Showing posts with label design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label design. Show all posts

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Seventh International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction, Feb 10-13, Barcelona, Spain: Call for Papers

CALL FOR PAPERS
TEI 13:  Seventh International Conference on 
Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction
February 10-13, 2013.  Barcelona, Spain
Home

Important Dates:
August 6th, 2012, 11:59 pm (UTC+1): Paper submission deadline 
November 26th, 2012, 11:59 pm (UTC+1): Work in Progress submission deadline 
October 22nd, 2012: Paper acceptance notification 


February 10-13th, 2013: TEI 2013 Conference at Barcelona 


Description 
TEI 2013 is the seventh international conference on tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction. The work presented at TEI focuses on physical interaction with computing technology and addresses design challenges, theories, experiences, systems, and new developments. The intimate size of this single-track conference provides a unique forum for exchanging ideas and presenting innovative work through talks, interactive exhibits, demos, hands-on studios, posters, art installations and performances.


Research on tangible, embodied and embedded interaction has gained substantial visibility and activity over the past decade, under many different names and research topics and disciplines, including tangible interfaces, graspable interfaces, physical computing, tangible interaction, IT product design, appliance design and interactive spaces. It has also been associated with larger research areas, including mixed, virtual, and augmented reality and ubiquitous and pervasive computing. TEI brings together this emerging field, providing a meeting ground for the diverse communities of research and practice - from computing, hardware, and sensor technology, to HCI, interaction design and CSCW, to product and industrial design and interactive arts. We invite submissions from all of these perspectives: theoretical, conceptual, technical, applied, or artistic. The conference is designed to provide appropriate presentation forms for different types of contributions. Accepted submissions of all types will be included in the Proceedings as papers and will be integrated within the single-track conference. Interdisciplinary submissions are particularly welcome. 


This year TEI will be held in beautiful Barcelona, one of the world's leading cities for tourism, gastronomy, commerce, education, entertainment, media, fashion, science, and the arts. 


Topics for Submission 
Authors are invited to submit high-quality work detailing original research that contributes to advancing this rapidly developing field. Appropriate topics include but are not limited to:



  • Tools to rapidly develop tangible, embedded and embodied user experiences 
  • Case studies and evaluations of working deployments 
  • Analysis of key challenges and proposals of research agendas 
  • Relation of tangible and embedded interaction to other paradigms 
  • Programming paradigms and tools, toolkits, software architectures 
  • Novel interactive uses of sensors+actuators, electronics+mechatronics 
  • Design guidelines, methods, and processes 
  • Novel application areas, innovative systems, industrial applications 
  • Theoretical foundations, frameworks, and concepts 
  • Philosophical, ethical & social implications Interfaces specific in form and context to particular cultures 
  • Advantages, weakness, affordances of tangible, embedded and embodied interaction Learning from the role of physicality in everyday environments 
  • Embodied interaction, movement, and choreography of interaction 
  • Organic User Interfaces: flexible, non-flat or actuated display interfaces 
  • Role of physicality in human perception, cognition and experience 
  • Teaching experiences, lessons learned, and best practices 
  • Standardization, production, and business applications 

Papers 
Papers must present original material and will be reviewed rigorously by at least three reviewers in a double-blind process. Papers in all areas will be assessed on their contribution to the field. Papers are due on the 6th August 2012. Papers may be 4 or 8 pages long in ACM SIGCHI format. All papers will undergo the same review and publication process. The length must match the contribution. Authors may propose the presentation format that they feel best suits their contribution (short or long talk, demo, interactive exhibit, or both talk and demo/exhibit). TEI 2013 remains committed to the principle followed in previous TEI conferences - that TEI values all submissions equally. 


One author of each accepted submission must register for the conference before the early registration deadline in order for the final paper version to be published in the conference proceedings. Papers will be published in the ACM digital library. 


Please contact the program chairs Martin Kaltenbrunner, Dave Kirk and Paul Marshall at
tei2013_programchairs@googlegroups.com with questions about paper submissions.

Submission Details 
All work must be submitted electronically via the TEI 2013 Precision Conference site at https://precisionconference.com/~tei You will have to follow the guidelines regarding paper formats and submission categories at http://www.tei-conf.org/13/papersubmission 


Work in Progress 
There will be a second submission opportunity for work in progress until November 26th 2012. Selected works will be presented during dedicated poster sessions at TEI 2013 but are not published in the conference nor online proceedings. 


