in 2010." 

Luminous tweets and retweets 
"During the day, façade structures with their windows and material combinations grant a specific building image to the public. However, after sunset electrical light is the medium for an architectural image. The light appearance sends an atmospheric signal to the citizens like hang on in front of an asleep structure, look at an inviting but static façade or enjoy a vivid architecture sharing short stories. In the last decade, media facades have become a widespread element for luminous tweets. They establish a network between the building owner and the citizens, sometimes driven by aesthetical debates, other times by commercial intentions to avoid traditional light advertisement."
"The pursuit of persuasion by way of big screens gives the impression that size receives a higher relevance than content, comparable with the large amount of trivial tweets in Twitter. Various media facades appear as monumental monologues repeating a fixed animation daily. A few facades use signals from the environment and transform them into a play of light and shadow. Others emerge as urban dialogues when buildings show combined moving pictures. Some even allow people to send messages to the building to receive luminous retweets. They turn the city into a community following the dialogue and with the respective Apps may possibly even gain a following community worldwide."
"The historical overview of international projects covers various lighting methods and techniques from lighting designers as ag4, Arup Lighting, blinkenlights, Fusion, LAb[au], Licht Kunst Licht, L´Observatoire International, Mader Stublic Wiermann, Okayasu Izumi, magic monkey, Matthew Tanteri, Onur Sonmez , Qosmo, realities:united, StandardVision, Urbanscreens, Uwe Belzner, Yann Kersalé and architecture like Asymptote Architecture, Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, O.M. Ungers, Peter Cook, Peter Marino, UN Studio, schneider + schuhmacher, Simone Giostra, WOHA architects1. Artists like Doug Aitken, Jaume Plensa, Kurt Hentschläger and Zhong Song are included in the timeline as well."  -Thomas Schielke
http://www.arclighting.de
FYI: Thomas is one of the authors of the book  "Light Perspectives: Between Culture and Technology". Lean back and relax to the music as you watch a related video by Schielke: Light Architecture: Luminous Walls

Related info from Schielke's YouTube site:
Luminous walls:  From clerestory windows via modernist wallwashing to pixelated planes
"The movie is a shortened version of the lecture that was presented at the Cornell University in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis in Ithaca/USA (Oct. 18th 2010) and at the Columbia University in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation in New York (Oct. 26th 2010)."
"Luminous walls belong to the essential repertoire of qualitative lighting design. With light, spaces can be defined and reinterpreted. Illuminated walls allow us to provide orientation and to perceive the form and dimension of space. Further, their glow and play of brilliants could bestow a space with an impressing scenography. The timeline reveals different lighting approaches: From backlit clerestory windows for spiritual enlightenment in the gothic period to modernist uniform wallwashing. Contemporary examples will open the view for pixelated colour changing planes based on LED technology. The movie with an overview of international projects covers lighting methods and techniques for luminous walls and their visual appearance. With a perception-orientated design perspective the designer could use vertical illuminance to create bright spaces and thereby also contribute to sustainable lighting solutions."
"The overview of international projects from architects like Antonio Gaudi, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn, Jean Nouvel, Peter Zumthor, Raffael Moneo, Toyo Ito, Christoph Ingenhoven and Karim Rashid or light artists as Peter Kogler and Erwin Redl covers various lighting methods and techniques for luminous walls and their visual appearance. Note: The image for 1814 needs to be reassigned to Bergisel Panorama in Innsbruck/Austria painted in 1897."
RELATED
Previous posts:
Revisiting Urban Screens:  555 Kubik Facade Projection Video; Info about Media Facades 
More Urban Screens and Outdoor 3D Media Facades

Urban Screens, Urban Scenes, Media Facades: Obscura Digital's Outdoor iGoogle Artist Themes Launch in NYCU 

