Information from the Microsoft Surface YouTube Channel: "Object Explore is a collaborative travel planner for use by travel consultants and consumers on Microsoft Surface. Explore deep levels of interactive content through intuitive navigation, ensuring the customer doesn't get lost in the process. All content is tailored to the current client and can be taken away through mobile or email. Object Explore is built upon Object Consulting's Object Zoom framework, which brings intuitive Zoom exploration to sectors including retail, finance and museums." - Object Consulting
SOMEWHAT RELATED
I worked on a collaborative travel planning application a few years ago for an HCI class project- before the Surface was unveiled by Microsoft. It would have been fun to implement it in a Surface environment, since applications on the Surface can easily interface with mobile devices.
Below is a screenshot of a working prototype of "navSmart", a mash-up using photo-overlays linking to travel related information, including YouTube videos of related travel videos and information. You spin the globe around to explore possible destinations and vacation activities. This concept worked best on a large touch-screen display.
A lot is happening at one SMART Technologies, one of my favorite "interactive" companies. Not long ago, SMART Technologies, a company most known for interactive whiteboards found in classrooms and businesses, acquired one of my favorite interactive touch-screen display companies, NextWindow. (SMART Technologies' acquisition of NextWindow: A "smart window" to the world)
SMART Technologies is moving ahead into the world of augmented reality (AR) with a new document camera. The company's latest interactive whiteboard, the fourth generation 600i, is ready for stereoscopic 3D content, which is on the way via the Discovery Channel and other media companies. The SMARTTable looks like it will be provided with more content, at least in the UK, where Scholastic has partnered with SMART Technologies to provide multi-touch and multi-student interaction via the collaborative Story Stage application.
For those with money to invest, SMART Technologies has filed for a proposed initial IPO (Initial Public Offering).
New SMART Document Camera 330 is mixed reality ready: Document camera enables exploration of 2D, 3D, animated and audio-enriched content
"Mixed Reality Technology -Manipulate and explore 2D, 3D, text, animation and audio-enriched content on the SMART Board interactive whiteboard by placing a physical object bearing a digital marker under the SMART Document Camera lens"
SMART introduces next-generation SMART Board™ 600i: New projector lowers total cost of ownership and is 3D-ready "Available in both standard and widescreen formats, the latest generation of the 600i system features an improved and easy-to-use extended control panel (ECP) and a fully integrated short-throw projector that is 3D-ready and has a longer lamp life. The newly designed ECP is mounted to the interactive whiteboard bezel, not to the wall, making it aesthetically pleasing and easier to install."
SMART and Scholastic to develop multi-touch educational content: Story Stage application for SMART Table to encourage student creativity and collaboration "Story Stage is an easy-to-use resource designed to facilitate collaborative literacy work. The interactive activities use digital puppets to encourage pairs or groups of children to work together to create their own imaginative retellings of familiar stories."
SMART Classroom Suite 2010 enhances interactive learning: New version offers improved wireless performance and greater support for formative assessment "The software combines classroom management, assessment, lesson creation and assignment management tools in one offering."
Trevor van Gorp works at Affective Design. He presented at the iA Summit 2010, a conference sponsored and run by ASIS&T, the American Society for Information Science and Technology.
In this presentation, Trevor discusses concepts such as emotion, attention, and arousal, the differences between novice and experienced users, differences in goals, such as experiential, goal-directed, how stress affects arousal and performance, and other topics, accompanied by clear examples, of ways to incorporate "emotion and flow" principles into web and information design.
It should be noted that "emotion and flow" strategies have been consciously implemented in video games by designers/developers for a long time, and these concept most likely have value across various digital domains, such as multimedia journalism, interactive television, and interactive surface or large display applications.
Below are the references from the presentation, as posted on SlideShare:
References
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. (1990). Flow - the Psychology of Optimal Experience . New York: Harper Perennial.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. (1990). Flow – the Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper Perennial.
Desmet, Pieter, R. (2002). Designing Emotions . Pieter Desmet. Delft.
Russell, J.A. (1980). “A circumplex model of affect”. In Journal of Personality and Social
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2008). Creativity, Fulfillment and Flow, TED talk. 2008
Fehrman, Kenneth R. and Cherie Fehrman. (2000). Color - The Secret Influence . New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc.
King, Andrew B. “Chapter 2 – Flow in Web Design.” 2003. http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/2/ accessed on January 21/2007.
Hoffman, D.L, Novak, T (1996), “Marketing in hypermedia computer-mediated environments: conceptual foundations’”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 60 pp. 50-68.
Novak, T.P, Hoffman, D.L (1997), “Measuring the flow experience among Web users,” Interval Research Corporation.
Novak, T, Hoffman, D, Young, Y (1998), “Measuring the flow construct in online environments: a structural modeling approach”, Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University, working paper.
Novak, T. P., Hoffman, D. L., and Yung, Y. 2000. Measuring the Customer Experience in Online Environments: A Structural Modeling Approach. Marketing Science 19, 1 (Jan. 2000), 22-42
Rettie, R., (2001), An Exploration of Flow during Internet Use, Internet Research, 11(2), 103 – 113.
Simon, H. A. (1971), “Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World”, in Martin Greenberger, Computers, Communication, and the Public Interest, Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press, ISBN 0-8018-1135-X. pp. 40-41.
van Gorp, Trevor, J. (2006). Emotion, Arousal, Attention and Flow: Chaining Emotional States to Improve Human-Computer Interaction. University of Calgary, Faculty of Environmental Design, Master’s Degree Project
I'm vacationing this week, but since it is impossible for me to fully pull myself away from tech, I grabbed my husband's arm and made a beeline to the iPad display during our walk around Historic Charleston yesterday. Nearly every iPad on the display had been temporarily adopted by a kid. All of them wanted one, and it was clear that the interaction design was intuitive for them to use.
My husband commented that he didn't see what the buzz was all about. His first comment? "How would anyone carry this? It is too big for a pocket or a purse! I pointed out that unlike me, most of the women in the store had huge purses. Huge fancy purses that could probably hold a bazillion iPads. (My mind is made up. I need an iPad AND a huge fancy purse.)
I noticed that a dad of one of the iPad-exploring kids was holding an iPad in a zippered case in his hand, so I asked him about it. It turns out that the guy is a "Virtual IT CIO", so he knows his stuff. He said that he loves his iPad and has no problem carrying it around. Knowing my husband, carrying around the iPad in a case without a handle would be a problem. A deal-breaker.
I guess that the lack of an iPad Murse (man-purse) is something worth considering. We all want to project a professional image, right? I chuckled to myself as I read the following article:
