Friday, July 13, 2012
29 links to recent Interactive Multimedia Technology posts, for techies and the tech-curious
Quick Post: Design for Emotion, co-authored by Trevor van Gorp and Edie Adams
CFP for Special Issue of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing on Educational Interfaces, Software, and Technology (EIST)
CFP: Seventh International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction, Feb 10-13, Barcelona, Spain
TechCrunch Charlotte Highlights: T1 Vision, inTouch Collaborative Software
PO-MO, a creative group that combines digital art, interaction, movement, and play to create engaging surfaces and spaces
Digitized History and Interactive Timelines: Lots of examples and links for your exploring pleasure!
Quirky, Fun Webisode from Dot Diva (a website that encourages young women to pursue careers in technology)
Checking out Recline js, an open-source, browser-based HTML and JavaScript library for data: "Relax with your data".
Good news for knowledge junkies! Data Journalism Handbook: How journalists can use data to improve the news, available online.
Infographic about CISPA, contrasted with SOPA, by Lumin Consulting. Food for thought for those who might be mistakenly viewed as a "cyber threat".
iMac Touch Concept Video -in case you missed it.
Quick link: Nextgov, "the all-day information resource for federal technology decision makers".
ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: May 5-10, Austin, Texas
Interactive Technology from CHI 2012 Supporting Literacy, Storytelling, and Narrative
Looking forward to CHI 2012: Child Computer Interaction, Educational Interfaces, Health, Special Needs, and Much More! (Includes several preview videos.)
NUITEQ's Latest Multitouch Showreel: Snowflake Suite
Games for Health Conference: June 12-14, Hyatt Harborside Hotel, Boston, MA
Johnny Chung Lee's Recent Words of Wisdom & Google's Open-Source Ceres Non-Linear Least Squares Solver
Vignettes exploring the dual capacities of software and medicine to heal and hurt. Food for thought, by Jonathan Harris
Interactive Music Challenge: The Reactable & the Reactable for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
FYI: TEDEd Education Beta Website and YouTube Channel
FYI: Google's Knowledge Graph
Urban Musical Game: Play with musical-sensor sports balls and friends (Real-Time Musical Interactions Team at IRCAM)
Quick CHI 2012 Slideshow
A fun HTML interactive music video: Evelyn, performed by Abby, Coded by Bleech
Leap Motion: Low Cost Gesture Control for Your Computer Display
First Moment of Truth in digital signage environments: Bill Gerba's Words of Wisdom
PhD. Student Positions: Intel Collaborative Research Institute on Sustainable Connected Cities
More about the Intel Collaborative Research Institute for Sustainable Cities
Friday, April 22, 2011
Pervasive Retail Part I: Web UX Meets Retail CX - Screens Large and Small at the Mall, Revisited
The best places for watching this unfold, in my opinion, are airports, malls, shopping districts, and larger "big box" establishments, where the Web meets Digital Out of Home (DOOH), old-fashioned kiosks morph into multi-touch screens and gesture-based windows, and visual merchandising meets technology, digital culture, architecture, and consumer metrics. At the center of it all is the user/consumer - regular people, moms, dads, kids, teens, the elderly, the disabled, the hurried and the worried. Adding to the complexity is that an increasing number of people who are out-and-about are tethered to various mobile devices.
In scholarly tech circles, the concept of DOOH is known "Pervasive Retail". The explosion of mobile devices and ubiquitous screens has fueled the fire for research, and is the focus of the current issue of IEEE's Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing.
Despite the influx of technology, no-one is exactly sure how to do it quite right. (I have some ideas, which I'll save for a future post.)
The following video, taken with my handy HTC Incredible, provides a quick sampling of the screens I encountered during a recent visit to South Park Mall, in Charlotte, N.C. The last screens in the clip were taken in the Brookstone store, and will be included in another clip that focuses solely on all of the screens that were scattered about the retail space.
Screens Large and Small at the Mall
Interactive Coke Machine and Kid at the Mall
I was sad to see that the interactive screen on the Coke machine had been replaced by an ordinary one. Part of the problem, I think, is that the interactive display was too busy and as a consequence, made the goal getting a quick drink a bit too complicated for the average thirsty customer, as seen in the video below:
RELATED
Previous Posts:
What is DOOH and Why Should We Care?
Interactive Visual Merchandising, Interactive Window-Shopping at Nordstrom, Downtown Seattle: "Writing with Light"
Window Shopping in the Web Outside: Interactive Window Displays (videos and links)
Close Encounter with "Best Buy On": Example of a multi-channel marketing approach using in-store media and an online magazine
Video: Gesture Interactive Window Display at Repetto Store in France, by the Marcel Agency
The World Is My Web Browser: Interactive Technology in Public Spaces
References and Resources (Partial List)
Fujitsu's Pervasive Retailing (pdf)
Ron Brunt, InTouch with Retailing Whitepaper, 1/15/06
When all the world is a screen
Brian Monahan, IPG Emerging Media Blog, 4/15/11
When all the world is a screen (The video is worth taking the time to watch.)
