National Educational Technology Plan Draft - A must-read.

The National Educational Technology Plan 2010 was released on 3/5/10 in draft format. It is well worth reading!

The NETP is consistent with the Framework for 21st Century Learning model, calling for schools to ensure students are prepared for the skills they will need in an increasingly complex, technological society:

"The model of 21st century learning described in this plan calls for engaging and empowering learning experiences for all learners. The model asks that we focus what and how we teach to match what people need to know, how they learn, where and when they will learn, and who needs to learn. It brings state-of-the art technology into learning to enable, motivate, and inspire all students, regardless of background, languages, or disabilities, to achieve. It leverages the power of technology to provide personalized learning instead of a one-size fits-all curriculum, pace of teaching, and instructional practices."

Secretary Duncan announcing the Education Technology Plan on YouTube


Hopefully the NETP initiative will encourage teachers to consider video clips for their students to explore that are more exciting than this well-meaning gentleman's talking head!

RESOURCES
Executive Summary PDF
National Ed Tech Plan PDF
NIMAS (Large - 300dpi)
NIMAS (Normal - 72dpi)

A message to a few of my beloved colleagues:

Teachers who are still struggling with figuring out how to access e-mail attachments and the basics of Microsoft Office 2003, this plan will call for a steep learning curve! I will be by your side to help.  It is good to know that David Rose, of CAST, the father of Universal Design for Learning, was one of the members of the NETP working group.

RELATED

National Educational Technology Plan Technical Working Group:

Daniel E. Atkins, University of Michigan
John Bennett, Akron Public Schools
John Seely Brown, Deloitte Center for the Edge
Aneesh Chopra, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Chris Dede, Harvard University
Barry Fishman, University of Michigan
Louis Gomez, University of Pittsburgh
Margaret Honey, New York Hall of Science
Yasmin Kafai, University of Pennsylvania
Maribeth Luftglass, Fairfax County Public Schools
Roy Pea, Stanford University
Jim Pellegrino, University of Illinois, Chicago
David Rose, Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST)
Candace Thille, Carnegie Mellon University
Brenda Williams, West Virginia Department of Education

Johnny Holland on-line Magazine- some of my favorite posts.

If I had the time, I could spend several hours catching up with the on-line Johnny Holland Magazine.  Why?  It is full of stuff I like to think about.

"Johnny is an open collective talking, sharing, and finding answers about the interaction between people, products, systems or processes."

Here are a few of my favorite posts:

Learning from Games: A Language for Designing Emotion
Joe Lamantia, 8/3/2009

Lamantia's article discusses the thoughts of Nicole Lazzaro, a games researcher and design consultant, who suggests that there are four kinds of fun, as outlined in the chart below:
  --XEO Design Inc.

(The references for Lamantia's article are worth taking a look.)

Engaging the User: What We Can Learn from Games
Marc Sasinski, 8/31/09

When Data Gets Up Close and Personal
Stephen Anderson, 1/27/10

The Social Life of Visualization (4-part series by Jeremy Yuille and Hugh Macdonald)
The Social Life of Visualization, Part 2:  Creation Phase
The Social Life of Visualization, Part 3: Interpretation
The Social Life of Visualization, Part 4: The Capture Process

"Jeremy Yuille and Hugh Macdonald are interaction design researchers with ACID at RMIT University. They research the effects of social media on different industries, ranging from sport to finance."

The Future is Touchable
"Jeroen van Geel is founder of Johnny Holland and a senior interaction designer. He works part-time for Fabrique Communication & Design and the other part for his own clients."


Visit Johnny Holland Magazine to find out more about the "Johnnies" below:


:





(The "Johnnies" without pictures can be found on the Johnny Holland website.)

Here's what I wanted to see at IXDA's Interaction10 in Savannah - ( & some other links)

I really wanted to attend IXDA's Interaction '10 conference in Savannah, Georgia. Unfortunately, it is sold out. If you are interested in learning more about the hot topics in interaction design, take a look at the Interaction '10 Speakers  page that includes links to each speaker's presentation or workshop description, and in some cases, some interesting links.

Some of the presentations I wanted to see:


Designing Social Interfaces: The Game
Erin Malone, tangible ux and Christian Crumlish, Yahoo!


