"The World Is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education", by Curtis J. Bonk

I couldn't resist posting all of the book-study resources for Curtis J. Bonk's book, "The World Is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education.".

The book is the center of a required book-study for the principals in my school district.  Even if you are not an educator, you'll find the links related to each chapter intriguing.

Here is the link to my post:

"The World Is Open" Book Study Resources (Megalist)- Required reading for principals in my school district!

The book's website has more information.

Bill Buxton's Presentation Video: "A Little Tale about Touch" (Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2010)

I am always inspired by Bill Buxton's words of wisdom.  If you haven't heard of him, know that he's been around for a very long time, coming to the world of computer science and IT through his passion for music. According to his on-line biography, "Bill Buxton is a relentless advocate for innovation, design, and - especially - the appropriate consideration of human values, capacity, and culture in the conception, implementation, and use of new products and technologies. This is reflected in his research, teaching, talks, and writing - including his column on design and innovation for BusinessWeek.com, and his 2007 book, Sketching User Experiences."

A Little Tale about Touch "It's about the physical and the social context where it is happening" (Bill Buxton)


RELATED
“The only true voyage of discovery is not to go to new places, but to see the world through different eyes”.  - Bill Buxton, quoting Proust (1913, Remembrance of Things Past)

Bill Buxton: After the Show (Interviewed by Caroline Goles, Worldwide Partner Group Business Manager)


Bill Buxton's Website
Buxton, William. (1994) The three mirrors of interaction: a holistic approach to user interfaces. In L.W. MacDonald & J. Vince (Eds.) Interacting with virtual environments. New York: Wiley.

Here is a quote from the above reference:

"The thesis of this chapter is that we should consider technology in terms of the fidelity with which it reflects human capabilities on three levels:


* physical: how we are built and what motor/sensory skills we possess;

* cognitive: how we think, learn, solve problems and what cognitive skills we possess;

* social: how we relate to our social milieu, including group structure and dynamics, power, politics, and what social skills we possess.

Our metaphor is one of three separate mirrors, each reflecting one of these levels. In order to be judged acceptable, designs must provide an acceptable degree of fidelity in how they reflect each of these three aspects of human makeup and activity. The benefit is in how the model can provide a simple but valuable test that can be used during the design process. We now look at each of these mirrors in turn."

Wendy Keay-Bright's ReacTickles revised for use on the multi-touch SMARTTable!

Wendy Keay-Bright works at the Cardiff School of Art and Design in the UK, and is part of the Sensory Design Research Group.   She has focused much of her research on interactive technologies and participatory design, working children with autism, educators, and others to create applications such as ReacTickles and ReactColors, originally designed for use on interactive whiteboards.  These applications have been found to be especially effective with young people who have autism spectrum disorders. ReacTickles has been updated for use on the SMARTTable, a multi-touch, multi-user interactive table that supports collaboration, depicted in the video clips below:




(Posted on agent4changenet's YouTube channel.)

RELATED
Tabletop ReacTickles looks like a SMART move
MerlinJohnOnline 4/25/10


Note: Wendy Keay-Bright is involved with the ESRC Technology Enhanced Learning ECHOES project, which stands for "Improving Children's Social Interaction through Exploratory Learning in a Multimodal Environment."

Quick links to videos of new SMARTTable activities

Here are some links to videos of new SMARTTable activities:

• SMART Table Activity -- Types of Sentences
• SMART Table Activity -- Three forms solid, liquid, and gas
• SMART Table Activity -- Putting things in Order
• SMART Table Activity -- Piles of Polygons
• SMART Table Activity -- Hot or Cold
• SMART Table Activity -- Division
• SMART Table Activity -- Contractions
• SMART Table Activity -- A Little more
• SMART Table Application -- Fächerübergreifend

I'll post more about these later.  We have a SMARTTable at my main school, so I'm curious to see how these work out.  If you are working with interactive tabletop applications for students, especially those with disabilities such as autism, please let me know!

