We will be at the American Association of Museums Conference in Minneapolis, starting tomorrow through May 2nd. Ideum will be sharing a booth (#1506) with our National Science Foundation funded open software initiative Open Exhibits.  Please come by and check out the latest Open Exhibits software. We will be running Open Exhibits 2.0 software on a MT55 Pro multitouch table.  We will also be showing the My Gallery 対話型 exhibit developed by the Museum of Photographic Arts (MOPA), built with OE software.

Also, our partners from the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology will also be making a presentation on Open Exhibits at the Marketplace of Ideas on Monday April 30th from 2:30-4PM. We hope to see some of you at AAM.

Last night at Intel in Rio Rancho, Ideum's Founder and CEO, Jim Spadaccini won a 'Titans of I.T.' Award. The event, which was sponsored by Intel and the New Mexico Technology Council, was organized by the New Mexico Business Weekly. A special edition on the winners comes out today. Jim was one of five winners, he won in the “Emerging” category.

Jim Spadaccini (2nd from the left) is pictured with the other category winners.

There’s more information about the award and photographs from the event on the New Mexico Business Weekly site. Ideum was featured in an article in The New Mexico Business Weekly back in November, Ideum's touch tables bring exhibits, displays to life.

The MT65 Presenter is an integrated and hardened 65″ LED HD multitouch display.  It is multitouch enabled from start-up and has a powerful CPU and dedicated GPU inside. It is a plug-and-play touch wall, ready for museums, public places, research labs, retail spaces, and other tough environments.  We recently released a video to highlight many of the Presenter’s core features and benefits.

Watch the new MT65 Presenter Video on Vimeo. For additional information and to download specifications and pricing, head to the MT65 Presenter page.

Let us know what you think, we’d love to hear your feedback.

If you’ve read Ideum Blog and you’ve been keeping up with GestureWorks and Open Exhibits, you know that we’re fast moving and productive group. The unfortunate thing about being this productive is that we often don’t get the chance to share all the cool ideas, experiments, and discoveries we’ve made along the way.

Enter Ideum Labs, our new Tumblr blog. Labs was conceived as a high output, low production value home for Ideum and GestureWorks Staff to share raw ideas, UX experiments, project snippets, random acts of science, and interesting HCI + multitouch news.

What have we shared thus far? How about wood-paneled multitouch tables, unpainted touch walls, multitouch solitaire (a la Windows XP), Windows 8 beta, and multitouch Van Gogh.

Learn more about Ideum Labs at Multitouch-Labs.tumblr.com, or read all the Labs posts on the Ideum facebook page.

The MT55 Pro multitouch table is the most feature rich, hardened multitouch table available – and it keeps getting better. In the past few months, we have made several iterative improvements and upgrades without upgrading the price. We recently released a new video to show off the Pro’s current features.

Watch the new MT55 Pro Tour Video on Vimeo and head over the the MT55 Pro page to learn about all of the recent improvements.

Interested in knowing how the MT55 Pro compares to the Samsung SUR40, or the Multitaction MT550W7 ? Download our multitouch table chart to compare them head to head:

Download the Multitouch Table and Display Comparison chart
(PDF 600kb)

The Open Exhibits project is gearing up for a major update. Open Exhibits is a National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored project designed to transform how museum professional and other educators develop interactive computer-based exhibits. Ideum in the principal organization in the project.

A new Open Exhibits multitouch SDK (Version 2) and other new software modules are going to be available in March. We are also re-designing and re-launching the Open Exhibits community-based website. All of this development is based on what we’ve learned from our members in the first 16 months of the project.  You can read more about the new release and the new website on the Open Exhibits blog.

We’ve also posted a video showing the new Collection Viewer 2.0. This application has multiscreen support and it comes with editing GUI for adding content. (I should mention too that this multiscreen demo is running on our standard MT55 Platform multitouch table with an external monitor connected via HDMI.)

We still have a long list of additions to add to the Collection Viewer during the course of 2012. If you want see some of the features we are looking to add, see the blog post: Building a Better Collection Viewer (Part 2). 

You can see the original post on the Open Exhibits website: Collection Viewer 2.0

Choosing the right multitouch equipment is a critical factor in planning a successful public exhibit. Size, build quality and performance are key factors when evaluating a device that will be used day after day in a busy public environment.

Our Multitouch Table and Display Comparison Chart (PDF 600kb) compiles key facts about our MT Series multitouch devices, along with available information on many of our competitor’s multi-touch tables and displays. We hope you will find this a valuable resource when selecting equipment for your next museum exhibit or public display.

We pride ourselves on building the best integrated multitouch tables and touch walls for public use. Whether you are comparing the the MT55 Platform table, MT55 Pro table, or our new MT65 Presenter multitouch wall, you will see that our product performance is second to none in build quality and value.