The Use of Virtual Worlds Among People with Disabilities
Kel Smith, Anikto LLC


Augmented Reality: Is it Real?  Should We Care?
Kevin Cheng, Twitter (also author of OK/Cancel)


Interaction Design for the Fourth Dimension
Maria Cordell, Macquarium


Thinking Like a Storyteller
Cindy Chastain


Citizen Volunteerism and Urban Interaction Design
Solomon Bisker, Carnegie Mellon/School of Architecture


Designing for the Web in the World
Timo Arnall/Oslo School of Architecture & Design



NOT TOO RELATED


So why didn't I go to Interaction 10?   


For those of you new to this blog, after spending a few years working part-time at one and taking graduate courses, I returned to work full time in 2008, due to the economic downturn, daughters in college, etc. 


I am a school psychologist, and my "day job" sometimes spills into several evenings, as I serve two small high schools, a small "early college" program in addition to my home site, a program for students with severe disabilities. I have quite a bit of paperwork to complete, and this time of the year is especially busy.  I often must work on psychological evaluation reports, counseling& consultation notes, and mandatory special education paperwork/data entry, outside of work hours.


I try to devote about one hour a day, on average, devoted to researching and writing for this blog, and about 5 hours a week working on computer projects to keep up my design/development and programming skills.  When I'm out and about, I pay close attention to people and how they interact with a range of technologies in public spaces.  


Comment:
If you are interested in education and the range of topics of concern to school psychologists, the following link is to web page of the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP).  This page that includes and extensive list of links to articles written by school psychologists that were published in the Principal Leadership magazine, a publication of the National Association of Secondary School Principals.  


There is a need for solutions in education that incorporate the use of useful and usable technology. If you are interested in designing, developing, and researching applications for use in educational settings, I encourage you to spend some time reviewing some of the topics included on the NASP website! 

Principal Leadership Magazine Articles
(Most of the articles contain useful references.)

Sample of articles-in PDF format:
Understanding and Fostering Achievement Motivation
Transformative Leadership for Social-Emotional Learning
Promoting School Completion
Self-Concept and Self-Esteem in Adolescents
Angry and Aggressive Students
Preparing Students with Disabilities for School-to-Work Transition and Postschool Life

IEEE One Voice: Sharing the accomplishments and potential of people involved in technology and engineering. Great for sharing with students to encourage STEM studies!

John R. Vig, IEEE President and CEO, recently wrote a column about the need to share with the world the importance of the accomplishments of people who work in technological fields. In his column, he refers to the IEEE One Voice video, which I think is something all young people should view as they gather information for making important decisions for the future.

IEEE is a professional organization that is not limited to the stereotype of an "engineer". If you are a parent, teacher, school counselor, or mentor to a young person, take the time to learn more about the range of careers related to engineering and technology.

If you know a seventh or eighth grade student, take a look at IEEE's Future City Competition, designed to provide young people an opportunity to learn more about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields while teaming with engineers who are volunteer mentors to create computer models, then three dimensional models, of a future city. The Future City program is part of the National Engineers Week foundation.

RELATED National Engineers Week Foundation Discovering Engineering Toolkit Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day (February 18, 2010) Engineering Your Life ( This is a great site for encouraging girls to consider engineering and related fields, great for career exploration activities, as it covers a variety of engineering disciplines.) Below is a list of the various IEEE societies, taken from the IEEE website.  If we want to encourage our young people to consider STEM fields, it is important that we know we're talking about! IEEE Aerospace & Electronic Systems Society IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society IEEE Broadcast Technology Society IEEE Circuits and Systems Society IEEE Communications Society IEEE Components Packaging and Manufacturing Technology Society IEEE Computational Intelligence Society IEEE Computer Society IEEE Consumer Electronics Society IEEE Control Systems Society IEEE Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society IEEE Education Society IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility Society IEEE Electron Devices Society IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society IEEE Geoscience & Remote Sensing Society IEEE Industrial Electronics Society IEEE Industry Applications Society IEEE Information Theory Society IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society IEEE Magnetics Society IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society IEEE Photonics Society IEEE Power and Energy Society IEEE Power Electronics Society IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society IEEE Professional Communication Society IEEE Reliability Society IEEE Robotics & Automation Society IEEE Signal Processing Society IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society IEEE Standards Association IEEE Systems Man and Cybernetics Society IEEE Technology Management Council IEEE Ultrasonics Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control Society IEEE Vehicular Technology Society IEEE Women in Engineering

Thoughts about technology on a cruise ship, and other reflections...

