Monday, December 24, 2012
Merry Linkfest!
Enjoy!
Sunday, February 5, 2012
LINK LIST!
Jason Silva's multimedia review of ABUNDANCE. Exponential Technological Progress. Less than two minutes.
Interactive Technology: Take a look at Corning's "Day Made of Glass 2: Unpacked" Video!
Razorfish Gesture and Touch Platform for the "Retail Experience"
Flight of the Fireflies, an Interactive Musical Poem/Game for the iPad, by Woolly Robot (video trailer)
Google in Education, Updated
iBooks Textbooks for iPads, iTunesU App- and links to info about 1:1 iPad initiatives in public schools
Quick Post: Link to a UX Gold Mine-Official Usability, User Experience, and User Interface Guidelines from Companies
GeekDad's Post: The Changing Nature of App Design for Kids
How to use game dynamics in the classroom, with good links, via Edudemic (Jeff Dunn)
Immersive Learning for Math using DimensionU Games- new "Play, Learn and Earn" with an allowance component.
Off-topic: "Communication technology for human-dog interaction" and "The secret life of my dog: design and evaluation of a paw tracker concept"....and my dog.
You Know You've Secretly Wanted to Learn to Code! (Info, links, video)
3D Plug-in for SMARTBoard Notebook (Video)
"Kinect-based Telepresence with Room Sized 3D Capture and Life Sized Display, Includes Behind-the-Scene "how-to" (UNC Chapel Hill)
Near-Field Communication in Education? Arts? Wayfinding?
iPads for every student in an elementary school in NC, Smartboards in the classrooms, and one awesome principal
Christian Bannister's Interactive Multi-touch and Gesture-based Bubcycle Project. Use your hands to shape sound, create, and manipulate music. Wow!!
UPDATE: EIST Call for Papers/Presentations
Kinect in Education! (kinectEDucation)
Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work and Learn, an awesome book from Cathy "HASTAC" Davidson
Near Field Communication (NFC) for Smartphones at the Museum of Londun, related video, and NFC links.
Quick Link: The Remote - Death by Voice Control?
46 Seconds of Steve Job's Wisdom-Vision
MozoCam Video Demos: Great for virtual field trips, awesome HD + fluid movement
FlatFrog Multi-touch Videos: Point Separation, Multi-input, Multi-user input
Starbucks Cup Magic: Augmented Reality App for iPhone and Android!
Revisiting Good Blogs: User Interface Engineering (Albrecht Schmidt, University of Stuttgart)
Revisiting Good Blogs: Eager Eyes (Robert Kosara, UNC-Charlotte)
TWINE video and the Supermechanical Blog: Moving Towards the Web of People and Things!
Revisiting Good Blogs: Nathan Yau's FlowingData
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Update: Links from Interactive Multimedia Technology!
Mind/Shift Blog Post: Read, Hear or Create a Story: Apps for Traveling with Kids - and great related links!
Camera-less Tabletop Computing with Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface with PixelSense
Is the answer Voronoi? Looking for possible solutions to an art+dance+music+tech idea from a recurring dream.
Art+Tech: The work of Aparna Rao and Soren Pors - a TedTalk worth watching!
Revisiting Good Blogs: IDEUM update
Link to a great rant about interaction design. It is all about the hands, screens and surfaces, not so much!?
Revisiting Good Blogs - Web of Things: "Architecting the Web of Things for Tinkerers and Hackers"
Visiting New (to me) Blogs: Learning WebGL
Revisiting Good Blogs: Space and Culture
Quick Link: 68 interesting ways to use an iPad in education
Building Interfaces for the New Decade
Google Chrome Web Store!
Le Chal: Smart shoes for the Visually Impaired
Call for Papers: Educational Interfaces, Software, and Technology, a workshop at CHI 2012
Interactive Large Displays in Urban Spaces: Communicating Energy Usage through Duke Energy's "Smart Energy Now" Project
Quick Link: iPads and Autism - 60 Minutes Segment
What would it be like if pens were "banned" from classrooms every Wednesday? Video clip by Mick Waters, not just for teachers and students!
Make and Share Your Games Online! Update: Game Creator and the Cartoon Network Website
T(ether): Next-Gen Data Gloves + iPad: Just what I needed for the colder weather!
Google Labs RIP
RENCI Update: Combining Gaming and Visualization
Hacking Autism: Touch Technology for Young People with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Stantum's Multi-Modal, Multi-Touch Technology: Looks Great for 21st Century Learners; Supports Creative, Collaboraitve Knowledge-Sharing
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.)
