Info from the DepthJS website: "Navigating the web is only one application of the framework we built - that is, we envision all sorts of applications that run in the browser, from games to specific utilities for specific sites. The great part is that now web developers who specialize in Javascript can work with the Kinect without having to learn any special languages or code. We believe this will allow a new set of interactions beyond what we first developed."
Comment: I went to Best Buy today and almost bought a Kinect. Unfortunately, the demo hadn't come in yet, so I decided to wait until I could give it a try. I'm curious to experiment with what it can do.
This might interest readers who are interested in digital signage and DOOH (Digital Out-of Home):
Bill Gerba is the author of Wirespring's Digital Signage Insider blog and his articles are worth taking the time to read. I especially like the way he's conceptualized the world of digital signage. He includes a graphic from 2008 and rolls out an updated version that shows how things have changed in the industry over the past few years.
As I read Bill's post, it occurred to me that the changes represented in the 2011 graphic are similar to those occurring in other technology-related areas. Things are changing rapidly and it is not always easy to conceptualize things on the fly. It is helpful to understand complexity through an ecosystems model, in my opinion.
"Hi, Google. My name is Johnny" Johnny Chung Lee announced on his Procrastineering blog that he's accepted a position at Google as a "Rapid Evaluator". I'm not sure what he will be doing in this position, but his title is intriguing!
Here are some of my previous posts devoted to the work of Johnny Chung Lee:
One of my Facebook friends recently shared a link to the SoundCloud website, a site that is new to me. I was pleasantly surprised to learn about it!
"SoundCloud is a platform that puts your sound at the heart of communities, websites and even apps. Watch conversations, connections and social experiences happen, with your sound as the spark." -SoundCloud
"Everyday is a good day...and make it that way!" - Walter Bruening
Some quotes from the video:
If you could give one piece of advice to today's youth, what would it be?
"I'd tell them to stay in school, get educated, as much as you can, because if you're not educated today, fully, all about computers and everything like that, you are not going to get a job, because you got to be fully qualified to go to work on any kind of job right now."
Walter Bruening's words to live by: "Be good to everybody, be kind to them." "People should be helping other people." "The more you do for other people, the better your going to help your self."
Interview of Walter Breuning at age 11, includes a multimedia timeline:
(Video starts at the end of the CSI ad)
Idea:
Although younger generations will leave the world digital legacies in some form or another, the ideas, and views of our elders are not often found online. Wouldn't it be great if we could capture the wisdom of our elders in a broad way and get it on the web?
It would be great if students in schools around the world could work on a shared on-line multimedia timeline project like this, highlighting their elderly relatives and friends of the family!
If something like this exists, please let me know.
I'm always on the lookout for videos that work nicely on interactive whiteboards for students with multiple special needs, including autism. The video below is a time-lapse of the Perseid Meteor Shower and the galactic core of the Milky Way, from Joshua Tree National Park. It was produced by Henry Jun Wah Lee, of Evosia Studios.
Teachers of studets with special needs might want to incorporate this short video clip into lessons, (in this case, science). It provides a soothing touch through the use of music, and looks fantastic on a large interactive whiteboard. The video isn't too boring if it is looped, making it great for students who require repetition of content.
COMMENT Designers and developers need to think about off-the-desktop technologies as a new form of the web/internet. Information architects who understand interactive media/transmedia, cross-display/device, cross-platform, and interaction design within a broader context are sorely needed in this space.
The presentation below, by Chris Thorne, Lead Information Architect and User Experience Consultant working for the BBC, provides a good overview about this topic:
Over the past months I've been gathering video and photos of my encounters and interactions with digital signage as a consumer/customer/user during my every-day activities such as shopping, traveling, vacationing, and so forth, which will be included in a post or series of posts in the near future.
I have content related to interaction with various QR tags, interactive kiosks, interactive displays and TV on a cruise ship, an interactive touch screen at J.C. Penny, and more. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that my interests include user experience of DOOH, interactive displays in public spaces, and so forth.
Note: Despite all of the technological innovations in this converging field, issues related to context, usability, and accessibility are not consistently addressed from a broader systems point of view.
