Tablets at Work: AT&T videoclips, other examples, in case you were wondering.

If you have a tablet or an iPad, it might be difficult to imagine life without one. AT&T knows that there are plenty of people who might be ripe for buying one. To give them a nudge, they've created a series of videos centered around a couple who is looking for a new home, and the people who help them move towards their dream.

The first video shows how real estate agents can use the photo and video features of a tablet to enhance the home search process, saving time for all.

In the second video, the couple is connected with a tech-savvy mortgage broker, who has a short interchange with another broker who is lost in a pile of paperwork.



The third video shows how tablets are used during the home inspection process as well as planning out the interior design. 



The last video shows how the tablets can be used by the movers to complete a payment transaction and plan for their next stop. The couple orders a pizza, and a scene from the pizzeria shows how a tablet can be used to quickly complete the transaction for the order.




RELATED
Latista Named 2013 Constructech Top 50 Products, LATISTA Field Management Software
Hailey Lee, 7/23/13


How the iPad helps scientists do their jobs
Joel Mathis, Macworld, 7/9/12
Black Mana Studios Launches Interior Design for iPad: Bringing Home Designs to Life
PR Web, 12/19/12
Home Inspector Pro for iPad is now available
Scott Patterson, Inspection News, 12/29/12
New iPad App Make Bridge Inspection Management Mobile, Streamlined
Luke Abaffy, ENR.com, 4/1/13
13 New Mobile Agriculture Apps for 2013
Matt Hopkins, CropLife 3/25/13
HTML5 iPad App Eases Charting for Dentists (Uses Sencha Touch)
Brian T. Horowitz, eWeek, 7/4/12
Children's Care Alliance put iPads in hands of school nurses
Sara K. Stullo, The Express-Times, 2/4/13
100 Boston Police Detectives Getting iPads For Their Jobs
CBS Boston, 6/29/13
Electrical Apps for Electricians and Electrical Engineers
ProCerts Software
Apps in Therapy (Physical Therapists)
Margaret Schmidt, RehabCareAdvantage, 1/8/13
10 Best iPad Apps for Hairstylists
TechiCore, 10/31/12
Technology That serves to Enhance, Not Distract  (Use of iPads in museums and an interactive touch screen wall.)
Fred A. Bernstein, New York Times, 3/20/13

Stanford's "Coding Together: Developing Apps for iPhone and iPad" Course Video Presentations on iTunesU

Now that the school year has ended, I've taken the first step to begin my "Summer of Code".  I have five weeks off each summer, and for me, it is the best time to brush up on my coding skills.   Since my school recently piloted an iPad program, I've developed an urge to learn Objective-C.  

So on the very first day of my summer break, I noticed in an email from Apple that that all of the presentation videos from Coding Together: Developing Apps for iPhone and iPad were made available, for free, though iTunes U. The course was designed for people who have some programming courses/experience, and from what I can see, provides a relatively "quick" and useful path for those who'd like to create an app for the iPhone or iPad.

After viewing the first video,  I am happy to say that I'm impressed with the way the professor, Paul Hegarty, explains it all.  

Course Description
"Updated for iOS 6. Tools and APIs required to build applications for the iPhone and iPad platform using the iOS SDK. User interface designs for mobile devices and unique user interactions using multi-touch technologies. Object-oriented design using model-view-controller paradigm, memory management, Objective-C programming language. Other topics include: object-oriented database API, animation, multi-threading and performance considerations. Prerequisites: C language and programming experience at the level of 106B (Programming Abstractions) or X. Recommended: UNIX, object-oriented programming, graphical toolkits."  -iTunesU Website

RELATED
iTunes U links to all course materials, including videos
Coding Together: Developing Apps for iOS Videos and Lecture Slides (iTunesU)
Website with files for course-related code
StackOverflow CS193P tagged items (Stack Overflow is an online resources for people with coding Q & As)

Interactive Tablets and Learning: One Laptop Per Child now One Tablet Per Child in Ethiopia

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is a philanthropic organization that focuses on learning technologies, distributing thousands of low-cost laptops to children in developing countries.  In most cases, children have been provided access to OLPC laptops within teachers within traditional school settings.  But what about children who live in remote areas, where there are no schools, teachers, or even access to electricity?  They now have the opportunity to learn, even without teachers, through a small experiment conceived by Nicholas Negroponte, of OLCP and other researchers.  In this experiement, each child was provided with a Motorola Xoom tablet.  No teachers were around, because the children lived in a remote village that had no teachers. 

