Choose and Move Your Own POV (point-of-view): Interactive 360-degree video of on-line performances from the MTV-U Woodie Awards

A while ago I blogged about a 360-degree video camera that supports web-based interactivity:  Yellowbird 6 lens 360 degree video camera creates interactive 3D videos, thanks to Harry Brignull, a user experience consultant. This technology is spreading.

A recent post by Tracy Swedlow, an owner/author at Interactive TV Today, highlights how it has been used to shoot video of hockey as well as music experiences in her article:  Immersive Media Powers 360 Degree Interactive Video for CBC/Radio Canada and MTV Networks (12/8/09) Tracy also mentions that the recent MTV-U Woodie Awards performances were filmed in 360 degree video by Immersive Media, and can be viewed on-line.

It is worth taking a look at the videos, even if you aren't interested in the performers!

At any point in the 360 video, you can pan around to see that moment as it happened, from every direction.  You can look at the excited audience,  the video art backdrop, the lights bouncing off the drum-set, parts of the ceiling or the floor of the stage.  Each time you view the video, you can have a different experience.

Below are a couple of screen shots of the performances, with links to the MTV-U Woodie Awards website, where you can watch the videos.  The first screen shot shows is a picture of the lay-out.  Viewers can choose their point-of-view by clicking and dragging on the video as it is in motion, or by moving the point-of-view selection box in the panel below the video.

Death Cab for Cutie Meet Me On the Equinox (Live)

Below is a screen shot of the bottom half of the video only
The Dead Winter: Treat Me Like Your Mother (Live)

Note:  I stopped the video to look around the 360 panorama as a still picture, but when clicked to view the rest of the performance,  the music kept playing, but the video did not continue. This is probably a kink that needs to be worked out.  Panning around the video during the action was not a problem.

Clipse- "Popular Demand"/I'm Good (Live)" Medley

2009 Woodie Awards Performances (non 360, higher quality)
2009 Woodie Awards Performances in 360
Immersive Media

Social Music On-the-Go - Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra; Ge Wang's SMULE apps for the iPhone

In the Charlotte Observer today, I came across an article about the Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra- via the New York Times:

Musicians push edge of computer music with iPhone
Stanford orchestra turns popular songs into elaborate electronic renditions
I remembered that I'd posted about this previously nearly a year ago:  Play a flute by blowing on your iPhone!  In that post, I discussed an iPhone app by Smule called "Ocarina".  (If you follow the link to the post, you can view a video of some folks playing a version of Stairway to Heaven on their iPhones.)

Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra (MoPhO)

A bit of background information:
Smule is company started by Ge Wang, an assistant professor of music at Stanford who is the director of the Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra.  He also directs the Stanford Laptop Orchestra (SLOrk), and previously was involved with the Princeton Laptop Orchestra, known as PLOrk.  (Perry Cook, the author of Real Sound Synthesis for Interactive Applications, is one of the directors of PLOrk.)

Ge Wang's Ph.D. work was on ChucK, an audio programming language for "real-time synthesis, composition, performance, and analysis, supported on Mac0S X, Windows, and Linux.  To celebrate Ge Wang's thesis, Perry Cook wrote Everybody Hack ChucK Tonight (.mp3), to the tune of "Everybody Wang Chung Tonight".  The lyrics explain what the ChucK program is all about.

Ge Wang is teaching Mobile Music (Music, Computing, and Design II) at Stanford during the Spring 2010 semester. His department is affiliated with CCRMA, the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. (CCRMA offers non-credit week-long workshops each summer, open to the public. Maybe there will be a workshop on mobile music next summer!)

Enjoy the videos below:

Stanford Researcher Uses Cell Phones to Make Music

Stanford Report, March 2009

Someone posted this on YouTube for the holidays last December:

Interactive Mobile Multimedia

A study in January of 2005 by Nokia indicated that there was a demand for interactive mobile multimedia services. That study was conducted about five years ago, before anyone had heard of the iPhone!   The technology to support interactive mobile multimedia has come a long way since then, and many of the new applications support multi-touch, or at least duo touch interactivity.

I'm very much interested in figuring out how to design web-based interactive content (and apps) that can be optimized for touch (and multi-touch/gesture) screens of various sizes, from SmartPhones/iPhones to the large interactive whiteboards that are now in a multitude of classrooms.

