Josh Blake is the Tech Lead of the InfoStrat Advance Technology Group in DC. He has been creating multi-touch applications Microsoft's Surface multi-user table-tops for a while. Recently, his team built a suite of applications designed for use by young children at a museum. Below is a video demonstration of some of this work. It really looks exciting!
If you are interested in exploring collaborative tabletop applications, take a look at the Open Exhibits blog. Erin Rose's recent post, "Designing for Multi-touch Tables and Surfaces", is a good overview of lessons learned over the past couple of years in design, development, and implementation of multi-user interactive tabletop applications.
Although the focus of Open Exhibits is on applications and systems designed for museum exhibits, many of the design challenges hold true for similar applications in other settings, such as classrooms, libraries, and other public spaces.
Erin's post explores each of the following topics in more detail:
Don't forget that the table is omni-directional.
Individual control of objects encourages multi-user interaction.
Promote collaboration, founded in healthy competition.
(Erin Rose is a developer and community liaison for Open Exhibits.)
IEEE Multimedia magazine online July-September 2010 Issue: Multimedia Innovations "This special issue addresses the notion that multimedia is a compelling field that provides a driving force behind most of today's technology innovations." Games Only Scratch the Surface: A Challenge for DevelopersLou Silverstein, Identity Mine In this article, Lou Silverstein discusses the latest news about Microsoft Surface and encourages developers to think about joining a dialogue on this topic.
This article is a gentle reminder, written for developers of traditional productivity software, about the importance of usability and understanding non-technical users.
Wendy Keay-Bright works at the Cardiff School of Art and Design in the UK, and is part of the Sensory Design Research Group. She has focused much of her research on interactive technologies and participatory design, working children with autism, educators, and others to create applications such as ReacTickles and ReactColors, originally designed for use on interactive whiteboards. These applications have been found to be especially effective with young people who have autism spectrum disorders. ReacTickles has been updated for use on the SMARTTable, a multi-touch, multi-user interactive table that supports collaboration, depicted in the video clips below:
Note: Wendy Keay-Bright is involved with the ESRC Technology Enhanced Learning ECHOES project, which stands for "Improving Children's Social Interaction through Exploratory Learning in a Multimodal Environment."
I'll post more about these later. We have a SMARTTable at my main school, so I'm curious to see how these work out. If you are working with interactive tabletop applications for students, especially those with disabilities such as autism, please let me know!
Vectorform worked with Catan to develop the digital version of the Settlers of Catan for Microsoft's Surface:
The game supports a range of gestures and interactions that are similar to the real game, but without the need to keep up with all of the parts and pieces!
RELATED A New Frontier for the Settlers of Catan Vectorform to Launch "The Settlers of Catan" for Microsoft Surface" Lindsay Ruthven, Vectorform Blog 8/2/10 "Features: • Full multi-touch from the Microsoft Surface allows all players to interact with their elements of the board at once. • A digital playing surface breathes new life into the Catan experience through graphics and animations. • “State-free-trade” allow players to swap cards without entering modes or pressing buttons, keeping the experience as pure as possible. • Customized art unifies the multi-touch interface with Mayfair’s 4th Edition release of The Settlers of Catan to create a seamless play experience. • Integration with real-world objects to maintain the original Catan board game feel."
I came across a blogpost entitled "Tourist in my own town". In this post, the author shares is positive experience of his visit to the new Hard Rock Cafe, located on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I loved his comment: "A whole wall of Microsoft software running and not a single BSOD!" In addition to the interactive wall, visitors have the chance to play with the content on Microsoft's interactive Surface tables. Below is a picture from the post from the Sure Beats Work blog:
New Look ~ New Vibe ~ New Memorabilia Technology
"In the latest example of Hard Rock’s concept-driven design evolution, the Hollywood Boulevard cafe was developed to integrate technology, creating a new look and vibe that will rock Hollywood. Hard Rock Cafe Hollywood on Hollywood Boulevard showcases new and unique interactive experiences for guests – from an 18’ x 4’ Rock Wall™ to touch screens in booths throughout the cafe to Microsoft Surface™, each featuring innovative multi-touch technology that enables fans to explore the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia collection and virtually tour all of Hard Rock’s venues worldwide."
"In addition to the cutting-edge multimedia memorabilia experience, hundreds of items from Hard Rock’s iconic collection adorn the walls of Hard Rock Cafe Hollywood on Hollywood Boulevard, including items from many of the world’s most beloved and recognizable musicians, as well as contemporary artists with local ties. Key memorabilia items are now on display, from Jimi Hendrix’s purple crushed velvet hat; to Janis Joplin’s love letter to then boyfriend Peter LeBlanc; Jim Morrison’s leather pants and handwritten lyrics to “L.A. Woman”; to Katy Perry’s sparkly dress and Fergie’s tour outfit worn while on tour with the Black Eyed Peas."