It is January 4 2010, and I am enjoying my Caribbean cruise trip. 

I’m a little disappointed that technology on cruise ships has not moved forward as I’d hoped over the past few years.   On my ship, which is less than three years old,  Wi Fi is available in each stateroom, in addition to the common areas.  This is a good thing, but it is very expensive.  The pay-as-you-go rate is 75 cents a minute!   If you have a 3G iPhone or Smartphone, you’ll have to pay outrageously high fees to connect to the internet from the ship’s connection, I’m told.

I was pleasantly surprised by some of the digital displays on the ship, especially the “show-reel” of the beautiful destination points and exciting activities that everyone looks forward to when going on a cruise.  I was also impressed with the digital touch-screen poker table in the casino, even if I don't play poker.

I even liked some of the digital signage that were basically slide show posters of nice vacation pictures.

My biggest disappointments?  

• The  large touch-screen flat-panel display that served as an interactive shore excursion kiosk.  It was tucked away in a poor location, and it didn’t make any sense!

• The interactive TV experience, specifically the the shore excursion selection process.  This experience made me hate TV remote controls more than ever!

• The cruise ship wayfinding system.   Arrrggghh.
  

I will devote at least one blog post to each of the above disappointments when I’m done editing the video.

I guess I shouldn’t have had such high technological expectations for my trip.  I’m on a Carnival cruise ship, and I know that the line is owned by the same company that owns the Holland America ships. From previous cruises on Holland America ships, I know that they are more upscale than Carnival.    I guess I got too excited when I recently learned that a few Holland America ships provide cruise-goers with the magic experience of Microsoft Surface in their lounges, and also adopted the Windows 7 operating system.  On the Carnival Freedom, things aren’t quite so advanced. 

Why is this important to me?

• I’m interested in studying how technology can facilitate collaboration, communication, information-gathering, and decision making in public spaces, and since I have plenty of cruise ship travel experience, cruse ship spaces.

• I’d like to follow up on the work I did on a student project.  Three years ago, I did  a lot of people-watching during a cruise-ship vacation, which inspired the topic of my Human Computer Interaction team project during the semester after my trip. I took another cruise ship during that semester, which further informed my thinking about this topic.  Since then, I’ve been on 4 cruises.

• I think that much of the information I obtain from my observations related to travel experiences, including cruise ships, can inform work in other related domains, such as shopping malls, museums, historical points of interest, libraries, airports, bus, railroad, and subway terminals, parks and squares, and so forth.  I also think this work can inform educational applications and simulations, such as 3D “Virtual Field Trip” games, following Universal Design for Learning principles.

I spent some of my time yesterday, our "day at sea", reading two books and jotting down some of my reflections from 1) and educational/universal design for learning perspective, and 2)  a ubiquitous computing/interactive displays in public spaces + collaborative perspective:

• Acting With Technology: Activity Theory and Interaction Design (Victor Kaptelinin and Bonnie A. Nardi)
• Thoughts on Interaction Design (Editor:  Jon Kolko)
  

UPDATE TO COME!

Touch, Multi-Touch & Gesture Responsive Web & Related Applications (helpful if you have a touch screen or IWB!)

I regularly share information about applications that work well on touch, multi-touch, and/or gesture-based screens.  Over the past few months, there have been updates and new developments that I'm still exploring. (Some of this information might be "old" news, but for many, it will be "new".)

Here's what I have to share today!

Be sure to explore the activities from the Kids section of the National Gallery of Art website, located at the end of this post.

MULTI-TOUCH FIREFOX

Sneak Peek on Multi-touch Events   Felipe Gomes, Felipe's Blog

Multi-touch on Firefox from Felipe on Vimeo.

