UPDATE: NUITEQ's Snowflake ABC has been updated, improved, and retitled-- Snowflake MultiTeach®

August 24, 2016 Update

This post was originally published on October 13, 2013, and focused on Snowflake ABC, a software suite of entertaining educational apps developed by NUITEQ®.

Fast forward to 2016, and you'll see many great improvements have been made by the NUITEQ® team.  Along with the changes came a new name, Snowflake MultiTeach®. 


Snowflake MultiTeach® was designed for multi-touch, multi-user displays and tables, but can be used on single-touch displays or traditional computers/laptops with a mouse. It works well for "front-of-class" presentations and has many features that support collaborative group work.



So what is new?

The Lessons app was added to the suite of applications, along with Nodes, a concept-mapping and presentation application that supports project and problem based learning, STEM, and STEAM.

The Lessons app is a powerful addition to Snowflake MultiTeach®.  Within this app,  teachers (and students) can build a variety of interactive, engaging lessons, learning games, and quizzes, with little effort. 

Snowflake MultiTeach® can support several lessons and apps running at the same time, using the Zones feature, which makes it ideal for students working in pairs or small groups.

To compliment the Lessons app, the online MultiTeach® Lessons Community  was developed to provide a way for teachers to share lessons they've created.  The lessons posted on the MultiTeach® Lessons Community can be accessed from within the Lessons home screen.  Lessons can be searched by subject and level and imported directly into the Lessons home screen.  

Lessons created with Snowflake MultiTeach® can be exported directly from the Lessons home screen to the MultiTeach® Lessons Community so they can be shared with others. Snowflake MultiTeach® and sign-up to the MultiTeach® Lessons Community is required for access.

To support teachers as they make the transition from single-touch whiteboards to multi-user displays, the MultiTeach® Pinterest site was created.  There you can find curated and regularly updated information about how to use Snowflake MultiTeach®, 21st century teaching and learning, free digital resources for the classroom, and much more.

For information about how teachers can integrate Snowflake MultiTeach® into their classrooms, take some time to read the following blog posts. Share with your peers!

Infuse Arts into STEM Projects Using Collaborative Touch Screen Technology

Collaborative STEM Education and Careers Exploration

How to MultiTeach®: Introduction to Snowflake MultiTeach® Nodes App

Differentiated instruction through Snowflake MultiTeach®


Like what you see?

If you are interested in replacing your current single-touch interactive whiteboard with a multi-touch display, contact a representative from NUITEQ® by following the email link on the website, and you will be connected to someone in your region who can assist you. 

Here is the old post for reference.  

FYI: Most of the ABC apps shown below can be found within the current version of Snowflake MultiTeach®.

NUITEQ is a multi-touch & gesture tech company based in Sweden focused on collaborative natural user interfaces and interaction. Instead of using a traditional mouse and keyboard, NUITEQ's products support the effective use of fingers and hands to interact and explore digital content. I've been following this company since it was launched by Harry van der Veen in 2007 and have been happy to share NUITEQ's updates on this blog over the years.

NUITEQ's products can be found in public spaces, such as museums, retail centers, and transportation hubs,  at special events, such as trade shows and exhibitions, in collaborative work settings, such as board rooms and design studios, and in educational settings.   

One of the latest innovations from NUITEQ is Snowflake ABC, multi-touch software for children and teens. It runs on a range of multi-touch hardware surfaces, including Lenovo, 3M Touch Systems,  Zytronic, Flatfrog, PQ Labs, Touch International, Lumio, and others.  



Multitouch software Snowflake ABC for kids (K-12) from multitouch software on Vimeo.

In my opinion, Snowflake ABC would be great for use in homes, libraries, and classrooms. Although the video shows children using the software on large displays and tables, it works well on smaller 27-inch touch screens, preferably those that support multi-touch interaction. A free trial version is available.  For parents considering purchasing a home computer, the Lenovo IdeaCenter A520 and other multi-touch "all-in-ones" come loaded with a variety of Snowflake apps.

