In response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the team at Ideum has created a free version of their multi-touch-enabled Google Map and Flickr mashup application to educational organizations, including museums and aquariums. The information included on the map includes oil spill and fishing restriction data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), along with pictures taken at the scene in and around the region of the spill.
Ideum is a company that "designs and creates interactive computer-based exhibits, multitouch installations, rich Internet applications, and social networking sites for museum and Web visitors. We work closely with museums, nonprofit organizations, and socially responsible companies to create memorable visitor experiences." Ideum uses their own multi-touch framework called GestureWorks to create interactive applications.
Jim Spadaccini is the director and founder of Ideum. He formerly was the Director of Interactive Media at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.
Ideum is working on a version of the program optimized to work on 3M's 22" multi-touch system. A single-touch version for the web might be available if there is interest.
I like music technology. I like interactive, tangible table systems. I like the Reactable!
To understand this system, see it in action!
Below is a video of Reactable Live!, Performed at Sonar Barcelona 2010 on June 18th. The music and performance is by Carles Lopez, and the video was by Marc Morera.
Here is a video of children playing with the Reactable, at Sonar Kids, Barcelona, 2009:
I recently learned that there is a Reactable in my hometown!
The Reactable Experience was installed at Discovery Place in Charlotte. Discovery Place is the children's science museum for the metropolitan Charlotte, N.C. region. Below is a picture from the Discovery Place museum:
The Reactable is part of a new exhibition, "Think it up" Here's the description from the Discovery Place website:
"The Reactableis a cutting edge electronic musical instrument merged with a visual experience. Special objects are placed on a translucent surface which trigger sound clips and audio modulation. The sound produced by the objects is represented visually on the surface, providing feedback and guidance for the creation of new music."
This version of the Reactable is for museums, science centers, schools, universities, and other public spaces. It is an outgrowth of the original Reactable that was designed for musicians. This version is intuitive and invites people to share and create music collaboratively.
I was fortunate to see some of these interaction techniques and interfaces when I attended CHI 2010 this past April, and plan to share some of my photos and video clips from the conference on this blog soon.
Totally Unrelated
Online connection for foodies
Eatocracy is a new website within the CNN pages that provides news- and more- about all things related to food. The categories on the site include "main", "news", "bite", "sip", "make", "think", and "buzz". The best part, in my opinion, is the heirloom recipe collection index, where people can upload and share family recipies and the stories behind them.
Here is the description of Eatocracy from the website:
Eatocracy "is your online home for smart, passionate conversation and information about food news, politics, culture. We'll highlight regional and family recipes, dive into restaurants and food shopping, chat with celebrity and local chefs, and show you what's for dinner around the world tonight. Grab a place at the table and read with your mouth full."
As I took a peek at Lieven's video links, I noticed an interesting video mash-up Lieven created from the open-source code from the RadioHead's House of Cards music video and his One Million Particles app. I'll post them soon.
I'll try to get video, pictures, and commentary about EVA 2010. EVA stands for Electronic Visualization and the Arts. "Electronic Information, the Visual Arts, and Beyond.
FYI
I'm in the process of sorting through and re-organizing my blogs, which have been around for over four years! During this time, my blogs have attracted a growing number of readers. Because of this, I'd like to make things a bit user-centered. So expect to see little changes here and there. I promise I'll give my readers warnings in advance if I make any serious changes!
If you are new to this blog, you should know that my blogs started out as on-line filing cabinets, open to the world. Although there is a bit of overlap of material and some cross-posting between the blogs, they are arranged to serve as a paper-less way of keeping track of things that I've learned through my coursework, conference attendance, readings, and research. Since emerging technologies are high on my list of interests, I also use my blogs to share interesting things that cross my path.
I changed the name of my World Is My Interface blog to The World Is My Interactive Interface."Off-the-desktop natural user interfaces, interaction, and user experience" are the main topics of the blog. It sometimes includes information about ubiquitous computing and DOOH, otherwise known as Digital Out Of Home.
I plan to tinker with my TechPsych blog later on. It focuses on topics that are useful to psychologists, educators, special education teachers, speech and language therapists, health and wellness professionals, and parents.
Feel free to leave comments, as I welcome your input.
"To keep your adrenaline pumping while waiting for SIGGRAPH to start, here's a few juicy bits of inspiration:
"Simulating Real-world Film Lighting Techniques in 3D. Light, shadows, and rendering play together to create realism in your 3D models. Learn to bring these art techniques into your 3D scenes to create compelling cinematic views."
"Creating UVs for Characters in Autodesk Maya*. Regardless of whether you're using a model in a real-time environment or as part of a rendered sequence, here are some tips and tricks to making UV mapping work efficiently."