Code Snippets from Felipe's Demo (Includes tracking divs, drawing canvas, image resizing, image crop, & pong) Mozilla Wiki
Bringing Multi-touch to Firefox and the Web
Christopher Blizzard, Mozilla Hacks

COOL IRIS
I have a hunch that someone out there is working on a multi-touch version of Cool Iris. Until I can find out the details, take a look at the videos below:


Cool Iris Overview on Google Chrome


 Here is a short video of what Cool Iris looks like on an iPhone:



Cool Iris Links
Cool Iris and iPhone
Cool Iris and Developers
Cool Iris Blog
Cool Iris Media/Press


About Cool Iris:   "Cooliris, Inc. was founded in January 2006 with a simple mantra: "Think beyond the browser". We focus on creating products that make discovering and enjoying the Web more exciting, efficient, and personal.Our core products include Cooliris (formerly PicLens), which transforms your browser into an interactive, full-screen "cinematic" experience for web media, and CoolPreviews, which lets you preview links instantly. Headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, our team consists of seasoned developers, entrepreneurs, and Stanford computer engineers. Each of us is passionate about serving our users without compromise and seeing that our products deliver the best experience."


BUMPTOP
Bumptop Gets Multi-touch Support on Windows 7


Bumptop Website
You can download Bumptop from the Bumptop website.  Here's the description:
"BumpTop is a fun, intuitive 3D desktop that keeps you organized and makes you more productive.  Like a real desk, but better.  Now with awesome mouse and multi-touch gestures!"
Anand Agarawala's Ted Talk

"Anand Agarawala presents BumpTop, a user interface that takes the usual desktop metaphor to a glorious, 3-D extreme, transforming file navigation into a freewheeling playground of crumpled documents and clipping-covered "walls.""

Discussion about Bumptop on the TED website

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART KIDS
I've been compiling a list of websites that offer good touch-interaction.  One site that is good for children- and children at heart- is the National Gallery of Art's Kids pages.  There are a few entries that I had fun playing with students on the new SMARTboards at one of my schools:

FACES AND PLACES - LANDSCAPE




"FACES & PLACES encourages children of all ages to create portraits and landscape paintings in the style of American naive artists. By combining visual elements borrowed from more than 100 works in the National Gallery's permanent collection, this two-part interactive activity offers an overview of American folk art of the 18th and 19th centuries.(Shockwave, 6 MB)."


This one is so fun!  You can select different characters and make them dance, run, jump, or even fall.  You can design the landscape and add buildings, trees, and animals, and even change the sky pattern.  Press "go", and your character will travel around the panorama you've created.


DUTCH DOLL HOUSE


Dutch Dollhouse  (Shockwave, 4.6 MB)
"Mix and match colorful characters, create decorative objects, and explore the kitchen, living quarters, artist's studio, and courtyard of this interactive 17th-century Dutch House."


NGA KIDS JUNGLE



"Create a tropical jungle filled with tigers, monkeys, and other exotic creatures. Inspired by the art of Henri Rousseau, NGAkids Jungle is an interactive art activity for kids of all ages. (Shockwave, 930k)"


What I liked about the Jungle application is that each item can be easily customized.  On the SMARTBoard, as well as on my HP TouchSmart PC, it is very easy for a student who has limited fine-motor control to create beautiful pictures.


FLOW

"Flow is a motion painting machine for children of all ages. Enjoy watching the changing patterns and colors as you mix pictures on two overlapping layers. Choose  designs from four sets of menu icons, or add to the flow by clicking the pencil tool to create your own designs."


This application is a favorite of some of the students I work with who enjoy watching things spin. (You don't have to have an autism spectrum disorder to enjoy playing with Flow!)

National Gallery of Art Student and Teacher Online Resources

For Techies & Tech Curious: Python and PyMT developments - PyMT and speech recognition

PyMT is short for Python Multi-Touch, a project that is the work of several members of the NUI Group.  Sharath Patali experimented with speech input for PyMT and used the pocketsphinx library from CMU to integrate into PyMT. It worked out well, as you can see from his video demo below:


PyMT Speech Recognition from Sharath Patali on Vimeo.

Other people involved with the PyMT project are Nathanael Lecaude, Matthew Virbel, Thomas Hansen, and Xelapond.