Below is a screen shot various Snowflake ABC educational apps, from the Snowflake Suite website.

Credit: NUITEQ

RELATED
Multi-touch software Snowflake ABC 1.3 for kids released (K-13) - Now with 18 languages out of the box!  NUITEQ Blog, 9/26/13
Snowflake ABC Brochure (pdf)
NUITEQ Signs OEM Agreement with Lenovo for its Multitouch Software Platform Snowflake Suite PRWEB, 8/31/12
Review:  Lenova IdeaCentre A520
Jason Palaszewski, 8/22/13, Lenovo Blog

Snowflake Interactive Display at Skellefteå Airport (Snowflake Suite)

Leap Motion Update: Slow-going progress for me, at least for now!

Leap Motion Progress

My Leap Motion dev kit arrived in March. With excitement,   I installed it on my new 27-inch iMac. I decided that this would be the time to take the "leap" into Objective-C and explore the mysteries of Xcode.  I had planned to make a simple  iPad app for my 2-year-old grandson, but this inspired me to change my plans.

Why not learn Objective-C to make a simple music/art/dance Leap Motion app for little ones?  

My progress so far?  Slow.

I updated Xcode. I installed the Leap Motion SDK.  I updated the Leap Motion SDK.  I played with the samples that came with the Leap Motion kit.   

When it came time for me to try something on my own, I thought I had everything set up in Xcode.  I got error messages that I did not understand. My attempt to figure things out led me to the Stack Overflow website, and by then, I had to get back to my paperwork in order to prepare for the next work day.

Today I realized that I missed the link about installing the Leap API docs for Objective-C in XCode.  Other things needed to be updated, so at that point, I decided to write this post....

Reflection:
After writing some code and making repeated errors, I realized how much I had let Microsoft take root in my head.  Until 2003, the coding part of my brain was a pristine slate. It wasn't cluttered with bits and pieces previous coding languages.

Since I tend to be a knowledge junkie, my brain soaked up more than I needed when I was taking computer courses.  If you could peek inside,  you'd see C# code snippets for multi-touch and NUI, a few algorithms for A.I. and data visualization, trivia from MSDN,  and images of the Visual Studio workspace. There would be odds and ends from VB.Net, JavaScript, ActionScript, CSS, Java, C++, and pseudocode for a variety of computational thought experiments.    

A lot of stuff, and for most of it, no place to go, except for an occasional technology dream.


What's ahead?
In the short term, I'll be doing what I always do this time of year.  For many school psychologists, the last couple of months of the school year is sort of like tax season for accountants.  I have lots of students to see, lots of psychological evaluation reports to write, and meetings to attend.  The paperwork will crowd up many evenings and weekends, but  there is an end in sight.   

Summer.  This will be my summer of code.

I'll be in NYC for one week in June, attending the Interactive Design for Children conference (IDC 2013).  Many of the workshops I'd like to attend will be held at the same time.  Take a look at the program and you'll see why!  I

Decisions to be made... 
Although I am pretty good at keeping a lid on my desire to design and code during my day-to-day life as a school psychologist,  I'm finding that it is getting more difficult to ignore. I have some thinking to do. In the not too distant future, it is possible that I'll leap out of my K-12 cocoon.  

I don't think I'll leap too far, because I'd like to focus my work on projects that enhance the lives of children and families.  I will ensure sure that some of my work will benefit people of all ages who have disabilities or encounter barriers in their lives.



SOMEWHAT RELATED

Joy of Computing, 1985

My daughter, who was just two years old in the above picture, returned to school to take computer courses after working in the non-profit arts management field.  I'm happy about this, but I know that she'll face many hidden barriers when she starts working in a male-dominated environment. She is not alone.

I'm working on a future post about computer and technology-related careers.  Things have changed rapidly over the past several years and there are many new ways to learn how to code, and over time, more opportunities for creative computational thinkers - male and female, to take the lead.