The following video provides a brief overview of what happened over the course of a few weeks and months after the children received the tablets:

To learn more, I encourage you to follow the link to a video of Nicholas Negroponte's presentation at the October 2012 EmTech conference, held in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He discusses learning and how it can be supported through technology, anywhere.

EmTech Video: Nicholas Negroponte: Teaching Children to Learn

"Nicholas Negroponte, founder, One Laptop Per Child, on his latest experiment with the democratization of education - can children teach themselves to read?"

In his presentation, Negroponte discusses the differences between knowing and understanding, and the importance for teachers (or learning applications) to understand the learner.  He goes on to discuss the OLPC research project Ethiopia where children living in remote villages with no teachers, no exposure to print, illiterate communities, and no access to technology, learned to use tablets without instruction or guidance.  The village was provided with a solar panel and one village member was taught how to use it to supply power for the tablets.

Each tablet provided to the children had over 100 applications.  Within four minutes, one child open the box, turned on the on-off button. Within 5 days, each child was using an average of 47 applications.  Within five months, a child hacked the Android tablet to turn on the camera capability.  According to Negroponte, the children were each using different applications, but collaborated with one another.



Maryann Wolf, Director of  the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University, has collaborated with with the "OTPC" project. Other collaborators include Cynthia Breazeal and team at the MIT Media Lab, and Sugata Mitra at Newcastle University, according to Chris Ball, lead software engineer at OLPC.

The tablets include software that tracks data from all of the interactions from the children.  What a goldmine for education and cognitive/developmental psychology researchers According to Negraponte, the data is free for analysis.   (I will update this post with additional information about how the data can be accessed as soon as I can find the link.)

Although the OTPC concept is a noble idea, it does not appear to address the fact the children and their families who live in remote villages do not have access to literacy support in their own language.  


RELATED

OLPC Literacy Project

Given Tablets but No Teachers, Ethiopian Children Teach Themselves:  A bold experiment by the One Laptop Per Child organization has shown "encouraging" results.
David Tabolt,  MIT Technology Review, 10/29/12


OLPC Project Puts Tablets in the Hands of Formerly Illiterate Children with Amazing Results John Biggs, TechCrunch, 11/1/12

Motorola Xoom hacked by Ethiopian kids who can't read; with no instructions whatsoever.
Joe Hindy, 11/4/12
 


DIG DEEPER: SOMEWHAT RELATED
Hourcade, J.P., Beitler, D., Cormenzana, F. and Flores, P. (2009). Early OLPC Experiences in a Rural Uruguayan School. In A. Druin (Ed.), Mobile Technology for Children: Designing for Interaction and Learning. Boston: Morgan Kaufmann.

Growing Up With Nell:  A Narrative Interface for Literacy (pdf)
IDC 2012, June 12–15, 2012, Bremen, Germany
Authors: C. Scott Ananian, Chris J. Ball, Michael Stone
One Laptop Per Child Foundation, 222 Third Street, Cambridge, MA 02142

ABSTRACT
"Nell is a tablet-oriented education platform for children in the developing world.  A novel modular narrative system guides learning, even for children far from educational infrastructure, and provides personalized instruction which grows with the child.  Nell's design builds on experience with the Sugar Learning Platform, used by over two million children around the world"

Quote from above article:
"To further promote collaboration, Nell is free and opensource and implemented in standard web technologies (JavaScript, HTML5, and WebGL) with offline caching. Resources are named by URL, even when disconnected from the internet, which simplifies the distribution of updates to story modules and the Nell system. URL-based identifiers also allow third parties to manage their own namespaces when extending Nell."

TinkRBook
A. Chang and C. Breazeal. TinkRBook: Shared reading interfaces for storytelling. (pdf) In Proc. of the 10th Int’l Conf. on Interaction Design and Children (IDC ’11), pages 145–148. ACM, June 2011.
NOTE:  The above article provides good references about early language and literacy development.



Wilox, Bruce Beyond Facade: Pattern Matching for Natural Language Applications (pdf)
Telltale Games, Feb. 2011
Note:  This paper reviews the history of Natural Language Processing (NLP) as applied to games, and includes information about AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language), Facade, and ChatScript.  The author explains how string matching is no longer simply a matching of words. It now focuses matching patterns of meaning.