Sharath Patali's Blog/Website Roll (Links to some NUI-group members)

• Divesh and Aditya’s Blog
• Harry van der Veen’s Blog
• Laurence Muller's Blog
• Linux Hacker ( Balaji R Rao)
• Paul D’Intino’s Orion
• Seth Sandler (Cerupcat)
• Sparsh-I Team
• Tommy’s MT Blog

Matthieu Virbel on Vimeo
NUI Group on Vimeo


Python and Game Programming Resources
Adaptation and Evaluation of Numpty Physics for Multi-touch Multiplayer Interaction (pdf)
(A python-based module called "numptyphysics" was created to integrate Python multi-touch cold to allow the C++ code to parse data, converting it to C structs passed to the game code using pointers.)
Python Programming Language Official Website
Pygame
PythonGames
PythonL Game Programming Wiki, by Geoff Howland and Rene Dudfield
Lectures 1-6
Beginning Game Development with Python and Pygame -Book (Will McGugan)
Game Programming with Python - Book (Sean Riley)

Comment:
The reason I'm putting together resources about Python, multi-touch, and games is that I hope to facilitate an exchange between two of the schools I serve as a school psychologist.

Both of the schools are on the same campus. One is a high school for technology and the arts, and one is a program for teens and young adults who have severe disabilities, including autism.  Next semester, one of the computer teachers will be teaching a game programming class using Python for a class of graduating seniors, and if all goes well, perhaps some of the students will create a game for the students with disabilities that would work well on a SMARTboard.

Even better:  It would be great if the pre-engineering students could build a multi-touch table or two for the students with disabilities, running games in PyMT that the computer students create!

Participatory Design Conference 2010 "Participation :: The Challenge" + some thoughts

I really want to go to Australia next year and attend this conference! Below are links to the conference, along with an excerpt from the conference description:

11th Biennial Participatory Design Conference:  Participation :: The Challenge (pdf)
PDC2010 Conference Website
PDC2008 Conference Website

"Participation is the complex, contested, changing, creative and celebratory core of participatory design. We invite you to explore what participation can and needs to mean in the design contexts where we are working now and those we are likely to encounter soon. While current ‘best practice’ in many areas of interactive technology design now at least pays lip service to people’s participation, how is this participation being negotiated and defined, and by whom? And if Participatory Design methods developed some 20 years ago are claimed to have become standard design practice, how do we go about developing the methods that will define standard design practice 20 years from now?"


REFLECTION
Judging from what I've experienced as a consumer/user,  there are many things that are floating around in the form of electronics, software, and related gadgets that are examples of the absence of participatory design.

My daily pet peeve is the remote control for my entertainment set-up, which includes DVR and a small but growing number of interactive TV channels.  Another pet peeve is the usability of productivity software, including the software I must use for work.

At any rate, below are links to some of my thoughts related to usability topics that might be of interest to people who are thinking about or practicing participatory design or user-centered design.

2007 Letter to the Editor, Pervasive Computing
Useful Usability Studies (pdf)

2007 Blog Post
Usability/Interaction Hall of Shame (In a Hospital)

2008 Blog Posts
Interactive Touch-Screen Technology, Participatory Design, and "Getting It"
An Example of Convergence: Interactive TV: uxTV 2008

2009 Blog Posts
Microsoft: Are You Listening?  Cool Cat Teacher (Vicki Davis) Tries out Microsoft's Multi-touch Surface Table
Haptic/Tactile Interface:  Dynamically Changeable Physical Buttons
The Convergence of TV, the Internet, and Interactivity:  Update
UX of ITV:  The User Experience and Interactive TV (or Let's Stamp Out Bad Remote Controls)
ElderGadget Blog: Useful Tech and Tools

More Multi-touch and Gesture-based Natural User Interfaces: Bamboo Wacom Tablet; Multi-touch PresTop Kiosk and Snowflake Suite software

Wacom Tablets Get Multi-Touch, Gestures
(Charlie Sorrel, Wired, 9/24/09)
"For the tech-curious, the new tablets have 512 pressure levels in the pen tip and the active area of the tablet is 5.8 x 3.6 inches, and all lose the in-pack mouse (for obvious reasons). The Touch and the Pen models are both $70, and the Pen & Touch is $100. Also, if you were thinking of buying Photoshop Elements 7 for the same price, get a tablet instead — Elements comes in the box."