In Google's Inner Circle, a Falling Number of Women
Claire Cain Miller, NYT, 8/22/13

So You Don't Want to be a Programmer After All
Jeff Attwood, Coding Horror, 4/29/13

StackExchange  (Includes StackOverflow, helpful when I troubleshoot coding problems)

An Overview of HTML 5, PhoneGap, and Mobile Apps: Understanding how web languages are used for apps and how they work with native code
Dan Bricklin

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.

Leap Motion: My Dev Kit Arrived - Now What?! Thoughts About "NUI" Child-Computer-Tech-Interaction - and More

My Leap Motion developer kit arrived last week. I carefully unboxed the small device and tried out the demo apps that came with the SDK.  I'm doing more looking than leaping at this point.

I'd like to create a simple cause-and-effect music, art and movement application for my 2-year-old grandson, knowing that he'll be turning three near the end of this year.  It would be nice if my app could provide young children with enough scaffolding to support gameplay and learning over a few years of development.

Now that I'm a grandmother, I've spent some time thinking about what the evolution of NUI will mean for young children like my grandson.   Family and friends captured his first moments after birth with iPhones, and shared across the Internet.  Born into the iWorld, he knows how to use an iPad or smart phone to view his earlier digital self on YouTube, without ever touching a mouse or a physical keyboard.

The little guy is pretty creative in his method of interacting with technology, as I've informally documented on video.   He was seven months old when he first encountered my first iPad.  It was fingers-and-toes interaction from the start.  

In the first picture below,  he's playing with NodeBeat.  In the second picture, he's 27 months old, experimenting with hand and foot interaction, on a variety of apps.

My grandson is new to motion control applications, so I'm just beginning to learn what he likes,  and what he is capable of doing.  A couple of weeks ago, we played River Rush, from the Kinect Adventures game. He loved jumping up and down as he tried to hit the adventure pins. Most of the time, he kept jumping right out of the raft!  (I think next time we'll try Kinect Sesame Street TV, or revisit Kinectimals.)  


One of the steps I'm taking to prepare for my Leap Motion adventure is take a look at what people have done with it so far.  There are at least 12,000 developer kits released, so hopefully there will be some interesting apps to go along with the retail version of Leap Motion when it is released at Best Buy on May 19th of this year.

One app I really like is  Adam Somer's AirHarp, featured in the video clip below:


I also like the idea behing the following app, developed by undergraduate students:

Social Sign: Multi-User sign language gesture translator using the Leap Motion Controller (git.to/socialSign)
 
"Built at the PennApps Spring 2013 hackathon, Social Sign is a friendly tool for learning sign language! By using the Leap Motion device, the BadApples team implemented a rudimentary machine learning algorithm to track and identify American Sign Language from a user's hand gestures."

"Social Sign visualizes these hand gestures and broadcasts them in textual and visual representations to other signers in a signing room. In a standard chat room fashion, the interface permits written communication but with the benefit of enhanced learning in mind. It's all about learning a new way to communicate."-BadApples Team

There are a few NUI-focused tech companies that have experimented with Leap Motion. Today, I received a link to the following videoclip Joanna Taccone, of Intuilab, featuring their most recent work:
Gesture recognition with Leap Motion using IntuiFace Presentation

"Preview of our work with the Leap Motion controller. In the same spirit as our support for Microsoft Kinect, we have encoded true gesture support, not just mouse emulation, for the creation of interactive applications by non-programmers. The goal is to hide complexity from designers using our product, IntuiFace Presentation (IP). Through the use of IP's trigger/action syntax, designers simply select a gesture as a trigger - Swipe Left, Swipe Right, Point, etc. - and associate that gesture with an action like "turn the page" or "rotate the carousel". As you can see in this video, it works quite well. :-) We will offer Leap support as soon as it ships." -IntuiLab



Below is a demonstration of guys playing Drop Cord, a collaboration between Leap Motion and Double Fine.  From the video, you can tell that they had a blast!  

Here is an excerpt from the chatter:  "The thing is that everyone just looks cool..Yeah, I know, it doesn't matter what you are doing...it's got the right amount of speed-up-slow-down stutter-y stuff...it is like a blend of art and science.."

