Mary Lou Jepsen, Inventor of Pixel Qi Technology, Discusses Screen Technologies & Multi-touch Tablets

I've been meaning to devote a few more posts about the new screen technologies as multi-purpose netbooks become available.  In my opinion, this technology will change the way we access all sorts of interactive media, including news and entertainment.

In this post, I feature Mary Lou Jepsen, an engineer who is the inventor of Pixel Qi technology. During the first quarter of 2010, there is a possibility that a few Pixel Qi screens will become available to the DIY community.  The first units will be multi-touch. Pixel Qi will be at the January CES in Las Vegas.

Mary Lou has worked on the screen technology found in One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project, and her work has resulted in affordable net-books and laptops.  According to information from the Pixel Qi website, "Mary Lou founded Pixel Qi Corporation in 2008 and is its CEO.  Previously, Mary Lou has founded 4 companies, served as a professor at RMIT (Australia) & MIT,  and in executive management at Intel Corporation.  Mary Lou holds a Ph.D. in Optical Sciences, a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a B.A. in Art (req.) all from Brown University as well as a Master of Science (in Holography) from the MIT Media Lab.".

Mary Lou Jepsen, an engineer,  tests out "e-paper" content in the sunlight and in the shade on three screens. In the following video, the E-ink Amazon Kindle, an Acer Pixel Qi 3Qi LCD netbook, and a Toshiba transflexive R600 laptop are compared.  At 4:20, Jepsen discusses touch and remarks that there are new touch technologies that might work. (The content on the resistive touch screen that was on hand during the video was difficult to see.)


Mary Lou Jepson demonstrates the Pixel Qi screen in her home lab/laundry room on the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child). Jepson is focused on making screens that everyone can use.


Mary Lou Jepsen Answers User Questions



Comparison Chart (from the Pixel Qi website)



Pixel Qi is working on a design of a sub-10 watt HDTV that can run on a minimal power supply, including a battery that can be charged with a crank or solar pane.

Two Interesting Posts: Colin Mulvany - Will the touch tablet save professional journalism? & Michael Arrington -The End of Hand Crafted Content

Technology is changing our world, and in some fields, more so than others.  For professional newspaper journalists, things are pretty bleak, as web-based news content is stamping out much of what has been held dear to the heart in traditional press rooms. Newspaper companies are folding and great journalists have lost their jobs.

Is there hope for the future?

Journalists who have digital media skills are voicing their views about this phenomenon as the profession moves to reinvent itself.  There is much to discuss, since the number of folks with Smartphones and access to web-based news content on-the-go increases each day.

The first post I'm sharing was written by Colin Mulvany, who works as a multimedia producer at the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington.  He began his career is a still photographer, but changed gears and transitioned to his present role creating content for his paper's on-line website.  

Colin Mulvany is the author of the Mastering Multimedia blog.  His blog post, Will the touch tablet save professional journalism?, provides an overview of changes in journalism and links to related on-line articles about the topic. What I liked about Mulvany's post is his vision of how the transition from newspaper to the digital world might play out in the near future. 

It all centers around the touch-tablet that is paired with the newspaper.  So how will this make money?   Mulvany has a few ideas.  One of his suggestions involves improving the navigation of newspaper websites, and providing content and layout that the reader can customize for interaction with the tablet.


The second article, The End of Hand Crafted Content,  written by Michael Arrington at Tech Crunch, points out how on-line news content is like "fast food", generated by blogs and aggregators.   Arrington discusses how the same content is written and refashioned and written, and the true creators of the content (real journalists!) are not often noted...or noticed.

Arrington provides good links on his post.  If you have time on your hands, take time to read it, and also browse through the numerous comments posted by readers. Although I rarely am inspired to comment on an on-line post, in this instance, I did so.  My comment is buried in there somewhere!


RELATED
Minority Report Scenes: 
3D ads at the mall, subway scene with USA-Today e-paper (updated with video in "real time")

http://www.youtube.com/user/mrcavalcanti

The holographic ads in the Minority Report mall scene begin at 0:28.  The subway scene with the USA Today 3-paper begins at 1:27.  (Mulvany has a similar video on his post.)


