SMART Technologies Acquires NextWindow

Here is the scoop from PR Web:

SMART Acquires NextWindow Acquisition extends SMART’s presence into broader consumer market and strengthens IP portfolio Calgary, AB (Vocus/PRWEB ) April 25, 2010 -- SMART Technologies, the world’s leading provider of interactive whiteboards, announces the acquisition of New Zealand-based NextWindow (Next Holdings Limited), a leading designer and manufacturer of optical touch technology for integration into all-in-one computers, computer displays and large-format screens. The acquisition reinforces SMART’s own investment in optical touch research and development, and combines the two companies’ significant optical touch patent portfolios. The NextWindow acquisition is expected to have minimal impact on both businesses’ day-to-day operations, offices and company structure. Both SMART and NextWindow are privately held companies. NextWindow supplies optical touch components to manufacturers of PCs and other interactive displays. Its touch components are used in PCs and monitors sold by Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Medion, NEC, Samsung and Sony. The acquisition extends SMART’s current presence in the education, business and government sectors into the broader consumer market. SMART is also expanding its business in Asia, where NextWindow has already been active. In the past year, NextWindow has developed an Asian presence in Singapore, Taiwan and Korea. SMART serves a range of markets, and it is timely to diversify our revenue base beyond the sectors we already serve NextWindow‘s core values, business model, patent portfolio and focus on the consumer market make it an attractive acquisition for us. We are combining two companies with complementary expertise and a remarkably similar culture focused on innovation and excellence NextWindow’s development of optical touch technology complements SMART’s efforts, and I’m delighted that we are becoming part of SMART. “SMART serves a range of markets, and it is timely to diversify our revenue base beyond the sectors we already serve,” says Nancy Knowlton, SMART’s CEO. “NextWindow‘s core values, business model, patent portfolio and focus on the consumer market make it an attractive acquisition for us.” “We are combining two companies with complementary expertise and a remarkably similar culture focused on innovation and excellence,” says Al Monro, NextWindow’s CEO. “NextWindow’s development of optical touch technology complements SMART’s efforts, and I’m delighted that we are becoming part of SMART.” In the transaction, RBC Capital Markets were financial advisors to SMART and Cowen and Company, LLC were financial advisors to NextWindow. About NextWindow Founded in 2001, NextWindow is a designer and manufacturer of optical touch screens for integration into all-in-one computers, computer displays and large-format screens. NextWindow is a leader in optical touch technology, enabling OEMs, ODMs and resellers to add touch-screen capability to their products. With offices in New Zealand, Taiwan, Singapore and the United States, the company provides cost-effective manufacturing for PCs as well as customized solutions for kiosks, digital signage and interactive education. www.nextwindow.com About SMART SMART Technologies, the global leader in interactive whiteboards, develops easy-to-use integrated products and services that can improve the way the world works and learns. For more than 20 years, innovation and commitment to excellence have been at the core of our business. We help educators achieve better results with technology products that support student-centered learning. We help businesses become more productive with easy-to-use collaboration solutions that enable better results. Our success is driven by our deep commitment to and engagement with both the education and business communities. www.smarttech.com For more information, please contact: Marina Geronazzo Manager, Public Relations SMART Technologies Phone +1.403.407.5088 Cell +1.403.605.6607 Web www.smarttech.com ### RELATED Calgary's Smart Technologies acquires high-tech rival. Dan Healing, Calgary Herald, 4/26/10 SMART Technologies acquires NextWindow to move into the touch screen business Dean Takahashi, VenureBeat 4/25/10 NextWindow, shunned by local investors, goes to offshore buyer Chris Keall, 4/26/10, The National Business Review (NZ) [UPDATE: A spokeswoman for NextWindow told NBR the company's NZ office would be retained in the wake of the Smart Technology deal, and that there would be no change to staff.] "NextWindow revenue surged to $40 million last year (from the previous year's $6.5 million) as Microsoft’s Windows 7 software helped push its touchscreen technology toward the mainstream.  The Auckland-based company sells its touchscreen panel to Dell, HP, Sony, NEC and other large computer companies. HP’s TouchSmart series (pictured above) is one line of PCs that features technology made by NextWindow."

LM3Labs' Catchyoo Interactive Koi Pond; release of ubiq'window 2.6 Development Kit and Reader

Catchyoo Koi FX, from LM3Labs

Catchyoo Koi FX from Nicolas Loeillot on Vimeo.

The music on the video clip is by the band Remioromen, from Japan.

LM3Labs recently released ubiq'window 2.6 Pack, a development kit and reader that handles gesture interaction for proximity touch-less technology based on computer vision.  It includes a calibration mode, usage statistics, and is compliant with Windows 7.  In the near future, LM3Labs will release new software for their partners and ubiq'window developers.