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Recent Interactive Multimedia Blog Post Links
Call for Papers: Touch the Web 2011: 2nd International Workshop on Web-Enabled Objects
Links: Web of Things, Web Patterns and the EPC Cloud, Windows 8 Rumors, Human Centered Service Design
Virtual History of Rome for the iPad, Created with Unity
Program - CHI 2011 Child Computer Interaction: 2nd Workshop on UI Technologies and Educational Pedagogy
FYI: If you are new to this blog, my main blog is Interactive Multimedia Technology (IMT). I update this blog with links to posts on the IMT blog every month or so. I will resume this blog in this once I reduce my current workload.
If you are interested in technology, psychology, and education, take a look at my TechPsych blog.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Close Encounter with Best Buy On, an example of a multi-channel approach that includes "in-store digital media" and an on-line magazine
Over the next 9 months or so, I'll be in the market for a computer, an iPad or something similar, a Kinect, and maybe a mid-size Internet-enabled HDTV. As a consequence, I turned in to a Best Buy on my way home from work Friday to see what I could find. I didn't want to spend much time at the store, since I'm the type of shopper who goes in, finds the desired item(s), and leaves.
During this trip to Best Buy, my shopping habits were broken, at least temporarily. I found myself wandering around, looking at the numerous displays of all sizes located about the store. The displays distracted me from my intended mission.
I spend more time in the store than I'd planned, and I left the store empty-handed. But that is OK, since I think that this strategy, in the long run, will have the power to entice me back to the store and leave knowing that I've made an informed purchase.
According to Gail Chiasson in her Daily DOOH post,"Best Buy's New In-Store Network", Best Buy established an internal advertising and editorial team in 2009, and officially launched a multichannel network called Best Buy On, which extends the in-store network of displays, to the online magazine, also called Best Buy On . Best Buy On focuses on different theme each month. This month's theme featured all of the cool things that were unveiled at the recent Consumer Electronics Show.
The bottom line is that customers are provided with with enhanced information about various products in each department, and can access additional information on-line. In turn, this might lead to better sales and happier repeat customers in the long run.
There is room for improvement. It would be nice if the in-store network of displays was less disjointed. I was puzzled by the somewhat inconvenient placement of some of the displays. The content running on the screens also could be better focused on the needs of the customers in specific departments, including the needs of customers from all age groups. For example, my 80-year-old mother needs a new laptop and would also like to find an eReader that is suitable for someone her age. I'm not sure what she'd make of the displays that run animated comments about products from Facebook fans!
Although there is room for improvement, the Best Buy On approach is a start. I would like to see more touch-enabled displays as part the in-store network, given the fact that Best Buy sells touch-screen gadgets, tablets, and all-in-one PCs. They also need to get the Kinect demo up and running!
RELATED
Below is a slideshow of the pictures I snapped as I wandered about Best Buy:
FAR OUT 1/9/11 (Best Buy On video about products at CES)
What is Best Buy On? (Description of on-line magazine)
Best Buy Addresses High-Tech Obsolescence
Shirley Brady, Brand Channel, 1/18/11
Buy Back Program from Best Buy Helps "Future-Proof" Today's CE Purchases
Jeremy Baier, Best Buy, 1/10/11
"Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn describes the consumer electronics retailer's just-launched Buy Back program as "a game-changer." The goal: to help customers embrace new technology with greater confidence."
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Media Facades: "When Buildings Start to Twitter" video timeline, via Thomas Schielke, of arclighting, plus lots of related links!
This morning I received a message from Thomas Schielke, of arclighting about his recent work. Included in his message was a link to this awesome video, Media Facades: When Buildings Start To Twitter, which is a video timeline of this history of media facades.
Below is a description of the video, by Thomas Scheilke:
"The timeline depicts international media facades with their different artistic, social or brand messages up to interfaces like iPhone Apps or brain sensors for public participation. The movie is a shortened version of the lecture, The semiotics of media facades - When buildings start to twitter" that was presented at the Parsons The New School for Design in New York in 2010."
Luminous tweets and retweets
"During the day, façade structures with their windows and material combinations grant a specific building image to the public. However, after sunset electrical light is the medium for an architectural image. The light appearance sends an atmospheric signal to the citizens like hang on in front of an asleep structure, look at an inviting but static façade or enjoy a vivid architecture sharing short stories. In the last decade, media facades have become a widespread element for luminous tweets. They establish a network between the building owner and the citizens, sometimes driven by aesthetical debates, other times by commercial intentions to avoid traditional light advertisement."