The memorabilia wall was created for the Hard Rock Cafe by Obscura Digital, a company that is involved in off-the-desktop ubiquitous computing, including ambient technologies that include natural-user interfaces and interaction. Obscura Digital aims to "make data pervasive and accessible in almost any situation, allowing virtually any surface to be turned into a portal to the Internet".
The Memorabilia Wall has been installed in several Hard Rock Cafes around the world- additional pictures can be found on the Obscura Digital website.The first installation of the wall was at the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas in 2009. - Below is the interaction of the wall at the Las Vegas Hard Rock Cafe:
The following video, set to Beck's "Elevator Music", provides a great demonstration of the Hard Rock Cafe Memorabilia application as experienced on the Surface:
Below is a screenshot of the main portal of the Hard Rock Cafe interactive memorabilia website, which compliments the "real" wall. You can interact with all 1532 items and learn more about the history behind the various artists. It is fun to play with on a touch-screen display!
SOMEWHAT RELATED Obscura Digital
Obscura Digital's Cuelight, and interactive pool table at the SOHO Esquire House:
Cuelight from Obscura Digital on Vimeo. "Featured at the Esquire House's "Ultimate Bachelor Pad" in NYC, the one-of-a kind Obscura CueLight projection system turns a game of pool into an amazing interactive art display"
A lot is happening at one SMART Technologies, one of my favorite "interactive" companies. Not long ago, SMART Technologies, a company most known for interactive whiteboards found in classrooms and businesses, acquired one of my favorite interactive touch-screen display companies, NextWindow. (SMART Technologies' acquisition of NextWindow: A "smart window" to the world)
SMART Technologies is moving ahead into the world of augmented reality (AR) with a new document camera. The company's latest interactive whiteboard, the fourth generation 600i, is ready for stereoscopic 3D content, which is on the way via the Discovery Channel and other media companies. The SMARTTable looks like it will be provided with more content, at least in the UK, where Scholastic has partnered with SMART Technologies to provide multi-touch and multi-student interaction via the collaborative Story Stage application.
For those with money to invest, SMART Technologies has filed for a proposed initial IPO (Initial Public Offering).
New SMART Document Camera 330 is mixed reality ready: Document camera enables exploration of 2D, 3D, animated and audio-enriched content
"Mixed Reality Technology -Manipulate and explore 2D, 3D, text, animation and audio-enriched content on the SMART Board interactive whiteboard by placing a physical object bearing a digital marker under the SMART Document Camera lens"
SMART introduces next-generation SMART Board™ 600i: New projector lowers total cost of ownership and is 3D-ready "Available in both standard and widescreen formats, the latest generation of the 600i system features an improved and easy-to-use extended control panel (ECP) and a fully integrated short-throw projector that is 3D-ready and has a longer lamp life. The newly designed ECP is mounted to the interactive whiteboard bezel, not to the wall, making it aesthetically pleasing and easier to install."
SMART and Scholastic to develop multi-touch educational content: Story Stage application for SMART Table to encourage student creativity and collaboration "Story Stage is an easy-to-use resource designed to facilitate collaborative literacy work. The interactive activities use digital puppets to encourage pairs or groups of children to work together to create their own imaginative retellings of familiar stories."
SMART Classroom Suite 2010 enhances interactive learning: New version offers improved wireless performance and greater support for formative assessment "The software combines classroom management, assessment, lesson creation and assignment management tools in one offering."
SoTouch and onedotzero collaborated to create a multi-touch, multi-user application that ran on a Mindstorm Aurora table at the onedotzero Adventures in Motion Festival at the BFI Southbank in London during in September 2009. The interactive application provided festival participants enjoyable ways to filter and search the festival program. The art director for this project was Alex Le Guillou.
(Music: Raindrops, by Basement Jaxx)
How it works
How does it work?
According to information provided by So Touch, users can search by dragging and dropping keywords in personal search discs. Physics rules incorporated into the SoTouch application allow the manipulated objects bump and react to each other, encouraging social interaction among the people at the table. For this particular application, each even could be viewed in a description panel, including timing, description, pictures, and videos, enabled for multi-touch gesture interaction. Additionally, people could use the table to send emails to friends, using a scalable keyboard.
The application was designed for flexibility, using the TUIO protocol, and allowing it to be customized for use at other festivals or shows through xml.
Detail
About SoTouch "Intelligent Surfaces" "We deliver complete solutions to turn passive environment into active business contributor in retail, show room and trade show, leveraging multi-touch and touch-less technology."
Julien Lescure, CEO, and Florian Bernard, CTO, founded SoTouch, an advanced digital agency, in early 2009. The company is based in the U.K.