About LM3Labs:
"Focused on fast transformation of innovation into unique products, LM3Labs is a recognized pioneer in computer vision-based interactivity solutions. LM3Labs is a fast growing company based in Tokyo, Japan and Sophia-Antipolis, France."  -LM3Labs Blog 

Game Creators and Cartoon Network: More games to create, play, and share online -Star Wars Clone Wars, Ben 10, Batman the Brave and the Bold, and More!

Summer will be here before we know it, and there will be school kids with lots of time on their hands.  I'm sure kids (and parents) will be happy to learn that the The Cartoon Network has beefed up its Game Creator Central website and has expended the number of games available that allow users to build and play their own games. This should keep would-be game developers busy on rainy summer days.

Although some teachers might frown upon cartoon-related content, the creating games is a learning process and can help young people become more interested in "STEM"-related studies and careers.  (STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math)

About Game Creator Central

"Game Creator Central is a free games site that lets you build your own games with your favorite characters from Ben 10: Alien Force, Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Star Wars: The Clone Wars and then send them to Cartoon Network's online game gallery for everyone to play. Plus, you can play tons of games made by other players, rate your favorites or share your creations with your friends. Welcome to the biggest user-generated game site in the world!"

Links to games for playing and building:
Ben 10 Alien Force Game
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Screen Shot of Instructions, from Cartoon Network's Game Creator's Website:

RELATED
The Cartoon Network is affiliated with TimeWarner and Turner, and they are hiring!

Exploring the Design Space in Technology- Augmented Dance at CHI 2010: Celine Latulipe's team from UNC-Charlotte

I was at the CHI conference in Atlanta for a few days earlier this month, where I participated in a workshop on on the next generation of human-interaction and emerging technologies for education.  While I was at the conference, I managed to attend several interesting presentations, which I'll be including in future posts.  I was not able to stay for the entire conference.  The good thing is that many of the conference participants provided links to video, photos, slides, and related papers!

I had a chance to see a performance of dancers from the Dance.Draw team, headed by Dr. Celine Latulipe from UNC-Charlotte.  Dr. Latulipe is involved in several related projects that explore creativity, interaction, dance, music, and art:

Description of the performances held at the April CHI 2010 Conference, Atlanta, Georgia:

Layered Surveillance - A Collaborative Interactive Art Installation 
Celine Latulipe, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Annabel Manning, New Media Artist
View Video Demonstration
Artist Annabel Manning explores the world of immigration and identity, and explores imagery related to border crossings and surveillance. Computer scientist Celine Latulipe explores embodied, collaborative interaction. The intersection of these two worlds leads to research in embodied collaborative interaction and an interactive art exhibit in which participants can explore both static images through interactive layers, and moving video through interactive surveillance lenses. Participants can explore alone or with others, using gyroscopic mice to control different aspects of the artwork. The participants are led, through interaction, to contemplate the (in)visibility of the immigrant and the agency of surveillance.


Photos from the Layered Surveillance Flickr Photostream (Annabel Manning)



Exploring the Design Space in Technology- Augmented Dance (Dance.Draw)
Celine Latulipe, Sybil Huskey, David Wilson, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA
Mike Wirth, Queens University of Charlotte, USA
Berto Gonzalez, Arthur Carroll, Melissa Word, Erin Carroll, Vikash Singh, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA
Danielle Lottridge, University of Toronto, Canada


Video demonstration of the Dance.Draw project (mp4 file)
"This performance is part of an ongoing Dance.Draw project at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, which investigates lightweight methods for integrating dance motion with interactive visualizations and enhancing audience interaction with dance."



-Photo from the Dance Draw website 


RELATED

References for Layered Surveillance:

	C. Latulipe, I. Bell, C. L. Clarke, and C. S. Kaplan. sym-Tone: Two-handed manipulation of tone reproduction curves. In GI 2006 Proceedings, pages 9--16. Canadian Information Processing Society, 2006. C. Latulipe and A. Manning. Interactive surveillance: Audience interaction with moving digital paintings. Interactive Installation at the (re)Actor3 Digital Live Art Conference, September 2008. http://www.digitalliveart.com/. L. Loke, A. T. Larssen, T. Robertson, and J. Edwards. Understanding movement for interaction design: frameworks and approaches. Personal Ubiquitous Comput., 11(8):691--701, 2007. D. Maynes-Aminzade, R. Pausch, and S. Seitz. Techniques for interactive audience participation. In ICMI '02:Proceedings of the 4th IEEE International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces, page 15, Washington, DC, USA, 2002. IEEE Computer Society. S. S. Snibbe and H. S. Raffle. Social immersive media: pursuing best practices for multi-user interactive camera/projector exhibits. In CHI '09: Proceedings of the 27th international conference on Human factors in computing systems, pages 1447--1456, New York, NY, USA, 2009. ACM.

