This is a promotional video from BMW, showing how potential buyers can interact with a tabletop computing system to preview various ways they can customize the car. The system in the video is Microsoft's Surface:
Via Gizmodo Australia
(I wonder if Microsoft is working on a few educational games for the surface....)
Dec 1, 2008
Nov 30, 2008
Tech-Savvy Teachers at Classroom 2.0; Google Sketch-up for math, and other creative ideas...including multi-touch
Classroom 2.0
"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.
You can find the models Guzman's students made at Google 3D Warehouse
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.
You can find related pictures on Flickr: Multi-Touch Interaction: Applications and Gesture Ideas
"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.
You can find the models Guzman's students made at Google 3D Warehouse
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.
You can find related pictures on Flickr: Multi-Touch Interaction: Applications and Gesture Ideas
Nov 26, 2008
For the Tech Curious: Multi-Gesture Net: A Multi-touch and Multi-gesture Research Blog
Laurence Muller, M.Sc. is a scientific programmer at the Universiteit van Amsterdam who develops scientific software for multi-touch devices. His blog, Multigesture.Net, provides good information regarding multi-touch and gesture interaction hardware and software applications.
Laurence links to the DYI tabletop computing bootcamp that was held at
IEEE Tabletops and Interactive Surfaces 2008. From there, you can find a linked list of the organizers of the events, and additional information.
Picture below is from MTC Multi-touch Console:
Here is a link to the group's libavg wiki that includes open-source code and "how-to" instructions.
If you are interested in multi-touch and multi-gesture computing from an academic point of view, Florian Echtler, of the Technische Universitat Munchen has a series of publications listed on his website. Here is the abstract of one of his papers. He is on the right track. I especially like the fact that he's thought about widget layers. (I have, too, but they are only sketches in my idea book.)
TICH: Tangible Interactive Surfaces for Collaboration between Humans (Sourceforge website, with links to libtisch.
F. Echtler, G. Klinker
A Multitouch Software Architecture
NordiCHI 2008: Using Bridges, 18-22 October, Lund, Sweden. (bib)
"In recent years, a large amount of software for multitouch interfaces with various degrees of similarity has been written. In order to improve interoperability, we aim to identify the common traits of these systems and present a layered software architecture which abstracts these similarities by defining common interfaces between successive layers. This provides developers with a unified view of the various types of multitouch hardware. Moreover, the layered architecture allows easy integration of existing software, as several alternative implementations for each layer can co-exist. Finally, we present our implementation of this architecture, consisting of hardware abstraction, calibration, event interpretation and widget layers."
Laurence links to the DYI tabletop computing bootcamp that was held at
IEEE Tabletops and Interactive Surfaces 2008. From there, you can find a linked list of the organizers of the events, and additional information.
Picture below is from MTC Multi-touch Console:
Here is a link to the group's libavg wiki that includes open-source code and "how-to" instructions.
If you are interested in multi-touch and multi-gesture computing from an academic point of view, Florian Echtler, of the Technische Universitat Munchen has a series of publications listed on his website. Here is the abstract of one of his papers. He is on the right track. I especially like the fact that he's thought about widget layers. (I have, too, but they are only sketches in my idea book.)
TICH: Tangible Interactive Surfaces for Collaboration between Humans (Sourceforge website, with links to libtisch.
F. Echtler, G. Klinker
A Multitouch Software Architecture
NordiCHI 2008: Using Bridges, 18-22 October, Lund, Sweden. (bib)
"In recent years, a large amount of software for multitouch interfaces with various degrees of similarity has been written. In order to improve interoperability, we aim to identify the common traits of these systems and present a layered software architecture which abstracts these similarities by defining common interfaces between successive layers. This provides developers with a unified view of the various types of multitouch hardware. Moreover, the layered architecture allows easy integration of existing software, as several alternative implementations for each layer can co-exist. Finally, we present our implementation of this architecture, consisting of hardware abstraction, calibration, event interpretation and widget layers."