Holographic Ad at a Canadian Mall: "Living Poster"

http://www.youtube.com/user/smtire

Maybe the holograph guy in the mall could deliver the news or a weather report, along with a few Minority Report-like mall ads!

Multi-touch and Tangible Computing & the Lumino Project

Professor Patrick Baudisch and his student researchers at the Haaso Plattner Institute in Germany have focused on Human-Interaction for a quite a while.  One look at the research project page of Dr. Baudisch says it all.  Over the past few years, the human-computer interaction (HCI) teams at Hasso Plattner have explored multi-touch and tangible computing, with very interesting results.  

Take a look at the following video from Design Boom's YouTube Channel, and follow the related links for more information!


Tangible Tabletop Computing with Lumino

(The Lumino project was developed using Microsoft Surface.)


RELATED
Lumino Project Website


Lumino Team:
Professer Patrick Baudisch, Torsten Becker, Frederik Rudeck
Human Computer Interaction, Hasso Plattner Institute
"The Human Computer Interaction group headed by Prof. Dr. Patrick Baudisch is concerned with the design, implementation, and evaluation of interaction techniques, devices, and systems. More specifically, we create new ways to interact with small devices, such as mobile phones and very large display devices, such as tables and walls."


Articles/Posts
Lumino (Design Boom, no author or date)
Smart 'Lego" blocks take touch screens into 3D   Colin Barras, New Scientist (10/6/09)
"Fat Fingers" can become dainty for touch Screens   Colin Barris, New Scientist (11/24/09)


Microsoft Surface and Objects (Features Lumino "Tangible Blocks" at the 1:02 marker)

Open Source eViacam head mouse lets you control your computer with your head, or your finger in the air

Also posted on the TechPsych blog

I just downloaded and tried eViacam, an open-source head mouse software, and found it to work accurately and smoothly.  I used the software on my HP TouchSmart PC, which has an embedded video camera.  eViacam also works with USB webcams.  You can download eViacam from Sourceforge. It is released under the GNU/GPL license.

Although this software is very useful for people with disabilities such as cerebral palsy and ALS, it looks like it could be useful for anyone.  For example, the software can track your finger as you move it in the air, and it comes with an on-screen keyboard that you can turn on or off.

By the way, one of the videos I watched on YouTube was of someone playing a game with this system. I'd like to know what games it could support!

How to Control Your Mouse with Your Head (Face) Or Your Finger

mobilephone2003 (Duncan Maile)


Screenshot

-Cesar Mauri Loba,  Universitat Rovira i Virgili

eViacam's future most likely will depend on donations, as this software was developed to enhance the lives of people with disabilities.  You can donate to eViacam using PayPal.

RELATED
Cesar Mauri Loba, eViacam Researcher
CREA Sistemes Informatics
"eViacam  is being developed using wxWidgets and opencv1 and runs on Linux and MS Win."

Link to Post: "Will NoSQL Rescue the World of Data in the Cloud?" (links to more info)

"Will NoSQL Rescue the World of Data in the Cloud?"

(The World Is My Interface)

Participatory Design Conference 2010 "Participation :: The Challenge" + some thoughts

I really want to go to Australia next year and attend this conference! Below are links to the conference, along with an excerpt from the conference description:

11th Biennial Participatory Design Conference:  Participation :: The Challenge (pdf)
PDC2010 Conference Website
PDC2008 Conference Website

"Participation is the complex, contested, changing, creative and celebratory core of participatory design. We invite you to explore what participation can and needs to mean in the design contexts where we are working now and those we are likely to encounter soon. While current ‘best practice’ in many areas of interactive technology design now at least pays lip service to people’s participation, how is this participation being negotiated and defined, and by whom? And if Participatory Design methods developed some 20 years ago are claimed to have become standard design practice, how do we go about developing the methods that will define standard design practice 20 years from now?"


REFLECTION
Judging from what I've experienced as a consumer/user,  there are many things that are floating around in the form of electronics, software, and related gadgets that are examples of the absence of participatory design.