Explorations TEI 2013 
Explorations comprise several submission formats intended to embrace and nurture contributions from a wide range of communities - such as artists, designers and graduate students - as well as support the publication of cutting edge research. TEI Explorations include the Graduate Student Consortium and Art tracks as well as the Tangible Interaction Design Challenge. Full details will be confirmed in subsequent calls for papers.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Quick Post: Media Facades and Luminous Tweets (Video featuring Thomas Schielke)

I am fascinated by interactive large displays in public places, "urban screens" and the convergence of architecture and technology, especially media facades, and am happy to share a video of a presentation of Thomas Schielke to a group at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.  Thomas Schielke is a German architect known for his work in the area of architectural lighting and media facades. In the presentation, Thomas talks about how new technologies are influencing what he calls "urban branding", and also provides an overview of related history.  If this is an area that interests you, take the time to view the video!  






Below is a summary about the presentation taken from TheHavardGSD YouTube site:

"Brands strive worldwide for distinctive visual identities in the urban landscape. At night they rely on luminous messages ranging from conventionally illuminated signs and billboards up to dynamic luminous architecture for story telling. Therefore, media facades have turned into a fascinating medium to create an architectural image in the nocturnal city. Some brands use guerrilla lighting projections for temporary installations to subversively transform urban spaces. Other companies equip their flagship stores with large LED pixel screens for high-resolution images or they consider the building façade as an interface for more artistic solutions. Often video screens appear as decorated elements competing for attention with traditional commercial billboards. Here media facades have become an interesting alternative to establish a more sophisticated design language for merging the dynamic content with the building. Whereas some luminous facades appear as monumental monologues repeating a fixed animation daily, some installations even allow people to interact with the building to receive enlightening responses. Thereby, the consumer becomes part of the urban marketing strategy to shape a vivid and progressive brand identity. The lecture by the German architect Thomas Schielke (http://www.arclighting.de) gave an overview about media facades for urban brand communication and addressed questions like: Will the energy consumption of luminous facades go along with the desire to introduce sustainability? To which extent do neighbors accept obtrusive luminous content? Further, what kind of media facades will shape the future of urban branding with luminous tweets?"

"The overview of international projects covers various lighting methods and techniques from lighting designers as ag4, Arup Lighting, blinkenlights, LAb[au], Licht Kunst Licht, Mader Stublic Wiermann, Okayasu Izumi, magic monkey, Onur Sonmez , Qosmo, realities:united, Rogier van der Heide, StandardVision, Uwe Belzner and architecture like Asymptote Architecture, BIG, Frank Gehry, Kohn Pederson Fox, Jean Nouvel, Peter Cook, UN Studio, schneider + schuhmacher, Simone Giostra, WOHA architects1. Artists like Doug Aitken are included in the timeline as well. Brands like Coca- Cola, Nokia, American Eagle, Citroen, Bayer and ERCO or social campaigns for Occupy Wall Street with the Illuminator are presented as case studies."



RELATED
2012 Media Facades Summit
Media Facades: "When Buildings Start to Twitter"
International Urban Screens Association
Designing Urban Media Environments as Cultural Spaces (pdf)
Curating Urban Screens //Approaching the City as Cinema
Media Architecture

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Makego: Turn your iPhone into a vehicle, by creative digital artist Chris O'Shea

Chris O'Shea is an artist and designer who uses technology in creative and innovative ways. He's known for his "Hand from Above" outdoor installations.  His latest creation is Makego, is an app for the iPhone that bridges the digital with the real world.  Children can create a small vehicle out of Legos that can serve as a place to set an iPhone, running the app, and move the vehicle about a larger space.  In the examples below, the children have created scenes using crayons, paper, and colored art foam.

"Makego turns your iPhone / iPod Touch into a toy vehicle. It encourages fun, open ended collaborative play between parent and child. Combining creativity and imagination with the virtual world on screen. Select your vehicle within Makego, then interact with the drivers and their world through animations and sound. This release has 3 vehicles to play with: a race car, ice-cream truck, and river boat. More vehicle are coming later". -Chris O'Shea


The application is now available for $1.99 on the App Store. 

Makego from Chris O'Shea on Vimeo.





RELATED
Chris O'Shea's Website






Monday, January 16, 2012

GeekDad's Post: The Changing Nature of App Design for Kids (quick link)

The Changing Nature of App Design and Development for Kids
Daniel Donahoo, GEEKDAD, Wired,  1/16/12


"During 2011, I have observed a real push towards app development and digital design for children that is respectful and purposeful - not just a marketing and money making exercise." -Daniel Donahoo


I encourage you take the time to read Daniel Donahoo's thoughtful post!

RELATED
GeekDad Opinion:  We Need a Children's Apps Rating System
Daniel Donahoo, GEEKDAD, Wired, 12/11/10
Moms with Apps Workshop Summary
Moms with Apps, 12/4/11

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Designing Culture: Investigating the Link Between Technology and Culture, an interactive transmedia project by Anne Balsamo

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I use it as an on-line filing cabinet. When I learned about Anne Balsamo's recently published book, part of a larger interactive transmedia project, I decided that it warranted more than a "plug" and a quick link.


It warranted a shrine.
For this reason, I've embedded a number of videos and presentations from the project's website, along with a host of links.  Prepare to spend some time exploring her work over time!  It is food for reflection.


DESIGNING CULTURE     "Investigating the link between technology and culture, this transmedia project is realized as a print book, a dvd, and this interactive flash website ." -Designing Culture


"Anne Balsamo is a Professor of Communication in the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism and of Interactive Media in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. She is a co-founder of Onomy Labs, a Silicon Valley technology design and fabrication company that builds cultural technologies. Previously, she was a member of RED (Research on Experimental Documents), a collaborative research group at Xerox PARC that created experimental reading devices and new media genres. She is the author of Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women, also published by Duke University Press." -Designing Culture


Video Overview:

Designing Culture: the Technological Imagination at Work from Anne Balsamo on Vimeo.


BOOK
Designing Culture: The Technological Imagination at Work
Anne Balsamo, Duke University Press, 2011


BLOG: Designing Culture


DVD (packaged with the book)
Women of the World Talk Back: Gendering the Technological Imagination


PUBLIC INTERACTIVE WALLS: Designing Technological Literacies -Interactive Wall Books "Interactive Wall Books are large-scale dynamic mixed-media documents"
Here are a few links to online versions of the wall books for your convenience: Episodes in the History of Reading, Part 1     Episodes in the History of Reading, Part II  Episodes in the History of Reading, Part 3     Deslizate En El Tiempo: Epsodios en la Historia de la Communicacion (Developed for the Children's Museum of Mexico City)  Science for All Ages

XFR: EXPERIMENTS IN THE FUTURE OF READING  A museum exhibit.
(The above link will take you to the Onomy website's version of the exhibit. The project version can be found on the Designing Culture website.)


MAPS: Mapping the Technological Imagination Spatial Documents.
Learning to Love The Questions - an interactive semantac map, for the online journal VECTORS
Where is the Museum? Mapping the Distributed Museum -presentation at Museums and the Web 2011
Ways of the Hand: Tinkering in the Digital Age -presentation at DIY Citizenship: Critical Making and Social Media conference, 2010
Working the Paradigm Shift: The Cultural Work of the Digital Humanities - presentation at the Digital Arts Conference, 2008


VIDEOS
Tools for the Asking

Anne Balsamo HASTAC Presentation 4_16_2010 from IML @ USC on Vimeo.


Gendering the Technological How a Robot Got its Groove


Cool Fusion: Designing Culture - Working the Paradigm Shift



RELATED
Reviews of Designing Culture by Lawrence Grossberg, Cathy N. Davidson, and John Seely Brown (Amazon.com site for the book)
Balsamo's New Book Details Technological Imagination at Work
Annenberg News, 8/10/11
HASTAC: Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advance Collaboratory


Anne Balsamo worked on the following project:
Tangible Interface for Viewing the Aids Quilt

"This project will develop an application that enables collaborative browsing of a database of images of panels of The AIDS Memorial Quilt that have been “virtually stitched together.”  The application will be used with Onomy Lab’s Tilty Table, a tangible interactive device that serves as a display surface for large-scaled images." -(info from Anne Balsamo's blog)



Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Taking a look at CreativeJS: "The very best of creative JavaScript and HTML5" -

I came across the CreativeJS website while searching for HTML5/JavaScript resources suitable for creative multimedia projects.  The team at CreativeJS includes Seb Lee-Delisle, Val Head, Paul Neave, Rob Hawkes, Hakim El Hattab, and Lisa Larson-Kelley.


What a talented team!


RELATED
Recent blog post from CreativeJS:  Spherical Harmonics Mesh Builder
Seb Lee-Delisle
Neave Interactive
Rob Hawke's book:  Foundation HTML5 Canvas
Hakim El Hattab's Experiments
Lisa Larson-Kelley's Website:  Learn from Lisa (Web video publishing)

SOMEWHAT RELATED
Interactive Digital Fireworks

Digital Fireworks in Brighton from Seb Lee-Delisle on Vimeo.






Saturday, July 9, 2011

Best Practices For Designing Websites for Kids - Quick Link





Best Practices For Designing Websites for Kids
David Morrison, Smashing Magazine, 7/6/11


Here is a short quote from the article:


"According to Jacob Nielsen’s research on teenagers, interactive website features (such as forums, mini-games, polls, ranking systems, competitions and 3-D interfaces) are valued by kids if they build a sense of community and foster participation. Bolting such features on will not likely prove effective, because kids will soon see the gaps and re-evaluate the website, despite any initial interest."







Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Top 10 All-Time Posts on the Interactive Multimedia Technology Blog

I'm finishing up the last couple weeks of the school year, so I'll have little time to post this week.  I hope you enjoy exploring the following links!


Revised Post 8/1/06: Interactive multimedia for social skills, understanding feelings, relaxation and coping strategies


Teliris Interact TouchTable and TouchWall: Immersive Collaboration & Telepresence; DVE's Holographic Tele-Immersion Room


Games to lift stress away: Flower, flOw, (and Cloud), from thatgamecompany


Power to the Pixel Cross-Media Forum Streaming Live from London Today #PttP


HACKED KINECT MULTITOUCH using libFreenect and libTISCH (via Florian Echtler)


Link to iTV Doctor Rick Howe's post about 2D to 3D, 3D TV data points, and 3D content distributers


Temple Grandin - A gifted visual thinker, who also has autism, featured in HBO movie starring Claire Danes.  Update: Video of Claire Danes' acceptance of a Golden Globe for her performance


Algodoo physic app. for the SMART Board 800 series, supports multi-user interaction!


Wii Just Dance2 and Kinect Dance Central:  UI and Usability Approaches; Challenges for Developoing Accessible Games


Interactive Touch-Screen Technology, Participatory Design, and "Getting It" -Revisited







Friday, May 27, 2011

The Digging Into Data Challenge and List of Online Data Repositories for Humanities and Social Sciences


I came across the Digging Into Data Challenge website today and thought it might be of interest to IMT readers.  Below is a description of the project, a few related links, and an abbreviated list of links to a wide range of data repositories on the web.  

Digging Banner
 ABOUT 
"Welcome to the second round of the Digging into Data Challenge. During the first round, in 2009, nearly 90 international research teams competed in the challenge. Ultimately, eight remarkable projects were awarded grants."
"In 2011, the Digging into Data Challenge has returned for a second round, this time much larger, with sponsorship from eight international research funders, representing Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States."
"What is the "challenge" we speak of?  The idea behind the Digging into Data Challenge is to address how "big data" changes the research landscape for the humanities and social sciences. Now that we have massive databases of materials used by scholars in the humanities and social sciences -- ranging from digitized books, newspapers, and music to transactional data like web searches, sensor data or cell phone records -- what new, computationally-based research methods might we apply? As the world becomes increasingly digital, new techniques will be needed to search, analyze, and understand these everyday materials. Digging into Data challenges the research community to help create the new research infrastructure for 21st century scholarship." 
"Applicants will form international teams from at least two of the participating countries.  Winning teams will receive grants from two or more of the funding agencies and, two years later, will be invited to show off their work at a special conference sponsored by the eight funders."

"Let's get digging."

