Showing posts with label microsoft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label microsoft. Show all posts

Aug 24, 2009

MICROSOFT: ARE YOU LISTENING? Cool Cat Teacher (Vicki Davis) Tests Out Microsoft's Multi-touch Surface Table

When Microsoft unveiled the Surface in 2007, I was disappointed that there were no immediate plans to market it for use in education. At the time, there were no immediate plans to release the Surface for research and development by university students. I had just completed a course in human-computer interaction, and with my background as a school psychologist, I KNEW this sort of technology would work well in education.

My head was brimming with ideas for this innovative technology for use with the students I work with every day.

The following video shows a demonstration of Microsoft's multi-touch, multi-user Surface table at the 2009 NECC conference, and also provides insightful comments from Vicki Davis, author of the very popular Cool Cat Teacher blog. Vicki discusses the value of surface/tabletop computing in education and shares her views about the need for user involvement in the educational software development process. She also gives great advice about how Microsoft or other developers of tabletop computing systems should proceed.

I agree with Vicky's comments, 100%, as my regular blog readers know!

MICROSOFT, ARE YOU LISTENING?



In the above video, it is apparent that the musical instrument applications do not provide a good touch response on the Surface. Vicki suggests that touch responsiveness is key, and that all Surface applications should be held to the high standard of Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch. Vicky goes on to say that Microsoft should support easy development of applications, and ensure that applications are very user-friendly and easy for school folks to install. If you work in a K-12 setting, you know what I am talking about ; )

Vicky is preaching to the choir when she stresses that Microsoft R&D (and others) should involve users in ongoing development, in a meaningful way, by using REAL people, REAL teachers, people who work with students. If you have ever battled with a "lame" educational application, you know why this is so very important!

Vicky's enthusiasm for the use of tabletop/surface computing in education can not be ignored. She absolutely knows what she is talking about, and she is the instructional technology voice for a multitude of educators around the world.

Here is Vicky's plea:

"I wish Microsoft would listen to these 3 things from a teacher in a classroom (me). I know Microsoft has bigger things to do than watch this video, but, I can dream, can't I?"

(I've paraphrased the following quotes.)

1. Understand the amazing potential for Surface devices in education. Look at three to five years out. You are looking at the future.

(This technology can engage students who have ADHD, etc.)

2. Harness the power of your users! Pull in your users. There are so many people in education would give their thoughts for free!

3. Create virtual and online ways for Microsoft to interact with teachers.


"If Microsoft decides to invest in this, and I do hope that somebody watching this video will understand the importance of integrating the world around us into the learning experiences and the learning environment, as part as how we remake and re-do education."

My sentiments exactly!

A few thoughts:

So where are we now?

Smart Technologies has come out with the SMARTTable, but it was designed for younger students. At this point, there are very few options, especially affordable options, for educators of students in the upper grades to use this technology.

Some members of the NUI-group are involved in creating educational applications for table-top systems, but they are few in number.

A few companies are using this technology for education, but the applications are mostly limited to interactive museum exhibitions.

From my research on this topic, there are very few developers that have the interest or the inclination to create educational applications for table-top computing.

My hope is that this will change soon! Join me in this conversation.

Aug 17, 2009

Microsoft's Project Natal & "Fun" Natural User Interfaces for the Office


This looks great!

I came across the picture below today, and discovered more about it in a CNET article:

"Gesture-recognition technology, such as that seen in Project Natal, has changed the face of gaming, but Microsoft's Craig Mundie (pictured) believes it will also transform the office." (Ina Fried, CNET)


This approach looks like it incorporates visual thinking and conceptualization in a nice and fluid way.

RELATED:

"Microsoft: Future desktop PC's will transform the office" (Ina Fried, CNET UK, 7/31/09).