Media Facades and Projected Social Graffiti at Drexel University (Includes a 7-story tweet)

iRis Remote Interaction System, Newly Updated

Other Links
Book:  Media Facades:  History, Technology, and Content (M. Hank Haeusler)30+ Dazzling and Interactive Media Facades
Media Facades Festival 2010
Media Architecture Institute
International Urban Screens Association
Urban Screens
"URBAN SCREENS a project by Urban Media Research Berlin, investigates how the currently commercial use of outdoor screens and related infrastructure for digital moving images in urban space can be broadened with cultural content. We address cultural fields as digital media culture, urbanism, architecture and art. We want to network and sensitise all engaged parties for the possibilities of using the digital infrastructure for contributing to a lively urban society, binding the screens more to the communal context of the space and therefore creating local identity and engagement. The integration of the current information technologies support the development of a new integrated digital layer of the city in a complex merge of material and immaterial space that redefine the function of this growing infrastructure of digital moving images."
Urban Screens Video Channel
3d Projections on Buildings: A distinctive Way of Communicating
Communicating Through Architecture:  Media Facades and the Digital Infrastructure  The Rathous (Contains an assortment of videos and pictures)
Art and Commerce Meet on Building's Interactive Media Facades Kelsey Keith, Fast Company, 10/2/2009


Cross-posted on The World Is My Interactive Interface blog.

Apps and Gadgets to Soothe the Baby: New York Times Article (video, links) -a little off-topic

I came across a link to a recent NY Time's article, "The Pacificer Gets and Upgrade:  Apps and Gadgets to Soothe the Baby" on Nat Torkington's "Four short links" O'Reilly Radar post, and thought it was worth sharing, especially for my readers who are new parents or new grandparents! Here are a few of the links from the NY Times article:


iPhone Apps
White Noise   by TMSOFT  (Rated positive by new dad and NY Times writer Farhad Manjoo)
"White Noise provides ambient sounds of the environment to help you relax or sleep.  Includes high quality looping noises such as ocean waves, crickets chirping at night, and the soothing sound of rain fall."


MamaRoo "It moves like you do"

The following two apps/gadgets didn't seem to work as advertised, according to Farhad Manjoo:
Cry Translator "The iPhone App to Understand Baby Crying"
Why Cry Baby Analyzer


Baby Monitors
Philips Advent Basic with DECT Technology
Angelcare Movement and Sound Monitor
"Besides relaying your baby’s cries, it has a sensor pad, placed under the crib or bassinet mattress, that alerts parents when a baby has not moved for 20 seconds. It does not go off incessantly (the machine is sensitive enough to detect breathing) and is well suited to parents like me who cannot shake the paranoia that can come with caring for a new human being." -Farhad Manjoo


Farhad discussed monitors that feature web connectivity,   such as the MobiCam Digital Wireless Video Monitor and the Home Digital Video Monitor. These systems enable parents to watch the monitor's video of the baby via a smartphone.  To make this work, the baby monitor must be connected to a laptop or computer, which in turn must be turned on continuously, something that might not bee too convenient for busy parents.  He suggested that new parents take a look at the Lorex Wireless Easy Connect Network Camera, which has a built-in Wi-Fi chip that enables it to  connect to a wireless network without a computer. The Lorex isn't a baby monitor, but since it doesn't require a computer to work, it might be useful to anxious parents on-the-go who might want to see if their baby is being treated appropriately by a caregiver in their absence.


OTHER
Voice Activated Crib Light with Womb Sounds (just $14.99!)
Itzben Baby Care Timer ($24.00 -keeps track of diaper changes, feedings, and sleep patterns)


Farhad Manjoo's comment about babies and gadgets is worth heeding:
"... but babies are a fickle, ever-changing lot, and what works one time seems hopeless the next. As a gadget fiend, I’m used to evaluating technology in controlled settings, but there is nothing controlled about life with baby."


RELATED
ThinkGeek:  GeekKids Newborn and Infant 
The Pacificer Gets and Upgrade:  Apps and Gadgets to Soothe the Baby
Farhad Manjoo, New York Times, 11/24/10


Cross-posted on the TechPsych blog

The Clock is Ticking: Duarte's thought-provoking video info-graphic about the negative impact of the economy in Long Island (via Innovative Interactivity)

The Clock is Ticking from Long Island Index on Vimeo.
I came across the above video infographic on the Tracy Boyer's Innovative Interactivity blog. In a few minutes, it tells a story about how the economic downturn has impacted Long Island. 
My take-away from the video?   We are not provided an accurate or meaningful picture from traditional media sources about our nation's economic woes.  It is a good sign that the stock market is doing better, on balance, than in 2008, but the economic wounds run wide and deep.  These wounds need to be counted and presented in a way that makes sense to policy makers AND the rest of us!  If not, the cycle will repeat.  

