Friday, January 22, 2010
Ubice = Multi-touch On Ice at the Nokia Research Center in Finland (Video + Pic via Albrecht Schmidt)
Watch how the multi-touch surface is built from ice blocks:
The following pictures are from Albrecht Schmidt's User Interface Engineering blog:
![[multitouc-on-ice.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAyk9ETSPyrqIlM4_J7uEBHQbw9DATBpID0NpQ9TdoHPDCVLjf78jFyu6xKABAldz6qIJQVqtXkoqpSMGNAvgz0oI9jw-axWhFaj5fGEjTLVDNE41DF6VHk9gen7aikoS6xwUefa7pn4s/s640/multitouc-on-ice.jpg)
What a great idea for a "Winterfest"! They should take it to the next level: Multi-touch ice sculpture.
(Cross-posted on the Interactive Multimedia Technology blog.)
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Measuring the World's Use of Technology, Measuring the Impact of Technology Use Around the World
If you are interested in digging deeper into the statistics behind technology-supported human-world interaction, the theme of this blog, take a look at the information behind the following links:
Measuring ICT Website
Measuring the Information Society: The ICT Development Index (pdf)
The Global Information Society: a Statistical View (pdf)
Manual for Measuring ICT Access and Usage by Households and Individuals, 2009 Edition (pdf)
2009 Revised Edition of the UNCTAD Manual for Information Economy Statistics
World Summit on the Information Society
Thanks, Albrecht Schmidt, for the links you posted on your User Interface Engineering blog!
Friday, April 3, 2009
Albrecht Schmidt's User Interface Engineering Blog: Great Links, References, and Resources
For more information, take a look at my post on the Interactive Multimedia Technology blog:
Albrecht Schmidt's User Interface Engineering Blog: Great Links, References, and Resources
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Airport Technology for the Usability Hall of Fame, if only it worked!
Albrecht Schmidt is the director of the Pervasive Computing and User Interface Engineering Group at the Universitat Duisburg Essen. When he was traveling in Seoul, he took some pictures of embedded information, which he uploaded to his blog post, Embedded Information: Airport
I was excited to see the pictures that Dr. Schmidt posted of an active computer display with a list of names of people who should contact an information desk, right in the middle of the baggage on the luggage belt.
This ALMOST made it to my Usability Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, the display was broken!
High-tech example
Low-tech example
I will give this an "A" for the concept, "E" for usefulness, since it the display wasn't working at the time it the picture was taken.
I think that Dr. Schmidt's key criteria for embedded information are important components to consider for information systems encountered in public spaces:
- Embedding information where and when it is useful
- Embedding information in a most unobtrusive way
- Providing information in a way that there is no interaction required*
Related:
[1] Albrecht Schmidt, Matthias Kranz, Paul Holleis. Embedded Information. UbiComp 2004, Workshop 'Ubiquitous Display Environments', September 2004
I especially like the following quote from the Ubicomp 2004 article:
"We investigate how information can be provided to users – exactly when it is needed. Our approach is based on a variety of information displays unobtrusively embedded into the user’s environment. We place the information displays in context."
Pictures and a discussion of airport technology I've recommended for the Usability Hall of Shame can be found on my previous post:
