We recently completed a GestureWorks application for a CNN-esque multitouch newsroom application. We’re pretty psyched, as this is our first multitouch project for broadcast media.

We’re sworn to secrecy about the show, but we can say that the app will be 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. The custom software allows you to sort and display image and video collections, scrub video, and draw on top of images and video clips.

The show debuts in January 2011, so check back in a few months for the actual footage. In the mean time, you can watch us demo a version of the app on an HP Touchsmart 9100 in the video below:

We’ve recently built out individual pages for the hardware featured on the Multitouch Hardware section of the GestureWorks site. The hardware is divided into categories for easy sorting, making it easy to compare different models of multitouch all-in-ones, notebooks and tablets, displays or tables.

For each device listed, we’ve hunted down reviews, video, specifications and even press releases to provide a comprehensive overview of device strengths and weaknesses without all the legwork. We’ve also enabled comments so we can get feedback from actual users on how the hardware performs. What are you waiting for? Check out the new GestureWorks’ Supported Hardware page for yourself!

Since Adobe announced support for multitouch back in November, there has quite a bit of confusion surrounding Flash multitouch support. Recently, we downloaded an example from Adobe’s site to try out the built-in support for ourselves.

Adobe unveiled some multitouch examples using the built-in support found in the beta releases of Adobe AIR 2 and Flash 10.1 Adobe MAX back in November. A YouTube video of the presentation from Adobe MAX shows the limitations of the multitouch currently found in Flash 10.1 and AIR 2.

There is no support for multiple simultaneous gestures.  In other words, you can scale or rotate, but you can’t scale and rotate at the same time. Support for “drag” is limited to a one-finger drag (using a mouse event). The Adobe Max examples show simple, single gestures and a lot of single-finger dragging.

Adobe’s limited incarnation of multitouch may work for simple applications using dual-touch systems, but it seems entirely inadequate for complex applications, multiuser apps, or for development on the growing list of multitouch devices supporting more than two points.

Here’s a video comparison that we developed using the example found on the Adobe website. It directly compares Adobe’s upcoming built-in support to that of our Gestureworks multitouch framework for Flash (available today).

We feel this video clearly demonstrates the significant differences between Adobe’s built-in support and the multitouch support provided via Gestureworks. You can try the Adobe example yourself at the Adobe’s Developer Connection and get a Trial Version of Gestureworks, and download the example apps (.zip 343K) we used in our video to see for yourself. You might also want to see the Multitouch + NUI blog which brought up concerns about Adobe’s implementation back in November.

Just a quick note that we’ve updated EditorOne, our online video editing platform. The software allows Web visitors to create their own video mashups with museum content and digital collections. The new version offers better performance, a full-screen playback option, and an improved content management system.

EditorOne now includes the display of source clip information and metadata. For example, when a visitor create a video mashup, a page is created that includes descriptions, transcripts, attributions, copyright information, and other important collections information. (You can view a live example here.)

EditorOne has new hosting and installation options too.  You can learn more about EditorOne’s features and you can try the demo version.

Recently we helped redesign the Center for the Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE) website. CAISE is a NSF-funded center “devoted to advancing and improving informal science education (ISE) in its many and varied forms.” As part of this effort, we worked closely with CAISE to conduct video interviews with principal investigators (PIs) of four NSF-sponsored projects in Washington D.C.

The full video interviews appear on the CAISE site, and introductory clips are on YouTube. Below is the introductory clip interview with Frances Nankin a producer of Cyberchase, the popular educational television show on PBS.

Next year, we’ll likely be interviewing other PIs as we continue to work with CAISE. To see the full interviews, or to learn more about the center, visit the CAISE website.

Digital New Zealand is an initiative to “test new ways to create digital content, collect and share existing digital content and build smart, freely available search and discovery tools.”  While Digital NZ is just getting started, today they’ve launched the Memory Maker to mark the 90th Anniversary of the signing of the Armistice ending World War One.

This interactive online video mashup uses EditorOne to let visitors create their own short videos using  historic video images, still photographs, artifacts, music and audio clips. The content for the mashup video editor comes from the National Digital Forum which includes museums, historical societies, archives, and libraries from across the country. This marks the first time EditorOne has been used as way to connect together and highlight multiple collections.  The full Digital New Zealand project launches in December. You can learn more and sign up for updates on the Digital NZ site.