According to Fried, author of the the linked CNET article, Craig Mundie, at the Microsoft Research Faculty Summit this past July demonstrated the set-up in the above picture. The demonstration "...included hologram-like videoconferencing, a virtual digital assistant, and multiple surface computers, along with voice-, touch- and gesture-recognition technology. The desk in the demo was a multitouch surface computer, and the office's walls were also a display that could easily switch from being a virtual window or collection of digital photos to a corkboard of sticky notes or various workspaces. In one case, Mundie also used Project Natal-like depth cameras to put himself in the middle of an architectural demo, essentially putting himself inside a building that was not yet built."

Craig Mundie of Microsoft on the Future of Software: Digital Assistants, Natural User Interfaces, and Room Computing (Gregory T. Huang, Xconomy Seatle, 7/13/09)

The author of the above article was also at the Microsoft Research Faculty Summit and touched on the concept of natural user interfaces:

“All the things we talk about as natural user interfaces have been largely used one at a time as enhancements to [graphical user interfaces],” Mundie said. Gesture recognition, expressive responses, immersive 3-D virtual environments, and understanding of context—these advances in computing algorithms will lead to software that is “better at anticipating what you might want.”

Xbox's Project Natal Revamped for Offices? (J. Nicholas Hoover, 7/30/09)

When I find a video of the Project Natal/Surface/Natural User Interface Office in action, I'll be sure to post it!

Why this is important:

Natural user interfaces might have the potential to support more efficient and effective collaboration among people in the workplace, and the visual display of information may also support better decision-making and problem solving.

Aug 8, 2009

More about Project Natal: Richochet - Great Gaming for Fitness, Johnnie Chung Lee's Contribution


(Credit: CNET News)
Ina Fried, in a recent CNET Beyond Binary post, recently reviewed her experience playing Ricochet, a 3D game developed by Microsoft for Natal, the company's new gesture-recognition, controller-less Xbox gaming system. Above is a screenshot from Fried's article, Exclusive: Getting up close and personal with Natal:

Here is the video:


Ina Fried had a chance to spend some time in Redmond, Washington to explore the games in development at Microsoft, and hang out with the people responsible for Project Natal.

In her Beyond Binary article, Fried notes that the Ricochet game provides quite a workout, and this has had a positive effect on the Natal team:


"Since I started working on this project, I've lost almost like 10 pounds," said Kudo Tsunoda, general manager of Microsoft Game Studios and the creative director for Project Natal. "We're going to have the most in-shape development team you've ever seen."


Fans of Johnny Chung Lee will be happy to know that his work at Microsoft contributed to this game in someway, if they don't know this by now!

Who is Johnny Chung Lee? Read my post, "I wish I could be Johnny Chung Lee for a Day!".


RELATED

Speaking of Natal, it should be out next year (Ina Fried, CNET)

Gates: Natal to bring gesture recognition to Windows too



Aug 5, 2009

Get Up and Move Without Gear! Xbox Natal, a "smart" gaming environment.

I'm waiting for Xbox Natal to cross my path. Microsoft, can you hear me?



(I meant to write about this a while ago.)

Here are facts 5-6 out of 12, from "Project Natal in Detail" post on the XBox website:

  • "Fact #5: In addition to “Project Natal” tracking your full body movement in 3-D, it also recognises your face and facial expressions. It can even detect the change of emotion in your voice. Three facts in one – yummy."

  • "Fact #6: “Project Natal” remembers your face and voice so that you can connect to Xbox LIVE without the need to reach for a controller. This is the future!"

  • "Fact #7: “Project Natal” is the world’s first system to combine an RGB camera, depth sensor, multi-array microphone and custom processor running proprietary software. Memorise this sentence then say it out loud faster and faster."

If you visit the Project Natal website, you'll find links to related articles, a gallery of videos, and a place to sign up for news updates.