ChatScript 
ChatScript Website

Note:  One of my assignments for a class in AI for Games, back in 2006, was to create a mini-game that involved the use of AIML.  I realized that a "smart" chat feature would be useful to incorporate in an educational game. In my opinion, it has the potential to support scaffolding of learning, based on the learner's responses, positive as well as errors.

Surface Tablet vs. iPad Video, via SAY Media

RELATED
Apple iPad
Microsoft Surface Tablet
SAY Media

Video: Overview of Multimedia Learning Principles, Importance of Visual Learning, Richard Mayer

Richard Mayer has devoted his career to the study of multimedia learning. He is a professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at UC Santa Barbara, and the author of Multimedia Learning, 2nd Edition. Although the book was published in 2009, years ago, it is a must-read for anyone interested in this topic.

With the popularity of interactive whiteboards and tablets/iPads in education, it is important for educators, designers and developers to become familiar with the basic principles of multimedia learning. It is also important subject for researchers.

Stantum Update: Innovative Tablet and Mobile Tech; Tablets Push Leap Towards Interactive Multimedia "Textbooks"

Step into a school and you might notice that older desktop computers have been replaced by an assortment of portable devices.   In many cases, students still carry around book bags that contain an assortment of textbooks, binders, worksheets, along with something digital.  

So what is that "something digital"?   

In some  cases, it might be a school-issued laptop or net-book.  In other cases, it could be an iPad, an e-reader, or another sort of tablet.  In other cases, it could be whatever the student brings to school, as part of a "BYOD" (Bring Your Own Device) experiment.

No one has yet figured all out, but many people, from a number of disciplines, are trying!

Stantum is an example of a company that has an interest in the use of innovative technology for education.  Stantum develops multi-touch technology for mobile devices, including tablets, and follows trends in education closely. 

I've had the opportunity speak with Guillaume Largillier, Stantum's co-founder and CSO on several occasions, most recently in late October.  I'm happy to say that Stantum looks like it will be making some important inroads in education.  

Why? 

Stantum is aware that as educational institutions, K-12 and above, leave textbooks behind, there will be an enormous need for devices that will seamlessly support teaching and learning, all around the world.  Guillaume spoke of  developments in countries such as South Korea, France, Turkey, Thailand, Columbia, Argentina, and China to adopt digital textbooks. Some of these countries have initiated pilot programs using some sort of tablet or mobile devices, or plan to do so in the very near future.


During our conversation, Guilluame pointed out that Stantum is involved in developing durable components and tablets made from materials that can withstand the knocking about that sometimes happens when handled by young hands.  

Unlike the iPad, the tablets will not need a rugged, more expensive case, so it is likely that the cost to schools will be lower.  Since the tablets are open to most operating systems, they are likely to be easier for school IT administrators to deploy, update, and maintain.


A bit about the technology:    

Stantum's Interpolated Voltage Sensing Matrix (IVSM) technology supports 10 simultaneous touches and can handle touch and stylus input at the same time. It "knows" if it has been touched by a finger and can disregard a palm.  This is a good feature to have if a tablet is used young people.  

Earlier this year, Stantum announced its partnership with NISSHA, a company based in Japan, and unveiled its newest development, Fine Touch Z Technology, powered by IVSM.  It can support Windows and Android operating systems.  It has a fast scanning engine, high-resolution handwriting input, and does not produce ghost or masking effects.  (See video below).

One appealing feature of this technology is that it provides has low power consumption. This is a plus when considering the need students to have a device that has an extended battery life. 


Fine Touch Z from Stantum on Vimeo.

RELATED

A leap towards interactive digital "textbooks":

Although students have been accessing educational content in digital form on computers and through educational television programming for a long time, textbooks and paper-based assignments have been major tools used in school to transmit the curriculum.  

The tools are changing as we move to a digital, multimedia world of communication, collaboration, knowledge sharing, teaching, learning, and creating.  There are many questions to consider.

• What sort of digital content will replace traditional textbooks?
• Who will create this content? 
• Will traditional textbook publishers simply transform textbooks into slightly more interactive versions of the ho-hum content students love to hate?
• How will digital interaction change the way everyone learns?  How will this be measured?
• How will teachers and students be provided with opportunities to create new ways of sharing knowledge?
• How will usability and accessibility concerns be addressed, for students, teachers - and family members, given that digital content will be accessed both in and outside of school?
• What sort of software systems will need to be developed?
• What sort of infrastructure will be needed to support this influx of online activity and transfer of large data files -  at schools, in homes, and in communities?
• How will the technological ecology support learning, given multiple devices, interactive whiteboards and other interactive surfaces? 