This month Ideum’s own Emily Steinmetz is working on a documentary on Bolivia’s landless peasant movement.  Emily and her collaborators have been traveling the country conducting interviews.  They even interviewed Bolvia’s President Evo Morales! You can read more about their adventures on the Pueblos Unidos blog.  Way to go Emily!

This week about 20 more photographs were added to the John Collier Jr. site on flickr (including this gem on the left taken in 1943 in Questa, New Mexico.) This is the first new set photos to be added since The American Image website went live back in January. (You can learn more about this project in our portfolio.) Our partners at the Maxwell Museum of the Anthropology will be adding more great Collier images over the next few months. The American Image site uses a flickr mashup, so as new photos are added they automatically appear within the Collection and inside the Shooting Script activity. Back on flickr, it was nice to see so many positive comments about the new photos. John Collier Jr. now has well over 100 contacts in flickr.

Along with the two photo mashups, the Propaganda Filmmaker a Flash-based online video editor that allows visitors to create their own short movies has been very active. (I posted more about the online video editor earlier this year.) Over 200 “propaganda films” have been made, with new ones appearing daily. Our visitors’ creativity in working with the 150 clips that are provided has shined through. An American Hero does a great job of telling a very literal story, while Oh! Irony! as the name suggests, conveys a very different message–all of this in less than 40 seconds! You can check out the Top Ten and the latest videos here, or make your own. It’s great to see what visitors will create when we develop interesting tools for them to use.

Back in 2005, we developed a video podcast for NASA’s Sun-Earth Education Forum (see Traditions of the Sun). Soon after we were invited to became part of listserv which included everyone who podcasts at NASA. A master list of all NASA podcasts has been compiled and floating around the group for sometime now but it has ever been published. I asked Bryan Walls who administers the group if we could publish it, knowing it would be of interest to some of you.

Here’s what should be a complete list of all NASA sponsored public podcasts.

1. Ask an Astronomer Videos from SIRTF/CalTech (XML | iTunes) Format: M4V (H.264, 320×240, AAC 44.1 Stereo, 650 kbps typical) Started: October ‘05 Average length: 2 minutes Active: Yes

2. Brain Bites Ask NASA from Johnson Space Center (XML) Format: M4V (H.264, 320×180, AAC 44.1) Started: November ‘05 Average Length: 1 minute Active: No

3. Chandra Podcasts from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (XML| iTunes) Format: M4V (H.264, 320×213, AAC 44.1, 680 kbps typical) Started: May ‘06 Average Length: 5 minutes Active: Yes

4. Ciencia @ NASA from Marshall Space Flight Center (XML | iTunes) Format: MP3 (32kbps mono) Started: Sept ‘05 Average Length: 6minutes Active: Yes

5. Hidden Universe of the Spitzer Space Telescope from SIRTF/CalTech (XML | iTunes) Format: MP4 (H.264, 320×234, AAC Stereo 44.1) Started: May ‘06 Average Length: 3.5 minutes Active: Yes

6. Hubblecast from ESA/Hubble Institute (XML | iTunes) Format: N/A Started: Feb ‘07 Average Length: 5.5 minutes Active: Yes

7. NASA Aeronautics Research Technical Seminars from Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate’s (ARMD) (RSS | iTunes) Format: MP4 (H.264, 320×234, AAC Stereo 44.1) Started: Nov ‘06 Average Length: 1.3 hours Active: Yes

8. NASA Astrobiology Magazine from Goddard Space Flight Center (XML | iTunes) Format: MP3 (32 kHz, 64.1 kbps, Mono) Started: June ‘05 Average Length: 7.5 minutes Active: No

9. NASA Digital Learning Network Podcast (XML | iTunes) Format: M4V (320×240 or 320×180, Stereo 44.1 kHz) Started: July ‘06 Average Length: 6 minutes Active: Yes

10. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Podcast (XML | iTunes) Format: MP3 (128 kbps Stereo) Started: Dec ‘05 Average Length: 8 minutes Active: No

11. NASA Edge Vodcast from Langely Research Center (RSS) Format: MP4 (320×180, 128kbps, AAC Stereo) Started: Mar ‘07 Average Length: 30 minutes Active: Yes

12. NASA Student Opportunities from NASA Education (RSS | iTunes) Format: MP3 (128 kpbs mono) Started: Feb ‘07 Average Length: 10 minutes Active: Yes