Will the iPad rejuvenate journalism and sustain the growth of "slow media"? -Video via ZDNet

The Summit at Stanford 2010 wrapped up at the end of July. Those who had the $1995.00 to attend were treated to two and 1/2 days of highlights of "significant economic, political and commercial trends affecting the global technology industries".

The videoclip below, taken during the Stanford Summit, is an excerpt of a discussion of a panel about journalism in the era of the iPad - Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch, Tony Perkins, moderator of the panel and founder of AlwaysOn, Quentin Hardy of Forbes, and Robert Scoble of Scobelizer theorize that longer-forms of journalism might have a new life on the iPad, based on its beautiful, touchable design.



Goodbye, "McDonald News"?

SOMEWHAT RELATED
Here are 5 examples of the 100 movers and shakers who presented at the Stanford Summit, as posted on the conference website:

Matt Grob
Sr. VP, Engineering and Head of Corporate Research and Development, Qualcomm

Jaron Lanier
Author, You Are Not a Gadget, 2010 Time Magazine top 100 most influential people list,

Phil McKinney
Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Personal Systems Group, Hewlett-Packard Company

Barry Silbert
Founder & CEO, SecondMarket

Dwight Badger
CEO, Advanced Equities

SOMEWHAT RELATED
Qualcomm's Matt Grob on Augmented Reality
Andrew Bellay, AlwaysOn, 7/28/10

Settlers of Catan Game by Vectorform Game Studio, on a Microsoft Surface

Vectorform worked with Catan to develop the digital version of the Settlers of Catan for Microsoft's Surface:

The game supports a range of gestures and interactions that are similar to the real game, but without the need to keep up with all of the parts and pieces!



RELATED
A New Frontier for the Settlers of Catan
Vectorform to Launch "The Settlers of Catan" for Microsoft Surface"
Lindsay Ruthven, Vectorform Blog 8/2/10
"Features:
• Full multi-touch from the Microsoft Surface allows all players to interact with their elements of the board at once.
• A digital playing surface breathes new life into the Catan experience through graphics and animations.
• “State-free-trade” allow players to swap cards without entering modes or pressing buttons, keeping the experience as pure as possible.
• Customized art unifies the multi-touch interface with Mayfair’s 4th Edition release of The Settlers of Catan to create a seamless play experience.
• Integration with real-world objects to maintain the original Catan board game feel."

Settlers of Catan

Back to school: Video clips that help students with autism learn and feel calm at the same time!

One of the schools I serve as a school psychologist has a number of students with severe autism.  Over the past year or so, each classroom was outfitted with a new interactive white board (IWB). We've found that multimedia content displayed on these large screens is much more engaging than what is viewed on computers with much smaller displays.
The exciting news is that some of the students who have minimal interest in computers pay a great deal of attention to activities on the IWBs.  Students who have self-stimulatory or repetitive behaviors that interfere with their ability to engage in traditional activities don't seem to exhibit these patterns nearly as much when the focus is on the IWB.   In my opinion, IWBs are great tools for reaching and teaching young people who have autism spectrum disorders!

I'm in the process of creating a variety of short video clips that teachers can embed in learning activities that also provide a way for students to reduce their levels of anxiety, agitation, and/or repetitive behaviors.

The following videos are my first experiments, and are not as polished as I'd like.  They are best viewed on a large-screen display or IWB, set to high definition.  Although various students have viewed these videos a few times this week, they were a great hit. In some cases, we found it useful to loop the video, especially for students who require repetition of content.

The videos were shot using a small hand-held Panasonic HD camcorder, and quickly edited in iMovie. The music was either taken from the iMovie music library or created using riffs in Garage Band, an Apple iLife product.

Enjoy!

Lily Pond and Music

In this video, I used a few subtitles to direct the viewer to points of interest, such as the little grasshopper hiding in the pink lily and a dragonfly, which appears near the end of the video.

Butterflies and Flowers Set to Music

I set this version to piano music for a student who listens to piano music as a coping strategy. I plan to create another version with other genres of music. This particular score was created with piano riffs from Garage Band.

