Revisiting Good Blogs: IDEUM update

Jim Spadaccini is the director of Ideum and is responsible for the Ideum blog, which is well worth reading if you are interested in creative use of multi-touch, gesture, and interactive multimedia applications.  Jim also serves as the principal investigator of the Open Exhibits project, a non-profit open source, multi-touch, multiuser software initiative, which includes a free software development kit (SDK) for museums, students, nonprofits, and educational use.


Here are a few links to posts from the Ideum blog:
Building a High-Resolution Multi-touch Wall: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,  Part 4 and Part 5.
Ideum Blog
Events at the The Tech and the Maxwell Museum
Open Exhibits, Year Two

The Open Exhibits Research and Design blog is worth reading, as it often includes Jim Spadaccini's words of wisdom and some interesting video clips.


More about IDEUM
Ideum will be involved in an upcoming day-long conference at the Tech Museum on Tuesday, November 15th (2011), Building Interfaces for the New Decade  Conference San Jose, California, 11/15/11

Ideum is working on interconnectivity between devices, as shown below, where people are connecting their iPhones to a multi-touch table:


Here is a video about Ideum's Tiny Drifters exhibit,  7 foot multi-touch wall at the Monterey Bay Aquarium:




Here is a promotional video about Ideum's rugged MT-55 multi-touch table. It holds up to the interaction of thousands of museum visitors.  

Designing for Multitouch Tables and Surfaces, by Erin Rose, Open Exhibits Blog

If you are interested in exploring collaborative tabletop applications, take a look at the Open Exhibits blog. Erin Rose's recent post, "Designing for Multi-touch Tables and Surfaces", is a good overview of lessons learned over the past couple of years in design, development, and implementation of multi-user interactive tabletop applications.

Although the focus of Open Exhibits is on applications and systems designed for museum exhibits, many of the design challenges hold true for similar applications in other settings, such as classrooms, libraries, and other public spaces.

Erin's post explores each of the following topics in more detail:

• Don't forget that the table is omni-directional.
• Individual control of objects encourages multi-user interaction.
• Promote collaboration, founded in healthy competition.

(Erin Rose is a developer and community liaison for Open Exhibits.)

RELATED
Exhibit Files
Jim Spadaccini
Visitors Explore L.A. in Google Maps and Flickr Mashup.

Grant from the National Science Foundation for Multi-touch Interactive Museum Exhibits!

This is interesting!

"Open Exhibits is a National Science Foundation-funded initiative to develop a library of free and open multitouch-enabled software modules for exhibit development. Build using the popular Adobe Flash and Flex authoring tools, museum professionals will be able to create innovative floor and web-based exhibits easily and inexpensively" -- Open Exhibits

VIDEO: Introducing Open Exhibits: Open Source Exhibit Software


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


RELATED
Open Exhibits Funded by the National Science Foundation
Jim Spadaccini, Open Exhibits Blog 9/21/10

About Open Exhibits
Jim Spadaccini, of Ideum, is the Principal Investigator of the Open Exhibits project.  Kate Haley Goldman is the co-PI and main researcher.  The three museum partners are the Don Harrington Discovery Center, the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. 


Ideum website