Teliris InterAct TouchTable and TouchWall: Immersive Collaboration & Telepresence; DVE's Holographic Tele-Immersion Room
A few years ago I took a class about virtual reality and how it can be used in education and training. One of the topics we covered was telepresence. One of the companies I looked at was Teliris.
According to a whitepaper on the Teliris website, "Business Value of Telepresence", by S. Ann Earon, "Telepresence is what videoconferencing was meant to be: reliable, highly interactive, easy to operate, resulting in a natural meeting with transparent technology and an emphasis on human factors."
Teleris now offers something they call Immersive Collaboration, which involves the use of surface computing that supports document and multimedia content sharing across locations, as if all of the group members are in the same room
Watch the demonstration of the Teliris Collaboration Touch Table in a telepresence meeting. In the video clip below, the narrator shares content from a local Teliris Collaboration Touch Table to a remote meeting participant who is at another table.
"Touch to Telepresence"
The above examples demonstrate how newer technologies, including table-top surfaces, can be used for collaborative business meetings. I can envision this technology used for medical education, medical consultations, and collaboration between artists and musicians.
When the price comes down, perhaps we will have these systems in our family rooms!
According to a whitepaper on the Teliris website, "Business Value of Telepresence", by S. Ann Earon, "Telepresence is what videoconferencing was meant to be: reliable, highly interactive, easy to operate, resulting in a natural meeting with transparent technology and an emphasis on human factors."
Teleris now offers something they call Immersive Collaboration, which involves the use of surface computing that supports document and multimedia content sharing across locations, as if all of the group members are in the same room
Watch the demonstration of the Teliris Collaboration Touch Table in a telepresence meeting. In the video clip below, the narrator shares content from a local Teliris Collaboration Touch Table to a remote meeting participant who is at another table.
"Touch to Telepresence"
Business Holograms!
DVE (Digital Video Enterprises) developed a Tele-Immersion room that uses Cristie Digital Systems Mirage HD 3D projectors to create holographic images of remotely located meeting participants:
DVE Telepresence: An Introduction (A plug from DVE, but informative.)
DVE Portable Virtual Presentation -A Volumetric 3D image from a projector hidden from the audience's view:
This system can display 3D images on the stage, and supports 2-way interactive HD feeds.
The above examples demonstrate how newer technologies, including table-top surfaces, can be used for collaborative business meetings. I can envision this technology used for medical education, medical consultations, and collaboration between artists and musicians.
When the price comes down, perhaps we will have these systems in our family rooms!
Nov 23, 2008
Touch TV Networks Demo using Windows 7 a NextWindow display
Here is a short video demonstration of a Touch TV Networks demo on a display using a NextWindow touch screen. It looks like it was built using Windows 7. I understand that it was created by people with former Microsoft connections.
<a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=74b3a821-3e82-4b50-bc64-04ae4b75bdaf" target="_new" title="Touch TV Networks Demo at Microsoft REC">Video: Touch TV Networks Demo at Microsoft REC</a>
For more information, take a look at the Touch TV Networks website.
For more information, take a look at the Touch TV Networks website.
For the Tech Curious: "Get in Touch with Touchless": Multi-touch with just a webcam and the free demo application!
Via the Seattle Tech Report's Microsoft Blog:
You can find the demo code on the Codeplex website. Here is a quote:
"The Touchless SDK enables developers to create multi-touch based applications using a webcam for input. Touch without touching."
"Touchless started as Mike Wasserman’s college project at Columbia University. The main idea: to offer users a new and cheap way of experiencing multi-touch capabilities, without the need of expensive hardware or software. All the user needs is a camera, which will track colored markers defined by the user."
(I posted about the Touchless SDK previously, but I didn't have the video.)
You can find the demo code on the Codeplex website. Here is a quote:
"The Touchless SDK enables developers to create multi-touch based applications using a webcam for input. Touch without touching."
"Touchless started as Mike Wasserman’s college project at Columbia University. The main idea: to offer users a new and cheap way of experiencing multi-touch capabilities, without the need of expensive hardware or software. All the user needs is a camera, which will track colored markers defined by the user."
(I posted about the Touchless SDK previously, but I didn't have the video.)
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