Below is a post I wrote about Dance.Draw in 2008:

DANCE.DRAW: EXQUISITE INTERACTION
(Updated)

"The movement of the visualizations are artifacts in real-time of the movements of the dancers. They draw while they dance, they dance together and they draw together. Every performance generates a new visual imprint." -DanceDraw website

Interactive multimedia technology, blended with the arts!

Dr. Celene LaTulipe, from UNC-Charlotte's Software and Information Systems Department, Professor Sybil Huskey, from the dance department, dance students, and others collaborated to create an amazing performance that I had the opportunity to see performed during the Visualization in the World Symposium in April (2008).

If you look closely, you will see that each dancer holds two wireless mice, one in each hand. The mice trigger the visualization that is projected in the background. Dr. LaTulipe has focused some of her research on two-handed computer interaction. It is interesting to see how her work has been applied to this beautiful "off-the-desktop" application.

Dance.Draw is a work in progress- visit the following links for more information:

Website (Updated)
Movie
Technical Info
Dr. Kosara's Eager Eyes post about Dance.Draw

Note:
Dr. LaTulipe was my HCI professor- Dr. Kosara was my Visualization/Visual Communication professor.

Children and Technology: "A 2.5 Year-Old Has A First Encounter With An iPad"

Handing his daughter a new iPad, the daddy says, "We have a new toy. Are you ready for a new toy?!" Of course she's ready!


Info from Todd Lappin's YouTube Channel:

"A fascinating UI experiment. My daughter likes playing with my iPhone, but this was her very first encounter with an iPad. As you'll see, she took right to it... although she too wonders why it doesn't have a camera! More critical comment on her user-interface test here: http://laughingsquid.com/a-2-5-year-old-uses-an-ipad-for-... PS: The spelling apps she uses in the video are FirstWords Animals and FirstWords Vehicles. They're great... except for the fact that the splash screen UI is non-intuitive for her. ;-)" -Todd Lappin (the dad in the video)

RELATED

Todd Lapin's Laughing Squid post: A 2.5 Year-Old Uses an iPad for the First Time

"If you’re good at understanding kid-speak, you’ll also notice that she immediately saw its potential as a video-display device. She lamented the lack of a camera, and wondered about its potential for playing games"

CHI 2010 Course 

New Methods for Designing for and with the iChild: Strategies for Today's Mobile, Social, and Internet Technologies

I took this class when I attended the recent CHI 2010 conference. We worked in groups and I was assigned the role of a 7 year-old child, designing an iPad app for "kid reporters".  It was fun.  Note:  For the iPad to be used this way in education, it really needs to have a camera/video camera.

The Children of Cyberspace

(Brad Stone, New York Times, January 9, 2010)

"...But these are also technology tools that children even 10 years older did not grow up with, and I’ve begun to think that my daughter’s generation will also be utterly unlike those that preceded it.   Researchers are exploring this notion too. They theorize that the ever-accelerating pace of technological change may be minting a series of mini-generation gaps, with each group of children uniquely influenced by the tech tools available in their formative stages of development."... “People two, three or four years apart are having completely different experiences with technology,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. “College students scratch their heads at what their high school siblings are doing, and they scratch their heads at their younger siblings. It has sped up generational differences.”..." -Brad Stone

... (more info)  

Mark Zuckerburg's Recent Keynote at f8 about Facebook's OpenGraph: The goal is to create a connected, mapped web that is more "social, personalized, smarter, and semantically aware".

During the mid-2000s I took a few courses related to web-development and internet programming.  This was before the twitterfacebookyoutube era.  There's a lot of catching up to do.

Today, I'm watching a few videos from the recent f8 conference. It took place on April 21st, 2010 in San Francisco.

So what is f8?

"f8 is a Facebook conference where developers and entrepreneurs collaborate on the future of personalized and social technologies. At f8, members of the Facebook team and the developer community will explore a variety of topics including new tools and techniques, business growth strategies and open technologies." -Facebook

Mark Zuckerburg

You can find more f8 videos by following the link below:
http://apps.facebook.com/feightlive/

Here are some tidbits of info from the first video:

• The number of people using Facebook on mobile devices is rapidly increasing.
• More than 400 million people are on Facebook.
• One step permission is now available for developers and users, users will be clear about what permissions they are given.
• New policy allows websites to store Facebook users' permission data beyond the previously imposed 24 limit.
• Facebook is ramping up to handle monitory transactions:  See http://developers.facebook.com/credits

During the first video, Open Graph is discussed:

• "Open Graph puts people at the center of the web, becoming a set of personally and semantically meaningful connections between people and things".
• Facebook maps out people and relationships of the online "social graph".
• Pandora maps out music connections, Yelp maps out small businesses.
• News websites map out current events and news content
• The goal is to create a connected, mapped web that is more "social, personalized, smarter, and semantically aware."

Closing keynote remarks:  "The world can be a lot better, and we can make it that way."

Somewhat Related:
Microsoft announced Docs.com the day of the f8 conference. The description is in the fourth video.  It links with Facebook and was designed to be "social".