Tracy discovered the video from a post on the Simple Complexity website:
The Clock is Ticking On Long Island: Infographic Video
Neal Levene, Simple Complexity, 11/22/10
"Simple Complexity: Making Simple Sense From Complex Data"
The video was created by Duarte, a company that focuses on visual means of information presentation. Duarte is known for supporting presentation literacy using VisualStory methodology.


Comment:  Wouldn't it be great if we could simply load data related to our own communities and regions and have it automatically feed into this sort of video info-graphic?!

Microsoft Surface Light and Physics App for Kids at the Smithsonian

Microsoft Surface at the Smithsonian


The Surface is located in the Smithsonian's Castle,  and is part of "The Wonder of Light: Touch and Learn!" exhibit, which opened on Tuesday, November 9th (2010).  Microsoft donated the Surface unit to the Smithsonian.


Below is  slideshow of the interactive exhibit:



The video below provides a closer look at the applications created by Infostrat for the Smithsonian exhibit:


RELATED
New Interactive Exhibit Opens in Smithsonian's Castle, Bringing Light To Life
Smithsonian News Release, 11/9/20

Josh Blake's post, Microsoft Surface and Magical Object Interaction.

First International Visual Learning Lab Conference: Background Info, Program, Abstracts, & Publication Links (Budapest University of Technology and Economics)

Background:


I first came across the work of  Hungarian philosopher Kristóf Nyíri in 2003 when I was researching information related to a paper I was writing - "Thinking, learning, and communicating with multimedia".   I had the honor of meeting Kristof Nyiri when I presented my paper at a conference in 2004 at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, where Kristóf Nyiri worked at the time.  The conference, "The Global and the Local in Mobile Communications: Places, Images, People, Connections" was co-sponsored by T-Mobile and was part of the Communications in the 21st Century: The Mobile Information Society series of interdisciplinary conferences.


I recently learned that Dr. Nyiri was involved in putting together an upcoming international conference hosted by the Visual Learning Lab at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics.  This important conference is coming up very soon, on December 1st!


Visual and interactive media technologies have come a long way since 2004.  In my opinion, these technologies have the potential to create new, efficient, engaging, and meaningful ways for people to learn, remember, communicate, and share knowledge.  I'm not alone in my thoughts regarding this matter, as you'll see from the topics that will be discussed at the VLL conference.


For your convenience, I've shared some information from the Visual Learning Lab (VLL) website in this post.  I encourage you to take the time to read the VLL mission statement, selected publications of some of the members of the VLL,  and the abstracts of the presentations for the upcoming conference.  The abstracts include short bios of the presenters.   


Be prepared to do some deep thinking when you read Kristóf Nyiri's publications!


Mission Statement of the Visual Learning Lab

"Although we naturally think in both words and images, educational theory has focused overwhelmingly on the verbal dimensions of teaching and learning. This is in part a reflection of the rise of book printing: pictures receded into the background, even in spite of efforts by Comenius and others to integrate them into texts created for educational purposes. In today's networked digital environment, however, images are easy to access, and can be handled just as smoothly as words. In response to the new challenges hereby created, the Department of Technical Education in the Budapest University of Technology and Economics has established the Visual Learning Lab (VLL), with the goal of furthering the use of visual technologies -- including film, video, and interactive digital media -- in the teaching and learning process, and of engaging in high-level research on all aspects of visual education."