RELATED
Digging into Data Challenge Second Year Request for Proposals
Press Release    Round Two: Digging Into Data Challenge: Social and computational scientist asked to design methods and tools for analyzing large data sets (National Science Foundation)

Times Higher Education, April 28, 2011, "Research intelligence - Let's dig a little deeper"
The New York Times, November 16, 2010, "Digital Keys for Unlocking the Humanities’ Riches"
The Globe and Mail, June 18, 2010, "Supercomputers seek to ‘model humanity’"


Be sure to visit the Digging Into Data Challenge data repository page.  Each repository is annotated in detail and includes links and in some cases, APIs. The page is updated regularly, and at the time of this post, was updated on May 26, 2011. For your convenience, here's the abbreviated version of the Digging Into Data Challenge list of repositories: 

The Archaeology Data Services (ADS)
http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/


ARTStor.org
http://www.artstor.org


Biodiversity Heritage Library
http://biodiversitylibrary.org


The Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art Canadian Art Database Project
http://ccca.ca


Chronicling America, Library of Congress, National Digital Newspaper Program
http://loc.gov/chroniclingamerica


Data-PASS
http://www.icpsr.umish.edu/DATAPASS/


Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE)
http://www.dlese.org


Early Canadiana Online
http://canadiana.ca


English Broadside Ballad Archive
http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu


Great War Primary Documents Archive
http://www.gwpda.org


Harvard Time Series Center (TSC)
http://timemachine.iic.harvard.edu/search/



HathiTrusthttp://www.hathitrust.org


The History Data Service (HDS)
http://hds.essex.ac.uk


Infochimps.org
http://www.infochimps.com/


Internet Archive
http://www.archive.org


Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
http://icpsr.umich.edu


JISC MediaHub
http://jiscmediahub.ac.uk


JSTOR
http://jstor.org

Marriott LibraryUniversity of Utah
http://ww.lib.utah.edu/portal/site/marriottlibrary/

NASA ADS: Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/index.html

National Archives, London
http://nationalarchives.gov.uk


The National Library of Wales
http://www.llgc.org.uk


National Science Digital Library (NSDL)
http://www.nsdl.org

National Technical Information Service (NTIS)
http://www.ntis.gov/

Nebraska Digital Newspaper Project
http://cdrh.unl.edu/nebnewspapers/


New York Public Library
http://NYPL.org


The New York Times Article Search API
http://developer.nytimes.com/



Opening History
http://imlsdcc.grainger.uiuc.edu/history/


PhilPapers (philosophy)
http://philpapers.org


Project MUSE
http://muse.jhu.edu/


PSLC DataShop (Pittsburg Science of Learning Center)
http://pslcdatashop.web.cmu.edu/


Scholarly Database at the Cyberinfrastructure for Network Science Center, Indiana University
http://sdb.slis.indiana.edu


ScholarSpace at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa
http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/community-list


Statistical Accounts of Scotland
http://edina.ac.uk/stat-acc-scot/


University of Florida Digital Library Center
http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/ufdc


University of North Texas
http://digital.library.unt.edu/browse/?browseby=collection

Just a thought....
I'd be interested in learning if any of the researchers involved in the Digging Into Data Challenge plan to work on an interactive, multidimensional, multimedia timeline to support collaborative data sharing and analysis.  

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

CHI 2011, Bill Buxton, and the Buxton Collection: Explore 35 years of interactive devices, online!

Bill Buxton is a researcher at Microsoft who focuses on Human-Computer Interaction and is known for his work in user experience design and natural user interfaces such as multi-touch surfaces.   His talk at the recent CHI 2011 conference, held in Vancouver, Canada, was an overview of the Buxton Collection, an on-line historical archive of interactive input devices spanning over the past 35 years.  


It was interesting to note that at the time of the presentation, the Vancouver Conference Center, where the conference was taking place, was having serious problems with the network/internet connections, and as a consequence, Buxton was not able to demonstrate the on-line version of his collection as planned.  

Not to worry.  The physical version of the Buxton's archive was on display during the conference, along with Buxton, who was happy to tell the story behind every device and gadget in the archive, with much enthusiasm. The slideshow below provides a glimpse of the Bill Buxton archive displayed at CHI 2011:



My Buxton Collection Slideshow, CHI 2011, Vancouver, Canada

Buxton's archive of gadgets comes with a rich history, accumulated over the years. Much of this history, until now, has resided in Buxton's head.   Holding and touching the items in the archive while listening to Buxton's passionate stories about each one, was unlike anything I had ever experienced.  His archive is a labor of love, and the interactive, on-line version of the Buxton Collection is his way of sharing his knowledge with the world.


