Via Stefano Baraldi's On the Tabletop Blog: Concept-mapping and Shared Sketching on a Multi-touch Table with EDiT, at 21minutes..

"Will playful and natural technology/design help people towards a better communication in order to understand each other? I do hope so, and the research continues." -Stefano Baraldi


Stefano Baraldi is the author of the On the Tabletop blog.  He recently blogged about 21 minutes, an open project event that involves 21 speakers discussing important passages in their lives in an attempt to share the essence of their research towards excellence. Stefano's post:  21minutes: a live interactive sketching experience



"EDiT has been used for shared sketching and note taking during the 21min event. Gilead Sher, the former Israeli negotiator was one of the guests, showed great interest in the technology and application."
Note:  Some of the video is in Italian.


Stefano was asked to produce an interactive sketching experience using multi-touch technology to assist the speakers and the chairman of the event (Patrizio Paoletti) in drawing knowledge structures.Pierpaolo Vittoria, a mind mapper, used Stafano's application to record the ideas shared during the 21 minutes event.
More about Stefano:
Stefano Baraldi's Ph.D. research topic was "TableTop Interaction for the Management of Cognitive Structures", in which he investigated 'the emergent world of TableTop devices and interaction techniques applied to groupware, knowledge management, enhanced meetings and constructive learning."


I am especially looking forward to reading his chapter in an upcoming book:
S.Baraldi, “Making the Classroom a play-ground for Knowledge”. Chapter in book “The Classroom of the Future”, curators M kitalo-Siegl, Kaplan, Zottman & Fischer. Pages 30-60 in section “Knowledge building in physical and virtual learning spaces”. Sense Publisher.

SOMEWHAT RELATED
The video below is a mixed-reality project Stefano worked on during his graduate studies. This project was a collaboration between the University of Florence, the University of Bologna, and other researchers, using a tangible user interfaces:
TANGerINE Inspirational Cube

Via Stefano Baraldi:

This post was moved to:
http://interactivemultimediatechnology.blogspot.com/2009/11/via-stefano-baraldis-on-tabletop-blog.html

Fantasy HCI! Dream Lab and Dream Team for the Future

Fantasy HCI!  

My wish is to have my own lab so I can create and test out various interactive applications that run on screens of all sizes, and play with new interactive gadgets and displays. I'd also like to provide mobile lab services so I can go out and see how emerging technologies play out in real-life situations and settings during the design & development process as well as after-market.

I'd like to focus on social-collaborative & cognitive aspects of emerging technologies. Because of my background in school psychology, I'd work towards ensuring that new applications, technologies, and systems follow the guidelines of Universal Design for Learning as well as Universal Usability. I have some ideas about the transdisciplinary characteristics I'd like to see for members of the lab's Dream Team, but I'm saving that for another post. Now I just need to win the lottery so I can hire my team and run with the ball. Team Charlotte, N.C., anyone?

FYI:
The HCI link is to a blog that corresponds to the Theory and Research in Human Computer Interaction class at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. 

For more information about HCI, visit the Human-Computer Interaction Resources website.

Quick Post: Video of Stantum's Multi-touch "Slate PC" Digital Resistive Touch Screen Netbook

The video is is of the Stantum Slate PC, via Netbooked's YouTube channel...The system in the video is running on a modded Dell Mini 10, and doesn't require calibration. Notice how the system easily handles a variety of interaction- fingers, thumbs, pinch, rotation, multiple finger swipes, brush strokes, fingernail action, stylus, and more.

At this time, the Stantum Slate is available for developers only.

RELATED POSTS

Stantum's Multi-touch Slate PC, Windows 7 Certified (11/17/09)
Interactive multi-touch for sound design, dj-ing, and music creation (10/25/09)
Stantum's Mobile Phone Multi-touch Interface:  Demonstration of precise interactions on a resistive touch screen (9/7/09)
Updates about NextWindow and Stantum; Upcoming Emerging Displays Technologies Conference (6/2/09)

FYI:   Netbooked's Netbook Blog

Johannes Schoening & Friends Research: Videos of Multi-User Interaction on Multi-touch Walls and Tables

In this post, I'm featuring videos of the interactive work of Johannes Schoening, a member of the NUI-Group, and his collaborators. Johhannes works at the Innovative Retail Laboratory of the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence ( DFKI ) in Saarbrücken. Prof. Dr. Antonio Krüger is director of this lab.   He also works with Michael Rohs at the Deutsche Telekom Laboratories in Berlin. 

Johannes received a Diploma in Geoinformatik at the University of Münster at the Institute for Geoinformatics in 2007.  His research interests are new methods and interfaces to intuitive navigate through spatial information or in general new intelligent interfaces that help people to solve daily tasks more effectively.  His interests include mobile augmented reality applications, the use of Wikipedia as a knowledge database, and home grown multi-touch surfaces . (More information can be found on Johannes' website.)

Note:  The 2010 Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces conference will be held in Germany, and Johannes and others will be involved with running it. You can follow the news on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/its_Germany2010.  The link to the conference website will be up soon, at http://www.its2010.org/ .

The descriptions below each video are from Johannes' YouTube Research Channel.

Multi-touch Risk

"A multi-touch and multi-user version of the classical Risk game. As a platform Nasa World Wind (WWJ) and the Java implementation of Risk "Domination" by yura.net were used. A authentication method (that was also integrated in the game) can be found in the last (next)  video. Thanks to Klaus Drerup & Wadim Hamm."  TEAM:  Klaus Drerup, Wadim Hamm, Florian Daiber, & Johannes Schoening.  Music by cycom: mathematics.

User Authentication on Large Multi-touch Wall with Mobile Device

"The exploitation of finger and hand tracking technology based on infrared light, such as FTIR, Diffused Illumina- tion (DI) or Diffused Surface Illumination (DSI) has enabled the construction of large-scale, low-cost, interactive multi-touch surfaces. In this context, access and security problems arise if larger teams operate these surfaces with different access rights. The team members might have several levels of authority or specific roles, which determine what functions and objects they are allowed to access via the multi-touch surface. In this video we present first concepts and strategies to authenticate with a large-scale multi-touch wall using a mobile device."

GeoLens: Allowing Multi-User Interaction with Geographic Information Systems on Interactive Surfaces

"This video shows the GlobalData application in use on an Archimedes SessionDesk http://www.archimedes-products.com/se The application was used to illustrate our GeoLens concept. GeoLenses are GUI widgets that can be used like scalable as well as zoomable magnifying lenses to allow synchronous multi-user interaction in GIS systems."

Google Is My Friend: The Google Chrome OS video, if you haven't yet seen it...

I've been meaning to watch the Google Chrome OS video. I'm the 609,825th viewer of the YouTube version below:



The Chromium Projects