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Link: Where Digital Signage Software is Going
WHERE DIGITAL SIGNAGE SOFTWARE IS GOING
David Haynes, Sixteen:Nine
RELATED
Sixteen:Nine
The Preset Group
PressDOOH
Five Second Media
Cross-posted on the Interactive Multimedia Technology blog.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Wise Words from Bill Gerba and Adrian J. Cotterill; Digital Signage and Digital Out of Home (DOOH) : DOOH Media Summit, Screen Media Expo
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Pervasive Computing and Advertising: Will the World Become A Space for Giant Banner and Pop-up Ads?!
My biggest fear about pervasive computing is that the world will become one giant space for intrusive banner and pop-up ads! Hopefully this will not be the case, since Pervasive Advertising is now a topic of scholarly interest:
"Pervasive Advertising Workshop: Building a community to forecast and create the upcoming era of advertising in pervasive information environments". (pdf)
Info from the Pervasive Advertising Website:Primary Topics
Additional Topics:
PERVASIVE 2009
The Pervasive Advertising Workshop was held at the Pervasive 2009 conference, May 11-14, in Nara, Japan. The keynote speaker was Toshiuo Iwai, who presented on the topic "Expanding Media Art- from Flipbooks to TENORI-ON".
RELATED
Prior to the conference was the Location and Context Awareness 4th International Symposium, "LoCa 2009", held in Tokyo, Japan, May 7-8, 2008.Location and Context Awareness
4th International Symposium, LoCA 2009 Tokyo, Japan, May 7-8, 2009 Proceedings
Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
Subseries: Information Systems and Applications, incl. Internet/Web, and HCI , Vol. 5561
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
Monday, July 7, 2008
Gas Station TV - I spied this at a suburban Detroit gas station!
While I was visiting relatives in the Metro Detroit area recently, I spied "Gas Station TV" flashing at a service station as I was driving about. Unfortunately, I didn't have my digital equipment nearby.
Here is information from the source:
Gas Station TV:
"GSTV features ESPN sports, CBS News and Entertainment segments, and local market weather. GSTV's 4 1/2 minute lineup is designed to maximize consumer engagement."
"Destination Media (http://www.dmedia.com ), the digital out-of-home marketing leader and parent of Gas Station TV and LG Electronics (http://www.LGcommercial.com ), a leader in digital signage displays, today announced plans for a long-term strategic technology and marketing alliance." link
CBS News on Gas Station TV
Could it be possible to market one's place of worship through Gas Station TV?
I found this picture on Google Images. I don't know Joe Thorn, but it if you are interested, his blog post that accompanied this picture, "Does your church advertise?", sparked a discussion about marketing and churches...
Related article from msnbc.
Previous posts about gas pumps and human-world interaction:
Google Maps at the Gas Pump?! One Small Step Towards Ubiquitous Computing for the Masses
Interesting Technology: InfiniTouch Expands on the Concept of Touch-Screen Interaction
Friday, June 27, 2008
Off-the-desktop musings about future interactions: User experience, user-driven design, Universal Usability, Airports, and the "Internet of Things"
My vision for technology supported human-world interaction is much different than what I see cropping up in public spaces, despite emerging technological concepts such as the Internet of Things and Locative MediaIf you are familiar with my blogs, you know that I maintain an on-going quest for off-the-desktop examples for my "Usability Hall of Fame". While I'm out and about, I often meet with disappointment, especially when I come across large displays or interactive touch screens.
The video clip below, taken on June 26th at the Detroit Metro Airport, is an example of what I mean. I was excited to encounter a touch screen information kiosk. I was not impressed with the clunky look and feel of the application. It was more like a point and click web-page than an innovative interactive information portal.
If you look closely, you'll see that the weather posted on the screen did not accurately represent the near 90-degree heat that I encountered that day. The weather information must not have been updated!
This kiosk was located in a new terminal. Although there were many information displays dotted around, during the two hours that I was at the airport, I never once saw anyone use them.
It is sort of difficult to use a touch screen when there is a garbage can obstructing the interaction.
It is not possible to interact with an interactive touch screen that is not working.
I did see people take a look at the more traditional, non-interactive displays that were located in the center walkways:
Last week, when I went to find my baggage at the Detroit Metro Airport, I noticed three kiosks on my way to pick up my luggage. At the time, I didn't know where I needed to go to retrieve my bags, and I wasn't sure where I needed to go to take the shuttle to the rental car lot. I was a bit puzzled to find these kiosks in this spot, since they did not provide the kind of information that most people coming through this section of the airport would need.
The above information kiosks were situated in a row of three, one representing each of the counties that make up the Detroit metropolitan area. Since the kiosks were located at the foot of the escalators leading to the baggage claim section of the airport, people stopping to interact with the kiosks would most likely cause a minor traffic jam. Although the kiosks were in plain view, it was not difficult to see why they were not used, or even noticed.
- Most people who are on their way to the baggage claim area are focused on getting their luggage and heading out. They may not be in the mood to learn all that they can about the finer points of Macomb, Wayne, or Oakland counties from talking head infomercials.
- Although the kiosks provided a reasonable amount of screen "real estate", the design of the applications allowed for no innovative touch-screen interaction. The applications were displayed on touch-screen surfaces, with the upper section dedicated to video and the lower section activated for touch. This design provided only one type of touch interaction, a small area to touch in order to activate the video.