Official Wacom Video

"Bamboo Touch is new type of computer input device by Wacom that lets you navigate and perform commands like zoom, scroll, rotate and more with a series of simple finger taps and hand gestures. Bamboo Touch brings Multi-Touch capability to your Mac or PC"

Video from a Wacom user:

A nice alternative to a mouse.  I'm going to get one for my laptop!


Multi-touch Kiosks!
Press release:  Dutch touchscreen supplier PresTop partners with Natural User Interface (NUITEQ)
 



RELATED

I couldn't find any video clips of PresTop's multi-touch interaction. From what I can tell, PresTop multi-touch screens will be using SnowFlake Suite from Natural User Interface Technogies AB.

How-to:SnowFlake Suite Flash multi-touch Interactable component (NUIversity)

Without a single line of code, you can do quite a bit with Snowflake Suite

"This video covers how to make a rotatable and scalable image. The beauty about this is, that we have developed a Flash mouse input simulator, so that there is no need for multi-touch hardware in order to develop your applications. Simply simulate multiple mouse inputs for multi-touch.This project is still in alpha phase and a download will become available with the next release of Snowflake Suite 1.7 for the NextWindow platform and camera based multi-touch solutions."


Below is a video of single-touch interaction for PresTop, from Omnivision:


PresTop  PresTop offers interactive hardware and software solutions that can be used indoors as well as in outdoor environments.

Shift Happens Revisited: Do You Know 4.0 - Convergence and Social Media, by Xplane and the Economist

"This is another official update to the original "Shift Happens" video. This completely new Fall 2009 version includes facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology, and was developed in partnership with The Economist. For more information, or to join the conversation, please visit http://mediaconvergence.economist.com and http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com."

More later.

Interactive Digital Art/Music at the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts

This video gives some background about the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, and also provides a glimpse of some interesting interfaces and interaction.


forward/slash: The Gray Area Foundation for the Arts Story from GAFFTA on Vimeo.


"Gray Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA) is a San Francisco-based nonprofit dedicated to building social consciousness through digital culture. Guided by the principles of openness, collaboration, and resource sharing, our programs promote creativity at the intersection of art, design, sound, and technology. By making digital culture accessible, substantive and inspiring, we aim to help realize the greatest power of technology: to bring us closer, faster. For more information and how you can be a part of our vision, please visit gaffta.org"

Thanks to Seth Sandler for the link!

(This is a cross-post.)

Interactive Light and Dance Installations using Flexible OLED's: You Fade to Light

Dance and Interactive Light Installation: You Fade to Light/ edit 1 (rAndom International, Kristin Knappstein, Royal Philips Electronic' Luminblade team)

You Fade To Light / edit 1 from rAndom International on Vimeo.

"Lumiblade OLED's are large area diffuse light sources made from extremely thin glass and feature a perfect mirror finish. OLED's are very close to the quality of natural light."

Installation and Art Direction by rAndom International
Choreography: Laïla Diallo in collaboration with Khamlane Halsackda
Performance: Laïla Diallo and Khamlane Halsackda
Film Production and Director of Photography: Mark Purnell at Hogarth Worldwide
Related versions can be found on the rAndom International Vimeo site.
Photos of the making of You Fade to Light


Chris O'Shea created the software for You Fade to Light using C++, openFrameworks, and openCV.  There was a hidden camera embedded in the installation that generated video for the software to process and also generate video files as output. The hardware drivers were created by rAndom International and through the software, controlled the brightness of each OLED.

Chris is the author of the Pixelsumo blog, and also is behind This Happened, a "series of events focusing on the stories behind interaction design",  with the purpose of encouraging interaction designers to become more open in their methods and ideas. 

For more information about interactive OLED, read the NY Time's article:

Panels of Light Fascinate Designers
Eric A. Taub, New York Times, 9/6/09


Thanks to Celine Latulipe for the link to the NY Times article!

Yelp has an Augmented Reality iPhone App for the iPhone 3Gs, "The Monocle"!

(Cross posted from tshwi)

Thanks to Dan Saffer for the link from the Read Write Web!