Today there was an earthquake in Canada on the Ontario-Quebec border region. It was felt around the region, including Michigan. Curious, I took a look at the United States Geological Survey interactive website about earthquakes to learn more: Did You Feel It? The Science Behind the Maps
Here's some info about the earthquake from the USGS website:
"This earthquake occurred near the southern edge of the Western Quebec Seismic Zone. Earthquakes within this zone are mostly small. They tend to cluster in a wide area that is slightly elongated northwest-southeast. Historically, earthquakes in the Western Quebec Seismic Zone have caused damage roughly once a decade. Three or four smaller events each year are felt in the region but are generally too small to cause damage. The largest earthquakes known in this part of Canada occurred in 1935 (M6.1), about 250 km (150 miles) to the northwest of todays event, and in 1732 (M6.2), about 150 km (100 miles) to the east. The 1732 earthquake caused significant damage in Montreal" -USGS
Here are a few videos uploaded to the web regarding the earthquake, which provide the human side of the story:
EARTHQUAKE IN QUEBEC: "I think we DID have one"
For some reason, I like this one. The man is narrating a video clip about the BP spill, pretty boring, and at 1:15 or so, he notices that the ground is shaking. He tells someone in the background to go outside. I like the Canadian accents.
Project Natal was the code name for the Kinect Sensor for Xbox 360. For $149.99 you can pre-order your very-own system from the Microsoft Store that will allow you to interact with video games with your body alone. No need for controllers or 'motes!
Presentation about the fitness benefits of the Kinect Sensor for Xbox 360:
This video is a preview of a dance game for the Xbox using the Kinect Sensor:
It would be great if I could do my Zumba moves with Kinect Sensor system and a great Xbox application!
Here's another video that explains the system in more detail, with brief interviews of innovators from Microsoft:
Here is a copy of my previous post about Project Natal:
How It Works: Microsoft's Project Natal for the Xbox 360 video from Scientific American
Microsoft gathered a wealth of biometric data to recognize the range of human movement in order to develop an algorithm for the next generation of controller-less gaming. "Natal will consist of a depth sensor that uses infrared signals to create a digital 3-D model of a player's body as it moves, a video camera that can pick up fine details such as facial expressions, and a microphone that can identify and locate individual voices."
The technology behind Natal has the potential for a range of uses beyond gaming.
In 2007-2008 there were a handful of multi-touch concept demo videos created, accompanied by upbeat music. The song in this video would be great for the Glee iPad/iPhone app!
Sing with yourself and Gleeks around the world in perfect harmony:
Demo of the Glee iPhone + iPad App by Smule - "I'll Stand By You" "Glee, for iPhone + iPad, by Smule. This impromptu, one-take performance by Smule engineer Nick late one night at HQ demonstrates how the app transforms his voice into a group of singers harmonizing with him."
This is exactly why I NEED an iPad!
Tutorial Part 1
"How To"
Tutorial Part II:
The Glee GlobeShows how you can share your Glee songs and sing with others around the globe!
"... working with a growing array of technology companies, researchers, health advocates, employers, media, consumer advocates, marketers, providers, etc., we are seeking to identify the uses of this data that would do the most to raise awareness of health performance, help motivate civic leaders and citizens to improve performance, and help improvers do the improving.
Potential examples include:
Interactive health maps on the web that allow citizens to understand health performance in their area vs. others with tremendous ease and clarity
“Dashboards” that enable mayors and other civic leaders to track and publicize local health performance and issues
Social networking applications that allow health improvement leaders to connect with each other, compare performance, share best practices, and challenge each other
Competitions regarding how communities can innovate to improve health performance
Viral online games that help educate people about community health
Utilization of community health data to help improve the usefulness of results delivered by web search engines when people do health-related searches and further raise awareness of community health performance
Integration of community health-related data into new venues, such as real estate websites, which could be highly effective disseminators of such information
Etc."
Harnessing the Power of Information to Improve Health
Event: Community Health Data Initiative Launched (06/02/2010) (Long!)
HEALTH DATA AND GAMES FOR HEALTH!
My favorite section of Alex Howard's post:
Game mechanics and health data "Community Clash isn't the only game that's using community health data: SCVNGRlocation-based technology that has become familiar to many through Foursquare and Gowalla with specific challenges to earn points. SCVNGR provides a platform for organizations to build games upon. To date, more than 550 institutions in 44 states and 20 countries have taken them up on the opportunity as clients, including museums, conferences, universities and cities. combines the "John Valentine, SCVNGR's conference and events manager, says that SCVNGR now has more than 20 million locations in its system and is being downloaded thousands of times daily from the iTunes and Android app stores. In D.C., SCVNGR will be a part of the upcoming Digital Capital Week."
Visual Planet’s ViP Interactive Foil has been innovatively used by a student from King’s School Sixth Form in Rochester, UK to create an aesthetically pleasing and extremely creative coffee table inviting interaction from the family.
Below are pictures of the prototype of the XO-3, the third-generation of the One Laptop Per Child project, via gayakuman, and a video interview of Nicholas Negroponte discussing the third generation prototype of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, OX-3.
Nick Barber, of the IDG News Services, reporting from the MIT MediaLab:
There has been a push for the government to publish public data on-line, and have it accessible to anyone who wants to explore it further. Interactive dataviz/infoviz strategies might help further one of the causes behind journalism - bringing the truth to the masses, and doing so in a way that "informs and enlightens". Who is going to pay for this?