My daily pet peeve is the remote control for my entertainment set-up, which includes DVR and a small but growing number of interactive TV channels.  Another pet peeve is the usability of productivity software, including the software I must use for work.

At any rate, below are links to some of my thoughts related to usability topics that might be of interest to people who are thinking about or practicing participatory design or user-centered design.

2007 Letter to the Editor, Pervasive Computing
Useful Usability Studies (pdf)

2007 Blog Post
Usability/Interaction Hall of Shame (In a Hospital)

2008 Blog Posts
Interactive Touch-Screen Technology, Participatory Design, and "Getting It"
An Example of Convergence: Interactive TV: uxTV 2008

2009 Blog Posts
Microsoft: Are You Listening?  Cool Cat Teacher (Vicki Davis) Tries out Microsoft's Multi-touch Surface Table
Haptic/Tactile Interface:  Dynamically Changeable Physical Buttons
The Convergence of TV, the Internet, and Interactivity:  Update
UX of ITV:  The User Experience and Interactive TV (or Let's Stamp Out Bad Remote Controls)
ElderGadget Blog: Useful Tech and Tools

Allgodoo: Engaging Interactive Physics for Interactive Whiteboards

I posted this on the TechPsych blog:

Watch students play with physics on the SMARTboard using Algodoo running on an Intel Classmate PC with a built-in accelerometer


The  post includes a video clip as well as links to tutorials, lesson plans for teachers, and more.

"Five Rules" for Engaging and Meaningful PowerPoint Presentations, Featuring PPT 2010 Beta

I came across the video of the following "5 Rules" presentation on Long Zheng's "I Started Something" blog. This presentation created by Duarte, a company that focuses on visual stories and corporate branding.  The presentation can be found embedded in the public beta version of Microsoft Office 2010 Microsoft Office 2010.  The new version of PowerPoint features a DirectX-powered graphics engine, which supports smooth animations.

The concepts shared in the presentation are useful for students, teachers, and anyone else who has the challenge of creating an engaging and meaningful presentation. At the end of the video, the last slides provide more specific "how-to" information regarding the nuts and bolts of putting together a quality presentation.   You'll probably need to view the presentation Office 2010 Beta in the PowerPoint format if you have the urge to dig deeper. You can find it in the Sample Templates section.

Duarte's Five Rules for Creating World-Changing Presentations

Office Powerpoint 2010 "Five Rules" sample presentation from Long Zheng on Vimeo.

RELATED
Duarte Blog

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.

Brief Post and Links: Multimedia Semantics, Focus of the December issue of IEEE's Computing Now

I haven't read the latest issue of IEEE's Computing Now, but it looks like it has a few good articles that might be of interest:

Multimedia Metadata and Semantic Management

Guest Editors' Introduction, IEEE Computing Now

Harald Kosch and Christian Timmerer, December 2009

"Effective multimedia management must span the metadata life cycle—from its creation through processing, storage, distribution, and deployment—and work whether the metadata is tightly connected with or independent of the media it describes.

Finally, we need better integration of situational context. This includes not only domain knowledge, but also legal and cultural issues, metadata and semantic quality, compression and encryption techniques."

3D Media and the Semantic Web pdf

Michela Spagnuolo and Bianca Falcidieno, National Research Council of Italy

Managing and Querying Distributed Multimedia Metadata Collections pdf

Sebastien Laborie, Ana-Maria Manzat, and Florence Sedes

Using Social Networking and Collections to Enable Video Semantics Acquisition pdf

Stephen J. Davis, Christian H. Ritz, Ian S. Burnett

RELATED

IEEE MultiMedia  

Some of my favorite tech journals/magazines:

Virtual Carol Singing Experiment on Britain's ITV, via Tracy Swedlow

ITV's "This Morning" Teams with YouTube on "Virtual Choir" Promotion -Tracy Swedlow

ITV, the U.K. Independent Television Network, is inviting viewers to participate in a virtual Christmas choir. If you want to participate download the headphone track, and sing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". When you are ready, get out turn on your videocam, keep your headphones in, and sing along to the track. When you have finished, you'll upload the video to YouTube.