Up Close at the Charleston Aquarium - with relaxing music


Even the most inattentive students paid maximum to this video when it was looped!  I think they liked the variety of sea life, especially the turtles.  Tip:  If you plan to capture video at an aquarium, plan to visit at a time where there are few visitors!

I can't wait to take my video camera to the Atlanta aquarium.


Minnows and Music


The minnows swimming around in the murky green tank are a little boring, but things get slightly more exciting when the bait-shop owner feeds them. The music makes up for what the video lacks. The students didn't mind at all.

Jellyfish at the Discovery Place Aquarium, Charlotte, NC - with music

I'd like to visit Discovery Place at a less-crowded time and re-capture the jellyfish in action from a better vantage point.
UPDATE
I'd like to see if there are similar videos set to music by William Orbit.
I found this video on YouTube of William Orbit's "Sea Green", set to video created by a fan:


Below is "Surfin", great for chilling - needs some video...


(Cross-posted on the TechPsych blog)

"Cute Doggies" Photo-Globe Mash-up using Google Earth and a Flickr Set (How-to)

The above photo is a screen shot of photos of just about every dog I know, and some that happened to cross my path. In this post, I'll share some information about how to create a photo-globe in Google Earth.  I'll post a "how-to" video in the future.

The first step is to make sure you have lots of pictures related to your theme uploaded to a site such as Flickr.  (You can also create a photo-globe using pictures from your computer's hard drive.)

To get the pictures into Google Earth, I used the Image Overlay feature, and in the "link" textbox, I entered the image URL for each picture that I'd previously loaded as a set in Flickr.

To do prepare for this, make sure you go to "view" tab on the upper left-hand section of your screen, and make sure that "toolbar" is checked. Also make sure that "Grid" is selection, as this will help make it easier to arrange and align your pictures.  You can turn off this feature later. Near the top of the screen, click on the Image Overlay icon. (I've highlighted it in the picture.)

You'll have to enter the URL of the image you'd like to add to the globe in the "Link" textbox, which I've highlighted in the above picture.  In this case, I've used a link to one of my pictures in a Flickr set I created for this project.

One thing to keep in mind is that the picture will take up a much larger space than you might prefer, so you'll have to adjust the size using the green markers:


The following directions are from the "Positioning the Imagery in the Viewer" section in the help section:

1. Use the center cross-hair marker to slide the entire overlay on the globe and position it from the center. (Tip: do this first.)
2. Use the triangle marker to rotate the image for better placement.
3. Use any of the corner cross-hair markers to stretch or skew the selected corner. If you press the Shift key when selecting this marker, the image is scaled from the center.
4. Use any of the four side anchors to stretch the image in or out of from the selected side. If you press the Shift key when doing this, the image is scaled from the center.

TIP:  Try positioning the center of the image as a reference point first, and then use the Shift key in combination with one of the anchors to scale the image for best positioning.




In Flickr,  to get the image URL, go to the "share this" tab above the picture you'd like to put on the globe. You need to select the one that says "Grab the HTML", as shown below:

Select ONLY the code that comes after "src=" and before "width".

Then repeat. You can add place-marks that contain URLs that link to additional information about the subject of a picture, such as blog posts with embedded videos and/or text related to a picture, and so forth.

The process of building a photo-globe in Google Earth is a bit tedious.  If someone has a short-cut to share, please let me know!


TAG GALAXY - A "shortcut":
If you have a burning desire to create a quick photo-globe using random pictures, you see what the Tag Galaxy has to offer.  Enter "dogs" or whatever theme you want for your photo-globe, and in an instant, it will be created from publicly available pictures from Flickr. The application uses the Flickr API.

Here is an example of a "Dog" Tag Galaxy:

You can spin the Tag Galaxy globe by using a mouse, or if you have a touch screen computer or a SMARTBoard, with your fingers.

Here is the slideshow from the pictures selected for the photo-globe:


Why is this important to me?
The students at one of my schools started back last week, due to the school's "year-round" schedule. The students in this program have multiple special needs, including severe autism, and most learn best through visual and multimedia representations of information. I devote some of my spare time creating interactive content for the students, and I thought this might work out nicely.