According to the website, Drop Chord is a "A music-driven score challenge game for the Leap Motion controller, coming soon for PC, Mac, & IOS from the creators of Kinect Party.."  

The following video is a demonstration of the use of Leap Motion to control an avatar and other interaction in Second Life:

Below are a few more videos featuring Leap Motion:


Control Your Computer With a Chopstick: Leap Motion Hands On (Mashable)


The Leap Motion Experience at SXSW 2013


LEAP Motion demo: Visualizer, Windows 8, Fruit Ninja, and More...



RELATED
Air Harp for Leap Motion, Responsive Interaction
Leap Motion and Double Fine team on Dropchord, give air guitar skills an outlet
John Fingas, Engadget, 3/7/13
Leap Motion Controller Set To Ship May 13 for Global Pre-Orders, In Best Buy Stores May 19.
Hands on With Leap Motion's Controller
Lance Ulanoff, Mashable, 3/10/13
Leap Motion website
Social Sign
IntuiLab
Leap Motion: Low Cost Gesture Control for Your Computer Display

SOMEWHAT RELATED
Kinect for Windows Academic: Kaplan Early Learning
"3 years & up. Hands-on play with a purpose -- the next generation way. This unique learning tool uses your body as the game controller making it a great opportunity to combine active play and learning all in one. Use any surface to actively engage kinesthetic, visual, and audio learners. Bundle includes the following software: Word Pop, Directions, Patterns, and Shapes."

Comment:
I've been an enthusiastic supporter of natural-user interfaces and interaction for years - back in 2007 I worked on touch-screen applications for large displays as a graduate student, and became an early member of the NUI group.  I'm also a school psychologist, and from my experience, I understand how NUI-based applications and technologies, such as interactive whiteboards and touch-tablets, such as the iPad can support the learning, communication, and leisure needs of students who have significant special needs.   It looks like Leap Motion and similar technologies have the potential to support a wide range of applications that target special populations, of all ages.

Disney Research: Touche, Touch and Gesture Sensing

The following video is a demonstration of something called Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing. It recognizes various configurations of hands and body during interactions.  This system is different than conventional capacitive touch sensing, as it senses a range of frequencies to develop a capacitive profile that provides a significant amount of data that can be analysed and utilized in an application.

At 1:23, the SFCS is demonstrated on a table, sensing body posture or body configuration. It is a wireless system and can be used on smaller touch screens, such as mobile devices.  It can recognize interactions in liquids.


Touche was awarded Best Paper at ACM CHI 2012:

RELATED
Touche: Touch and Gesture Sensing for the Real World
Disney Research
Sato, M., Poupyrev, I, and Harrison, C. Touché: Enhancing Touch Interaction on Humans, Screens, Liquids, and Everyday Objects. In Proceedings of CHI’12. 2012. ACM.
Paper [PDF, 10Mb]
Touche with Arduino
Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing (SFCS)
Audrey Cropp, Responsive Landscapes, 2/18/13

SOMEWHAT RELATED Synthetic Ecologies Course Reading List
Responsive Environments Course
Allen Sayegh, Harvard Graduate School of Design

AirHarp for Leap Motion, a Responsive Musical Natural User Interface

I like this demonstration of Adam Somers  AirHarp music application for use with the Leap Motion 3D controller:


AirHarp is being developed in C++ using Adam Somer's audio processing toolkit, MusKit.  This looks interesting!  Things have changes since I last took a computer music technology course (back in 2003).

Adam Somers is a senior software engineer at Universal Audio.  He has a graduate degree in music technology from Stanford, and a background in computer science, electronics, human-computer interaction, and signal processing.

Leap Motion is a motion-control software and hardware start-up company located in San Francisco, California. According to promotional information from the website, the company's first product, the Leap Motion controller, is 200 times more sensitive than existing technologies.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  (I'm still waiting for my pre-order.)