Aug 1, 2009

Jul 7, 2009

Lonely Planet Travel App by Amnesia-Razorfish for the Surface

I came across this video on the Microsoft Surface blog about a demo created for Lonely Planet by Amnesia-Razorfish, from REMIX 2009 Australia this past June:


Lonely Planet proof-of-concept at REMIX Australia 2009

Following a link from the Surface blog, I found yet another video:





Get Microsoft Silverlight




Design in the Round. Creating Compelling User Experiences for Surface

The video provides an overview of the history of human computer interaction and look towards the future of NUI (natural user interface). The Surface is viewed as only as a step towards NUI, which follows a person as they go about the day, interacting with technology via a variety of devices and settings.

"Designing for multi-touch, gesture-based and tangible experience like Microsoft Surface presents a new set of challenges. How do you design for a user interface that doesn't have a top? How to allow for multiple simultaneous users without them getting in each other's way?..."

Jun 1, 2009

3DV Systems Motion Sensing Camera and Microsoft's Xbox 360

A while ago there was an article in Reuters that discussed how Microsoft was planning to buy 3DV Systems, a company that develops virtual reality imaging technology for digital cameras, called ZCams. The ZCams would be used as an accessory to the XBox 360 system.

It is true, according to a recent article in Business Week:

Microsoft Moves onto Nintendo's Motion Turf: "The software giant's Xbox 360 gaming console will have a camera system that lets users bring body movements and voice commands into play"

Information about the camera from the 3DV website:
"The new"ZCamTM (previously Z-Sense), 3DV's most recently completed prototype camera, is based on DeepCTM and is the company's smallest and most cost-effective 3D camera. At the size of a standard webcam and at affordable cost, it provides very accurate depth information at high speed (60 frames per second) and high depth resolution (1-2 cm). At the same time, it provides synchronized and synthesized quality color (RGB) video (at 1.3 M-Pixel). With these specifications, the new ZCamTM (previously Z-Sense) is ideal for PC-based gaming and for background replacement in web-conferencing. Game developers, web-conferencing service providers and gaming enthusiasts interested in the new ZCamTM (previously Z-Sense) are invited to contact us."


Video of 3DV Systems at CES 2008

May 24, 2009

Thorsten Blum and Johann Korndörfer's Multi-touch 360 Sphere for Art Installations- and Space Invaders!

I came across the Multi-touch 360 project today and I thought it would be the best surface for a prototype I worked on a couple of years ago. Multi-touch 360 would be great for travel planning and teaching geography. I could see one of these interactive spheres in the lobby of every cruise ship!

This


on this!

The Multi-touch 360 project is the work of Thorsten Blum and Johann Korndorfer, based on their previous work on the Space Invader's 360 game, featured later in this post. It is similar to Microsoft's Sphere project.

Multi-Touch 360 First Tests Video:




Picture Collage of Multi-Touch 360 In Process:

Multi-Touch Materials Research

SPACE INVADERS 360 VIDEO


SPACE INVADERS 360


Space Invaders 360: An Interactive Multplayer Gaming Installation That Makes You Move (pdf)
MindTrek 2008 October 6-9, 2008, Tampere, FINLAND ACM

ABSTRACT
"Space Invaders 360 is a tribute to the video game Space Invaders designed by Tomohiro Nishikado in 1978. While the original version is a two-dimensional arcade shooter game, we have created an interactive gaming installation combin-ing the fun and thrill of the classic video game with experimental concepts of display technologies and new ways of user interaction.
Beside the technical aspects we also want to discuss the social aspects of our work. How does the gameplay change
in the 21st century? What new ways of user interaction can be thought of? The success of Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS [7] shows the interest of professional and casual gamers in new methods of user interaction. While the last decades have been dominated by video games on fixed screens, over- sized gamepads and realistic graphics, gamers are now moving towards video gaming with a focus on physical interaction."



