The World Is My Interactive Interface: interaction design

Showing posts with label interaction design. Show all posts

Friday, May 3, 2013

Linkfest (for your tech-reading pleasure)

Here's an update of links to posts from my Interactive Multimedia Technology blog. Similar content can be found on my Pinterest boards.

OpenPilot: A Next-Gen Open Source Autopilot Approach to Aerial Videography

XBox Kinect in the OR: Kinect supports gesture interaction with 3D imaging of the patient, while operating.

Telemedicine in Schools: Promoting Health (and Mental Health)

InteractiveTV Today (ITVT): Links to information and updates about CES 2013, via Tracy Swedlow.

Gesture Markup Language (GML) for Natural User Interaction and Interfaces

CCRMA Summer Workshops: Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics

Disney Research: Touche, Touch and Gesture Sensing

AirHarp for Leap Motion, a Responsive Musical Natural User Interface

Tips for Apps and the Web: Designing for Teens, Part I

Part II: Websites and Apps for Teens and Education

Designing for Touch & Gesture: Tips for Apps and the Web (Updated)

Affinity+: Semi-Structured Brainstorming on Large Displays, from Pacific Northwest National Library

Call for Papers: Human-Computer Interaction and Learning Science

Update: What's New for Kinect? Fusion, real-time 3D digitizing, design considerations, and more.

Interactive MaKey MaKey: "An Invention Kit for Everyone" - Video Preview

Google Glass and Kids- BYOGG? Quick links to MIT Tech Review Post - and more

Leap Motion: My Dev Kit Arrived - Now What? Thoughts About "NUI" Child-Computer Tech Interaction

Google Earth and Leap Motion

Quick Post/Videos: Evolving Soft Robots (Cornell's Creative Machines Lab); Leap Motion + Google Earth Experiment (PO-MO)

Little Digits Counting and Early Math App, by Cowly Owl- Chris O'Shea

Interesting Videos I Almost Missed (Future/Emerging/Creative Tech)

The Uncanny Valley is Here! Activision's real-time character demo is chilling real.

What happens when a 2-year-old wakes up to the sound of the Google Map Lady? "I CAN'T turn left right now!"

Pixel Press: Draw, create, play and share games, without code, now on Kickstarter.

Friday, June 17, 2011

LINKS AND UPDATES: Emerging and interactive technologies/apps, related posts

I haven't been able to keep up this blog due to a very busy schedule. The good news is that I've continued to keep up with my Interactive Multimedia Technology blog - below is a list of links to posts spanning across the past few months that I cut and pasted into this post. Enjoy!

Calming Technologies Research, Stanford University

Take a short break to enjoy a performance by the KAIST Mobile Phone Orchestra

"Visualize This": Nathan Yau's (FlowingData) book...

Are girls allowed in Google's tool shop? Just wondering

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

The Post-WIMP Conversation: Some Thoughts about Conceptualizing NUI, Part I

This post was updated and moved to the Interactive Multimedia Technology blog:

The Post-WIMP Conversation: Some Thoughts About Conceptualizing NUI, Part I

Thursday, October 8, 2009

A Nokia n900 and an Interactive Urban Screen at the 2009 onedotzero Festival

Interactive Urban Screen
The interactive urban screen installation, also known as the 2009 onedotzero identity, was made interactive by a Nokia n900 mobile phone, as shown in the pictures and video clips below.
The 2009 Identity by I am Martin.

onedotzero interactive identity powered by Nokia N900 from onedotzero on Vimeo.

Nokia n900 onedotzero Installation- Behind the Scenes

Onedotzero - Watch the interaction with an urban screen with a Nokia n900 (Story behind the scenes story).

RELATED
N900 to appear in London next week!
(JBC, Nokia Conversations, 9/4/009)
According to the article, the application for the installation was developed by digital artists/computational designers Karsten Schmidt and Gary Birkett. (I think the ad agency Wieden + Kennedy London was also involved with this project, since Nokia is their client.)