RELATED
AirHarp (links to GitHub)
Leap FAQs
Leap Motion Website
Leap Motion Developer Portal
Leap Motion Leadership Team
Leap Motion goes retail: Motion controller sold exclusively at Best Buy
Michael Gorman, engadget, 1/16/13

Leap Motion: Low Cost Gesture Control for your Computer Display
Asus partners up with Leap Motion, PCs with 3D motion control to debut in 2013
Michael Gorman, engadget, 1/3/13
Stanford Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics

Designing for Touch & Gesture: Tips for Apps and the Web (Updated)

In the past, our fingers did the walking, sifting through files, papers, pamphlets, and phonebooks, and then by point-click-clicking with a mouse to interact with images and text, in essence, electronic imitations of the paper-based world. Traditional forms, brochures, ad inserts, and posters informed much of the design. 

How much have things change?   It is 2013, but you'd think it was 1997 from the PowerPoint look and feel of many apps and web sites!   Touch is everywhere, but from what I can tell, not enough designers and developers have stepped up to the plate to think more deeply about ways their applications can support human endeavors though touch and gesture interactions.  

For an overview of this topic, take a look at my 2011 post, written after a number of ugly encounters with user-unfriendly applications:  Why bother switching from GUI to NUI?  

For an in-depth look into the history of multi-touch, the wisdom of Bill Buxton is well-worth absorbing.  He's worked with all sorts of interfaces, and has been curating the history of multi-touch and gesture systems since 2007:


Multi-Touch Systems that I have Known and Loved
Bill Buxton, Microsoft Research, Updated 8/30/12



Even if you are not a designer or developer, I encourage you to explore some of the links below:

Touch Gestures for Application Design
Luke Wroblewski, 10/9/12

Common Misconceptions About Touch
Steven Hoober, 3/18/13

Designing With Tablets in Mind:  Six Tips to Remember
Connor Turnbull, Webdesign tuts+, 9/27/11

Finger-Friendly Design: IDeal Mobile Touchscreen Target Sizes
Anthony T, Smashing Magazine, 2/21/12

Best Practices: Designing Touch Tablet Experiences for Preschoolers (pdf)
Sesame Street Workshop


Are Touch Screens Accessible?
AcessIT, National center on Accessible Information Technology in Education

iOS Human Interface Guidelines
Apple

Android User Interface Guidelines
Using Touch Gestures
Handling Multi-Touch Gestures
Android

Designing for Tablets?  We're Here to Help!
Roman Nurik, Android Developers Blog 11/26/12

Touch interaction design (Windows Store apps)
Microsoft - MSDN

Multi-Touch Systems that I have Known and Loved
Bill Buxton, Microsoft Research, Updated 8/30/12

XBox Kinect in the OR: Kinect supports gesture interaction with 3D imaging of the patient, while operating.

Here's an interesting use of technology for health - the Xbox Kinect in the OR!

Thanks to Harry van der Veen for the link!


RELATED
Kinect sensor poised to leap into everyday life
Niall Firth, NewScientist, 1/17/13

For the tech-curious:
PrimeSense (Company that developed the 3D depth sensor that powers the Kinect, the sensor in Ava, a healthcare robot by iRobot, and more.)

OpenNI (Framework for the development of 3D sensing middleware libraries and applications.)

NiTE: Natural Interface Technology for End User (Perception algorithms layer for 3D computer vision, allows for hand locating, tracking, analyzing scenes, and tracking skeleton joints.)

Gesture Markup Language (GML) for Natural User Interaction and Interfaces

Quick post:

Gesture ML Wiki 

"GML is an extensible markup language used to define gestures that describe interactive object behavior and the relationships between objects in an application.  Gesture Markup Language has been designed to enhance the development of multiuser multi-touch and other HCI device driven applications." -Gesture ML Wiki

GestureML was created and maintained by Ideum. 

More information to come!

Photo credit: Ideum

RELATED
Ideum Blog

OpenExhibits Free multitouch and multiuser software initiative for museums, education, nonprofits, and students

GestureWorks  Multi-touch authoring for Windows 8 & Windows 7

Ideum's GestureWorks Platform Will Let Developers Create Complex Gestures for Ultrabook Apps  -Alex Williams, Tech Crunch, 11/18/12

5 Perspectives On The Future Of The Human Interface -Alex Williams, Tech Crunch, 11/4/12

NUI Group

More to come!