Thorsten maintains another blog, which is worth a look. I like the links he posts:
More about Microsoft's Sphere prototype:

"Our prototype device builds on a commercially available globe projection system (Global Imagination’s Magic Planet). We have added touch-sensing capabilities with an infrared camera that shares the optical path with the projector. This novel configuration permits us to enclose both the projection and the sensing mechanism in the base of the device and allows for easy 360 degrees access to the device and high degree of interactivity without shadowing or occlusion problems. We have also developed a custom graphics projection pipeline that solves the distortion problems and enables projected data to be correctly visualized on the curved surface.

The applications developed for Sphere currently include a picture and video browser, interactive globe visualization, finger painting, globe visualization, and an omni-directional video-conferencing application (360 degree panoramic video from Microsoft RoundTable device). These applications are designed for highly interactive public space environments (e.g., museums, lobbies, information booths) and highlight the appeal of the device as well as its visualization and interaction capabilities." Hrvoje Benko, Andy Wilson, Ravin Balakrishnan, Billy Chen

Note: Microsoft's RoundTable 360 video conferencing application is now known as the Polycom CX5000 Unified Conference Station, optimized for the Microsoft Office Communicator. More information can be found on the Polycom website.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/benko/projects/sphere/IMG_3834_small.jpg
Microsoft's Sphere

May 23, 2009

Razorfish's Touch Framework "Razorfashion" - A lot like my idea for an in-home FashionMirrorAdvisor...

Razorfish recently unveiled the Razorfashion application designed to provide shoppers with an engaging retail experience within the "multi-channel shopping ecosystem". I'm not the "shop to you drop" type of gal, but I can see that this concept could be useful in other situations, after a few tweaks.




As soon as I saw this Razorfish Touch "Fashion" demo video, it touched a nerve. I've been playing around with a similar idea, but for my personal use, in the form of an RFID-enabled system. I'd call it something like "FashionMirrorAdvisor".

Instead of showing skinny fashion models like the Razorfashion application, I'd harness the power of built-in web-cam and mirror my own image on the screen. My mirror would dress me up in the morning when I'm way too foggy to think about matching colors and accessories.

My FashionMirrorAdvisor would be my friend. My "smart" friend, since all of my clothes would be RFID-tagged, along with my shoes, jewelry, and other accessories. My make-up, too.

It would be a no-brainer. I really could use this application - just ask my husband!

More often than not, most mornings I find myself staring at the clothes in my closet, frozen in time, unable to formulate a fashion thought. I might set my eyes on a favorite blouse, but blank out when I try to think about the rest of the steps I need to pull my look together.


I know I can't wear my reddish-pink camisole with my dusty-orange/brown slacks, but at 5:15 A.M., who has the time to think about this little detail? My friend, the TouchFashionMirror would prevent me from making this fashion faux-pas.

No problem.

My FashionMirrorAdvisor would show me a few outfits, and dress my real-time moving image on the screen. Since she knows all things, she'd show me ONLY the articles of clothing that were clean, since my RFID system would keep up with all of that. It would be much more functional than a "virtual wardrobe" application.

I could try out different earrings without having to get them out.

If I couldn't find something, the RFID system would take care of this detail. My FashioMirrorAdvisor would know where I misplaced my clothes, accessories, and even my keys, since they would all be tagged. The mirror application would provide me with a nice little map of my house and car, and highlight the location of the item.

My FashionMirrorAdvisor would keep track of my laundry, too. This would be a great feature. So if my dirty laundry was piling up, and I wanted to wear outfit X, Y, or Z over the next few days, I'd receive a gentle reminder that I'd need to do some laundry first!

Another practical feature:

My FashionMirrorAdvisor would also serve as my health consultant, keeping track of my weight and BMI. This data, along with information gained from the webcam, would be combined so that my advisor would NEVER suggest an outfit that would be too...snug.

I could program the system to provide me with gentle reminders if my weight was an issue. My FashionMirrorAdvisor would show me images of myself "before" and "after", outfits included.

Information about the "after" outfits could be fed to the system from the web-catalogs of my favorite fashion retailers, and once I lost those 10 darned pounds, I'd find a nice parcel delivered to my door.

