Saturday, October 10, 2009
News Flash: Flash Player 10.1 for Mobile Devices, Smartphones, and Netbooks
Imagine, touch interaction, seamlessly, on a variety of devices, with Adobe's Flash Player 10.1!
"At MAX 2009, Kevin Lynch, Adobe CTO, demos Flash Player 10.1 for mobile devices, smartphones and netbooks"
Nokia's mobile phones will use Flash Player 10.1 soon. In the video, you can see it in smooth action. Later on in the video, you'll see how Flash Player 10.1 provides a P.C. -like experience, on netbooks. (There is even a before and after.)
Near the end is a demo of streaming Flash Video on an HD TV, making it interactive, via a setbox.
Thanks, Seth Sandler, for the link!
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Natural User Interface News: Bamboo Wacom multi-touch gesture tablet; SnowFlake Suite and PresTop multi-touch kiosks
Cross-post:
Wacom Tablets Get Multi-Touch, Gestures
(Charlie Sorrel, Wired, 9/24/09)
"For the tech-curious, the new tablets have 512 pressure levels in the pen tip and the active area of the tablet is 5.8 x 3.6 inches, and all lose the in-pack mouse (for obvious reasons). The Touch and the Pen models are both $70, and the Pen & Touch is $100. Also, if you were thinking of buying Photoshop Elements 7 for the same price, get a tablet instead — Elements comes in the box."
Official Wacom Video
"Bamboo Touch is new type of computer input device by Wacom that lets you navigate and perform commands like zoom, scroll, rotate and more with a series of simple finger taps and hand gestures. Bamboo Touch brings Multi-Touch capability to your Mac or PC"
Video from a Wacom user:
A nice alternative to a mouse. I'm going to get one for my laptop!
Multi-touch Kiosks!
Press release: Dutch touchscreen supplier PresTop partners with Natural User Interface (NUITEQ)
RELATED
I couldn't find any video clips of PresTop's multi-touch interaction. From what I can tell, PresTop multi-touch screens will be using SnowFlake Suite from Natural User Interface Technogies AB.
How-to:SnowFlake Suite Flash multi-touch Interactable component (NUIversity)
Without a single line of code, you can do quite a bit with Snowflake Suite
"This video covers how to make a rotatable and scalable image. The beauty about this is, that we have developed a Flash mouse input simulator, so that there is no need for multi-touch hardware in order to develop your applications. Simply simulate multiple mouse inputs for multi-touch.This project is still in alpha phase and a download will become available with the next release of Snowflake Suite 1.7 for the NextWindow platform and camera based multi-touch solutions."
Below is a video of single-touch interaction for PresTop, from Omnivision:
PresTop PresTop offers interactive hardware and software solutions that can be used indoors as well as in outdoor environments.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Interactive Ubiquitous Maps? Not yet.. Charlotte recently spent 3.8 million dollars on STATIC city maps!
Not too long ago, I took this picture of an information and map display in uptown Charlotte, N.C., my home town. This sign is located near the basketball arena, near one of the new light rail stations.
As I approached the display, I was hoping that it was a digitally supported interactive map, since it was so shiny and new. I was disappointed to see that it was static. The display contained information appropriate to the setting, but wasn't nearly what I had expected.
I later learned that the cost of this project was 3.8 million dollars, mostly in the form of a grant from the federal government. Perhaps some of this money could have been spent on a system of interactive wayfinding displays, with multi-touch capabilities. In my dreams....
Designing and implementing this sort of system is complex, but in my opinion, important. If you are interested in this topic, take the time to read The invisible city: Design in the age of intelligent maps. The article, posted in the Think Tank section of the Adobe Design Center website, provides an in-depth exploration of the issues related to ubiquitous, interactive, information-rich maps. The authors, Kazys Varnelis and Leah Meisterline, are from from Netlab, the network architecture lab at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture.
I guess I should be happy that the folks at the Charlotte City Hall understand the need for wayfinding solutions:
From the 7/3/08 Charlotte Observer:
"The pedestrian signs are part of a larger program to increase signage throughout the center city. The bigger chunk of the project is aimed at signs directing motorists to destinations as well as parking. Those signs are projected to go up in 2009 and 2010. Total cost for all: $3.8 million, much of which is paid through a federal grant. The city's portion is $780,000. .... "We wanted to make sure we could direct pedestrians getting off light rail," said Kimbler, the city's project manager for the wayfinding program... The first signs went up on streets, such as College, adjacent to the Lynx Blue line. A second set of signs was placed to direct people to uptown destinations, such as museums, libraries, The Square and the Charlotte Convention Center. Now 51 signs are up." -Amy Baldwin, Charlotte Observer Link