Human Computer Interaction + Informal Science Education Conference (NUI News)

I recently learned of the HCI + ISE conference, funded by the National Science Foundation and organized by Ideum and Independent Exhibitions that will provide the groundwork for the future of the development and design of interactive computer-based science exhibits.

Science museums have a long history of interactivity, well suited to groups of "explorers", such as families or students visiting on a field trip.  

What is really exciting is that new interactive applications and technologies have the power to transform the way people learn and understand science in a collaborative and social way.  Innovations in the field of HCI - Human-Computer Interaction- such as multi-touch and gesture interaction, are  well-suited to meet the goals of science education for all, beyond the school doors and wordy textbooks. 

Below is a screen-shot of the conference website, a description about the conference, quoted from the site, and some related resources.

About the HCI+ISE Conference

"HCI technologies, such as motion capture, multitouch, augmented reality, RFID, and voice recognition are beginning to change the way computer-based science exhibits are designed and developed. Human Computer Interaction in Informal Science Education (HCI+ISE) is a first-of-its-kind gathering to explore and disseminate effective practices in developing a new generation of digital exhibits that are more intuitive, interactive, and social than their predecessors."

"The HCI+ISE Conference, to be held in Albuquerque, New Mexico June 11-14 2013, will bring together 60 museum exhibit designers and developers, learning researchers, and technology industry professionals to share effective practices, and to explore both the enormous potential and possible pitfalls that these new technologies present for exhibit development in informal science education settings."

"HCI+ISE will focus on the practical considerations of implementing new HCI technologies in educational settings with an eye on the future. Along with a survey of how HCI is shaping the museum world, participants will be challenged to envision the museum experience a decade into future. The conference results will provide a concrete starting point for exhibit developers and informal science educators who are just beginning to investigate these emerging technologies and design challenges in creating these new types of exhibits."

Why HCI+ISE?
"Since the mid-1980s informal educational venues have increasingly incorporated computer-based exhibits into their science communication offerings in an effort to keep pace with public expectations and make use of the expanding opportunities these technologies provide. The advent and popularity of once novel HCI technologies are becoming commonplace: the Wii and Microsoft Kinect now allow for motion capture video games, tablet PCs have multitouch interaction, and smart phones and other devices come standard with voice recognition. Yet many museums are still developing single-touch and trackball-driven, single-user computer kiosks."

"Science museums have a long history of championing hands-on, physical, and inquiry-based activities and exhibits. This vast experience has only just begun to be applied to interactive computer interfaces. Along with seasoned science exhibit developers, the Conference will draw upon individuals outside of ISE who will provide fresh insight into the technologies, design issues, and audience expectations that these visitor experiences present."

Involvement and Findings
"HCI+ISE will bring together a diverse group of practitioners and other professionals to discuss (and in some cases share and prototype) new design approaches utilizing emerging HCI technology. Please see our Apply page to learn how you can participate. Conference news and findings will be distributed through a variety of ISE and museum websites, including this one."

"We welcome your questions and comments about the HCI+ISE Conference."

CONTACTS

Kathleen McLean of Independent Exhibitions
& Jim Spadaccini of Ideum
HCI+ISE Co-chairs

RELATED
Independent Exhibitions

Open Exhibits

"Open Exhibits is a multitouch, multi-user tool kit that allows you to create custom interactive exhibits."
CML:  Creative Mark-up Language
GML: Gesture Mark-up Language
GestureWorks
Ideum

Jeff Han Discusses Windows 8 for Large Displays, Microsoft's New Multi-touch, Ink & Pen Tech; Experience Design for Large Displays (2012 Microsoft Build)

Earlier this year, Microsoft bought Jeff Han's company, founder of Perceptive Pixel.  Jeff Hans now works for the Microsoft Office division of the company, where there is a push to bring new and improved large multi-touch displays to the corporate world. With this off-the-desktop move, developers are challenged to develop applications for Windows 8 that will be geared towards supporting collaboration in corporate settings.