Thanks to my FashionMirrorAdvisor, I know that the outfit would be just right.


UPDATE 5/8/10:  The FashionMirrorAdvisor would be integrated with a mobile app - since I now have a smartphone, this would be quite useful in planning shopping trips centered around the purchase of new clothes, shoes, accessories, and coordinating cosmetics!  I created a little game  that I think would be ideal for this sort of thing, too.

I still want to work on this....someday.

Too many ideas, too little time!


RELATED
From the Razorfish site:
"The Razorfish Emerging Experiences team is a dedicated group of highly experienced professionals focused solely on emerging experiences and technologies. "Effective innovation" is our multifaceted approach to concepting and delivering pioneering solutions for our clients"

"Founded in 2008, Razorfish Emerging Experiences is a cross-functional team composed of strategists, artists, experience designers, and technologists. We’re part of the Razorfish Strategy & Innovation practice led by Shannon Denton. Jonathan Hull is the managing director of the team, Steve Dawson is the technology lead and Luke Hamilton is the creative lead."


Razorfish Emerging Experiences Portfolio

May 20, 2009

Kodu: A visual programming language made for children to create games, running on the Xbox, using a game controller for input.

"The core of the Kodu project is the programming user interface. The language is simple and entirely icon-based. Programs are composed of pages, which are broken down into rules, which are further divided into conditions and actions. Conditions are evaluated simultaneously.

The Kodu language is designed specifically for game development and provides specialized primitives derived from gaming scenarios. Programs are expressed in physical terms, using concepts like vision, hearing, and time to control character behavior. While not as general-purpose as classical programming languages, Kodu can express advanced game design concepts in a simple, direct, and intuitive manner." -Microsoft

Video from MSR Techfest (low quality, but provides an example of Kodu in action)

Interview about Kodu (link to video)

Kodu Blog

Article: New program allows everyone to program videogames (USA Today 1/7/09)

The Kodu Technology Club at Explorer Elementary School

Screenshots from the Kodu website:

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/kodu/programming_ui.jpghttp://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/kodu/load_ui.jpg
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/kodu/sensor_wheel.jpg
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/kodu/kodu_turtle.jpghttp://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/kodu/kodu_sutekki.jpg

Update from the Microsoft Research UK's Innovation Day 2009 -SecondLight, Collaborative Slate, and More!

Demonstration of SecondLight, Microsoft's plans for the next-gen Surface:

More from the Microsoft Research UK website:

Family Archive (links to video)


Links to videos can be found on the Enabling Innovation Through Research2009 website

For your convenience, you can link to the videos from here:

Keynote

Andrew Herbert

Digital Lifestyle

HomeBook
HomeWatcher
Kitchen Postcard
SecondLight
TimeCard
Wayve
Family Archive

Converging Sciences

Doing Real Computer Mathematics
Modelling & Simulating Biochemical Systems

Education

NodeXL

Environment

Somniloquy
Understanding and
Simulating Forests


RELATED:
Microsoft Research Fast Facts

May 10, 2009

Future of Interaction: Microsoft Lab's Vision 2019 Montage; Future Healthcare Montage

The following video is from Microsoft Office Vision 2019. If you visit the YouTube source, you'll find an interesting discussion about this five-minute+ clip.



Video Presentation from MIX09: Untold Stories of Touch, Gesture, & NUI
Joseph Fletcher, Design Manager, Microsoft Surface


"Learn about new patterns, behaviors, and design approaches for touch and gesture interfaces from a practitioners point of view. Learn early lessons from applied knowledge of touch applications, devices, and design methods."




LukeW's notes from Joseph Fletcher's presentation
LukeW's post: Design Principles at Microsoft

LukeW is the Senior Director of Product Ideation & Design at Yahoo! Inc.