- The displays with information about baggage carousels were located in a spot out of view from this location.
Since I'm obsessed with displays, as soon as I found my bag, I walked up closer to see what was so important about this huge sign. Not until I got right up to the surface did I notice that it offered some interactivity:
If you happen to have your cell phone handy, you can get free sync ringtones from the display area while you wait for your bags, if you happened to notice this at first glance. Since I was carrying my purse and pulling a suitcase and smaller carry-on bag, I was in no position to fumble around for my phone to get a new ringtone. It wasn't a convenient location. Where could I set down my purse? What if I had kids in tow?
Obviously, the designers of this set-up thought that it would be a good idea to offer people the chance to download ringtones as they waited for their luggage. What did the designers forget? Perhaps they did not look at the bigger picture long enough to think through a workable, useful user experience.
It would make better sense to provide ringtones at a more convenient location in the airport, such as the waiting areas or around the food courts. A thoughtful re-design of this display would encourage this interaction in a way to let people know intuitively that a ringtone service was available.
After I left the baggage area, I headed to an information display that consisted of a small touch screen, an array of small lighted displays, and phones to find out how to get to the shuttle to the rental car lot. Again, I was not impressed. The applications were a bit more visually appealing than the displays in the terminal, but the touch screen interaction was clunky.
Related:
To get a better understanding of my message and the importance of looking at bigger picture issues such as user-experience, user driven design, and emerging off-the-desktop technologies, take some time to look over the work and writings of people like Julian Bleeker, Chris O'Shea, and others who are thinking along similar paths. Also check the resource links on the sidebar of this blog.
Below are a couple of interesting quotes from Julian Bleeker:
(Julian Bleeker is from the Near Future Laboratory, a design, development and research consultancy.)
"Forget about the Internet of Things as Web 2.0, refrigerators connected to grocery stores, and networked Barcaloungers. I want to know how to make the Internet of Things into a platform for World 2.0. How can the Internet of Things become a framework for creating more habitable worlds, rather than a technical framework for a television talking to an reading lamp? Now that we've shown that the Internet can become a place where social formations can accrete and where worldly change has at least a hint of possibility, what can we do to move that possibility out into the worlds in which we all have to live? " - Julian Bleeker, Ph.D: Why Things Matter: A Manifesto for Networked Objects: Cohabiting with Pigeons, Arphids and Aibos in the Internet of Things (pdf)
"At its core, locative media is about creating a kind of geospatial experience whose aesthetics can be said to rely on a range of characteristics ..from the quotidian to the weighty semantics of lived experience, all latent within the ground upon which we traverse". -Julian Bleeker; Jeff Knowlton Locative Media: A Brief Bibliography and Taxonomy of GPS-Enabled Locative Media Leonardo On-line Electronic Almanac
Coincidence?
Julian Bleeker spends time contemplating interactions while he's in airports: Time Spent, Well
Chris O'Shea's blog, Pixelsumo, "is a blog about play, exploring the boundaries of interaction design, videogames, toys, and playgrounds. Chris is a resident of somth;ng labs, a shared studio space full of creatives who incorporate technology into their work.
- SURFACES: Chris O'Shea's posts and links pertaining to interactive surfaces, displays, touch-screens, and multi-touch.
- PLAYGROUNDS: Posts and links about technology-supported playgrounds
Airport Technology for the Usability Hall of Fame!
Embedded Information: Airport
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Top 15 Blog Posts: Technology Supported Human World Interaction
As of 5/31/08:
Multitouch LaserTouch from Microsoft, Andy Wilson, Innovation...
More of Microsoft's Andy Wilson: Video of Surface Multi-Touch Computing
Urban Screens, Urban Interfaces, Digital Media, and the Arts in Public Spaces
Everyware Health Care: Microsoft Health's Common User Interface website, usable health care applications, pervasive health games...
Interdisciplinary Research in Computer Science and Information Technology: Revisiting the Equator Project
Human-Information Interaction, Usability, User Interface Design Patterns, Mobile Web Design: Random Links.
Positive examples of large-touch screen display interaction: Interactive touch wall at CeBIT: UBC's Shadow Reaching
NextWindow Demos a Multi-touch Display: A more affordable "Surface"
Design Considerations: Touch screen interaction, mobile computing, and Synaptics
Nokia's Morph Prototype and Concept
Ubiquitous interactive computing comes to the corner bank?!
Technology-Supported Shopping and Entertainment-User Experience at Ballantyne Village: "A" for concept, "D" for touch-screen usability
thirteen23's Touch Screen Information Kiosk: A GOOD Example of Touch-screen Interaction and Content
Link to article: Demonstrating the Feasibility of Using Forearm Electomyography for Muscle-Computer Interfaces
I wish I could be Johnny Chung Lee for a Day! Tracking fingers with the Wii Remote
world
Bill Gerba's Summer Reading List: Digital Signage and Kiosks
Bill Gerba's summer reading list is a must-see for those of you interested in the business/industry side of interactive displays and pervasive computing. Take a look!
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.