About onedotzero "Onedotzero is a contemporary, digital arts organisation with a remit to promote innovation across all forms of moving image and motion arts, activities encompass public events, artist + content development, publishing projects, education, production, creative direction, and related consultancy services ... onedotzero was conceived at the start of the desktop digital revolution in the mid-1990s out of a desire to explore moving image across single screen, interactive and live audio-visual work. today, onedotzero remains committed to providing a home for visionary moving image experimentation and contemporary creative collisions."
Interactive Urban Screen
The interactive urban screen installation, also known as the 2009 onedotzero identity, was made interactive by a Nokia n900 mobile phone, as shown in the pictures and video clips below.
Nokia n900 onedotzero Installation- Behind the Scenes
Onedotzero - Watch the interaction with an urban screen with a Nokia n900 (Story behind the scenes story).
RELATED N900 to appear in London next week! (JBC, Nokia Conversations, 9/4/009)
According to the article, the application for the installation was developed by digital artists/computational designers Karsten Schmidt and Gary Birkett. (I think the ad agency Wieden + Kennedy London was also involved with this project, since Nokia is their client.)
Above is a link to my TechPsych post about the Cook Children's Health Care System's use of multi-touch technology for children and teens who have suffered traumatic brain injuries or have other significant neurological disorders.
Here are a couple of kids on Ideum's MT-50 multi-touch, multi-user table. You can see the delight!
The picture was taken from the videoclip below:
According to information from the video, the MT-50 screen provides a higher resolution than Microsoft's Surface. It comes with bundled with GestureWorks, a software development kit that works with Adobe's CS4, and NUITech's multi-software product, Snowflake Suite.
The MT 50 is designed for use in interactive museum exhibits, but in my opinion, holds great potential for use in public libraries and K-12 media centers (libraries), and even in classroom settings.
I cut and pasted the following information about Microsoft Surface in Education from Eric Havir's Microsoft Surface blog. I've posted about some of these applications, but in light of the plea for Microsoft to listen to educators concerning the development of multi-touch applications, I thought it would be a good idea to share these links.
I hope that Eric won't mind mind this "re-blog"!
"Here are some applications by Microsoft, our Microsoft Surface partners and others."
Churchend Primary School shows how teachers and students react to Surface in the classroom. There's also a great behind the scenes for developers.
I had a few visits with Dr. Neil (123) talking about his firms edu apps for primary and secondary school kids.
A paint application called Paint Touch that shows how even pre-schoolers can be engaged with Microsoft Surface.
The Local Impact Map used by Microsoft to educate representatives of governments and NGOs on corporate social responsibility
History at your Fingertips is an adult focused application used at the national conventions last fall during the US presidential race
The Pits is used at trade shows for sales, but has great educational applicability.
Calculation Game by Ohio State's Computer Science & Engineering students and Geography faculty
This clip from Microsoft Research UK show's how magical Microsoft Surface is for primary school students. It's fun to see the kids reactions.
This video by Max is a music creation application, but imagine the possibilities with the objects to create educational applications linked with the physical world.
Neuro-rehab is focused on healthcare, but can easily be applied to education as well.
We've had a number of higher education institutions buying Microsoft Surface as well, so if you're at college you may see curricula including Surface in markets where it's available. Education developers - don't forget that MSDN-AA has the Microsoft Surface SDK Workstation Edition for subscribers to get you started. Let me know if I've missed anything in my list above. I'll make future posts on healthcare, financial services, etc.
Cheers. Eric
Thanks, Eric, for sharing information about these Surface applications.
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.
"The world's first multitouch, multiuser table for primary education - the SMART Table - is now available for purchase.Order the SMART Table"
"As a collaborative learning center, the SMART Table enables engaging and motivating small-group learning experiences. Up to eight students can use their fingers intuitively to sweep, slide and spin objects on the interactive screen. The SMART Table's ready-made activities help primary students gain and further their skills in areas like counting and reading."
"The SMART Table also makes an ideal complement to whole-class activities on the SMART Board™ interactive whiteboard. It helps reinforce concepts in a small-group setting and ensures students can participate in interactive and creative learning experiences."
"Guzman", a member of Classroom 2.0, is a math teacher in Florence, Italy who teaches math to middle school students. In addition to math, he has an IT background. He used Google Sketchup to introduce and work with solids. He thinks that Sketchup would be a good tool to use to teach volumes, sections, and more.
Guzman's student's worked on this project one hour a week for five weeks, and created all of the models using Sketchup. The animation was created with Sketchup by Guzman.
Tom Barret, at Classroom 2.0 has started a Multi-Touch Interactive Desk Development group. Tom is involved in the SynergyNet: Multi-touch in Education research, which is part of Durham (UK) University's Technology-Enhanced Learning Research Group.