VLL Publications (PDF)

• Anna Győrfi, Ian Smythe, "Re-engaging the SEN Child into Learning through Social Networking", (2009)
• Kristóf Nyíri, "The Picture Theory of Reason", (2000)
• Kristóf Nyíri, "Pictorial Meaning and Mobile Communication" (2003)
• Kristóf Nyíri, "From Texts to Pictures: The New Unity of Science", (2003)
• Kristóf Nyíri, "Visualization and the Limits of Scientific Realism", (2008)
• Kristóf Nyíri, "Gombrich on Image and Time", (2009)

Visual Learning Bibilography A working bibliography compiled by VLL Budapest participants (Stand Jan. 31, 2010, ) Program for the December 1st VLL Conference Written by Horváth Cz. János

Monday, 08 November 2010 12:34

Visual Learning (1st VLL Budapest Conference, 2010) Registration 09:30 –  09:50, Opening addresses Plenary Session 10:00 – 10:20: Roger Murphy, The Visual Enrichment of Higher Education () 10:20 – 10:40: Christoph Wagner, Visual Experiences in Art History () 10:40 – 11:00: Petra Aczél, Enchanting Bewilderment: Concerns of Visual Rhetoric () Section A 11:10 – 11:30: Gabriella Németh, The Visual Rhetorical Figures of the Giant Billboard „ARC” (Face) Exhibition () 11:30 – 11:50: Ágnes Veszelszki, Image and Self-representation () 11:50 – 12:10: Anna Szlávi, The Image of Women: A Conceptual Analysis of Commercial Posters () 12:10 – 12:30: Zsuzsanna Kemenesi, Selection by Personalization () Section B 11:10 – 11:30: György Molnár, Images, Charts, and the Flow of Knowledge () 11:30 – 11:50: János Cz. Horváth, Pictorial Skills in the Service of Knowledge-Digging () 11:50 – 12:10: Franz Dotter – Marlene Hilzensauer, "SignOnOne" – Visual learning for the Deaf () 12:10 – 12:30: Jean-Rémi Lapaire, Visuo-kinetic Explorations of Grammar () 12:30 – 14:00: Lunch 14:00 – 14:20: John Mullarkey, Cinema: The Animals that Therefore We Are (On Temple Grandin's Picture Theory, in Pictures) () 14:20 – 14:40: Zoltán Kövecses, Contextual Images As Metaphors () Section A 14:50 – 15:10: Kristóf Nyíri,  Metaphor and Visual Thinking () 15:10 – 15:30: Mikkel R. Haaheim, Metaphor is a Constellation () 15:30 – 15:50: Biljana Radić-Bojanić, Mental Images as a Metaphorical Vocabulary Learning Strategy () 15:50 – 16:10: Barbara Reiter, Visualizing Human Rights (movie) () Section B 14:50 – 15:10: Gábor Bencsik, The Image-Anthropological Approach to Historiography: Gypsies in 19th-Century Hungary () 15:10 – 15:30:  Zsuzsanna Kondor, "World Picture" and Beyond – Representation Revisited () 15:30 – 15:50: Daniela G. Camhy, Visuality and the Acquisition of the Concept of Time () 15:50 – 16:10: Anna Somfai, Visual Thinking and the Creation and Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Philosophical and Scientific Manuscripts () Plenary Session 16:20 – 16:40: Dieter Mersch, On Visual Epistemology: The Logic of "Showing" () 16:40 – 17:00: Concluding discussion RELATED Visual Learning Lab's Partner Institutions Visual Learning Lab, Nottingham University of Nottingham Institut für Künste und Medien Universität Potsdam DIGAREC. Digital Games Reseach Center Universität Potsdam Gesellschaft für Interdisziplinäre Bildwissenschaft (GIB, Society for Interdisciplinary Image Science) Professur Philosophie mit dem Schwerpunkt Kognitionswissenschaften (Chair for Philosophy with Focus on Cognitive Science, Prof. Klaus Sachs-Hombach, Chemnitz, Germany) Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Universität Regensburg (Chair for Art History, Prof. Dr. Christoph Wagner) Innsbruck Media Studies Universität Innsbruck Center for Digital Culture Studies, University of Pécs (Hungary), Department of Philosophy

Light Touch Interactive Projector; Holographic Laser Projection (HLP) "How it Works": Update on Light Blue Optics (Videos, links)

It has been about a year since I wrote about Light Blue Optics, "a privately-funded company developing and supplying miniature projection systems for use in high volume applications in markets including automotive, digital signage and consumer electronics." Light Blue Optics is located in Cambridge, UK, and has a development facility in Colorado Springs.