With change, there is usually confusion as old ways are set aside and people explore new options.  

Apple is making some inroads with the iPad, providing educators (and students) to create interactive books with the free iBooks Author program. Some schools have 1-1 laptop programs in place, and provide access to educational content through more traditional course management systems or web-based activities that accompany existing textbooks.  Schools are signing up for resources such as Google in Education and Microsoft Partners in Learning.  

If you are looking for some resources about the rapid increase in interest and adoption of interactive digital textbooks, not just in the U.S., but around the world, take a look at my recent blog post,  "Got Interactive (Multimedia) Textbooks Inside Your iPad or Tablet?  Lots of Resources!".  In the post, I provide a wealth of links to information from the LEAD commission, the FCC's Digital Textbook Playbook, and more.  

You might also want to take a look at Audrey Watters' article, The Truth About Tablets: Educators are getting iPads and e-readers into students'hands--but it's not easy, which was published online in the School Library Journal earlier this year.

For a global perspective, read Alex Wukman's article, World Bank Begins Global Digital Textbook Initiative 

It wouldn't hurt to learn more about what the textbook publishers have in mind.  For that reason, I've put together a sample of resources about interactive digital content from major educational media and textbook publishing organizations:

DISCOVERY EDUCATION
Techbooks
In the following video, students and teachers from an elementary school in Winston-Salem give their reviews of the new Discovery Education Science Techbook.  Students can access the Discovery Techbook via the web.  In this video, students interact with the content using traditional desktop computers as well as interactive whiteboards.  Techbooks are designed to work on tablets or laptops, too.  At :39, a first grade teacher explains exactly why she likes the science techbook:

"...everything is right here at your hands, it is interesting to the kids, they love to watch the videos, and you can take it further - beyond than that, and everything is done for you, it is just really helpful. It even has the prep, the content review, and it is all aligned to the curriculum." -Laurie Moran

Discovery Education Science Techbook from Judy Uhrig on Vimeo.

Discovery Education Science Techbook Overview (Video)
Techbook for High School Science
Techbook for K-8 Science

PEARSON
Pearson's new interactive textbook for the iPad
"It is really going to revolutionize how we think about the classroom experience and what happens in the classroom in the way of learning, and what happens outside the classroom." -Joseph Levine, Author, Miller & Levine Biology

INKLING
Major Publisher Investment Advances Inkling as the Future of Digital Textbooks
Audrey Watters, ReadWrite, 3/22/11
"What makes Inkling’s apps unique is the fact that “content isn’t bound by pages or sections or chapters in the same linear fashion. Rather, it’s hierarchical, richly illustrated and augmented. It’s interactive. It’s social,” Watters writes. The digital versions include quizzes, interactive infographics, and a scrolling and searchable interface." -Matt MacInnis, Inkling

McGRAW-HILL RYERSON
McGraw-Hill Ryerson Launches New High School iBooks Textbooks
PRNewswire, 10/25/12

HARCOURT
Harcourt Interactive Textbooks (Produced by Vertex)


SOMEWHAT RELATED
The Truth About Tablets:  Educators are getting iPads and ereaders into students'hands--but it's not easy
Audry Watters, School Library Journal, 2/1/12

iPad3 and iPad Mini: Hands-on Side-by Side Comparison Video, by Eric Sailers (quick post)

Here is a good side-by-side "hands-on" comparison of the new iPad3 and the new iPad Mini by Eric Sailers:

Eric Sailers is a speech and language pathologist who has co-created apps for iOS devices since 2009. His website has a wealth of information iOS devices and apps for education, especially for children with special needs.  

More Tablets, More Mobile, More Social. On The Media's The Facebook Show, Adobe's Social 'Metrics, not Myths' Campaign UPDATE2

I've been thinking about giants like Google and Facebook and how they have been slow to figure out how to adapt to the rapid adoption of mobile technologies, such as tablets and smartphones, among their users/ad viewers/consumers.  

Social media marketing is a somewhat uncharted territory, and the landscape is much different from the "push" media environment of television in days past.  