Today I'm starting something new for this blog, "Saturday Quick Links". I'll post videos and links. I'll revisit the topics highlighted in my "Saturday Links" with my comments/analysis/reflections. There is so much happening now in the converging world of interactive multimedia technology!
From the "about us" section of the itvt.com website:
"Founded in 1998 by Tracy Swedlow and co-owned by Richard Washbourne, InteractiveTV Today [itvt] is the most widely read and trusted news source on the rapidly emerging medium of multiplatform, broadband interactive television (ITV).
We provide concise, original coverage of industry developments, technologies, content projects, and the people building the business to our readership, which is made up of hundreds of thousands of executives from around the world..."
To learn more about this project, take a look at the video and related publications below. This is a great example of a team that is harnessing emerging technologies to improve the lives of people with disabilities.
The deadline for submissions to the CHI 2011 Child Computer Interaction: 2nd Workshop on UI Technologies an their Impact on Educational Pedagogy has been extended to February 18, 2011.
The workshop will be held on May 7, 2011, Vancouver, Canada, in conjunction with ACM's CHI 2011 conference. Interested researchers should submit a 4-page position paper in the ACM CHI adjunct proceedings style to the workshop management system. Note that the best 3 papers will be pre-accepted for a upcoming for a theme issue of the Springer Journal Personal and Ubiquitous Computing on “Child Computer Interaction”.
Note: Deadlines for several other CHI 2011 workshops have also been extended to February 18th. (Pictures and links from the CHI 2010 workshop are located at the end of this post.)
CALL FOR PAPERS
IN CONJUNCTION WITH CHI 2011
Child Computer Interaction: Workshop on UI Technologies and Educational Pedagogy
in conjunction with CHI 2011, Vancouver
May 7th, 2011
Topic: Given the emergence of Child Computer Interaction and the ubiquitous application of interactive technology as an educational tool, there is a need to explore how next generation HCI will impact education in the future. Educators are depending on the interaction communities and to deliver technologies that will improve and adapt learning to an ever- changing world. In addition to novel UI concepts, the HCI community needs to examine how these concepts can be matched to contemporary paradigms in educational pedagogy. The classroom is a challenging environment for evaluation, thus new techniques need to be established to prove the value of new HCI interactions in the educational space. This workshop provides a forum to discuss key HCI issues facing next generation education. We invite authors to present position papers about potential design challenges and perspectives on how the community should handle the next generation of HCI in education. Topics of interest include: • Gestural input, multitouch, large displays, multi-display interaction, response systems • Mobile Devices/mobile & pervasive learning • Tangible, VR, AR & MR, Multimodal interfaces, universal design, accessibility • Console gaming, 3D input devices, 3D displays • Co-located interaction, presentations, tele-presence, interactive video • Child Computer Interaction, Educational Pedagogy, learner-centric, adaptive “smart” applications, • Empirical methods, case studies, linking of HCI research with educational research methodology •Usable systems to support learning and teaching: Ecology of learning, any where, anytime, (UX of cloud computing to support teaching and learning) Submission: The deadline for workshop paper submissions is February 18, 2011. Interested researchers should submit a 4-page position paper in the ACM CHI adjunct proceedings style to the workshop management system. Acceptance notifications will be sent out March 15, 2011. The workshop will be held May 7, 2011 in Vancouver, Canada. Please note that at least one author of an accepted position paper must register for the workshop and for one or more days of the CHI 2011 conference.
The best 3 papers will be pre accepted for a upcoming for a theme issue of the SpringerJournal Personal and Ubiquitous Computing on “Child Computer Interaction”. Other authors are also invite to submit/ resubmit their work. We will send a separate call for paper for this special issue soon.
I came across this video display at a Porche Design shop in St. Martin. The video was well-done, but the display was difficult to see from a distance. The saleswoman wasn't sure who produced the content.
I thought that it would be more interesting if the content was interactive- something for do while my husband shopped!
The following video and article focuses on some research that I think will be very useful for creating interactive multimedia timelines in the future. I'd like to learn more about ways this interaction can be implemented in gesture-based systems!