"The pursuit of persuasion by way of big screens gives the impression that size receives a higher relevance than content, comparable with the large amount of trivial tweets in Twitter. Various media facades appear as monumental monologues repeating a fixed animation daily. A few facades use signals from the environment and transform them into a play of light and shadow. Others emerge as urban dialogues when buildings show combined moving pictures. Some even allow people to send messages to the building to receive luminous retweets. They turn the city into a community following the dialogue and with the respective Apps may possibly even gain a following community worldwide."
"The historical overview of international projects covers various lighting methods and techniques from lighting designers as ag4, Arup Lighting, blinkenlights, Fusion, LAb[au], Licht Kunst Licht, L´Observatoire International, Mader Stublic Wiermann, Okayasu Izumi, magic monkey, Matthew Tanteri, Onur Sonmez , Qosmo, realities:united, StandardVision, Urbanscreens, Uwe Belzner, Yann Kersalé and architecture like Asymptote Architecture, Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, O.M. Ungers, Peter Cook, Peter Marino, UN Studio, schneider + schuhmacher, Simone Giostra, WOHA architects1. Artists like Doug Aitken, Jaume Plensa, Kurt Hentschläger and Zhong Song are included in the timeline as well." -Thomas Schielke
http://www.arclighting.de
FYI: Thomas is one of the authors of the book "Light Perspectives: Between Culture and Technology". Lean back and relax to the music as you watch a related video by Schielke: Light Architecture: Luminous Walls
Related info from Schielke's YouTube site:
Luminous walls: From clerestory windows via modernist wallwashing to pixelated planes
"The movie is a shortened version of the lecture that was presented at the Cornell University in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis in Ithaca/USA (Oct. 18th 2010) and at the Columbia University in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation in New York (Oct. 26th 2010)."
"Luminous walls belong to the essential repertoire of qualitative lighting design. With light, spaces can be defined and reinterpreted. Illuminated walls allow us to provide orientation and to perceive the form and dimension of space. Further, their glow and play of brilliants could bestow a space with an impressing scenography. The timeline reveals different lighting approaches: From backlit clerestory windows for spiritual enlightenment in the gothic period to modernist uniform wallwashing. Contemporary examples will open the view for pixelated colour changing planes based on LED technology. The movie with an overview of international projects covers lighting methods and techniques for luminous walls and their visual appearance. With a perception-orientated design perspective the designer could use vertical illuminance to create bright spaces and thereby also contribute to sustainable lighting solutions."
"The overview of international projects from architects like Antonio Gaudi, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn, Jean Nouvel, Peter Zumthor, Raffael Moneo, Toyo Ito, Christoph Ingenhoven and Karim Rashid or light artists as Peter Kogler and Erwin Redl covers various lighting methods and techniques for luminous walls and their visual appearance. Note: The image for 1814 needs to be reassigned to Bergisel Panorama in Innsbruck/Austria painted in 1897."
RELATED
Previous posts:
Revisiting Urban Screens: 555 Kubik Facade Projection Video; Info about Media Facades
More Urban Screens and Outdoor 3D Media Facades
Urban Screens, Urban Scenes, Media Facades: Obscura Digital's Outdoor iGoogle Artist Themes Launch in NYCU
Other LinksBook: Media Facades: History, Technology, and Content (M. Hank Haeusler)30+ Dazzling and Interactive Media Facades
Media Facades Festival 2010
Media Architecture Institute
International Urban Screens Association
Urban Screens
"URBAN SCREENS a project by Urban Media Research Berlin, investigates how the currently commercial use of outdoor screens and related infrastructure for digital moving images in urban space can be broadened with cultural content. We address cultural fields as digital media culture, urbanism, architecture and art. We want to network and sensitise all engaged parties for the possibilities of using the digital infrastructure for contributing to a lively urban society, binding the screens more to the communal context of the space and therefore creating local identity and engagement. The integration of the current information technologies support the development of a new integrated digital layer of the city in a complex merge of material and immaterial space that redefine the function of this growing infrastructure of digital moving images."
Urban Screens Video Channel
3d Projections on Buildings: A distinctive Way of Communicating
Communicating Through Architecture: Media Facades and the Digital Infrastructure The Rathous (Contains an assortment of videos and pictures)
Art and Commerce Meet on Building's Interactive Media Facades Kelsey Keith, Fast Company, 10/2/2009
Cross-posted on the Interactive Multimedia Technology blog.
