>>Reposted from Open Exhibits Blog

It’s official!  Ideum has been awarded a major ($1.78M) National Science Foundation grant for a three-year exhibit software initiative entitled Open Exhibits.  The project will release a suite of open source multitouch-enabled exhibit modules and templates with the goal of transforming the way in which museum professionals and other informal educators assemble interactive computer-based exhibits for use in museums.

Later this fall, we will release Open Exhibits Core software, which includes support for multitouch gestures within Adobe Flash and Flex. This software will be free for museums, nonprofits, universities, students, and other educational organizations.

Along with the core, the first open source templates and modules will also be released. These templates and modules will allow developers to easily create interactive exhibits. We will provide more specifics as we get closer to the release date. As the project progresses, we hope to see community members create and share their own modules and templates.

Open Exhibits Core is based on the commercial GestureWorks software package.

All open source modules and templates will work with both Open Exhibits Core and the GestureWorks multitouch framework for Flash and Flex.

All of the software will be available on the Open Exhibits site. In addition, the site will become a resource for developers, with screencasts, tutorials, documentation, research findings, forums, and the software itself.  A major update of the Open Exhibits site is already in the works.

Ideum is the lead organization on Open Exhibits. I am the Principal Investigator of the project and Kate Haley Goldman is the co-PI and main researcher for the project. We have three museum partners: the Don Harrington Discovery Center, the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. Evaluation will be conducted by Rockman et. al.

To learn more, visit the Open Exhibits website. We encourage you to join our mailing list and follow us on Twitter or on Facebook. We will be announcing software release dates and other news in the next couple of weeks.

We are happy to announce that we are now partners with HP.  This new partnership allows Ideum to provide better integrated hardware solutions.  We now offer our popular TouchStand kiosk enclosure complete with a HP TouchSmart 9100 Business PC. Both the stand and the computer come with a three-year warranty.

Over the last year we’ve sold hundreds of TouchStands and they have been used in museums, stores and other busy public environments around the world.  Later this year we will be integrating HP computers into our multitouch table.

We’re hiring! Ideally we’re looking for someone with Flash/Flex experience who’s knowledgable and curious about art, science and history. Some graphic design or media production chops don’t hurt either, and non-profit or museum experience would be an added bonus. Still, we’re flexible and mainly looking for a good developer that works well in a team environment and doesn’t mind a fast-paced and rapidly changing workflow. Position includes benefits and the occasional awesome snack.

Check out the full job description on Craigslist.

Update September 21, 2010: We’ve posted the same position to Ars Technica and we’ve a new Programmer / Developer position to Craigslist.

Back in June, we announced the release of a free multitouch application that combined NOAA oil spill data, visitor contributed Flickr photos, and Google Maps.  (You can see that blog post and video,  BP Oil Multitouch Map Mashup.) The application was developed exhibit using our own GestureWorks multitouch framework for Adobe Flash.

This application is still available to educational organizations such as science centers and aquariums.  Since then a few different museums and aquariums across the globe have expressed interest.

Just this week we got our first photographs back from Petrosains Discovery Centre in Mayalsia. The exhibit is in their Hot Science exhibit area.

McWane Science Center in Birmingham, Alabama will be including the exhibit as part of their Science of an Oil Spill exhibition opening October 2, 2010.  We hope to have pictures very soon.

Also, the application was mentioned today in Art | Participation an Italian language blog and community site that focuses on interactivity and multimedia, Ideum e la mostra digitale della catastrofe del Golfo.

If you are a museum, aquarium, or science center and you would like to use this free multitouch software, please email us for details.