About onedotzero
"Onedotzero is a contemporary, digital arts organisation with a remit to promote innovation across all forms of moving image and motion arts, activities encompass public events, artist + content development, publishing projects, education, production, creative direction, and related consultancy services ... onedotzero was conceived at the start of the desktop digital revolution in the mid-1990s out of a desire to explore moving image across single screen, interactive and live audio-visual work. today, onedotzero remains committed to providing a home for visionary moving image experimentation and contemporary creative collisions."

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.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Mixed Reality at the Nokia Research Center: Creating an interfaced and connected world!

The people at Nokia Research Center are working hard at creating an interfaced world. The video provides a few examples of what we might expect in the near-to-mid future:

YouTube Description:

"This concept allows to you to experience immersion and effortless navigation in new ways. New types of interactions involving near-to-eye displays, gaze direction tracking, 3D audio, 3D video, gesture and touch. Through these new types of social linkages people will be connected in innovative ways between the physical and digital worlds."

Nokia's future-looking projects look have many features that support the concept of world-as-interface. Mobile phones will be transformed into mobile magic lenses "which lets users look through the mobile’s display at a world that has been supplemented with information about the objects that it sees." The web will blend with reality through Nokia Image Space, and allow people to upload pictures and related information that can be accessed and explored in a variety of ways, through mobile phones or traditional browsers. Near-to-Eye Displays will be used to augment mobile interfaces, and incorporate gaze tracking technologies.

The physical world will blend with the digital: "Through the use of haptic feedback, and other technologies just being invented, our interaction with the digital world and with each other will become more integrated and tangible. Being able to “feel” when a friend is close by through a shirt that hugs you is one example. Tapping a friend on the shoulder from miles away. Having your shoes vibrate if you take a wrong turn, or walk into a bad area of town".

RELATED

Nokia Research Center

Mobile Mixed Reality (pdf)

Nokia Image Space

Nokia Point and Find

Metaverse Roadmap Project
Metaverse Roadmap Overview (pdf)

Developing Gaze Tracker for Diffractive-Optics-Enabled Near-to-Eye Displays

Hyperlinking Reality via Phones - MIT Technology Review

Virtual Reality Continuum

Monday, January 19, 2009

Touch Screen Interaction in Public Spaces: Room for Improvement if "Every Surface is to be a Computer"!

With Win7's "multi-touch" capabilities, Bill Gate's statement that every surface will be a computer might come true, but from what I can see, we have a long way to go before we get it right!

One of the concerns I have about "touch" screen interaction in public spaces is that not much thought is given to the environmental factors surrounding the system. The system that is tested for the first time after installation might work just fine, but not when it is put to use under a variety of conditions or situations.

EXAMPLES (I've recycled a few of these from previous posts.)

Touch Screen Kiosk/Display in Upscale Shopping Area, St. Thomas(?)

I came across this system when I was walking around in St. Thomas with my husband. I wasn't sure what to make of it. There wasn't anything on the large display, and I couldn't tell from a short distance if the two smaller displays were active. I noticed that the display had an awning of sorts, so the fact that the display would be used in a sunny location had been considered. Unfortunately, the awning didn't solve this problem, as you can see from the pictures below:

CLOSER UP

As we approached the display, it was almost impossible to see what was on the screen. In fact, we weren't sure what the display was all about. It looked like something you'd see at an airport check-in, not in a lush tropical setting.

Below is a shot of my husband, trying to see what is on the screen. This photo shows exactly what the screen looked like at the time:

The next picture tells it all. You can see that there is some sort of alphabet on the right side of the screen, but the reflection of my husband is easier to see. We couldn't figure this one out.

The following clip demonstrates how environmental concerns, such as wind and "sideways" rain, can make an interactive display at a shopping center difficult to use. During this clip, you can hear me muttering about the difficulties I had interacting with the information on the touch-screen display. It is possible that the system wasn't working well because of the exposure to the elements.

WIND AND SIDEWAYS RAIN

You can see that the navigation system was confusing. At the end, the entire screen turned red, and I gave up.

The next video-clip is of a touch-screen map at the Cleveland Clinic hospital. I was with my elderly aunt and my sister, and we were trying to figure out how to get to a restaurant. We never found it.

Although the screen was easy to see, the application was... crazy!

In my opinion, an interactive wayfinding application should run on a larger display and support two or more people, since many hospital visitors often run in pairs or small groups.

The World Is My Interactive Interface