During his talk, Buxton pointed out that in computer science programs, students are not required to have much exposure to the "history of ideas" in the field.  Huge chunks of work are often ignored in the literature,  and in some cases, the wheel is unknowingly reinvented, and this is something that must be addressed within the CHI community, according to Buxton. 


I agree.

RELATED
Previous IMT posts about Bill Buxton
Bill Buxton's Presentation Video: "A Little Tale about Touch" (Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, 2010)
Two good articles by Bill Buxton: The Mad Dash Towards Touch Technology; The Long Nose of Innovation
Buxton Collection
Buxton Collection, PivotViewer
Back to the Past: Bill Buxton Shows Off 36 Years of Tech Devices
Microsoft News Center, 5/9/11
Microsoft's Bill Buxton exhibits gadget collection 35 years in the making
Donald Melanson, engadget, 5/9/11
Bill Buxton's Haptic Input References (pdf)
Bill Buxton's website
Multi-touch Systems that I Have Known and Loved (Bill Buxton)
CES 2010: NUI with Bill Buxton

On Engineering and Design: An Open Letter Microsoft Research Principal Scientist Bill Buxton calls for engineers and user experience designers to learn to appreciate one another
Bill Buxton, Bloomberg Businessweek, 4/29/09

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Interview with Don "Design of Everyday Things" Norman on Design Education: STEM+D+Social Sciences, Too! (MIT Technology Review)


David Talbot, MIT Technology Review, 4/6/11

"I think that the current emphasis on STEM—science, technology, engineering, and math—needs a "D," for design. Designers need to learn STEM (where S includes both the hard and the soft, social sciences). But similarly, engineers need to learn D: after all, the point of engineering is to develop things for people and society."-Don Norman


"...the creators of good products and services also must have a working knowledge of everything from the technical underpinnings of microprocessors and programming to the policy aspects of information security."  -Don Norman


RELATED
Some of my previous posts mentioning Don Norman and his work:
Words of Wisdom from Harry Brignull: UX Roots in Psychology, Design, Information Architecture, and so much more!
Essential Interaction Design Essays and Articles: Dan Saffer's Lists, Don Norman, and Interactions Magazine
Don Norman's Keynote at the 21st Century Transmedia Symposium "Design Challenge:  Co-creation" (New technologies allow creativity to blossom)
The Transdisciplinary Design Approach to Building an Interfaced World: A smattering ofideas, food for further thought.
Dr. Jan Borchers' (Annotated) Top Ten List of Books on Human-Computer Interaction -Of interest to HCI students and HCI students-at-heart.

SOMEWHAT RELATED
The following post generated a good deal of unexpected discussion ; )
For a Smile:  Gain Detergent Container Looks Like Don Norman's User-Unfriendly Teapot

Below is my final response to the conversation:
The UX of Laundry Washing:  Response to Comments and Videos of Gain Detergent Fans!

"Playful Interface Cultures" exhibit video showreel, just released (Ars Electronica Festival 2010)


Playful Interface Cultures from Interface Culture on Vimeo.


"This video showreel provides a walkthrough through the "Playful Interface Cultures" exhibition at the Ars Electronica Festival 2010. The works shown were created within the Master and Ph.D. program at the Interface Culture Lab, University of Art and Industrial Design in Linz, Austria." http://www.interface.ufg.ac.at/​

"The exhibition design has been based on traditional Austrian tobacco brands in reference to the historic venue of the former tobacco factory built by the German designer and architect Peter Behrens." -Interface Culture Lab



Instructors:
Georg Russegger
Martin Kaltenbrunner
Michaela Ortner
Varvara Guljajeva
Design
Vesela Milhaylova
Henning Schulze
Production
Reinhard Gupfinger
Technical Support
Mar Canet
Anika Hirt

University of Art and Industrial Design, Linz


SOMEWHAT RELATED
TuioKinect, by Martin Kaltenbrunner: "A simple Tuio hand gesture tracker for Kinect"
Reactable 

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

SIFTEO, the next-gen Siftables! (Tangible User Interfaces for All)

