The New Media Consortium has published the 2010 Horizon Report: Museum Edition which “identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have a large impact over the coming five years on a variety of sectors around the globe.”
A section on Gesture-Based Computing caught my eye for obvious reasons. The report lists the time-to-adoption horizon for gesture-based computing as four to five years. We agree with many of the report’s findings, but since we’ve been involved in developing multitouch and multiuser applications for over two years now, I would move that timeline forward. Although what one would consider “adoption” and how widespread it is seems to be open to interpretation.
Below are a few of the points that we found especially interesting.
The report calls gesture-based computing a transformative technology.
“Because gesture-based computing changes not only the physical and mechanical aspects of interacting with computers, but also our perception of what it means to work with a computer, it is a transformative technology.”
It mentions the importance of allowing visitors to “manipulate objects” and how that is a “satisfying personal connection of an individual with the object. In addition, the report touches on the potential of collaborative interaction:
“Larger multi-touch displays support collaborative work, allowing multiple users to interact with content simultaneously, unlike a single-user mouse.”
The potential for collaborative work and communication between museum visitors in the report really should be expanded. Our experiences in developing multitouch exhibits has shown us that beyond “intuitive gestures,” multitouch means multiuser and well-constructed exhibits can encourage interaction between visitors. In fact, the interaction we’ve seen around multitouch tables is similar to the types of interaction one might expect from a hands-on science exhibit.
The report is worth checking out and there are a variety of links to examples of multitouch exhibits (including two of our own).
This morning I was able to observe sunrise at the great house of Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Culture National Historical Park. The weather was dicey, so I feel very lucky to have captured this amazing solar display. This effect is seen at sunrise for the days surrounding the time of the winter solstice.
The sun shines through a corner window and the image appears in the opposite corner of the room. Over the course of a few minutes the image will appear in center of the northwest corner. Due to cloudy weather the effect could only be seen for a few moments.
The solar marker is on the top level of the southeast side of Pueblo Bonito. Notice the rooms below. The ledge from where this image was taken was about 10 feet above the solar marker and 30 feet above the floor of the lower chambers.
High-resolution image are available on Flickr. There are more images of summer solstice and other events at Chaco Canyon in our blog. You can learn more about Chaco Canyon and archaeoastronomy at the park in the Traditions of the Sun website.
Update: One thing I forgot to mention…also shooting photos this morning was Justin Ladd. Check out his amazing time lapse movies of Chaco Canyon at: solsticedocumentary.com
I’m very happy to announce the release of a major update to our GestureWorks multitouch authoring frameworks for Adobe Flash and Flex. The new version has some great new features, most notably over 200 built-in gestures and the ability to incorporate Open Exhibits software modules. A GestureWorks 2.0 commercial license costs $249. We are providing free upgrades to any GestureWorks 1.x users.
In addition to the new software release, we’ve also redesigned the GestureWorks website. The front page is now multitouch-enabled. The support system and documentation areas of the website have been completely revamped, with an expanded FAQ, a new issue tracking system, and a comprehensive GestureWorks manual. We’ve also added Google Checkout to the options for payment in the store.
In addition, we’ve updated our popular gesture poster to reflect the gesture support in the new release. The poster and the gesture artwork are released under a Creative Commons Attribution – ShareAlike license.
We’ve just posted a video on our YouTube channel (multitouchexhibits) showing the features of the NASA Space Weather Viewer iPhone app that we released at the end of October. The app connects to near-realtime views of the Sun from NASA Satellites. Check out the video below:
The New Media Consortium has published the 2010 Horizon Report: Museum Edition which “identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have a large impact over the coming five years on a variety of sectors around the globe.”