Apr 17, 2009

Pervasive Checkers on Microsoft's Surface: The Gamepack Video

In early 2007, before we knew of the existence of Microsoft's multi-touch surface, I worked on a "Pervasive Checkers" project with Johnny Hopkins, a classmate in my Ubiquitous Computing class. I'd previously worked with XNA Game Studio Express in an AI for Games class, and thought that it would be cool to make a casual checkers game on a multi-touch table that could be played in gathering spots such as coffee houses and neighborhood cafes.

Below is a screen shot of what we created using Inspiration software - (in the application, you can click on an item and it expands to reveal additional information.)



Two years later, and the Pervasive Checkers idea is reality - but I wasn't involved in the process. Checkers is one of the games that is included in a game-pack created specifically for the Surface.

Take a look at the video:



From Surface Computer News:

"The Microsoft Surface Games Pack is a clear illustration of where the Natural User Interface of Windows 7 has the potential to take games. Windows is traditionally the number 1 gaming platform around the world. With the introduction of the NUI, allowing players to literally have titles at their fingertips via touch, Windows 7 can kick the gaming experience up a notch. Provided that developers rise up to the challenge."

Apr 13, 2009

Interactive Displays 2009: Listen to a podcast interview each day leading up to the conference.

https://www.regonline.co.uk/custImages/249955/ID800X170%5B1%5D.jpg

The following people were on the podcast on 4/13/09:
Steven Bathiche- Microsoft
Jerry Bertrand- Microscent, LLC
Henry Kaufman- Tactable

Interactive Displays 2009


Note: Jeff Han will be one of the presenters.

More info to come...

Jan 18, 2009

BETT 09: UK's Annual ICT (Ed Tech) conference - Tabletop Computing and More

BETT is the annual ICT & educational technology conference held in the UK. The UK has the highest number of classrooms in the world with interactive whiteboards, which has been an interesting transformation to follow over the past few years.

I've posted several video clips from BETT '09, which was held this month (January), along with some other resources. Tabletop computing applications for education were demonstrated by Microsoft Surface and Smart Technologies. Take a look!


BETT 2009 Video Overview


Microsoft Surface at BETT 2009

More Surface for Education: User Interface and Paint


Physics and Social Studies


Orientation and Images


Science: Medical and Health Care


SMARTTable at BETT 09
(Note: The two clips below look as if they were taken with a cell phone video camera. I'll post higher-quality videos if I find them.)



SMART Technologies PR video

I think there is a need for more application development in this area!

RELATED
The following two clips are from the visitor's point of view, overwhelmed by it all...


SMARTTechnologies SMARTTable

Microsoft Surface
BETT 2008 Video Magazine
BETT 2008 Teachers TV Report

Jan 11, 2009

Usability, Accessibility, and User Experience in a Win7 Environment

Microsoft's newest operating system, Win7 (beta), allows for multi-touch interaction and application development. From what I can tell from the news from the Consumer Electronic Show (CES 2009), touch and gesture interaction holds quite a bit of interest among consumers and application developers alike.

Hopefully people will think carefully about user experience and usability factors when developing the applications we'll be using in the not too distant future!

Because of my background as a school psychologist, I’m interested how touch/gesture applications can address accessibility and universal usability issues.

I wasn't able to locate user experience or usability information for Win7. Here are a few links from the Microsoft website that I think are worth reading:

Touch Interaction Guidelines

How to Design a Great User Experience

Designing with Windows Presentation Foundation

Accessibility

According to the research from Microsoft, ”more than half of all computer users experience difficulties or impairments related to accessibility, and are likely to benefit from the use of accessible technology. Moreover, approaching software design with the flexibility and inclusiveness that are the hallmarks of accessibility often results in overall improved usability and customer satisfaction.”

Regarding touch/gesture interaction, know that “19% (24.4 million) of computer users have a mild dexterity difficulty or impairment, and 5% (6.8 million) of computer users have a severe dexterity difficulty or impairment.”