Light Touch Interactive Projector


Holographic Laser Projection (HLP): How it Works




RELATED
A Touch Screen Table
Brendan O'Brian, QSR 11/23/10

"Light Blue Optics, which rolled out the Light Touch in January, is working with several restaurant chains to put its technology on tables...“You can project menus onto the table so the customer can sit down and order their meal,” says Tamara Roukaerts, director of marketing communications at Light Blue Optics. “They can also watch videos of the chef preparing their meal through a live video feed.”"

Light Blue Optics turns KFC tables into touch screens
Roland Gribben, The Telegraph 10/11/10


HLP technology, and how it can be used for practical purposes, is further explained in the following white papers:
Buckley, E., Lacoste, L., Stindt, D. Rear-view virtual image displays. SID (Society for Information Display), Vehicles and Photons - 16th Annual Symposium on Vehicle Displays, 10/15/09
Abstract: "Light Blue Optics holographic laser projection technology can be utilised to create a virtual image display which, with a volume enclosing less than 700cc, exhibits a form-factor consistent with integration into a rear-view mirror. By combining the visual accommodation and concomitant reaction time benefits of a head-up display with the ability to present high resolution safety-critical information in a rear-view off-axis configuration with large eyebox, significant potential safety benefits can result."


Buckley, E., Tindt, D., Isele, R.  Novel Human-Machine Interface (HMI) Design Enabled by Holographic Laser Projection SID 2009 Symposium, 6/2/09

Abstract: "Despite the current proliferation of in-car flat panel displays, designers continue to investigate alternatives to flat and rectangular thin-film transistor (TFT) panels – principally to obtain differentiation by freedom of design using, for example, free-form shapes, round displays, flexible displays or mechanical 3D solutions. A perfect demonstration was provided at the 2008 Paris Motor Show by the BMW Mini Center Globe, a novel instrument cluster design which combines lighting, a circular flat panel and a holographic laser projector provided by Light Blue Optics (LBO) to redefine the state of the art in human-machine interface (HMI)...In this paper, the authors will show how the incorporation of LBO’s holographic laser projection technology can allow the construction of a unique display technology like the Mini Center Globe, and how such a combination of technologies represents a significant advance in the current state of the art in automotive displays."

The Story Behind this Post
I was having one of my occasional vivid "technology dreams" just before my dog woke me up in the middle of the night tonight.  I was driving around in a futuristic car that had all sorts of cool technologies, including a holographic side-view mirror, similar to the one I blogged about in a 2009 post about Blue Light Optics.  This inspired me take a quick look at what the company is doing now.  


The dream that entertained me tonight was probably triggered by what I read just before I went to sleep- a call for papers posted by Albrecht Schmidt on Facebook: "Call for Papers - Theme Issue on Automotive User Interfaces,  for an upcoming edition of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.   If you are curious,   here's an example of one of my blog posts that was inspired by one of my geek-tech-dreams:  "Last Night I Dreamt about Haptic Touch Screen Overlays".  

Telling a Story: Slideshow of Old/Historical Content

I don't usually share much about my family on this blog, but I was so impressed by my daughter's photos of historical and old/run-down structures that I had to post a slideshow of what she's passionate about.


Lauren is a history buff and enjoys exploring around to take pictures of anything old that has a story.   Whatever it takes!



The photos in the slideshow were taken with a Sony SLR, with no extra equipment.  None of the photos are photo-shopped. 


Lauren is great at "point and shoot",  and her technique draws the viewer in to her personal POV.  Lauren just had a little baby, so it might be a little while until she can finish researching the stories behind her photos.  When she does, I'll be sure  to share her finished work!


(If you were wondering, Lauren stopped going on risky explorations after she learned a baby was on the way.)