To address the student's special learning needs, a number of new SMARTBoards were recently installed at the school, and now every classroom has an interactive whiteboard, including the room I usually use with students. We also have a few Dell Studio One All-in-One touch screen computers and a multi-touch SMARTTable.  Interactive multimedia content works nicely on these screens! (I'm planning on making a "how-to" video when I get the chance.)

RESOURCES
Google Earth
Flickr
Programmable Web (My hunch is that this site might provide some information about shortcuts for creating a photo-globe in Google Earth.)

New Hollywood Hard Rock Cafe Sparkles with Interactive Multi-touch Wall and Microsoft Surface Booths!

I came across a blogpost entitled "Tourist in my own town". In this post, the author shares is positive experience of his visit to the new Hard Rock Cafe, located on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  I loved his comment:  "A whole wall of Microsoft software running and not a single BSOD!"  In addition to the interactive wall, visitors have the chance to play with the content on Microsoft's interactive Surface tables. Below is a picture from the post from the Sure Beats Work blog:



-Sure Beats Work


A recent post on the Hard Rock Cafe blog provides more information about the interactive technologies at the Hollywood site: "Hard Rock International Rocks Its Way to Hollywood Boulevard":


New Look ~ New Vibe ~ New Memorabilia Technology
"In the latest example of Hard Rock’s concept-driven design evolution, the Hollywood Boulevard cafe was developed to integrate technology, creating a new look and vibe that will rock Hollywood. Hard Rock Cafe Hollywood on Hollywood Boulevard showcases new and unique interactive experiences for guests – from an 18’ x 4’ Rock Wall™ to touch screens in booths throughout the cafe to Microsoft Surface™, each featuring innovative multi-touch technology that enables fans to explore the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia collection and virtually tour all of Hard Rock’s venues worldwide."

"In addition to the cutting-edge multimedia memorabilia experience, hundreds of items from Hard Rock’s iconic collection adorn the walls of Hard Rock Cafe Hollywood on Hollywood Boulevard, including items from many of the world’s most beloved and recognizable musicians, as well as contemporary artists with local ties. Key memorabilia items are now on display, from Jimi Hendrix’s purple crushed velvet hat; to Janis Joplin’s love letter to then boyfriend Peter LeBlanc; Jim Morrison’s leather pants and handwritten lyrics to “L.A. Woman”; to Katy Perry’s sparkly dress and Fergie’s tour outfit worn while on tour with the Black Eyed Peas."

The memorabilia wall was created for the Hard Rock Cafe by Obscura Digital, a company that is involved in off-the-desktop ubiquitous computing, including ambient technologies that include natural-user interfaces and interaction. Obscura Digital aims to "make data pervasive and accessible in almost any situation, allowing virtually any surface to be turned into a portal to the Internet".  


The Memorabilia Wall has been installed in several Hard Rock Cafes around the world- additional pictures can be found on the Obscura Digital website.The first installation of the wall was at the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas in 2009. - Below is the interaction of the wall at the Las Vegas Hard Rock Cafe:

-Obscura Digital

The following video, set to Beck's "Elevator Music", provides a great demonstration of the Hard Rock Cafe Memorabilia application as experienced on the Surface:

Hard Rock memorabilia app for Microsoft Surface (extended) from Duncan/Channon on Vimeo.
(The music in the video "Elevator Music, by Beck.)


RELATED
My megapost about the Hard Rock Cafe interactive wall and website:

Interactive Memorabilia at the Hard Rock Cafe: 
Microsoft's Multi-touch Rock Wall, Companion Surface Installations, and Awesome Touch-Responsive Interactive Memorabilia Website

Below is a screenshot of the main portal of the Hard Rock Cafe interactive memorabilia website, which compliments the "real" wall. You can interact with all 1532 items and learn more about the history behind the various artists.  It is fun to play with on a touch-screen display!