Content-Aware Dynamic Timeline for Video Browsing From Gonzalo's YouTube channel: "When videos have more frames than pixels in the player's timeline slider, frames become inaccessible and scrolling actions cause sudden jumps in a video's continuity. We propose a content-aware dynamic timeline control that decouples video speed and playback speed and allow salient shots to be presented at an intelligible speed."
Note: The researchers are investigating the use of audio/sound in a similar manner, making this form of video browsing/search truly multimedia. An example of this is included near the end of the above video clip.
The following video is a demonstration of something I could use in my work as a school psychologist, since I use a lot of video for assessing students with disabilities, including those with autism. I also use video to create digital social stories for many of the students.
Following a link from Nathan Yau's recent Flowing Data blog post, Our Changing World in Cartograms, I discovered that FedEx's "Our Changing World" website. It provides an interesting way to explore data about various countries by mousing over countries on a map.
I have an HP TouchSmart PC, and found that the touch-screen interaction offered by this website was better than using the mouse. I'm pretty sure that this website would be fun to use on a larger touch-enabled display, and in in the classroom, on interactive whiteboards.
To my surprise, I also discovered that the website offers a 3D augmented reality version of "Our Changing World": Experience the changing world in augmented reality
"See the world and the information that shapes it. Watch it come to life as a 3-D hologram..."
(I'll play with the AR hologram later today.)
Note:
The FedEx website provides links to additional resources for each topic area, as well as a link to the sources used for the data included in the information graphics. It is important to remember that graphics do not always accurately depict the numbers!
"At experience.fedex.com, visitors can interact through a world map with data and content provided by The Economist Intelligence Unit on eight world trends initially, including air travel, people in cities, entrepreneurs and success, paper trail, business growth, education, money and happiness, and research and development.Visitors also have an opportunity to analyze the data, share information, or participate in real-time, online polls....“At FedEx, we pride ourselves on our ability to offer great customer experiences,” said Malcolm Sullivan, vice president, Marketing, FedEx Express Asia Pacific. “Experience.fedex.com is an effective way for us to extend these experiences to the virtual world. By making visualizations of complex and important information available to people everywhere, FedEx makes it easy for anyone to learn about their world and share their discoveries with friends.”"
Interactive Graphic (Timeline) Political Targets "Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is not the first member of Congress to be attacked while in office. Take a look back at some prominent political shootings involving members of Congress". Wall Street Journal Research
RELATED Slideshow On the Scene in Tucson "In the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, and a number of bystanders Saturday, police investigators began to piece togehter clues while friends and onlookers mourned."
Wall Street Journal, 1/10/11
(Pictures were taken by photographers from various news media organizations.) Article Victims in Giffords Shooting "Six people died in the shooting that left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords critically injured. Learn more about Judge John Roll, Christina Taylor Green, Phyllis Schneck, Dorwan Stoddard, Gabriel Zimmerman and Dorothy Morris."
Wall Street Journal, 1/10/11
Microsoft Surface 2.0 was unveiled at CES 2011 a few days ago, the result of a collaboration between Microsoft and Samsung. Surface 2.0 is a step up! The 40 inch 1080p high-definition LCD display no longer requires a projection/camera system, which clears the area below the screen of bulky hardware. The best part about Surface 2.0, in my opinion, is that it doesn't have to be used as a table. It can be configured in a variety of ways, even mounted on walls. For this reason, it will be useful in a variety of settings and situations.
Below is a quote about Surface 2.0 from Steve Ballmer's recent keynote address at CES 2011 that outlines the new technology that is embedded in the Surface 2.0 display:
"But what's really amazing about this technology, what really makes it magical, is the sensor itself. So, those first-generation Surface PCs needed cameras underneath that would look up to try to see what was going on. But what we have here is called PixelSense. PixelSense is new technology we've invented where there's infrared sensors all across this screen. Every single pixel is actually acting as a camera. The PC, the Surface here, can actually see." -Steve Ballmer: My Keynote Address at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show"(Huffington Post, 1/6/2011)
The good news is that developers have been busy at work to create applications for Surface 2.0. Below is a video demonstration of what the folks at InfoStrat have recently created to support collaborative information visualization activities:
Here's the information about the controls from the Infostratcville YouTube channel:
"This is a sneak preview of a suite of data visualization controls developed by InfoStrat for Microsoft Surface 2.0. The controls will be made available as open source software at no charge on CodePlex.com in the first half of 2011."