Here is what came across my path today on this topic:

This morning I was delighted to listen to "The Facebook Show". produced by On The Media.  I've embedded it below for your listening pleasure:

THE FACEBOOK SHOW



When I got home, I turned on the TV as I put away groceries, and viewed the Adobe's recent ad, "The Slap", which is meant to convince people that there is a way to measure the ROI  of ad campaigns utilizing social media.  It is part of the Metrics Not Myths series. 


I've embedded a few of the episode below.   (I'd rather see the creative effort focus on an anti-bullying campaign, but that is another story.)

Warning, watching these ads while contemplating digital media consultants and marketing buzzwords might be painful!    

"Today, we launched a brand new marketing campaign we’re calling “Metrics, not myths.” Our approach is to identify top myths about digital marketing that plague brands, agencies, chief marketing officers and CEOs and turn them on their head — with irony, humor, a provocative point of view and proof." - Adobe

The Slap

BS Detector


Buzzwords that get zapped:
Bigger picture, ripple effect, go for the key influencers, at the end of the day, halo effect, brand recognition, fine tune engagements, 360 view of the customer, cross segment synergies, likes, closed loop marketing, search, classification of our brand, SEO, click-through rates, make it go viral.....

Marketing is BS


RELATED
Behind the Scenes of Adobe's 'Metrics, Not Myths' Campaign
Time Moran, CMO.com 10/26/12
In Defense of Marketing
Ann Lewnes, Adobe CMO, 10/23/12
"There has never been a better time to be a marketer."
Adobe Study: Click Here: The State of Online Advertising (pdf) 
"Consumers rate Advertising/Marketing among the least valuable professions."
Metrics not Myths for your webinars
Guillaume Privat, Adobe Connect Blog, 10/25/12
Adobe Marketing Cloud
Webinar:  Creative matters: optimizing Facebook pages for brands (Adobe)
Guidebook:  A creative guide to Facebook Pages: Timeline for Brands (Adobe)
Previous Post: What Happens When Post-Mass Market Goes to Market?  Bob Garfield's insightful video, and more...

Tablet and Mobile Day (or Era): Lots of upcoming news about tablets and mobile devices. New Chromebook, too.

I will be devoting a few upcoming posts to tablets, larger smartphones, and other mobile computing devices. I'll be hearing from the folks at Stantum later today.

This morning I woke up and turned on the TV as I was getting ready for work, and the first thing I saw on my local station was this cute family-focused ad for the new Google Chromebook, which at $249.00, is affordable:

I especially like the scene were a toddler stomps on a Chromebook left on the floor.

Thinking about a Kurio 7 Tablet for your kid? Here is a start!

I haven't had a chance to play with the Kurio, a 7 inch Android tablet designed for children and their families, so I haven't formulated an opinion about the device, or the applications that it runs.  I thought I'd share the promotional video and related information/links:


Kurio Tablet from CIDE on Vimeo.

Parents can view a number of "how-to" videos to get the tablet up and running. Developers can apply to be part of the Kurio store. From what I can see, the Kurio is in need of some creative, child-friendly apps.

Below is a hands-on demo:




RELATED
Kurio at Toys'R'Us
Toon Goggles Partners with Techno Source on New Kurio7 Android Tablet for Families
PR Web 7/9/12
Kurio's Features

Toys 'R' Us has its own tablet, the Tabeo:

Mobile Design Best Practices: Joshua Mauldin's UX Charlotte Talk - photos, sketchnote, and slides

Joshua Mauldin, founder of Invisible Interface & Awesome Gifs, and app creator/manager for The Business Journals, gave a talk about best practices in touchable mobile design at a recent Charlotte User Experience meet-up. I especially liked his use of clips from Arrested Development to remind us of the wide range of emotional responses people get when they use technology, good or bad.  (Take a moment and look over the slides for the meat of Joshua's talk.)

(Photo by Brad E.)

Slide-share of Joshua Mauldin's Mobile Design Best Practices talk:

Mobile design best practices from Joshua Mauldin

Below is sketchnote of the talk, drawn by hand by Antoine RJ Wright, using Adobe Ideas on his iPad:







(Photo by Bermon Painter)

The event was hosted by MyJive, located at the NC Music Factory. I was fortunate to grab a comfy spot to sit - there were about 85 in attendance.At the end of the meetup, I won a ticket to Web Afternoon!

Update: Video of My PlayHome App and 19-Month-Old Toddler

This little guy "plays" iPad about once or twice a week. The video shows him with the My PlayHome app. It is interesting to see how much he remembered from the previous week!