Duncan Channon: Sin City Memorabilia Interfaces


SOMEWHAT RELATED
Obscura Digital
Obscura Digital's Cuelight, and interactive pool table at the SOHO Esquire House:

Cuelight from Obscura Digital on Vimeo.
"Featured at the Esquire House's "Ultimate Bachelor Pad" in NYC, the one-of-a kind Obscura CueLight projection system turns a game of pool into an amazing interactive art display"

Wrangler Bluebell Jeans Interactive Ad on my TouchSmart PC -"How-to", plus a demo of ad on iPad

The content of this blog post was removed at the request of Wrangler.

Interesting blog roll and links on Christian Zoellner's TUI Blog by FORM+ZWECK; FILE Electronic Arts Festival

Christian Zoellner blogs about "tangible interaction & new interfaces" on the TUI Blog by Form + Zweck, a design magazine.  Christian is a designer and "presearcher" who lives and works in Berlin, Germany.  He teaches at the University of Fine Arts, Berlin. He maintains the Christian Zoellner website.

As I write this post, Christian is attending the FILE electronic arts festival, which focuses on "interactive art in public spaces, game design, and sonification".  It sounds like a fantastic conference! The festival is actually a group of events:  File Machinima, File Documenta, File Media Art, File Hypersonica, File Games, File Symposium, File Prix Lux, and workshops.


Christian Zoellner's Links:

• algorhythmics
• alt N research
• arduino
• bausteln
• cc
• christian zoellner
• createdigitalmotion.com
• createdigitalmusic.com
• de:bug
• doors of perception
• form+zweck
• fritzing
• groovemechanic
• hardhack
• interactiondesign.org
• interactivemultimediatechnology
• intuity.medialab
• M.I.T
• maker faire
• my future me
• nui-group
• openprocessing
• prado media lab
• processing
• salection
• smiles at strangers
• TEI conference
• the kitchen
• tinker
• tui.blog @ youtube

(I just noticed I'm on this list of links.)

RELATED

FILE SAO PAULO 2010:  July 27-August 29

"This year, besides the Centro Cultural FIESP - Ruth Cardoso programme, FILE launches FILE PAI (Paulista Avenue Interactive = Interactive Public Art), a project of digital public art that will occupy several spaces at Paulista Avenue with interactive works of art.

0 - Interactive Projection, 1 - Brigadeiro subway station, 2 - Electronic sound bus, 3 - Nomadic electronic graffiti, 4 - Paraíso subway station, 5 - Fnac store, 6 - FIESP Cultural Center - Ruth Cardoso, 7 - Trianon-Masp subway station, 8 - Conjunto Nacional building, 9 - Consolação subway station, 10 - Cervantes Institute, and 11 - São Paulo Art Museum - MASP compose the FILE PAI set, which intends to highlight the significance of interactive public art in order to understand and to absorb the new social phenomena provided by technology and, thus, to constitute strategies to interconnect with those new mass behaviors."

SOMEWHAT RELATED
Building Music at Spark Festival 09 (opens up to a full screen video of a musical building,from  Play the Magic.

Interactive Mirror, by Interference Inc. (Video)

Via Seth Sandler, who worked on this app for Interference Inc.

RELATED
Interactive Mirror (2008)

Interactive Mirror from Alpay Kasal on Vimeo.

Virtual Reality Effectively Treats PTSD and Related Disorders: Skip Rizzo's TEDx Talk about promising interdisciplinary work at the Institute for Creative Technologies

-Skip Rizzo, Co-Director of the VRPSYCH Lab at the USC Institute of Creative Technologies (ICT)

Note: Skip's talk begins about 4 minutes into the presentation.


In this TEDx Talk video, Marilyn Flynn, Dean of the University of Southern California's School of Social Work, introduces Skip Rizzo, a research scientist and Co-Director of the VRPSYCH Lab at the USC  Institute of Creative Technologies (ICT).  Skip's research has focused on the use of virtual realty and related technologies for treatment and training purposes.

In this talk,  Skip provides an overview of the interdisciplinary research taking place at the Institute of Creative Technologies (ICT). Skip goes on to explain the urgency of ICT's current work, focusing on the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other problems experienced by people who have sacrificed so much to serve our country in places of wars and conflicts such as Iraq and Afganistan.  Neary one-third of our military personnel are significantly at-risk for developing PTSD or other debilitating conditions that will negatively affect their functioning upon returning home.