"This data visualization control suite provides multi-touch versions of the following controls: - DeepZoom multi-resolution image control that allows high performance display of very high-resolution imagery - PowerPoint Viewer which enables slide decks to be arranged and presented using multi-touch - PivotViewer chart control that allows dynamic sorting and categorization of data - PhysicsCanvas which provides an infinite, dynamic canvas for viewing and organizing content"
InfoStrat Releases Next-Generation Data Visualization Controls for Microsoft Surface 2.0
Washington DC – January 6, 2010 – InfoStrat today announced plans to support Microsoft Surface 2.0 by releasing a control suite that accelerates the development of next-generation multi-touch data visualizations. The controls will be made available as open source software at no charge on CodePlex.com in the first half of 2011.
This data visualization control suite provides multi-touch versions of the following controls:
§ Deep Zoom multi-resolution image control that allows high performance display of very high-resolution imagery
§ PowerPoint Viewer which enables slide decks to be arranged and presented using multi-touch
§ Pivot Viewer chart control that allows dynamic sorting and categorization of data
§ Physics Canvas which provides an infinite, dynamic canvas for viewing and organizing content
Other features of the controls:
§ Works on both Microsoft Surface and Microsoft Windows 7 with touch
§ A single application built with the data visualization framework can support multiple hardware form factors including: horizontal multi-touch tables, tablets, and large format vertical touch screens
§ Innovative object recognition to enable rapid data manipulations (only on Microsoft Surface)
InfoStrat is a member of Microsoft’s Technology Adoption Program (TAP) for Microsoft Surface. As a Microsoft Surface 2.0 TAP member, InfoStrat receives early access to hardware and software, allowing InfoStrat to gain expertise and influence the development of the product before it was released to the public.
In 2008, InfoStrat solved the problem of using Bing Maps 3D on Microsoft Surface in a way that performed well and was WPF-friendly. InfoStrat open-sourced the solution as a reusable control for the WPF and Surface community. Since then, the control has received over 120,000 page views and has over 8200 downloads, and has also been featured in many of our own applications. This control, known as InfoStrat.VE, has become one of the most popular controls for building mapping applications on Microsoft Surface: http://bingmapswpf.codeplex.com
“We are proud to be part of the Microsoft Surface development community,” according to Jim Townsend, president of InfoStrat, “and excited about the possibilities of Microsoft’s new version of Surface.”
Microsoft Surface provides a new way to experience and use information and digital content, engaging the senses, improving collaboration and empowering people to interact. Microsoft Surface is at the forefront of developing software and hardware that uses vision-based technology to fundamentally change the way people use computing devices. More information can be found at http://www.surface.com.
Information Strategies ("InfoStrat") is an award-winning Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and a Microsoft Surface Strategic Partner and member of the Technology Adopter Program.
I always like to try out technology in public spaces when I travel. Imagine my excitement when I was presented with my first opportunity to try out my tag app on my Incredible while I was waiting for my baggage to arrive after my flight from Charlotte to Orlando...
On first glance, the location of this display near the rest rooms and baggage claim area makes sense. Travelers can access information about things to do in North Port from their Smartphones by scanning the QR tag with a tag reader app while they wait for their baggage.
To my dismay, my interaction with this display and my tag reader app was not enjoyable.
Because the tag was located at the bottom of the display, I had to set aside my carry-on bags, purse,etc., and kneel front of it to center my smartphone precisely at the tag. The display was on the wall between the restrooms, a convenient gathering point for people. Little kids darted around me, and parents used this spot to re-organize their family's "stuff". As I tried to scan the tag, a dad had to ask his son to move back, "so the lady could take a picture".
I was blocking the path of families and groups of travelers with all of their stuff. I gave up trying after a while, much to the relief of my husband, who watched all of this as he waited for our baggage.
http://itvt.com