Digital Newspaper from News Corp, for the iPad (via physorg, Guardian)

iPad 'newspaper created by Steve Jobs and Rupert Murdoch
Apple and News Corp reportedly set to launch joint iPad news publication exclusively via download  Edward Helmore,  Guardian Weekender, 11/21/10


"According to the US elite fashion industry journal Women's Wear Daily, the Murdoch-Jobs "newspaper" will be run from the 26th floor of the News Corp offices in New York, where 100 journalist have been hired, including Pete Picton, an online editor from the Sun, as one of three managing editors. The editor of the Daily has not been announced, but observers are assuming it will be Jesse Angelo, the managing editor of the New York Post and rising star in the News Corp firmament." -Edward Helmore

Rupert Murdoch Does Another Daily
John Koblin, WWD 11/19/10


Website:  Media magnate Murdoch preps digital newspaper for iPad
Craig Johnson, CNN 11/21/10

SOMEWHAT RELATED
Here's a video clip of a recent interview of Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. Chairman & CEO discusses countries with the greatest growth for business. "Our best growth industry is in this country (US)" (Rupert Murdoch reportedly admires Steve Job and likes the iPad.)

Xbox Kinect Interactive Puppet Prototype, from Theo Watson and Emily Gobeille (design.io) & Update on Funky Forest

I came across the following video on a post on the  Creative Applications blog about the Theo Watson and Emily Gobeille's  recent work with OpenFrameworks, Kinect, and an interactive puppet prototoype:

Interactive Puppet Prototype with Xbox Kinect from Theo Watson on Vimeo.

I'm not surprised that Theo Watson and Emily (design.io) decided to experiment with the XBox Kinect. I can't wait to see what they will create for Kinect in the future, based on their previous work --   A couple of years ago I wrote a post about their enchanting interactive installation, "Funky Forest":  OpenFrameworks & Interactive Multimedia:  Funky Forest Installation for CinKid. 


You can see from the video of their Funky Forest installation (2007 CinKid) that they create engaging interactive applications:

Funky Forest - Interactive Ecosystem from Theo Watson on Vimeo.
(Information from Theo Watson's Vimeo site)
"Funky Forest is a wild and crazy ecosystem where children manage the resources to influence the environment around them. By using their bodies or pillow "rocks" and "logs", water flowing from the digital stream on the floor can be dammed and diverted to the forest to make different parts grow. If a tree does not receive enough water it withers away but by pressing their bodies into the forest children create new trees based on their shape and character. As children explore and play they discover that the environment is inhabited by a variety of sonic life forms and creatures who appear and disappear depending on the health of the forest. As the seasons change the creatures also go through a metamorphosis."
Credits:
Theodore Watson
Emily Gobeille
Project Page:
muonics.net/​site_docs/​work.php?id=41
zanyparade.com/​v8/​projects.php?id=12


Note:  A version of Funky Forest, Moomah Edition, is permanently installed in New York City at the Moomah Children's Cafe. This version includes interactive environments related to the four seasons of the year, including an interactive particle system with falling leaves and snow.


FOR THE TECH-CURIOUS
Libfreenect for OX, by Theodore Watson

XBox Kinect running on OS X ( with source code ) from Theo Watson on Vimeo.
The following information and links were taken from the Vimeo description of the above video:  
"This is a port/adaptation of Hector Martin's libfreenect for OS X made by Theodore Watson.
Hector Martin's Libfreenect project page is here:  git.marcansoft.com/​?p=libfreenect.git
Most of the code is unchanged but there are some changes to libusb which was needed to get it running (and a few extra libusb commands) as well as some tweaking of the transfer sizes.
It should be self contained and you shouldn't need to install libusb (the app links it directly ).
Grab the Source Code:
UPDATE:
(Tested on OS X 10.6.3 - 32bit now and with fixes)
theo.tw/​deliver/​kinect/​001-libfreenect-modded-osx-updated.zip
ofxKinect for OF users - thanks Dan!
openframeworks.cc/​forum/​viewtopic.php?p=24948#p24948
Tips:
- Try both usb ports.
- Try not to have too many other devices plugged in (or any)."