At any rate, the cry for publishing government data is not new. Dr. Robert Kosara, an assistant professor of computer science at UNC-Charlotte, outlined his ideas about what this might be like in a post written in early 2009: A National Data Agency. He created a logo for this effort:
One of Robert Kosara's related posts, Visualization Sets Information Free, outlines how visualization tools can help us understand the numbers. His post contains links to great information visualization resources that journalists, as well as anyone else interested in sniffing out and/or sharing truths, will appreciate.
The infographic below is from Robert Kosara's blog post:
The problem is that there a many competing viewpoints among groups of people on the matter of the future of journalism. There are those who would like to hold on to the past for the sake of the smell of a newspaper and how it fits into a morning routine, those who would like to hold on to the past for the sake of great journalism (think of the investigative journalism carried out when many newspapers had the money to support this work), those who would like to see everything go digital while keeping the best features of the newspapers (think of reading the NY Times on your iPad or e-book), and those who would like a laisse-faire free-for-all.
In my opinion, multi-media journalism, incorporating interactive information visualization, is something that I fully support. New Media. Transmedia. Covergence. The best of all worlds. Etc. This can't happen if we don't have access to ALL of the data that we need!
RELATED Henry Jenkins and Convergence Culture
"HCDMediaGroup—September 21, 2009 — Henry Jenkins, MIT Professor and author of "Convergence Culture" talks about the new media landscape. Highest Common Denominator Media Group"
Copy and Paste from Torkington's Four Short Links: 31 May 2010:
"Potential Policy Recommendations to Support the Reinvention of Journalism (PDF) -- FTC staff discussion document that floats a number of policy proposals around journalism: additional IP rights to defend against aggregators like Google News; protection of "hot news" facts; statutory limits to "fair use"; antitrust exemptions for cartel paywalls; and more. Jeff Jarvis hates it, but Alexander Howard found something to love in the proposal that the government "maximize the easy accessibility of government information" to help journalists find and investigate stories more easily. (via Jose Antonio Vargas)"
It is about time for an update about touch/gesture- interactive technologies.
I've been researching the latest in "touch" screens and new developments in interactive multi-media content. In just one year, a multitude of websites have been transformed from static to interactive.
Although the initial objective for some of these websites was to optimize the interface and navigation for people accessing websites via touch-screen cell phones, some are ideal for use on touch-enabled slates, the iPad, and even larger touch screen displays and surfaces.
Convergence seems to be the buzz word of the day. Interactive TV. Game sets with Internet access. Movies on your cell phone. Touch screen Coke machines displaying movie trailers. What's happening now, and what is next?
I welcome input from my readers in the form of links to websites, university labs with grad students and professors who are obsessed with emerging interactive technologies, proof-of-concept video clips, video clips of related technologies that are new-to-market, etc.
FYI: I'm also in the middle of writing a series of posts about 3D television technologies for the Innovative Interactivity blog, and welcome input from my readers about this topic.
"The worldwide first EAP propelled airship was made at Empa in collaboration with aeroix GmbH and the Technical University of Berlin. This lighter-than-air vehicle with 8 m in length consists of a slightly pressurized Helium filled body of a biologically inspired form with Dielectric Elastomer (DE) actuators acting as muscles and deforming the body and tail fin in a fish-like manner."
I wonder if the Blimp's surface could be transformed for interactive ads....I'm sure someone is working on this now!
RELATED OpenMaterials.org (This is a rabbit hole I'll need to explore further.)
"OpenMaterials is a research group dedicated to open investigation and experimentation with DIY production methods and uses of materials.
In the spirit of the open source software and hardware movements, we hope to promote materials to be researched and developed in a public, collaborative manner. We see materials as an open resource, and wish to establish an open process for exploring and sharing knowledge, techniques and applications related to materials science."
Sony will be introducing a full high-definition interactive table, a result of a collaboration with the Swiss company Atracsys.
(At about 2:14 in the video below, there is a demonstration of an application that recognizes facial features and expressions, which are used to control and manipulate images on the screen.) Images from the Sony Stand at Vision 2009
Here is an "overview" video that shows a number of uses for the Attractable:
Here is a version of the atracTable, using a tangible user interface to create music:
Here is the "Nespresso" table, which provides people with information about the type of coffee that you are drinking. It makes more sense as demonstrated in the video. Atracsys @ Baselworld 2010
beMerlin: Interactive gesture-based application for retail:
Eliane Alhadeff blogs about serious games and recently posted a number of links that I'm happy to share! The first set of links are to presentations from the recent GAMETECH 2010 conference held in Orlando, Florida. I've also included links to Eliane's blogs as well as to an article about games, simulations, and learning that was recently published in the Charlotte Observer.
3-D learning happens by immersing yourself in a computer game or virtual world, using an avatar - like a digital sock puppet - that you control. You have an out-of-body experience in a digital classroom, learning by interacting and doing, where mistakes don't cause any damage in the real world. ...What's key to 3-D learning is computer technology that's fast and powerful enough to run the game or virtual world. In that respect, 3-D learning is an offspring of semiconductors' doubling in speed and power every 18 months (known as Moore's law)."
Second Life and more
"These are some virtual worlds visited for learning:
Second Life, where avatars attend conferences, own property, shop, vacation, work and build. www.secondlife.com