Download the Multitouch Table and Display Comparison chart*
(PDF 600kb)

*updated 1-9-12 with input from James Maki, Product Manager at Microsoft and Dave Henry, Marketing Manager at 3M Touch Systems

Later this spring,  I will be teaching a course on exhibit development for the Cultural Resource Management Program at the University of Victoria. The course will be held in Toronto at the Ontario Science Centre from April 22-24. It is a blended course, so an online component proceeds the three days, starting on April 9.  You can learn more about, Emerging Exhibits: Exploring New Models of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and register on the UVIC Website. (FYI, when I taught the course at the Museum of Vancouver last fall it sold out fast.)  Here’s a short description of the course:

Computer-based interactive exhibits are undergoing a major transformation. The lone, single-user kiosk is now being replaced by multi-touch tables and walls, motion-sensing spaces, networked installations, and RFID-based exhibits. Advances in augmented reality, speech recognition, eye tracking, and other technologies promise even more radical change for exhibits in the near future.

Collectively these new technologies represent a fundamental advance in Human Computer Interaction (HCI). This course will look at a new generation of computer-based exhibits that are more physical, more intuitive, and have more social qualities than their predecessors.

The new models for HCI provide us with opportunities to rethink how technology is used in museums and other public spaces. Computer technology is on the cusp of finally living up to its promise in the museum world, providing a platform for developing compelling and authentic experiences for the public.

We’re pleased to announce the release of the Ideum MT65 Presenter multitouch wall display. The MT65 Presenter is a huge 65” interactive display with a 3D LCD, robust multitouch sensor, ultra-clear tempered glass, a powerful integrated computer, built-in audio, and webcam housed inside a hardened aluminum case.

The Presenter is easy to install and maintain, virtually indestructible, and works in practically any ambient lighting environment. The integrated touch sensor supports up to 32 simultaneous touch points for multiple user exhibits. The 4” thin Presenter is protected by hardened 3mm tempered glass and a vandal-proof metal housing.

The Presenter features a 65” 3D LCD display with full HD resolution and flicker-free FPR 3D imaging that uses an LED backlight rated for 50,000 hours. The massive interactive display is over 2.5 times larger than the Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface 2.

The powerful built-in computer features an Intel® Core™ i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM, Solid State Hard Drive, and a discrete GPU, making the Presenter more than three times faster than the Surface 2.0, and likely to outperform any other touchscreen on the market.

The MT65 Presenter includes built-in WIFI, Bluetooth, and Ethernet connectivity. It also features stereo speakers, an external HD webcam with Carl Zeiss® optics and a stereo microphone. The Presenter has HDMI input/output that allows you to easily mirror the device’s display, or it can receive input from another device.

An optional locking plate secures the Presenter’s Ethernet, HDMI, 3.5mm Audio in/out, and USB 2.0 ports against unwanted access. Similar to Ideum’s MT55 Series of multitouch tables, the Presenter features single-button operation. Just plug it in and turn it on.

Every MT65 Presenter ships with a full, lifetime, licensed copy of GestureWorks 3 for ActionScript. GestureWorks® for ActionScript provides streamlined multitouch authoring for multitouch walls, tables, desktops, tablets, and embedded devices. You’ll save precious development time and have access to pre-built gestures and the world’s first markup language for multitouch: GestureML. In addition, GestureWorks®  SDK has a powerful touch point cluster analysis system, a built-in simulator, and includes access to pre-built modules.

For more information, please download and read the MT65 Presenter Press Release.

MT65 Presenter Press Release
(Updated: 01-17-12) (49kb)

You can also read about the MT65 Presenter on Engadget

Early next month, 100 Years of State & Federal Policy: The Impact on Pueblo Nations exhibition opens at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The exhibit is tied to the state of New Mexico’s Centennial which happens this year. We’ve  been working with the Cultural Center to develop two interactive exhibits for the exhibition. We’re designing the software and hardware, the Cultural Center has been been developing media including a series of videos for the exhibit.

The Document Table is a multitouch table exhibit that allows visitors to learn more about the important events that have impacted the Pueblo Nations over the last 100 years. Along with exploring the documents, visitors can view them on a large, 55″ secondary screen adjacent to the table. (The multitouch table is an MT55 Platform with custom color.)

The Interactive Timeline is a dual monitor exhibit that uses a custom-built, touch-enabled ultra-wide display to present the timeline. (The ultra-wide display has a 16:4.5 aspect ratio, 1920 x 508 pixels, you can see a photo of touch display on our Flickr site.) As visitors make selections a large 42″ display presents video, photos, and descriptive text. Both exhibits are using software components from Open Exhibits.

These two interactive exhibits will help communicate the overall message of the exhibition:

This exhibition and its public programming will reflect upon the human experience behind enacted policies and laws on Pueblo communities by other governments. It will add to a well-documented history of Pueblo resilience since the time of Emergence. Interviews with Pueblo members will provide visitors with historical and personal reflections to help them understand and appreciate these historic challenges, often imposed through policy and laws, all intended to purposefully remove Pueblo people away from their core values.

The opening is on February 4, 2012 at 1:00 PM. There are a number of events associated with the exhibition planned through the rest of the year. You can learn more on the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center website: www.indianpueblo.org/100years