Jeff Han and Nathan Fish were at Microsoft's "Build" conference recently  to give a presentation about the nuts and bolts of the new technology - how it works, and suggestions for design.  Although the video presentation is over an hour long, it is worth setting aside some time to watch! 

New multi-touch, ink, and pen technologies that can revolutionize your apps on any size of screens (10/30/12, Microsoft Build)



Here is the description of the presentation:
"Develop solutions that flow with your customers business - starting with individuals and information workers on their phones, desks or virtual offices, moving into conference rooms, brainstorm areas, boardrooms and common areas.  Learn how Microsoft's new pen and touch capabilities, software and hardware will enable you to develop products that will help businesses be more efficient.  Have a sneak peek on what our large multi-touch displays (82' and 55') can bring to your solutions." -Microsoft Build

Jeff Han emphasized that touch interaction is everywhere and is a fundamental requirement in applications. Windows 8 apps should be designed for all screen sizes, saying "It's all about collaboration of people and a collaboration of devices that gets your work done....this is the real thing, and it is about to happen.  Devices (referring to large displays) are coming... we do have a mechanism for early access hardware."

During the second half of the video (38:00), Nathan Fish discusses guidelines for designing experiences on large displays, including optimization, handling various interactions via pen, touch, and gestures, the use of application bars and context menus, and more.

At the beginning of his presentation, Nathan Fish briefly discusses the uncharted territory of designing for collaborative large displays, and tells the audience that the guidelines are just suggestions, " nothing is written, we are figuring this out as we go."

My fear is that Windows 8 developers might not have the inclination to think past the smaller screens of smartphones and tablets, resulting in touchy-feely variations of PowerPoint and other Office applications that have been around for too long.

RELATED
Microsoft Welcomes Perceptive Pixel to the Office Division
The Official Microsoft Blog, 7/30/12


What happened to the Surface Table?
I was surprised that Jeff Han's company was not folded into PixelSense, formally known as Surface, the division of Microsoft that focuses on large multi-touch tables. In my opinion, the tables had some potential to support collaborative work in the corporate world.  It will be interesting to see how things unfold!  

PixelSense
Take a look at the video clip below for more information:
 

Discover the Samsung SUR40 (with PixelSense)
Samsung SUR40 with Microsoft PixelSense
PixelSense Development Partners
Insights on Interactive Tabletops: A Survey of Researchers and Developers (pdf)
Hrvoje Benko, Meredith Ringel Morris, A.J. Bernheim Brush, and Andrew D. Wilson 2009, Microsoft Research

SOMEWHAT RELATED
I've been interested in large screen displays and how they interact with smaller devices for a very long time.  In 2007, I was taking graduate courses at UNC-Charlotte and planned to pursue further research and work related to this area.   At the time, I prepared a paper to present at a conference, but was unable to present due a serious health emergency in my family.  The abstract is below:


"Large screen displays support the collaboration of two or more people, especially 
when the nature of the content is visual.  These displays, in the form of walls, windows, 
boards, and touch-tables, will become ubiquitous in the future, and can be found in workplaces, educational institutions, museums, and other public spaces. New display systems have been developed that allow for co-located communication between groups of people, and also allow for collaboration with individuals in remote locations, using mobile computing or communication devices.  This paper will provide an overview of the technologies that support  this new way of communication, discuss the challenges involved in 
establishing "interoperability" within these new systems, and examine the possibilities for 
the future."

If this topic interests you, take a look at one of my Flickr collections:

Ubiquitous Sightings of Urban Screens: Interactive Displays in Public Spaces, Digital Signage, and Screens of All Sizes

Description:

"All kinds of displays are cropping up in shopping centers, malls, banks, stores, airports, schools, businesses, and meeting places. What is the purpose of all of these displays?

Displays and mobile devices, everywhere we go.

It doesn't look like we've really figured out how to harness the potential of the technology that surrounds us."