Here is my partial "reblog":

"Social review service Yelp has snuck the first Augmented Reality (AR) iPhone app specifically for the US into the iTunes App Store. The undisclosed new feature allows iPhone 3Gs owners to shake their phones three times to turn on a view called "the Monocle." This view uses the phone's GPS and compass to display markers for restaurants, bars and other nearby businesses on top of the camera's view...Blogger Robert Scoble discovered the hidden feature and posted about it on FriendFeed today. "

Video (in French, but easy to understand by the demonstration)


"Both GPS and a compass are used to determine location and direction being pointed at."

Screen Shots:




I want an iPhone. Verizon, can you hear me now?!

For techies and the tech-curious - Panel podcast: Is Software Development Too Complex?

If you are interested in programming, software development, UI design, or if you are a student/technology "hobbyist", a recent panel discussion .NET Rocks! podcast is a must-listen. Even for even if you are NOT a Microsofty.

Is Software Development Too Complex? 8/27/09

"Recorded live at devLink in Nashville, Tennessee. Billy Hollis, Kathleen Dollard, Jim Holmes, and Josh Holmes (no relation) discuss the issue of the complexity of software development. Several .NET celebrities in the audience also chimed in."

If you listen carefully, and take notes, you will find several gems of wisdom. It is well worth the time. If you don't have 78 minutes to listen to the podcast, listen to it while you do your laundry or something!

(Lots of people in the podcast's audience still write programs using in .NET 2.0)


The real question:

How do we develop usable, elegant software to support a complex society, and at the same time, meet the demands of a world that holds high expectations about what technology can do the future?

A couple of quotes from the panel discussion:

"They've all seen CSI Miami!"

"Ohmygod, what do I have to learn NOW?"

"Microsoft, stop the insanity!"


RELATED LINKS

Jesse Liberty's Post & Reader's Responses to Dot Next Rocks


A user's point of view about the complexity of technology:

Computers conspiring to overthrow us- Gail Collins, National Columnist 8/30/09

Link to Update on Assistive Technology

On the TechPsych blog:

What's New in Assistive Technology and Augmentative Communication? AbilityNet GATE - Global Assistive Technology Encyclopedia - Shows it All



If you don't have a burning desire to learn more about assistive technology, visit the site anyway. Most people have a relative, friend, or colleague that has some sort of disability or impairment, and it is good to know what is available.

The site is also a great source for interesting ideas regarding input and output!

Tom Barrett, a teacher, demonstrates Durham University's SynergyNet Multi-touch Networked Tables

"It is about how children can work together and communicate and how the multi-touch technology can facilitate this."




In this video, Tom Barrett demonstrates multi-touch networked tables, which were designed to be part of an immersive classroom environment. The multi-touch tables are the result of a collaboration between the Technology Enhanced Learning research group at Durham University and colleagues from the Education and Psychology departments.

Tom is a teacher and edublogger. Like me, he has a passion for multi-touch technology. He has been fortunate to have the chance to work with a SMARTTable in his classroom, and also compare the SMARTTable experience with the tables at Durham University, which were not from SMART Technologies.

Tom was one of the first teachers to have the opportunity to try out the SMART Table in his classroom. He was a bit disappointed with the outcome. Even so, he believes that multi-touch technology will be important in education in the future.

From Tom's point of view, there is a need to have more in-depth content for the SMART Table, even at the earlier grades. The following quotes are taken from Tom's "SMART Table in my Classroom- My Conclusions" blog post:

"In my opinion there are three things that contribute to this: poor content; poor creation software and a straight jacketed approach to multi-touch functionality...There seems to be too much residual SMART Notebook thinking and not enough innovative software design. Maybe the product has preceded the necessary thinking behind it all."

"The one shining ray of light that emerges from amidst this all is the Media application. I have posted videos of some of my children working with this program in the past. It remains the only application that offers teachers and children an open environment to learn, and couples it with a unique interface with media. When you use this application you actually feel like you are using something innovative, multi-touch, gestural driven. As a teacher there is the capacity to use rich content of your choice (video) and then layer on top questions that engage the children in a much deeper way"

RELATED

Flickr Group: Multi-touch Interactive Desk: Applications and Gesture Ideas

(Note: I have plenty of ideas for content and software design for multi-touch tables in education, and also cognitive and educational assessment. I'm only missing a table or two!)