Despite my enthusiasm for TUI's , I somehow missed the news about the transformation of Siftables to a commercial version, Sifteo:

Sifteo Inc. Debuts Sifteo™ Cubes - A New Way To Play (PDF) 



"Sifteo cubes are 1.5 inch computers with full-color displays that sense their motion, sense each other, and wirelessly connect to your computer. You, your friends, and your family can play an ever-growing array of interactive games that get your brain and body engaged.
Sifteo’s initial collection of titles includes challenging games for adults, fun learning puzzles for kids, and games people can play together." -Sifteo website
For more information, see the Sifteo website,  blog, and YouTube  channel.  If you can't wait to get your own set,  take a look at Josh Blake's Sifteo Cube Unboxing Video!

RELATED
About two years ago, I was interviewed about my thoughts about the interactive, hands-on, programmable cubes, then called Siftables,  for an article published in IEEE's Computing Now magazine:  Siftables Offer New Interaction Mode  (James Figeuroa, Computing Now, 3/2009). 

For those of you who'd like more information about tangible user interfaces (TUIs) and  the development of Siftables, I've copied my 2009 post,   Tangible User Interfaces, Part I:  Siftables,  below:

TANGIBLE USER INTERFACES, PART I: SIFTABLES (2009)
In 1997, the vision of tangible user interfaces, also known as TUI's, was outlined by Hiroshi Ishii and Brygg Ullmer of the Tangible Media Group at MIT, in their paper, "Tangible Bits: Towards Seamless Interfaces between People, Bits, and Atoms" (pdf).   According to this vision, "the goal of Tangible Bits is to bridge the gaps between both cyberspace and the physical environment, as well as the foreground and background of human activities." This article is is a must-read for anyone interested in "new" interactive technologies.

The pictures in the article of the metaDesk, transBoard, activeLENS, and ambientRoom, along with the references, are worth a look, for those interested in this seminal work.

Another must-read is Hiroshi Ishii's 2008 article, Tangible Bits: Beyond Pixels (pdf). In this article, Ishii provides a good overview of TUI concepts as well as the contributions of his lab to the field since the first paper was written.

Related to Tangible User Interface research is the work of the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT. The Fluid Interfaces Group was formerly known as the Ambient Intelligence Group, and many of the group's projects incorporate concepts related to TUI and ambient intelligence. 



According to the Fluid Interfaces website, the goal of this research group is to "radically rethink the human-machine interactive experience. By designing interfaces that are more immersive, more intelligent, and more interactive we are changing the human-machine relationship and creating systems that are more responsive to people's needs and actions, and that become true "accessories" for expanding our minds."

The Siftables project is an example of how TUI and fluid interface (FI) interaction can be combined. Siftables is the work of David Merrill and Pattie Maes, in collaboration with Jeevan Kalanithi, and was brought to popular attention through David Merrill's recent TED talk:

David Merrill's TED Talk: Siftables - Making the digital physical
-Grasp Information Physically

"Siftables aims to enable people to interact with information and media in physical, natural ways that approach interactions with physical objects in our everyday lives. As an interaction platform, Siftables applies technology and methodology from wireless sensor networks to tangible user interfaces. Siftables are independent, compact devices with sensing, graphical display, and wireless communication capabilities. They can be physically manipulated as a group to interact with digital information and media. Siftables can be used to implement any number of gestural interaction languages and HCI applications....
Siftables can sense their neighbors, allowing applications to utilize topological arrangement..No special sensing surface or cameras are needed."





Siftables Music Sequencer from Jeevan Kalanithi on Vimeo.

http://web.media.mit.edu/~dmerrill/images/music-against-wood-320x213.jpg


More about Siftables:
Rethinking display technology (Scott Kirsner, Boston Globe, 7/27/08)
TED: Siftable Computing Makes Data Physical
Siftables: Toward Sensor Network User Interfaces (pdf)

It seems that people really like the Siftable concept, or they don't see the point. I found the following humerous critique of Siftables on YouTube:

"Imagine if all the little programs you had on your iphone were little separate chicklets in your pocket.
You'd lose em.
Your cat would eat em.
You'd vacuum them up.
They'd fall down in the sofa.
They'd be all over the car floor.
You'd throw them away by mistake..."

In my opinion, it is exciting to learn that perhaps some of this technology has the potential of becoming main-stream.