The Internet of Surfaces? Microsoft's Pete Thompson discusses screens and surfaces of all sizes.

I came across this video of Microsoft Surface's general manager, Pete Thompson, on the GottaBeMobile website. According to Thompson, the people who worked with TouchWall discussed in the video, were also involved with Microsoft Surface.

Apparently, the Surface and Wall folks at Microsoft aren't sure of what they are doing with screens of all sizes.

(If you are interested in surface form factors, see my previous blog post, Emerging Interactive Technologies, Emerging Interactions, and Emerging Integrated Form Factors.)

There are many unanswered questions from my perspective.

Bill Gates portends that every surface will be a computer, a concept that is echoed in the video. If so, what are people doing to ensure that surface-supporting environments are universally designed?

Before Microsoft and other companies unleash "surface" technology to the masses, they must get a few things right.

Will they?

Will the researchers at Microsoft find out how various screens play out in classrooms, in the community settings, on-the job, and in-between?

For example, large interactive displays in urban and retail settings have the potential to provde people with a rich amount of information about what is around them. These displays serve little purpose if they are user-unfriendly, and no purpose at all if they are not accessible.

If developers and designers are not following basic user-centered design guidelines and usability standards now, how can we expect the nextgen systems of display surfaces to support universal usability? As our population ages, this will be more of a problem.

From what I can tell, there will be more opportunities for people to use their mobile devices to interact with larger screens and surfaces when they are out and about. For example, when I was at the airport recently, I noticed that there was a large display that offered cell-phone ringtone downloads. Microsoft was behind this display.

Interconnectivity and interoperability between devices and screens of all sizes is important to think about. If universal usability guidelines are not followed, our mobile devices will be difficult to use in the world of surfaces.

It isn't much of a leap to see the big picture. Just think about the problems we have with our remote controls and entertainment centers in our homes! We might have to carry all sorts of devices just to get from point A to point B. I'm not kidding. It will not be a pretty sight, especially if the privacy and security issues are not resolved as we move to a world that supports the internet of things.

Or shall I say, the internet of surfaces?

Creative Programming: openFrameworks - AWESOME for interactive multimedia applications!

openFrameworks: Better Tools, Enhanced Creativity, Better Projects: YES. Artists can make tools at the same time they make artwork.

To learn all about this, delve into the video. It highlights interviews with creative people who are using openFrameworks, including their innovative work.


made with openFrameworks from openFrameworks on Vimeo.

If you are working with openFrameworks, or thinking about it, let me know.


This looks like a great tool to use for projects I'm creating for my new HP TouchSmart....

.....and my multi-touch thought experiments ; }














I learned about openFrameworks from Seth Sandler, aka "cerupcat", a member of NUI-group who was chosen to participate in Google's Summer of Code. He's posted about his progress on his AudioTouch blog.

Here is a screenshot of Seth's tracking application, still under development, is the result of porting touchlib, the main tracker used by NUI-Group members, to openFrameworks:

Video modeling software for visual learners and those who have autism spectrum disorders

Activity Trainer, video modeling software from Accelerated Educational Software, supports the following activities:

• Academic
• Communication
• Daily Living
• Non-Verbal Imitation
• Recreation
• Social
• Vocational

A free 30-day trial of the software can be downloaded from the Accelerations Educational Software website.

On the Accelerations Educational Software website, you can find other products, such as Storymovies, which is the product of a collaboration between Carol Gray (social stories), Mark Shelley, and the Special Minds Foundation.

"The Next Big Thing in Humanities, Arts, and Social Science Computing: Cultural Analytics": Link

I could remain an undeclared graduate student for life!

Last semester, I took a course in information visualization and visual communication. What next?!

Cultural Analytics.

I just heard of this area of study today. Here is a link to an article, written by Kevin D. Franklin and Karen Rodriguez, in HPCwire:

The Next Big Thing in Humanities, Arts, and Social Science Computing: Cultural Analytics


"some see the reciprocal and perhaps limitless possibilities of emergent technologies and humanities scholarship -- how digital technology cuts across disciplines, creates new ways of looking at artifacts, as well as producing new forms itself."

This speaks to my multidisciplinary soul.


-photo via HPCwire

Mozilla's Concept Series: A call for collaborative participation. Demos look like they would work well on a touch screen...

Mozilla labs has a call for participation in the development of nextgen web interaction design. "Be bold. Be radical. The crazier, the better. Let’s explore the future together."
-Mozilla Labs

The following videos give a good overview of the innovations initially created for this new endeavor:

Aurora, created by Adaptive Path, is an adaptive browser interaction concept, incorporating radial and wheel menus, data visualization objects, a 3D navigation system, and more.

Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.



Bookmarking and History Concept Video from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.



Firefox Mobile Concept Video from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.



Excerpt about this collaborative project, from the Mozilla Labs website:

"Today we’re calling on industry, higher education and people from around the world to get involved and share their ideas and expertise as we collectively explore and design future directions for the Web.

You don’t have to be a software engineer to get involved, and you don’t have to program. Everyone is welcome to participate. We’re particularly interested in engaging with designers who have not typically been involved with open source projects. And we’re biasing towards broad participation, not finished implementations.

We’re hoping to lower the barrier to participation by providing a forum for surfacing, sharing, and collaborating on new ideas and concepts. Our goal is to bring even more people to the table and provoke thought, facilitate discussion, and inspire future design directions for Firefox, the Mozilla project, and the Web as a whole."

-via Putting People First

This will be an interesting trend to follow. I'd like to work on web navigation systems optimized for multi-touch and large screen displays. Is it now possible?

iPhone: Multitouch control of a laptop screen!

The Media Computing Group at RWTH-AACHEN University has developed an application to allow users to control a laptop via a multi-touch iPhone. Although the demo shows how to rotate and resize images, the "multiple views" section is interesting. Like an Etch-a-Sketch, you shake the iPhone to reset the images.

I've been toying with ideas about ways to create user-friendly interactions between screens of all sizes. This approach intrigues me.



You can find more information about the iPhone and Cocoa on the Multi-touch Framework website. The contact for this project is Stefan Hafeneger, a student assistant