In February, I’ll be presenting at the Blur Conference in Orlando, Florida. My talk will focus on what we’ve learned from developing multitouch and multiuser installations over the last few years.
The Blur Conference focuses on the new ways in which people are interacting with computers. This is first time this event has ever been held. So what is Blur about? From the conference webpage…
It’s easy to forget that the computer mouse is over 45 years old.
What’s not as easy to forget is that we’re now collectively getting used to interacting with computers via means and interfaces that have moved way beyond the keyboard and the mouse — the iPhone and Wii being the most prominent examples.
The truth is that we stand on the verge of a major revolution in the models of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). A revolution that will fly right past academic and into a world of retail, medical, gaming, military, public event, sporting, personal and marketing applications.
From multi-touch to motion capture to spatial operating environments, over the next 10 years, everything we know about HCI will change.
Blur is the only conference that is exploring the line of interaction between computers and humans in a substantive, real-world and hands-on way.
I’ll be presenting, “New Museum Experiences: Learning from Multitouch and Multiuser Installations” on February 22nd. I’ll also be on a panel that same afternoon talking about Kinect and our Open Exhibits module. You can learn more about the Blur conference on their website.
Over on the Open Exhibits website, Jeff Heywood of Vancouver Aquarium has just shared a comprehensive field study on two multitouch tables in the Canada’s Arctic gallery space. The study was developed by The InnoVis Group, Interactions Lab at the University of Calgary.
We built the tables and worked with Vancouver Aquarium back in the summer of 2009 to create the software. The report looks at the “general experience of the digital tables”, including the form factor, and then it takes a closer look at the applications.
The study shows, as Jeff points out in his post, that “not everything was a success with the tables, but they are, overall, successful.” Considering the emergent nature of these types of exhibits, we were pleased to see that the study was generally very positive.
Still, some things didn’t work as well we would have liked. There were significant usability issues with the early version of the Collection Viewer. I’m happy to report that many of the issues cited in the report have been fixed in the newer version of the Collection Viewer that is available on the Open Exhibits site. We built in the ability to easily change some of the design parameters via XML. For example, button size and spacing can be modified by changing the XML. In addition, we remapped many of the gestures, so that the Collection Viewer objects respond better to visitor interaction. Still, some issues remain and we’ll be taking a closer look at this report and making additional changes.
Studies like this are incredibly valuable (and far too rare in the field). As designers and developers, we can only learn so much through testing and observation in the studio. The museum (or aquarium) setting and the sheer number and range of different visitors provides us with a new picture of the exhibit. You can download and read the full report on the Open Exhibits website, Interactive Tables at the Vancouver Aquarium.
We’ve recently released two new modules on Open Exhibits. The gigapixel viewer module allows Open Exhibits and GestureWorks users to plug any gigapixel image into our Flash application and drag and zoom it using multitouch inputs. We recently demo’d this app for the first time at CES 2011 and it was a big hit.
MT-Kinect, our other new module, allows users to interface with a Kinect to manipulate multitouch applications using gesturing (like in the movie Minority Report) rather than directly touching a screen. We combined this module with a gigapixel viewer to create an application that allows you to move and zoom by waving your arms.
So how does our application convert Kinect data to multitouch-compatible input that our Flash application can read? We wrote a “directshow” source filter, a virtualized webcam device that reads data from the drivers released by OpenKinect.
After adjusting the depth data to amplify the edges – which optimizes this application for gestures from a single user centered in the Kinect’s camera – we output a simple webcam feed. We route this information to a vanilla installation of CCV (theoretically, other trackers should work), which runs various filters, finds the blobs, and outputs the data in whatever format we would like to consume (in our case,”flosc,” which enables Flash apps to get “OSC” information ). Our gigapixel viewer software can then read this input as though it came from any multitouch device.
These modules are free to download and use; you just need to be an Open Exhibits member. The gigapixel viewer requires that you have either Open Exhibits Core or GestureWorks software. Open Exhibits Core is available free to educational users. Commercial users can try GestureWorks free or purchase a license.
And if you’re wondering about the stunning gigapixel image of El Capitán, it was taken by xRez Studio who were nice enough to let us use the image for this demo.
A GestureWorks application is helping the Onion News Network create “the most reliable news on television.” The Onion News Network, a new show from the popular satirical news source The Onion, debuts Friday using the multitouch Recon Wall media browsing application. Inside The Onion News Network
The Recon Wall is a custom-built GestureWorks application that allows Onion anchors to manipulate and draw on images or video in real-time. The app is featured on a 52″ NextWindow 2700 overlay. An inexpensive 2-point alternative to CNN’s $100,000+ touch wall, the NextWindow system, including LCD & software, cost around $5000.
You can view the Recon Wall throughout the video above (or zip ahead to 1:26 to see Tucker Hope using it). And be sure to tune into IFC at 10 EST (8 MST for our local friends) to watch the Onion News Network.