From my experience as a school psychologist, I know that there are many teens who have graduated from traditional cell phone to the next level.  If they don't have an iPhone, they have a smart phone.  I don't have the statistics on this, but my personal observations tell me that there are teens who come from families who are from lower economic status who are somehow able to own 3G smartphones.

What a great opportunity to provide casual interactive multimedia educational games to support student learning!  The games and activities could be assigned as homework from time to time, and with the appropriate LMS (Learning Management System), the teacher would have instant access to student progress.  In addition, the students would be provided with immediate feedback about their "work", which we know is an important factor in learning.

It is difficult to figure out the best path to forge, since nearly every week someone announces a new platform, technology, and programming approach!

At any rate, here are a few interesting things related to this topic that I'd like to share.  Many of these concepts are in the experimental phase, but are worth some attention.


SciLor's Open-Source Programs
SciLor's HD2/ Leo Multi-touch Demo v2 12/3/09 using VB.Net and Windows Mobile

SciLor's Comments: 
I have manged it to get Multitouch running in an vb.net app :)
There are still some bugs, which have to be resolved:
-Stop auto alignment!
-Identify the "Touches"


Google I/O 2009: Mastering the Android Media Framework


AT&T Interactive Mobile Website


Satellite-Terrestrial Network Delivering Mobile Video with Interactive Services - ICO mim





RELATED
Adding Multi-Touch to Your Windows Mobile Application's User Interface
Wei-Meng Lee,  DevX.com 3/24/08
Previous Post:  The new 3G iPhone:  Expanding the Possibilities of Interactive Multimedia Communication (Interactive Multimedia Technology,  6/9/08)
Note: I just skimmed the following articles - when I have more time, I'll post more of my reflections related to this set of topics.

Rethinking context framworks: Enabling cross-domain, cross-device experiences (pdf)

Daniel Stewart, Nitya Narasimhan,  Position Paper, CMPPC Workshop, Pervasive 2007

Interactive Mobile Multimedia Needs IP and Circuits
Brough Turner,  Internet Telephony, 9/09
Primetime for Mobile Television:  Extending the entertainment concept by bringing together the best of both worlds (pdf)  IBM Institute for Business Value
A Holistic Approach to Enhance Universal Usability in m-Learning
Vlado Glavinic, Sandi Ljubic, Mihael Kukec, 2008 The Second International Conference on Mobile Ubiquitous Computing, Systems, Services and Technologies
Seamless Mobility: A Continuity of Experiences across Domains, Devices, and Networks (pdf) 2005
Raghu Rau, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Motorola
Ambient Networks:  Cooperative Mobile Networking for the Wireless World
Norbert Niebert, John Wiley and Sons LTD  4/07 
Mobility management challenges and issues in 4G heterogeneous networks (link to ACM pdf)
Sadia Hussain, Zara Hamid and Naveed S. Khattak, InterSense '06.  Proceedings of the first International Conference on Integrated Internet Ad hoc and Sensor Networks
Mobile Multimedia: Tune in to Digital Convergence (pdf)
DVB-Scene (a trade magazine) 3/2008
HP OpenCall Media Plafform: a cost-effective, agile IP media server (pdf)
Whitepaper, Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.  2/2009
A survey of wireless multimedia sensor networks (pdf)
Ian F. Akyildiz, Tommaso Melodia, Kaushik R. Chowdhury, 2006  Science Direct  Elsevier


Mobile Multimedia Companies/R&D
Stantum  (UMPC)

Movidity
MobIME: Mobile Internet for Media and Entertainment

More Urban Screens and Outdoor 3D Media Facades

Maybe this will sprout up on outdoor building walls in a city near you!  
 
 
There's more to life than a Volvo - Frankfurt 2009 "3D projection and production by NuFormer in coorporation with Saatchi & Saatchi"  

RELATED  
3D Projections on Buildings: A distinctive way of communicating  
Communicating Through Architecture:  Media Facades and the Digital Infrastructure  The Rathous 
(Contains an assortment of videos and pictures)  
Art and Commerce Meet on Building's Interactive Media Facades Kelsey Keith, Fast Company, 10/2/209 

International Urban Screens Association  

"Urban Screens are dynamic digital displays and visual interfaces located within urban public spaces. They include LED screens and signs, plasma screens, information terminals and projection surfaces as well as intelligent architectural surfaces and media facades...Urban Screens transform the capacity of public spaces to serve as a platform for user-generated civic and cultural expression, community building, multiculturalism and public engagment in issues related to social, cultural and environmental sustainability....Through networking, content sharing and joint broadcasting, they constitute a rapidly expanding and still largely experimental global multimedia infrastructure for commercial and cultural exchange." "The IUSA aims to inform and support the ‘worldwide Urban Screens movement’: the expanding use of dynamic digital displays in public spaces; their considerate and sustainable integration in the urban landscape; and the ability for screen communities to collaborate in the digital space to share content, experience, ideas, innovations and emerging possibilities."