13. NASA’s Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum from Goddard Space Flight Center (XML | iTunes) Format: MP3 (96 kbps Stereo) or M4V (H.264 320×213, AAC 44.1) Started: Dec ‘05 Average Length: 3 minutes Active: Yes

14. NASACast from Headquarters (RSS | iTunes) Format: MP3 (128 kbps Stereo) Started: Sept ‘05 Average Length: 6 minutes Active: Yes

15. NASACast Video from Headquarters (RSS | iTunes) Format: mp4 (MPEG-4, 320×236, AAC 44.1 Stereo, 950 kbps typical) Started: Oct ‘05 Average Length: 6 minutes Active: Yes

16. PlanetQuest – the Search for Another Earth from Jet Propulsion Laboratory (XML | iTunes) Format: MP3 (44.1 kHz, 160 kbps) Started: Sept ‘05 Average Length: 2.5 minutes Active: Yes

17. Robotics Alliance Project F.I.R.S.T. Competition 2006 from Ames Research Center (XML | iTunes) Format: MP4 (MPEG-4, 320×240, AAC 24, 590 kbps typical) Started: Mar ‘06 Average Length: 1 hour Active: No

18. Robotics Alliance Project F.I.R.S.T. Competition 2007 from Ames Research Center (XML | iTunes) Format: MP4 (MPEG-4, 320×240, AAC 24, 590 kbps typical) Started: Mar ‘07 Average Length: 1 hour Active: Yes

19. The Rovercast from Stennis Space Center (XML | iTunes) Format: MP3 (44.1 kHz, 160 kbps) Started: July ‘06 Average Length: 1.5 minutes Active: Yes

20. Science @ NASA Feature Stories Podcast from Marshall Space Flight Center (XML | iTunes) Format: MP3 (44.1 kHz, 56 kbps, Mono) Started: Dec ‘04 Average Length: 1.5 minutes Active: Yes

21. Skywatch/Hubble Watch from STScI/NPR/WYPR 88.1 FM (XML | iTunes) Format: MP3 (22.05 kHz, 48 kbps, Stereo) Started: Sept ‘05 Average Length: 4 minutes Active: Yes

22. Space Place Musings from Jet Propulsion Laboratory (RSS | iTunes) Format: MP3 (48 kHz, 128 kbps, Stereo) Started: July ‘06 Average Length: 5 minutes Active: Yes

23. Spitzer Space Telescope Podcasts from SIRTF/IPAC/CalTech (XML | iTunes) Format: MP3 (22.05 kHz, 48 kbps, Stereo) Started: Aug ‘05 Average Length: 6 minutes Active: Yes

24. Traditions of the Sun from Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (XML | iTunes) Format: M4V (H.264, 320×213, AAC 44.1, 560 kbps typical) Started: Aug ‘05 Average Length: 3 minutes Active: No

25. W. M. Keck Observatory from Keck/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (XML | iTunes) Format: MP3 (22.05 kHz, 56 kbps, Stereo) Started: Aug ‘05 Average Length: 6 minutes Active: Yes

Late last Fall we posted of number video clips we developed with The Tech Museum of Innovation up on YouTube. Admittedly, it was an afterthought, as we originally began work with the Tech on the Understanding Genetics website years before YouTube was much of a force. The video clips in question, came from interviews I conducted at the Future of Science Conference in Venice back in September. The interviews were with an amazing group; Daniel Dennett, Peter Atkins, Marc Hauser, and Ian Tattersall.

The original plan was to post them on the Understanding Genetics site in a Flash video player and then to Podcast them through the website and iTunes. After seeing Ontario Science Centre’s early efforts on YouTube we decided to spend a couple extra hours uploading the video clips to our own channel on the site. Three months later, it is nice to see that some of the Future of Science clips have over 1,000 views. Atleast one has a long discussion associated with it and all 26 clips have at least one rating and a minimum of 100 views. While these are modest numbers, still a few thousand Web visitors who likely would not have seen these interviews on The Tech Museum site or on iTunes saw them on YouTube. (The Understanding Genetics’s website itself receives around 600,000 unique visitors a year.)

We’ll continue to experiment and watch as museums move forward in their efforts to colonize social websites, it seems like a simple and natural extension for projects like Understanding Genetics to expand their reach.