Or see more of the app functionality in this video:
For anybody interested in the NASA Space Weather Media Viewer and iPhone/iPad/iPod development, we’ve released the source code for the NASA Space Weather Media Viewer mobile edition! You can find it on its new GitHub home page (https://github.com/ideum/NASA-Space-Weather-Media-Viewer). If you’re looking for the app itself, you can download it for free in the iTunes store.
We’ve utilized the awesome Three20 library originally engineered by the folks at Facebook, and a simple CoreData store organizes the media assets. Though they’re streamed from the NASA server to your device, you’ll find all the video content in the source (be prepared for a long checkout process). The RichContentViewController displays HTML content with text sizing options and ShareKit integration, and the SegmentedNavigationController provides an alternative interface to the icon-based buttons available with the standard navigation controller.
As we mentioned in a previous post on the Space Weather Viewer app, the iPhone development process was not as smooth as we might have hoped. By releasing the source code, we hope to aid students and educational programs that may want to try building their own iPhone app as well as programmers just getting into iPhone development.
No, we haven’t managed to get our hands on the new Surface yet, but as multitouch hardware manufacturers ourselves, we took a great interest in the redesigned Surface, unveiled yesterday at CES. Looking over the specifications, we found many improvements and a few potential pitfalls . . .
Pro: It has a new 4-inch form factor.
This is huge. For one, visitors can actually get their legs under it, like a real table, and two, it makes wall-mounting the Surface an option, if you can break it out of its casing or if Microsoft plans to sell it in an open-frame format as well as an integrated solution.
Con: The included computer is kind of wimpy.
The Surface 2.0 ships with a AMD Athlon™ II X2 Dual-Core Processor 2.9GHz, which is a perfectly fine processor for a single-user computer, but in our experience will probably have some trouble handling multi-user or media-intensive applications. And if a 40-in high definition screen isn’t designed for multiple users and rich media, what is it designed for?
Pro: It has a lovely new Full HD LCD display.
Samsung is now manufacturing the Surface, and 2.0 has a full HD LCD display, which is a significant improvement over the last model. If you’ll let us nerd out for a moment, we suspect that they are using a “fourth pixel”-type technology in the LCD to emit infrared light and then a paired receiver to detect when it bounces off something (like a finger) on the Surface, which is a pretty darn cool and very elegant way of tracking touch points. The only problem is, it might be hard to upgrade the display as resolution continues to improve on other devices, which was also a sticking point for the last Surface.
Con: The screen is only 40 inches.
Only 40 inches, you say?! That’s huge! . . . Yes, for a single-user system. You’ll notice that even in the promotional video the actors looked a bit squashed around it, making it difficult for this to be a true multi-user system.
Pro: It finally uses Windows 7.
The last Surface needed a keyboard and mouse to handle its Vista-based operating system. The new Surface uses Windows 7, making the entire system fully-touch enabled. And it also supports Windows 7 64-bit, which is great.
Con: That darn bezel.
The Surface ships with a bezel around the edge, which may not seem like that big a deal at first glance. BUT. A lot of touchscreen manufacturers have begun to advertise as “bezel-less” and if you’ve ever used a touchscreen with a bezel on the edge, you begin to understand why. It’s disconcerting to be happily dragging along a virtual object and have your finger hit an actual physical limitation. Not to mention, if you wanted to put this in a bar or museum or other high-traffic place where liquids could get spilled on it, that bezel will ensure that all the soda or coffee or whatever just pools on the screen, potentially damaging the device and creating a cleaning nightmare.
Pro: The price just got cut in half.
The Surface now ships for a mere(!) $7,600, which is about half of its old purchase price, making it a much more affordable option for museums and other organizations looking for relatively inexpensive interactive solutions.
Con: Not hardened for public use.
The problem with many commercial touch tables, including the new Surface, is that they simply aren’t hardened enough for long-term, high-traffic use. If you want to throw this thing in your living room, it would probably be fine. If you work at a science center and want to let hundreds and thousands of kids use it every day, it probably won’t. One example: The glass they’re using doesn’t handle load very well, so someone trying to sit or even lean on the table could damage the LCD screen, making the table unusable. Not to mention the problems with the weak CPU that can’t handle intensive multi-user apps and the bezel.
Regardless, this is a major step forward for the Surface and Microsoft, and we look forward to seeing how people use it, especially in educational or museum contexts.
We’re at CES for the first time this year, promoting GestureWorks and our new partnership with Touch Revolution. While we’ve attended many trade shows and conferences, CES is a spectacle unlike any we’ve seen before, and it seems appropriate that it takes place in Las Vegas.
