Thursday, November 6, 2008
Multi-touch, Gestures, Holograms, Oh My!
I've been posting quite a bit about emerging technologies lately on my Interactive Multimedia Technology blog, with lots of photos and video clips. Why? There has been quite a surge lately as new technologies move mainstream, much to my delight.
Microsoft's next operating system, Windows 7, allows for multi-touch and gesture recognition, and with this support, developers and harddware manufacturers are moving ahead. PDC 2008 (Professional Developer's Conference) and WinHEC 2008 (Windows Hardware Engineering Conference) included lots of multi-touch and gesture-based demonstrations. At the same time, CNN's multi-touch magic map wall gained more recognition during a Saturday Night Live parody by Fred Armisen. CNN took emerging technology to the masses on election night via video holograms.
Here are links to some of my recent posts:
Multi-Touch News from WinHEC and PDC
CNN's Holographic Technology: Wolf Blitzer and Jessica Yellin, Anderson Cooper and Will.I.Am, and the Music Video
Searching for Multi-Touch Info? Drivers for Windows 7 available from NextWindow &HP TouchSmart... More about N-Trig....Multi-Touch Resources
Emerging Technologies: SHiFT 08 Conference- Sensor Networks and Data for the Open Internet of Things
Emerging Interactive Technologies: SecondLight from Microsoft, at PDC 2008
Steven Sinofsky Discusses Multi-touch and the HP TouchSmart, Windows 7, and more at PDC 2008
Grafiti - a multi-touch, table-top, surface computing application, from a member of the NUI group
Multi-touch Parody of CNN's Magic Map Wall: Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update MegaPixel Giant Touch-map
The atracTable Multi-Touch System from Atracsys
Most of my October blog posts
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Sun Microsystem's JavaOne: Build Your Own Multi-Touch Interface with Java and JavaFX Technology
I just came cross Simon Ritter and Angela Caicedo's "how-to" presentation about building a multi-touch interface utilizing Java and JavaFX technology. The presentation, posted on Sun Microsystem's JavaOne website, provides a review of multi-touch related technology and step-by-step instructions of the process they used, as well as the problems they encountered.
Ritter and Caicedo pointed out that an advantage of using JavaFX technology is that it is good for manipulating images, and it's data binding capabilities makes it easier to design and implement the software and user interface. They also pointed out that Java technology allows for implementing heavy multi-threading, something that is important with so much going on in the application.
Here is the summary from the presentation:
- Multi-touch screens are simple and cheap to build (Most expensive bit is the projector)
- Java technology makes the software easy
- JavaFX technology is easy to integrate with new types of event
- JavaFX technology makes building multi-touch user interfaces simple
Unfortunately, the application that Ritter and Caicedo developed was very similar to most of what I've seen previously - - image rotation and manipulation.
I am pretty confident that within a year to two years there will be lighter, flatter "all-in-one" flat screen multi-touch panels available that do not rely on projectors, perhaps not much more than the current cost of a projector.
For more information about multi-touch technology, visit the NUI Group website, where you can get tons of information about building your own multi-touch table and support from others with similar interests. Some of the NUI Group members are participating in Google's Summer of Code. Current NUI Group projects are TouchLib, TouchEvent, and OpenTouch.
Also see "Multi-touch Systems that I have Known and Loved", by Bill Buxton, one of the founding fathers of multi-touch.
Another good sources is the list of interactive tables on the Pasta&Vinegar blog. Click (touch!) the links, and you'll find even more information. The Pasta&Vinegar blog is maintained by Nicolas Nova, a user-experience researcher at the LIFTlab think tank.
If you are a graduate student considering research in this area, you'll find plenty to get you going for your review of the literature.
From Tempels Digital Interactive Table (DIT) in Brazil
From Instructables
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Dan Saffer's Upcoming Book: Interactive Gestures: Designing Gestural Interfaces
Dan Saffer, the author of Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices, is finishing up a new book about the design of gestural interfaces. This should be a great book, judging from the quality of Saffer's previous work.
Chapter 1:
Interactive Gestures: Designing Gestural Interfaces pdf
(page21 of this chapter has a picture of a NUI-group member's touch-table)
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Multi-Touch Plug-in for NASA World Wind?!
NUI group member Paul D'Intino is developing a Multi-Touch display called Orion mt. He's working on a multi-touch plug-in for NASA World Wind.
This would be a cool way of exploring the world for students who have access to multi-touch screens at school!
The plug-in is a work in progress. You can download the latest version from Paul's blog.
Paul is "Fairlane" on the NUI Group's forums.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Cross Post: More Muti-touch, Windows 7 demo on a Dell Laptop
Video: Multi-Touch in Windows 7
Via SoapBox, Greenbush Labsand CNET
If you are new to this blog and would like to learn more about multi-touch interaction and technology, enter a keyword in the search box.