Book:  Media Facades:  History, Technology and Content, M.Hank Haeusler 

Cross-posted on The World Is My Interface

Touch-screen Interaction at Digital Bus Shelter - Video via Daily DOOH

JCDecaux Innovate Touch-Screen Bus Shelters
Chris Sheldrake, Daily DOOH (Digital Out of Home) 12/2/09

RELATED
The World is My Web Browser: Interactive Technology in Public Spaces
(Watch the video of the interactive "Splat the Cadbury Creme Egg" game played on a large touch screen display at a bus shelter.)

JCDecaux Innovate - Gorillaz for Bus Shelters

People-Centric Public Media, Public Media 2.0, & New Media: Considerations for Interactive, Collaborative Multimedia Content

I followed a link from an article written by Andy Oram, of the O'Reilly Radar and found some interesting information related to public media. The graphics and quotes below are from a publication, Public Media 2.0: Dynamic, Engaged Publics (pdf), written by people from the Center for Social Media at the School of Communication, American University.

Public Media 2.0: Dynamic, Engaged Publics    Full Report pdf

Center for Social Media,  School of Communication, American University



"Multi-platform, participatory, and digital, public media 2.0 will be an essential feature
of truly democratic public life from here on in. And it’ll be media both for and by the
public. The grassroots mobilization around the 2008 electoral campaign is just one
signal of how digital tools for making and sharing media open up new opportunities
for civic engagement.

But public media 2.0 won’t happen by accident, or for free. The same bottom-line logic
that runs media today will run tomorrow’s media as well. If we’re going to have media
for vibrant democratic culture, we have to plan for it, try it out, show people that it
matters, and build new constituencies to invest in it.

The first and crucial step is to embrace the participatory—the feature that has also been most disruptive of current media models. We also need standards and metrics to define truly meaningful participation in media for public life. And we need policies, initiatives, and sustainable financial models that can turn today’s assets and experiments into tomorrow’s tried-and-true public media.

Public media stakeholders, especially such trusted institutions as public broadcasting, need to take leadership in creating a true public investment in public media 2.0."

Action Agendas
"Public media institutions and makers need to develop a participatory national network and platform; to cross cultural, social, economic, ethnic, and political divides; to collaborate; and to learn from others’ examples, including their mistakes.

• Policymakers need to create structures and funding to support national coordination of public media networks and funding for production, curation, and archiving; to use universal design principles in communications infrastructure policy and universal service values in constructing and supporting infrastructure; to support lifelong education that helps everyone be media makers; and to build grassroots participation into public policy processes using social media tools.

• Funders can invest in media projects that build democratic publics; in norms setting, standardization of reliability tools, and impact metrics; and in experiments in media making, media organizations, and media tools, especially among disenfranchised communities."
Some key points from the article:
Five fundamental ways that people's media habits are changing - The Five Media Habits:
Choice
Conversation
Curation
Creation
Collaboration
Trends with possibilities for public media 2.0:
Ubiquitous video (choice, creation, collaboration)
Powerful databases (curation, creation)
Social networks as public forums (conversation, collaboration)
Locative media (choice, creation)
Distributed distribution (choice, curation)
Hackable platforms (creation, collaboration, curation)
Accessible metrics (creation, curation)
Cloud content (choice, creation)
Pervasive gaming (choice, collaboration)

RELATED
Eight Public Media 2.0 Projects That Are Doing it Right
Jessica Clark, Mediashift, 10/6/09
("MediaShift tracks how new media -- from weblogs to podcasts to citizen journalism -- are changing society and culture.")
The intersection of media literacy and public media 2.0
Katie Donnelly, Public Media 2.0, 10/16/09
VoiceThread "VoiceThread is a powerful new way to talk about and share your images, documents, and videos"

I'll update this post with some of my thoughts/reflections about Public Media 2.0 and interactive multimedia content development.