Skip goes on to show how the latest VR (Virtual Reality) related technologies and applications combine with with evidence-based intervention and treatment strategies to successfully treat PTSD.  Recent research indicates that 75% of clients treated through 10 sessions of exposure therapy no longer exhibit clinical symptoms of the disorder. Given the numbers of people suffering from PTSD and related disorders, the potential for this treatment method holds promise.

Skip points out that one problem many veterans or their loved ones experience is that they are not aware that effective treatment is available.  Additionally, there are few therapists who are trained in the use of VR as a therapeutic tool.  By working with USC's School of Social Work, this may no longer be the case in the future.  Therapist can learn ways to provide effective evidence-based treatment through interacting with a "virtual human" application that uses an "intelligent" character that simulates the conversational exchanges that are likely to occur during treatment sessions. Additionally, the research behind this effort has resulted in the creation of an on-line system that includes virtual guides that can provide support and guidance to people suffering from PSTD in order to get them to engage in the treatment they require.


Here is information from the Institute of Creative Technologies regarding Skip Rizzo's TEDx USC Talk:
Skip Rizzo's TEDx USC Talk Now Online
"ICT’s Skip Rizzo spoke at this year’s TEDx USC conference and was introduced by Dean Marilyn Flynn of the USC School of Social Work. Video of their talk is now available for viewing on the TEDx Talk’s Channel on YouTube...Of the more than 1.6 million men and women deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, nearly one-third are expected to return with disabling combat stress disorders that may affect some for a lifetime if left untreated.

Through and unlikely marriage of social work and cutting edge technology, the USC Institute for Creative Technologies and the USC School of Social Work are revolutionizing the training methods for a new generation of mental health professionals, shifting the way clinicians learn to interact with their patients."
  
Introduction: Marilyn Flynn, Dean, USC School of Social Work
Virtual Reality Demonstration: Albert “Skip” Rizzo, Research Scientist, USC Institute for Creative Technologies 

RELATED
USC Institute for Creative Technologies
"The USC Institute for Creative Technologies brings together high-tech tools + classic storytelling to pioneer new ways to teach + to train."
Virtual Reality & Convergence with Game Technology IMT blogpost, 7/2006
Convergence:  Video Games and Virtual Reality for Special Needs: Autism, ADD, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Social Skills TechPsych blogpost, 8/2006
(I will revisit this and related topics in future posts.)

Online Lego Universe: "Lego tries to construct a new empire with pixels, not plastic" (David Kushner, IEEE Spectrum)

The July issue of IEEE Spectrum is full of articles for techies and the tech-curious. Although the cover article, The Chrystal That Will Change Everything" is intriguing, the article that caught my eye was Building the Lego Universe Online, by David Kushner. 

Photo: Holly Lindem; LEGO Sculpture: Nathan Sawaya, in Building the Lego Universe Online, David Kushner, IEEE Spectrum, July 2010

"...unlike traditional Lego play, the online version will offer unprecedented opportunities for players to share and interact. The sprawling Lego fantasyland will be able to support more than half a million "brick heads" from around the world. Each player will start by assembling a personal Lego miniature figure to serve as his or her avatar. Players can then venture into the live Lego Universe, where forces of chaos and destruction—monsters such as the Darklings—threaten to destroy the Land of Imagination."    -David Kushner

SCREENSHOT: LEGO Universe
Nathan Sawaya, the artist behind the creation in the above picture of a boy and a laptop, is known for his life-size LEGO sculptures, is one of just nine LEGO Certified Professionals. 

The LEGO Universe website has media resource section that includes game screenshots, videos of game-play, pictures of concept art, wallpaper downloads, and information for the press.