In the near future, I plan to write a few posts about the apps that I've used with students with special needs.  I will also touch on a few apps that are great for toddlers and "twos".

iPad: My PlayHome App and 19-Month-Old Toddler

Sorry, the video didn't embed properly on this post, please see the updated version!


http://interactivemultimediatechnology.blogspot.com/2012/07/update-video-of-my-playhome-app-and-19.html

Creating Responsive HTML5 Touch Interfaces (Stephen Woods -Video and Slides)

Here is an interesting video I came across during my HTML5 explorations - Stephen Woods, from Flickr, shares his words of wisdom about HTML5 and touch interfaces:


Stephen Woods (Flickr): Creating Responsive HTML5 Touch Interfaces




Here are a few links from the presentation:


Slides:  Creating Responsive HTML5 Touch Interfaces
http://www.slideshare.net/ysaw/creating-responsive-html5-touch-interfaces

Responsive Web Design 
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design/

Usability of Touchable-Moveable Multimedia Content. Part I (carousels and more)

I've been revisiting the topic of interaction design/usability for "touchable/moveable" multimedia content for the past couple of weeks.    I recently got an iPad2, so I'm in the "app" exploration phase -  a new world, since I never had an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad "1".  


I plan to share  experiences, thoughts, opinions, and suggestions related to this topic during the upcoming months.   I welcome input from IMT readers!


Getting back to my iPad2....In addition to using the device to run apps, like most people, I also use it to visit websites.  Many sites now appear to be optimized for mobile devices, which is great for my Android-based smartphone, but for my iPad, not so much.   I thought by now we'd have more touchy-feely content to play with.


I've noticed that  basic features that work OK with touch interaction, such as the carousel, 
seem to miss the target, as discussed in the following article:



5 Big Usability Designers Make on Carousels
Anthony, UX Movement, 8/2/11


Although the above article was written from a "click" rather than "touch" perspective, many of the comments Anthony brings up ring true for websites and apps that are accessed through tablets and other touch enable screens.



I'm disappointed.  Here are a few of my grumbles:

• Many designers/developers have been slow to look at the increasing number of people who are accessing websites and applications via touch-enabled screens - of any size.   
• Many designers/developers have been slow to catch on that a website or app might be viewed/used by more than one person at a time.  Websites for house-hunting, home furnishings, vacation/travel, and education are a few examples that come to mind.
• Too many "multimedia" apps/websites are flat. Many still have a power-pointy feel.
• Websites optimized for mobile devices often leave important features out.
• Designers/developers sometimes don't seem to think about the various scenarios in which their applications/websites might be used - while balancing a baby on one hip, preparing a meal,  working out,  walking the dog, trotting around the mall with a friends/kids/spouse,  eating, waiting at a stop light, etc.

Too many iPad apps are flat and power-pointy. Too many apps don't take full advantage multi-touch features.  Very few apps allow for efficient interaction between two people on the screen.  




SOMEWHAT RELATED
Carousel Design Patterns   I will add more related links in the future - not limited to carousels : )
Carousel Interaction #21 (Mike Highfield's Rapid eLearning Blog
Carousel (Interaction Patterns Wiki)
Carousel (Welie)
Mobile Implementation of a Web 3D Carousel with Touch Input
Bjorkskog, C., Jacucci, G., Lorentin, B., Gamberinit, L.



Photo Credit:  Ohad

OPEN SOURCE MULTI-TOUCH SOFTWARE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS- Featured in the WSJ! (Video and links)

Well before the iPad entered the market, researchers such as Dr. Juan Hourcade at the University of Iowa, began to develop multi-touch software to  support young people with autism spectrum disorders and other disabilities.  I've been following this research for a while, and was happy to discover that Dr. Hourcade's work was  recently featured in a recent Wall Street Journal article and video.  


If you are a parent or work with a young person with special needs, you might be interested in learning more about Windows-7 based touch-screen software.  The software shown in the video below, as well as related resources, are available for free on the Open Autism Software website.




RELATED

Article:

Playing on a Tablet as Therapy

Shalini Ramachandran, Wall Street Journal, 7/26/11

Previous Post: Interactive Multi-Touch for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders:  Research and Apps by Juan Pablo Hourcade, Thomas Hanson, and Natasha Bullock-Rest, University of Iowa 4/26/10

Interaction Design and Children Remixed, CHI 2011

CHI 2011 Child Computer Interaction: 2nd Workshop on UI Technologies and Impact on Educational Pedagogy

Why is this important to me?   