A visitor manipulates a 3D molecule with our Molecule Viewer app
We’ve noticed 3D and touch are two of the year’s buzzwords, appearing everywhere at CES, so our multitouch 3D molecule viewer fits right in. Built specially for CES, the viewer allows you to manipulate a molecule in 3D space. Shown here on the TRū Touch Monitor, the molecule viewer is the most educationally focused application we’re showing this year. The app offers molecular structure and information for five of the active ingredients in Red Bull, which seemed appropriate for a tech conference.
Gene Halsey from Touch Revolution demos our X-ray app
Robots are also a big hit at this year’s CES, even if they just jitter and giggle. We haven’t gotten into robotics (yet), but you can see the X-ray insides of a toy robot with our X-ray viewer. The app allows you to switch from the visible view of an object to the X-ray view with a simple double tap, and was based on one of our most popular exhibits.
And, if you just want to play a game, there’s always Astrotouch, our multitouch version of Asteroids.
As we announced yesterday, we recently partnered with Touch Revolution to create a series of GestureWorks applications for their hardware demos. We’ve been lucky enough the past few weeks to get to play around with the new 21.5″ TRū Touch monitors, which Touch Revolution will be debuting at CES. The TRū Touch monitors are full HD (1920 x 1080), bezel-less, and, like these concept screens, you can tilt them to horizontal angles to make tasks like typing and drawing easier.
We’ve been testing our apps for CES on the TRū Touch, including an amazing gigapixel image viewer that allows you to zoom in close enough to see rock climbers on El Capitan in Yosemite and a 3D object viewer, but so far the hands-down favorite has been Astrotouch, our multitouch version of Asteroids.
The game has a series of old school-style arcade controls at the bottom, and we’ve been nothing but impressed with the screen’s responsiveness and accuracy. Some of the other hardware we had in-house had trouble with ghost points on the controls, but the TRū Touch screen handled it flawlessly every time.
Check out the video above for a sneak peek at the new Touch Revolution hardware, and be sure to visit us at CES. We’ll be at the Touch Revolution Booth, #21755, South Hall Lower Level with a full set of great multitouch applications on display and free gesture illustration posters to give away.
Back in 2006, when we started blogging, we weren’t really sure where it would lead. At the time, we were interested in Web 2.0 technology and how it might be best used by the museum field. Five years, 259 posts, and 3,561 comments later, the changes we’ve seen to both the web and the museum fields have been dramatic.
In March of 2006, we conducted a survey of museum blogs and community sites and found 26 sites, most of them begun within a few months of the survey. Blogging in the museum world was so new that the LA Times did a story on museum blogs that summer. In 2007, we conducted a follow up survey and I co-authored a paper for Museums and the Web with Seb Chan from the Powerhouse Museum. We found 111 museum blogs. In 2008, we stopped counting.
Blogging and the next wave of social media are now commonplace and today most museums use these technologies in one way or another. Back in 2006, it required “Radical Trust” for museums to get involved with social media.
Since 2006, Ideum has undergone some major changes too. When I wrote that first blog post, we had just moved to New Mexico, we had four employees and most of the work we did was focused around Web development. We still do Web development today, but we are also involved in a number of other pursuits.
We develop many more exhibits for the floor than we did back in 2006. We’ve created mobile applications for the iPhone and we are working on one for Android right now. We’ve released GestureWorks, a commercial multitouch software package, and we have a line of hardware products too. We are involved in a number of government-sponsored educational projects; we’re currently working with both NASA and NOAA and running the Open Exhibits project, which started just last September and is supported by NSF. From radical trust to radical change.
Ideum is teaming up with Touch Revolution to offer GestureWorks, our Flash multitouch framework, as part of a software bundle that will be included with the new 21.5″ TRū™ Touch Monitor.
Developers will be able to purchase this cutting-edge, high definition monitor with GestureWorks at CES 2011 in Las Vegas for the show price of $995. This bundle will be available after CES through the Touch Revolution online store.
This is the first time GestureWorks has been bundled with a major hardware manufacturer, and it’s great to be working with a company that has such extensive experience with multitouch hardware. Touch Revolution is part of the TPK Group, which manufactures screens for companies such as Apple, Sony Ericsson, Microsoft, Palm, Research in Motion, and Motorola.
We’ll be in the Touch Revolution booth at CES this week. We’ll be showing a variety of GestureWorks-developed applications, including a gigapixel photographic viewer and a touch-enabled version of Asteroids. The gigapixel photographic viewer will be released on the Open Exhibits website later this month.
Come see us at the Touch Revolution Booth, # 21755 at the 2011 International CES in Las Vegas, January 6-9. Enter to win 1 of 10 Tru Touch Monitors bundled with GestureWorks.
Update: January 5, 2011: You can read about Touch Revolution Tru Touch Monitor Line in Engadget.
In February, I’ll be presenting at the Blur Conference in Orlando, Florida. My talk will focus on what we’ve learned from developing multitouch and multiuser installations over the last few years.