Video courtesy of joystiq BETA:
LEGO Universe trailers rebuild our capacity to love. Griffen McElroy, July 23, 2010

Connected Youth: Theme of the July-Sept issue of IEEE Pervasive Computing

The guest editors of the July-September 2010 issue of IEEE's Pervasive Computing magazine are John Canny, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Jason Hong, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Human-Computer Interaction Institute.  Their article provides an introduction to the publication's timely theme, Connected Youth.  The editors find that the study of the current generation of children and teens provides useful information about the future of computing as in integrates more seamlessly into our daily lives, the way we learn, and our relationships and interaction with others across time, place, and generations.

I'm in the middle of reading this issue of Pervasive Computing.  The articles that have caught my eye so far include "Story Time for the 21st Century", which describes the research an implementation of an interactive book-reading system designed to connect children, family members, and grandparents who live in distant locations. The system involves videoconferencing with paper books and interactive content, and enables grandparents to read with their grandchildren via the Internet.



Additional information about Story Play, a system that is still under development, can be found on the Nokia Research Center website: "Family Story Play: Story Time for the 21st Century".  A follow-up project to Story Play is Story Visit:



I'll post more about the articles from the Connected Youth issue of Pervasive Computing in the future.

The Weather Channel on Microsoft Surface at WPC 2010

Below is a video of a demonstration of the Weather Channel application for Microsoft Surface:


The Weather Channel on Microsoft Surface
Eric Havir, MSDN Blog, 7/19/2010

The Weather Channel

Multi-touch Parallel Coordinates for Interactive InfoVis (video and Info) via Dr. Robert Kosara

Dr. Robert Kosara's area of research is information and data visualization. He is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science, College of Computing and Informatics, at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and also a member of the Charlotte Visualization Center.   He's fascinated with parallel sets/categorical data visualization.

Dr. Kosara is known for his deep thoughts about information visualization, as well as persuading others that they should think deep thoughts about the subject, too! His latest work is an example of interesting multi-touch interaction with representation of parallel coordinates using multi-touch trackpads commonly found on laptops, including the Macbook Pro.

Indirect Multi-touch Interaction for Brushing in Parallel Coordinates:

Indirect Multi-Touch Interaction for Brushing in Parallel Coordinates from Robert Kosara on Vimeo.


BELOW IS INFORMATION FROM THE VIMEO WEBSITE:

"This is the companion video for a paper we submitted recently. It describes a technique for interacting with parallel coordinates using the multi-touch trackpad found on laptops like Apple's MacBook Pro. 


Below is the abstract from that paper:
Interaction in visualization is often complicated and tedious. Brushing data in a visualization such as Parallel Coordinates allows the user to select data points according to certain criteria. Modifying a brush or combining it with another one usually requires a lot of additional effort and mode switches.
We propose the use of multi-touch interaction to provide fast and convenient interaction with Parallel Coordinates. By using a multi-touch trackpad rather than the screen directly, the users hands do not obscure the visualization during interaction. Using one, two, three, or four fingers, the user can easily and quickly perform complex selections. Being able to change the selections rapidly, the user can explore the data set more easily and effectively, and can focus on the data rather than the interaction."


RELATED
Robert Kosara's info about parallel sets
EagarEyes Shorts
IEEE VizWeek 2010 (21st IEEE Visualization Conference; 16th IEEE InfoVis Conference; 5th IEEE VAST Conference)  October 24-29, 2010, Salt Lake City, Utah


A plug for a couple of Dr. Kosara's recent publications:

Caroline Ziemkiewicz, Robert Kosara,
Implied Dynamics in Information Visualization,
Proceedings Advanced Visual Interfaces (AVI), pp. 215–222, 2010. (acceptance rate 20%)

Robert Kosara,
Turning a Table into a Tree: Growing Parallel Sets into a Purposeful Project,
in Steele, Iliinsky (eds), Beautiful Visualization, pp. 193–204, O'Reilly Media, 2010.

Caroline Ziemkiewicz, Robert Kosara,
Embedding Information Visualization Within Visual Representation,
in Ras, Ribarsky (eds), Advances in Information and Intelligent Systems, Studies in Computational Intelligence, Vol. 251, pp. 307–326, Springer Verlag, 2010.