I work with young people with a range of disabilities, including autism, as a school psychologist.  One of my schools is a program that is technology-rich.  Although we don't have iPads, there is a SMARTBoard in every classroom and in other rooms around the school. We have a Wii,  a few multi-touch all-in-one PC's,  and recently received two Dell multi-touch tablet PCs. 

I noticed that Dr. Hourcade is looking for people who'd like to create similar apps for the iPad.  I'd be interested in knowing anyone who might be working on this.  I'd like to help in some way, but I don't have a lot of free time to do this on my own. 

I have a new iPad2, and after playing around with a ton of apps, I was inspired to downloaded XCode4 and think about what I could create. I'm a Mac person at heart, but I learned to program within a Windows environment (C#).    I need a way to maintain my programming skills and gradually learn a few new ones. This sort of project would be useful to me in my "day job", too!

SOMEWHAT RELATED
3D Interactive Heart, by 22Miles, on a Dell Latitude Xt2

Multi-touch Update from Stantum

The people at Stantum have been working hard to improve multi-touch technology, focusing on smaller tablet-sized systems.  Stantum is a company I've been following for several years, from the time it was known as Jazz Mutant.  I have been impressed by Stantum's focus on the needs of people as well as the company's careful attention to important details.


I'm pleased to see that the company has an idea of how its multi-modal technology can support multi-touch in education:   "Ambidexterity and multi-modality are the two pillars of Stantum's core project – making the use of touch-enabled devices more creative and productive. Amongst others, there is one field of application where we truly see a soaring need for ambidexterity and multi-modality – augmented textbooks." -Guillaume Largillier


At the Society for Information Display's Display Week exhibition this past May, Stantum introduced a new palm rejection feature for its Interpolated Voltage Sensitivity technology. This technology provides users with a more natural way to interact with the interface and application content on tablets.   The technology supports Android's multi-touch framework and is also Windows 7 certified.  The palm rejection feature will be a welcome improvement for future multi-touch applications designed for education settings, where it is likely that  more than one hand - or person, might be interacting with content on the screen at the same time.


Below are two videos that provide a glimpse of Stantum's innovations:




Stantum's technology can enable ten simultaneous touches, is highly responsive, and supports high-resolution content. According to a May press release, "Palm rejection is available as an API (application programming interface) to Windows and Android operating systems on x86 and ARM platforms. IVSM touch modules are offered to OEMs through the company’s Qualified Manufacturers Partners, comprising tier-one touch-screen manufacturers with high-volume production capabilities. More information is available at info@stantum.com"


RELATED
Stantum's TouchPoints Newsletter (July 2011)


Stantum Whitepapers:
How to Evaluate Multi-Touch While Standing in a Store (pdf) - a great source of information.
Jim Meador, Pascal Auriel, Gauthier Chastan, Stantum
Specifying and Characterizing Tactile Performances for Multi-touch Panels: Toward a User-Centric Metrology (pdf) - outlines some important points!
Guillaume Largillier, Pascal Joguet, Cyril Recoquillon, Pascal Auriel, Axel Balley, Jim Meador, Julien Olivier, Gauthier Chastan

Summer Blogging Plans - Lots of interesting updates -Sony's Tablet video(s), more to come...

I've been wrapping up the loose ends of the last few weeks of what turned out to be quite a busy school year,  so I haven't posted in about 10 days!    I have lots to cover, including interesting updates about a variety of tech companies I follow.


Today, I'm sharing a video from Sony that highlights the features of the company's iPad-like tablet in a creative way:


The video is the first of a 5-part campaign to promote the S1 and S2 Android tablets  For more information:


Sony Teases New Tablets With a Mysterious Video
Stan Schroeder, Mashable 6/17/11
Sony Launching 2 New Tablets, Both Run Android Honeycomb
Jolie O'Dell, Mashable, 4/26/11


Here's a previous teaser:

"Here's a preview of our two tablets - codename S1 and S2.With the S1 designed for comfort and S2 built for safe portability Sony enters the Tablet arena with two very distinct offerings."-Sony

Note: If you are a new visitor,  I work as a school psychologist in my "day job",  which can spill over to evenings and weekends at times...  I returned to school to take computer and technology courses back in the  '00s,  and started to blogging because it was a requirement for one of my courses.


I never stopped.  