Christopher Baker Revisited: Resident Artist at Kitchen Budapest

I first learned about Christopher Baker when I was taking an information visualization class. I was impressed by his work, My Map: A Self Portrait, which was created from his archive of 60,000 e-mails:

My Map from Christopher Baker on Vimeo.

Here is more of Baker's work:

Baker's Murmur Study is a live visualization/archive of Twitter:


"One might describe these messages as a kind of digital small talk. But unlike water-cooler conversations, these fleeting thoughts are accumulated, archived and digitally-indexed by corporations. While the future of these archives remains to be seen, the sheer volume of publicly accessible personal — often emotional — expression should give us pause." -Baker

Murmur Study from Christopher Baker on Vimeo. (The paper is recycled.)

HPVS (Human Phantom Vibration Syndrome)

HPVS (Human Phantom Vibration Syndrome) from Christopher Baker on Vimeo.

"HPVS (Human Phantom Vibration Syndrome) is a kinetic sculpture that considers the subtle, often-subconscious ways that mobile communication technologies shape our senses. The title references the recently discovered Human Phantom Vibration Syndrome -- a syndrome wherein mobile phone users become hyper-attentive to their mobile devices, often experiencing phantom ringing sensations even in the absence of incoming calls or messages. This work carefully orchestrates the vibrations of a collection of mobile phones to produce a familiar yet quietly-disturbing cacophony."

Hello World! or: How I Learned to Stop Listening and Love the Noise "An immersive video installation featuring over 5000 video diaries found on the internet."

Hello World! or: How I Learned to Stop Listening and Love the Noise from Christopher Baker on Vimeo.

"Hello World! is a large-scale audio visual installation comprised of thousands of unique video diaries gathered from the internet. The project is a meditation on the contemporary plight of democratic, participative media and the fundamental human desire to be heard." -Christopher Baker

Christopher Baker's blog

Christopher Baker's Projects

About Christopher Baker:

"Christopher Baker is an artist whose work engages the rich collection of social, technological and ideological networks present in the urban landscape. He creates artifacts and situations that reveal and generate relationships within and between these networks. Baker recently completed his Master of Fine Arts in Experimental and Media Arts at the University of Minnesota. He is now the senior artist-in-residence at the Kitchen Budapest, an experimental media arts lab in Hungary. In his previous life as a scientist, Christopher worked to develop brain-computer interfaces at the University of Minnesota and UCLA." (taken from Christopher Baker's website)

Christopher Baker's Artist's Statement:

"My work is fundamentally concerned with the complex relationship between society and its technologies. Trained first as a scientist and only recently as an artist, my practice represents an uneasy balance of eager technological optimism, analytical processes, deep-rooted skepticism and intuitive engagement. Much of this practice is inspired by the interconnectivities – visible and invisible – present in the modern urban landscape. I am energized by the diversity of human expression that continuously activates our vast communication networks. I am awed by the scale and varied histories of the built environment and urban infrastructure. As technologists make daily promises to improve our lives by uniting these physical and digital worlds, I attempt to make work that examines the practical implications of our increasingly networked lifestyles. Primary to this task is an exploration of the ways we imagine and represent ourselves before (potentially massive) audiences and the ways we navigate and abide in public space. Thus, architecture and place figure heavily into my often site-specific practice. With these interests at heart, large-scale video projections allow me to create works that fuse existing physical spaces with more ephemeral digital elements, resulting in revelatory and sometimes disorienting forms."

Christopher Baker is currently a resident artist at Kitchen Budapest.

What is Kitchen Budapest?

"The spicy innovation lab Kitchen Budapest, opened in June 2007, is a new media lab for young researchers who are interested in the convergence of mobile communication, online communities and urban space and are passionate about creating experimental projects in cross-disciplinary teams"

"Research fields What happens to the net once it meets the urban space? How does private space relate to the saturating wireless networks? Where does user created content gain authority? How does our use of cities alter as we get more and more real time feedback of its dynamics? What makes a home smart? Street-smart?"

"We would like to rethink and remix the possibilities of new media in our everyday lives and to argument connections between new technologies and our society."

I am happy to live in a world where experimental artists can find places and spaces to grow and thrive!