Also take a look at the Interactive Multimedia Technology blog.
For multi-touch DYI, check out the NUI Group!
Cross posted on
Monday, May 26, 2008
More Multitouch: NUI Group's Christopher Jette's multi-touch work featured in Engaget ; Croquet?
Christopher Jette, a member of the NUI Group, was featured in a recent article in Engadget about his DYI multi-touch project on a large rear-projection TV.
Here is the video:
Christopher Jette's multi-touch project "how to" on the Instructable website. Great work, Christopher!
Related...
I am wondering how applications built with Croquet or EduSim would play out on this sort of screen. Croquet is an open source metaverse software development environment that is a work in progress. Here is the video description:
I've played around with Croquet on a single-touch screen and it was fun to use. Croquet powers EduSim, an application that is used on interactive whiteboards with children. The "paint" capabilities of the application makes it easy to draw something in 2-D. When you move your drawing into the background, it automatically turns into 3D, and with a little bit of scripting, it moves around.
"Derived from Squeak, it (Croquet) features a peer-based network architecture that supports communication, collaboration, resource sharing, and synchronous computation between multiple users on multiple devices."
I haven't had time to experiment with the multi-user capabilities of Croquet - maybe this summer!
Croquet is derived from Squeak.
Croquet videos.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Multitouch LaserTouch from Microsoft, Andy Wilson, Innovation..
I've been a Mac person since 1985, but I've warmed up to Microsoft a bit over the years. Microsoft Research is involved in many creative endeavors, despite how the company is personified by "PC" in Apple's MAC/PC commercials.
Ever since I had a chance to get my hands on an interactive whiteboard, I've been fascinated by large multi-touch and multi-user displays, and this fascination was part of my motivation to take graduate-level computer/IT classes at mid-life!
After spending an entire semester working on large touch-screen projects last year, Microsoft unveiled the Surface, which is not within my reach. Now that Bill Gate's mantra is "every surface to be a computer", there might be hope for people like me.
Via CNET news 8/14/08: "During his keynote Wednesday at the CEO Summit, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates shows off TouchWall, a 4-foot-by-6-foot touch-screen computer prototype."(Credit: Microsoft)
Microsoft Research's Andy Wilson developed the software for the LaserTouch prototype. Andy is a member of the Adaptive Systems and Interaction group.
The system will be less expensive than the Surface, but it is not yet ready for the masses:
Via CNET: "Andy Wilson, a researcher from Microsoft Research's Redmond, Wash., campus, demonstrates LaserTouch. An infrared camera tracks how he touches the screen to prompt a response from the software." (Credit: Stefanie Olsen/CNET News.com)
Related:
InfoWorld Article about TouchWall CNET TouchWall Article
InfoWorld Article about LaserTouch CNET LaserTouch Article
Natural User Interface - Innovative Multi-touch Solutions
NextWindow NextWindow Videoclips
Shahram Izadi's Research Website
TouchLight: An Imaging Touch Screen for Gesture-Based Interaction pdf
Interacting with Wall-Sized Screens pdf
The Large-Display User Experience pdf
IEEE Tabletops and Interactive Surfaces 2008 Conference Website
October 1-3, the Netherlands
Note: For those of you new to this blog, I've posted quite a bit about multi-touch displays, Microsoft's Surface table, urban screens and interfaces over the past year or so on the TSHWI and Interactive Multimedia Technology blogs. Also see the links on this blog's sidebars.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Multi-touch Crayon Physics from multitouch-barcelona, inspired by Crayon Physics by Kloonig Games
Watch how you can draw simple shapes that can instantly turn into a game!
Multitouch Crayon Physics from multitouch-barcelona on Vimeo.
For a better version of this video, see http://www.vimeo.com/980528 For more information, see the RXSurface blog post. On May 18, Multi touch crayon physics will be offered as an alphabeta opensource! The people behind RXSurface are members of the Natural User Interface (NUI) group:
"Natural User Interface or ~ NUI Group is an interactive media group researching and creating open source machine sensing techniques to benefit artistic and educational applications."
Monday, May 12, 2008
Cross Post: Seth Sandler's YouTube Video, "How to Make a Cheap Multi-touch Pad" goes viral
Seth Sandler, a member of the NUI group, has worked very hard at putting together low-cost multi-touch screen surfaces. Seth has a background in music, so his projects focus on interactive music applications. Over 315,000 people watched this video within the week that it was uploaded.
Thanks Seth, for sharing this vision with the world!
Seth's AudioTouch Blog: "An Interactive Multi-user, Multi-touch Musical Table and More"