My blogs still serve me well as on-line filing cabinets, since I have a fairly wide range of interests and I like to drill down deeper into topics that strike my fancy.  I'm curious that way.  Because of my interest in interactive multimedia technology,  most of my posts include video clips, photos, and links to interesting websites.    

W3C Touch Events Specification! Editors Draft 1/29/11 (quick link)

Touch Events Specification, W3C

https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/webevents/raw-file/tip/touchevents.html

"The Touch Interface specification defines a set of low-level events that represent one or more points of contact with a touch-sensitive surface, and changes of those points with respect to the surface and any DOM elements displayed upon it (e.g. for touch screens) or associated with it (e.g. for drawing tablets without displays). It also addresses pen-tablet devices, such as drawing tablets, with consideration toward stylus capabilities."

Editors: Doug Schepers, W3C, Sangwhan Moon, Opera Software ASA, Matt Brubeck, Mozilla

Close Encounter with "Best Buy On": Example of a multi-channel marketing approach using in-store digital media that includes an on-line magazine.

Over the next 9 months or so,  I'll be in the market for a computer, an iPad or something similar, a Kinect, and maybe a mid-size Internet-enabled HDTV.  As a consequence,  I turned in to  a Best Buy on my way home from work Friday to see what I could find.  I didn't want to spend much time at the store, since I'm the type of shopper who goes in, finds the desired item(s), and leaves.  


During this trip to Best Buy, my shopping habits were broken, at least temporarily.  I found myself wandering around, looking at the numerous displays of all sizes located about the store.  The displays distracted me from my intended mission.  Below is a slideshow of the pictures I snapped as I wandered about Best Buy:

As a result of the displays,  I spend more time in the store than I'd planned. I left the store empty-handed.  But that is OK, since I think that this strategy, in the long run, will have the power to entice me back to the store and leave knowing that I've made an informed purchase.


According to Gail Chiasson in her Daily DOOH post,"Best Buy's New In-Store Network", Best Buy established an internal advertising and editorial team in 2009, and officially launched a multichannel network called Best Buy On, which extends the in-store network of displays, to the online magazine, also called Best Buy On .   Best Buy On focuses on different theme each month. This month's theme featured all of the cool things that were unveiled at the recent Consumer Electronics Show. 


The bottom line with in-store DOOH is that customers are provided with with enhanced information about various products in each department, and this information is coordinated with the enhanced information they can access on-line.  Put together, this might lead to better sales,  and happier repeat customers in the long run.  


As I went about Best Buy,  I thought that it would be better if the in-store network of displays was less disjointed.  I also was puzzled by the somewhat inconvenient placement of some of the displays.  People who stand in the middle of an aisle to look at a screen block the view of the screen and the other items on display, and also block the paths of other shoppers!


Although I didn't spend a lot of time scrutinizing the content on all of the screens I encountered, what I did look at gave me the impression that there is need for improvement.  Pretty multimedia content might be attractive to the eye, but if it doesn't  meet the needs of customers in specific departments, it might not be effective.  


Here is a personal scenario:
My 80-year-old mother needs a new laptop and would also like to find an eReader that is suitable for someone her age.  She needs a new printer and is thinking about getting a digital camera.  She has some money to spend, but from what I can tell, she'd be a little confused by all of the flashing screens!  


I'm not sure what my mother would make of the displays, especially those that run animated comments about products from Facebook fans!


(Note:  I plan to go with my mom to Best Buy soon, and I'll share this experience on this blog in the future.)


Although there is room for improvement, the Best Buy On approach is a start.   I would like to see more touch-enabled displays as part the in-store network, given the fact that Best Buy sells touch-screen gadgets, tablets, and all-in-one PCs.   The large-screen touch-enabled displays could provide customers with an Amazon- like advisory feature.  This is something that would be very helpful to my mom and other non-geeks.


Best Buy also needs to get the Kinect demo up and running!


RELATED

FAR OUT 1/9/11 (Best Buy On video about products at CES)

What is Best Buy On?  (Description of on-line magazine)
Best Buy Addresses High-Tech Obsolescence
Shirley Brady, Brand Channel, 1/18/11
Buy Back Program from Best Buy Helps "Future-Proof" Today's CE Purchases
Jeremy Baier, Best Buy, 1/10/11
"Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn describes the consumer electronics retailer's just-launched Buy Back program as "a game-changer." The goal: to help customers embrace new technology with greater confidence."