If you can follow the headphone track and sing the carol in tune, you might just have a chance to be seen as part of a montage of videos, either singing the carol in all at once with your virtual choir-mates, or as part of one carol sung by many people, one at a time.

How to participate:


ITV This Morning website

ITV This Morning YouTube Channel

Tabletop Conference in Banff: Martin Kaltenbrunner's post on the Tangible Interaction Frameworks blog

I'd like to share with you a link to a great post covering the recent Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces conference in Banff, Canada. The post was written by Martin Kaltenbrunner, author of the Tangible Interaction Frameworks blog, and is packed with info and interesting links:

Tabletop Conference in Banff

Martin was impressed by the iLabat the University of Calgary.  He also mentioned the work of researchers from the Media Computing Groupat RWTH Aachen University known for SLAP, and the Media Interaction Lab at the Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences, known for CRISTAL.

Info about Martin from his website:

"Martin Kaltenbrunner, co-founder of Reactable Systems, is a Ph.D. candidate at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain. His research concentrates on tangible user interfaces and human computer interaction in general, topics he has been also teaching at the Kunstuniversität Linz, Universitat Pompeu Fabra and UCP Porto. Recently he has been mainly working on the human computer interaction concepts of the Reactable - an electronic musical instrument with a tangible user interface. He is author of the open source tangible interaction framework reacTIVision and the related TUIO protocol, which has been widely adopted for open source multi-touch applications."

RELATED

Previous Posts

Dreams about haptic overlays, Part Two:  SLAP- Bridging the Gap Between Virtual and Physical Controls on Tabletops

CRISTAL: One Giant Remote Control

For an overview of what Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces is about, take a careful look of the video from the 2008 conference, credits listed below:


Video Credits (in order of appearance, Tabletop 2008):
1. System Design for the WeSpace: Linking Personal Devices to a Table-Centered Multi-User, Multi-Surface Environment. Jiang, H., Wigdor, D., Forlines, C., Shen, C.
2. Group Coordination and Negotiation through Spatial Proximity Regions around Mobile Devices on Augmented Tabletops, Kray C., Rohs, M., Hook, J. Kratz, S.
3. Tabletop AgilePlanner: A Tabletop-Based Project Planning Tool for Agile Software Development Teams
Wang, X., Maurer, F.
4. TableTrays: Temporary, Reconfigurable Work Surfaces for Tabletop Groupware. Pinelle, D., Stach, T., Gutwin, C.
5. IntuPaint: Bridging the Gap Between Physical and Digital Painting. Vandoren, P., Laerhoven, T., Claesen, L., Taelman, J., Raymaekers, C., Reeth, F.
6. Experiences with Building a Thin Form-Factor Touch and Tangible Tabletop. Izadi, S., Butler, A., Hodges, S., West, D., Hall, M., Buxton, B., Molloy, M.
7. ShapeTouch: Leveraging Contact Shape on Interactive Surfaces, Cao, X., Wilson, A., Balakrishnan, R., Hinckley, K., Hudson, S.
8. PocketTable: Mobile Devices as Multi-Touch Controllers for Tabletop Application Development, Hafeneger, S., Weiss, M., Herkenrath, G., Borchers, J.
9. Presenting using Two-Handed Interaction in Open Space, Vlaming, L., Smit, J., Isenberg, T.
10. DepthTouch: Using Depth-Sensing Camera to Enable Freehand Interactions on and Above the Interactive Surface Benko, H., and Wilson, A.
11. Pokey: Interaction Through Covert Structured Light. Wren, C., Ivanov, Y., Beardsley, P., Kaneva, B., Tanaka, S.
12. Creating Malleable Interactive Surfaces using Liquid Displacement Sensing. Hilliges, O. Kim, D., Izadi, S.
13. Collaborative Interaction and Integrated Spatial Information and Services in Disaster Management, Fruijtiera, S., Dulkb, P., Diasc, E.

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.