Christian Moore, from the NUI-Group, shared this nice graphic that depicts the various fields that intersect or converge with interface design, which I think is useful when thinking about how we will design, develop, and use emerging technologies:



Concepts such as accessibility and universal usability can fit into this design!

For more information regarding multi-touch, see my previous post, "For Techies and the Tech-Curious: Multi-touch/Gesture from the NUI Group"

Dec 11, 2008

An Example of Convergence: Interactive TV : uxTV 2008

I missed this one!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3276/3015746088_94e8e2cda5.jpg?v=0

Jeremy Vaught, the administrator of the New Media Facebook group, posted about the the First International Conference on Designing Interactive User Experiences for TV and Video, held October 22-24, 2008 in Silicon Valley, California. The conference was sponsored by Microsoft Mediaroom, and ifip (International Federation for Information Processing).

According to the conference website, the papers from the conference can be found in the ACM digital library, AICPS: UZTV'08
.

Featured speakers included Jakob Nielson (usability guru), Elissa Lee (Sr. Director of Research, TiVo), Gunthar Hartwig (User Experience, YouTube), and Dale Herigstad (Chief Creative Officer, Schematic).

Here is a sample of the topics covered during the conference:

Designing for User Experience: What to Expect from Mobile 3D TV and Video?
(Satu Jumisko-Pyykko, Mandy Weitzel, & Dominik Strohmeier)


The Concept of Interactivity - revisited: Four new typologies for a new media landscape
(Jens F. Jensen)

The Interactive Television User Experience So Far
(William Cooper)

Absolute Pointing and Tracking based Remote Control for Interactive User Experience
(John Sweetser, Anders Grunnet-Jepsen, and Gopal Panchanathan, ThinkOptics Inc.)

Network Analysis of Massively Collaborative Creation of Multimedia Contents: Case Study of Hatsune Miku videos on Nico Nico Duoga (Masahiro Hamasaki, Hideaki Takeda, Takuichi Nishimura)

The uxtv08 website has links to information about the various demos that were presented at the conference. To save you time, I've linked them below:

Demos

Data Driven Interactive 'Lower Third' - Vikram Singh

Dynamic TV: a New Inter-tainment Paradigm for Television - Marina Geymonat, Rossana Simeoni, Monica Perrero, Elena Guercio, Maurizio Belluati, Agnese Vellar and Roberto Montanari

Interactive advertising on n-tv plus - Kathrin Damian, Christian Bopp, Lars-Eric Mann

Interactive Live Demo of Fraunhofer FOKUS Media Interoperability Lab - Oliver Friedrich, Robert Seeliger, Benjamin Zachey, Christian Riede and Stefan Arbanowski

Microsoft Windows Media Center - Linda Chan

Microsoft Mediaroom - Linda Chan and David Giusti

Multi-dimensional Direct Pointing Remote Control for Interactive User Experience - John Sweetser, Anders Grunnet-Jepsen and Gopal Panchanathan

Tarae: Prototype of new interface design for digital TV browsing and navigation system - Hyun Suk Kim, Joung Young Lee and Sang Pil Hwang

Dec 1, 2008

BMW and Surface Computing: Video of Tabletop Interaction

This is a promotional video from BMW, showing how potential buyers can interact with a tabletop computing system to preview various ways they can customize the car. The system in the video is Microsoft's Surface:



Via Gizmodo Australia

(I wonder if Microsoft is working on a few educational games for the surface....)

Nov 23, 2008

Touch TV Networks Demo using Windows 7 a NextWindow display

Here is a short video demonstration of a Touch TV Networks demo on a display using a NextWindow touch screen. It looks like it was built using Windows 7. I understand that it was created by people with former Microsoft connections.

<a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=74b3a821-3e82-4b50-bc64-04ae4b75bdaf" target="_new" title="Touch TV Networks Demo at Microsoft REC">Video: Touch TV Networks Demo at Microsoft REC</a>

For more information, take a look at the Touch TV Networks website.