(Check the Vimeo website to see if there are updates)


OpenFrameworks Forum
http://www.openframeworks.cc/forum/


RELATED
Presentation about Funky Forest  (ThisHappened)

Emily Gobeille & Theo Watson talk about Funky Forest from This happened – Utrecht on Vimeo.


Cross-posted on the TechPsych blog.

Serious Games in the K-16 Classroom: Google Tech Talks Video, via Jonathan Brill

In the following video, Victoria Van Voorhis discusses educational software and the Serious Games in Education movement:




Thanks to Jonathan Brill for the link!


SOMEWHAT RELATED
Below is a presentation I gave at the 2008 Games for Health conference:

Descriptions, stories, and links related to the screen shots of the first slide of the above presentation: (Some of the links may need to be updated.)

The science screen is an interactive 'gizmo' from Explore Learning. Something like this could be incorporated into an educational game. http://www.explorelearning.com


I’m pretty sure that the picture of the ancient building was from the VAST project, described in the article 'Reviving the past: Cultural Heritage meets Virtual Reality' by Anthanasios Gaitatzes, Dimitrious Cristopoulos, and Maria Roussou. (2002, ACM) The Foundation of the Hellenic World was involved with this project. http://www.fhw.gr/fhw/


Maria Roussou has been involved with a variety of interesting immersive projects: http://www.makebelieve.gr/mb/www/profile/index.html


The people from the Institute for Advanced Technologies in the Humanities at the University of Virginia are doing similar work through the Rome Reborn project:
http://www.romereborn.virginia.edu/




Note: I thought that it would be cool to have a game for health that integrated with history, so that students could learn about how people from the past handled health and diseases, and learn how scientists from the past came up with solutions that help us today.


The picture of the dragons on the space station was from a game called 'Relax to Win', created by Phil (gary?) McDarby and the MindGames team when he was at MediaLab Europe, which disbanded in 2005. Here is an article about Relax to Win, from 2002:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1972571.stm
McDarby now works as the creative officer of Vyro Games, which focus on stress management.
Rationale: Stress management games are good for health!
McDarby: http://www.vyro-games.com/company/phil_bio.php
Media Lab Europe and MindGames: http://medialabeurope.org/
Vyro Games: http://ww.vyro-games.com/


The cool geometric image was from a project from the Interactive Media Group, Vienna University of Technology: Educating Spatial Intelligence with Augmented Reality http://www.ims.tuwien.ac.at/research/spatial_abilities/
The project targeted high school geometry students, with a goal of increasing spatial ability and improving transfer of learning. The program is consistent with Universal Design for Learning principles.
I think that some of the applications involved in this application could be useful in games designed for cognitive rehabilitation or habilitation. Related to this project:  'An Application and Framework for Using Augmented Reality in Mathematics and Geometry Education': http://www.ims.tuwien.ac.at/research/construct3d/ and Hannes Kaufmann’s Dissertation: Geometry Education with Augmented Reality: http://www.ims.tuwien.ac.at/media/documents/publications/...


The remainder of the pictures:
The Cloud Game: http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/


The picture with the two people is from Kar2ouche, from Immersive Education. Kar2ouche is a creative role-play, picture making, story-boarding and animation software. It is enabled for use on interactive whiteboards: http://www.immersiveeducation.com/kar2ouche/


Hazmat HotZone is a multi-player simulation game used to train first responder teams: http://www.etc.cmu.edu/projects/hazmat_2005/


The underwater scene is from FreeDive, from FreeDive, that is used as a pain distractor. I also think it could be used for stress reduction for children.
http://www.breakawaygames.com/serious-games/solutions/hea...
The game pad is a DanceDance Revolution pad, used as an 'exergame' in many schools to combat the increase in numbers of students who are overweight or obese.


'Dance Dance Revolution: Healthy for Kids'
http://news.digitaltrends.com/news-article/12201/


The classroom scene is is from a virtual reality application:
Rizzo, A., Bowerly, T., Buckwalter, J., Klimchuk, D., Mitura, R., Parsons, T.D. (2006). A Virtual Reality Scenario for All Seasons: The Virtual Classroom. CNS Spectrums, 11, 1, 35-44. http://vrpsych.ict.usc.edu/