"It's Never Too Late" (IN2L), Dakim BrainFitness: Interactive multimedia, touchscreens, and applications for seniors.

Touch-screen applications are making headway with seniors in the form of brain fitness games and therapeutic rehabilitation activities. It makes sense to take this to the next level, via multi-touch and gesture interaction. Here is a brief overview of a few systems that are making some headway in skilled nursing facilities, in homes, and on-line:

State-of-the-Art Technology and Hotel-Like Environment Get CareOne's Rehab Patients Home Quicker

"Seniors are empowered to connect and communicate online, to immerse themselves in rich multimedia experiences, to play, to explore, create, to revisit and document their histories. In short, to be engaged in a multitude of ways that help them remain physically and mentally active.

IN2L uses an easy touch-screen interface that allows each resident to have their own profile that they can access just by touching the screen. Touching picture-based icons on the screen gives the individual access to a wide variety of experiences, games and therapies, including simulation programs like driving, flying and biking." - Mel Fabrikant, The Paramus Post, 5/7/09

The applications can be used by speech, occupational, and physical therapists to deliver reimbursable treatment activities.






New Brain Training System Entertains While Fighting Dementia: Dakim BrainFitness
Jill Schmidt, Reuters 1/9/09

"The turnkey hardware/software system includes a touch screen computer  appliance that requires no mouse or keyboard,
plus brain games that adjust to  different ability levels and are automatically updated every few days over the Internet to avoid boredom.
Already the #1 brain wellness program in senior living communities, the Dakim unit is now being released in a home
edition that makes brain fitness fun while also fighting mental decline." 

Related

Washington Post Article

Future-Making Serious Games Post: Personalized Serious Games for Cognitive Fitness
(Detailed information about the CogniFit online brain training system)

Rhizome 2009: A Lovely Interactive Multi-touch App on a Flexible Lycra Screen

Loran Bey is a member of the NUI group. He created Rhizome 2009 using Unity 3D and tBeta, now know as CCV (Community Core Vision). The screen in the video is made from flexible lycra, and this provides a tangible interaction effect. The music in the background is Aphix Twin's Avril 14th.

MultiTouch Screen Lycra from Loran Bey on Vimeo.

Unity 3D is a game development tool for browser-base games, including games optimized for the iPhone. (If you visit the Unity 3D website, be sure to download their 3D web plugin and visit their relaxing on-line Tropical Paradise.)

The screen displayed in the video was inspired by the 2005 Khronos Projector installation, by Alvero Cassinelli, an assistant professor at the Ishikawa Komuro Laboratory at the University of Tokyo. Khronos is described as a "video time-warping machine with a deformable screen."

The Khronos Projector website provides several simulation applets built with Processing that you can play with. They were fun to interact with on my HP TouchSmart PC. I liked Behind the Door the best.

The following video demonstrates how the Khronos application works:


Take a look at Alvaro Cassinelli's archive of his interactive media art if you have the chance!

Cassinelli's Meta-Perception research group is doing some interesting things, too:

"The goal of this group is to research methods for capturing and manipulating information that is normally inaccessible to humans and machines. In doing so, we hope to create new ways of perceiving the world and interacting with technology. Our research methods span fields such as human-computer interaction, media arts, physiology, and ethics."

World Builder: Interaction of the Future?

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

If you've seen this 9-minute video, you won't mind taking another look. It was created by Bruce Branit depicting a man who builds a holographic world sometime in the future. Branit is a visual effects artist, who reportedly used the Lightwave 3D graphics platform for post-production.

The music was composed by Randy Skach.

Interaction Design 2009: Video of Dan Saffer's Presentation

Dan Saffer - Attention Awareness for Interaction Designers 2009 from Interaction Design Association on Vimeo.

Dan Saffer is an interaction designer who recently spoke at the 2009 IXDA conference. His company is Kicker Studio.

FYI: Gestural Entertainment Center


RELATED:
What is Interaction Design?

McDonald's Digital Signage "Interaction" in Piccadilly Circus

McDonald's has launched a fun approach to interactive marketing in the UK. The following video shows passers-by interacting with the content of a large digital billboard in Piccadilly Circus. Watch all of the poses!

Advertising without the annoyance. Cute.

McDonald's Piccadilly Circus Flickr Group









I can see this concept spreading. Outdoor signage is going digital, and the web will connect it all!

Yellowbird 6 lens 360 degree video camera creates web-based interactive 3-D videos

Update 6/4/10:   Take a look at the new Yellowbird 360 degree demo reel video on the following post: http://interactivemultimediatechnology.blogspot.com/2010/06/interactive-360-degree-video-demo-reel.html


Harry Brignull, who blogs at 90% of Everything, has an interesting video taken at what looks like an electronic music festival - "Ever wondered what it's like to be trapped in a crowd of 600,00 Dutch clubbers?"

THIS IS JUST THE PICTURE

You will need to visit Harry's blog to explore and pan around the video.

“By using a Google Streetview-like camera, a system with six lenses, not as a photo but as a video camera, an all-encompassing picture is captured. [...] From the point where the images were recorded, the viewer can look in any direction, let his eyes wander through the crowd, or stare at the ground or the air, which makes viewing a video an experience without boundaries.” - Yellow Bird press release

The Gear in Action

If I can find additional examples of Yellowbird videos, I will post them here. They are easy to work with a touch-screen. I bet these videos would be great on SmartBoards or other interactive displays.

By the way, Harry Brignull blogs about "Experience Design, User Research & Good Old Fashioned Usability"