NET Connect covered on coolhunting.com

My visit to the Maker Faire was (very briefly) covered on coolhunting.com

NET Connect at Maker Faire

I'll be at the Maker Faire this weekend (May 19th & 20th 2007) demoing the new version of the NET Connect software. This software allows designers to create interactive objects and spaces projects without programming, using the familiar enviroment of Flash. I'll be in a booth with Moto Development, and we'll also be showing re.moto, an open-source wireless sensor system. For more info on NET Connect, see the website:

newecologyofthings.net/netconnect/

See you at the show!

The New Ecology of Things Book arrives in April

Our department's new transmedia publication, The New Ecology of Things, is in press, and will ship in April. The book, website, poster and mobile phone content address the design and educational issues related to ubiquitous computing and is a collaborative ecology of essays, glossary, forum, interactive works, video, and a short story by Bruce Sterling. You can pre-order the book here: The New Ecology of Things (NET).

acura oracles, multi-touch interaction (watch video)

Demo Video, More video on YouTube, Official Acura Oracle Website
At the recent Detriot Auto Show there were three interactive multi-touch tables called the Acura Oracles. These tables were part of the Acura booth designed by George P. Johnson, and enabled up to four people at a time to explore Acura technology features. Consulting on this project for former student Nikolai Cornell of GPJ, I helped define the technology and interaction. I brought in Moto Development to build the hardware, and worked with GPJ, Moto, and the software/content developer Mindflood.

We hope to conduct a class this summer with one of these multi-touch tables, exploring forms of information presentation and interaction afforded by large-scale multi-touch, multi-user systems. See also a page put up by Bill Buxton, one of the original people to implement multi-touch systems back in the '80s.

Demo Video More video on YouTube

James Van Allen, 1914 - 2006

Yesterday my Uncle James Van Allen died in Iowa City, Iowa at the age of 91. He leaves an amazing legacy as a space scientist, having discovered the Van Allen Radiation Belts through experiments starting with a scientific package on Explorer 1, the first US space flight in 1958. Following this work, he and his group at the University of Iowa continued to have major experiments on robotic space flights, participating in the Voyager, Pioneer, and many other spacecraft. He was also a vocal opponent of human spaceflight, arguing (rightly I think) that putting people into space was a waste of resources when the exploration of space could be done better and more efficiently by machines.

A few articles about him:
LA Times (shorter)
Daily Iowan (longer)

On a personal note, I visited my family in Iowa a year ago and stayed at my Uncle Jim's house. At the time, I was working on the Infiniti Interactive Mirror project and could not remember enough trig to work out some of the math needed for the sensor system. Almost as a joke, I drew up a description of the problem and left it on his dining room table before I went out for the day to visit other relatives. When I arrived home that night, he had not only written out the solution, but (ever the teacher), diagramed all of the geometry and math he used to arrive at the final equation, complete with examples. Not only was it kind of amazing to have a world famous astrophysicist help with the project, it was a small way to reconnect with my late Father, who worked with Uncle Jim during WWII on the invention of the proximity fuse at Johns Hopkins University.

I will remember him as a thoughtful and kind man whose passion for science and the pursuit of knowledge will always be an inspiration.

communication arts covers the interactive mirror

One of the online outlets of Communication Arts, designinteract.com, just covered the Infiniti Interactive Mirror -- a life-sized video and sound installation where people interact with three 8 foot high screens by simply reaching out to different areas of the display interface. This project grew out of one of our graduate's thesis project and work he did in my Interactive Objects and Spaces class with fellow student Scott Nazarian (MDP, 2004). Nikolai Cornell (MDP, 2004) conceived of and managed the project which was built for carmaker Infiniti by George P. Johnson in collaboration with the Designory, Mindflood, and my company, Commotion. The installation is part of the traveling Infiniti auto show exhibit and was displayed at the Detroit and Chicago auto shows. It will soon be in New York City, and in December it will be in Los Angeles.

The designinteract.com article is especially interesting in that it covers the entire process of the project, from concept through completion (be sure to click the next button at the bottom of each page to see all 11 pages): www.designinteract.com/features/mirrors/

For an overview of the project and video of people using it, see the dedicated site for it here: www.interactivemirror.net

Infiniti Interactive Mirror - 2006 Detroit Auto Show

I developed a new, large scale sensor system that was used in the Infiniti exhibit at the 2006 Detroit Auto Show (and will continue with the kit for the Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles shows). This system detects a person's hand position in front of a flat surface without any sensors on the sides of the display or behind the user. The mirror concept was developed for The George P. Johnson Company by MDP graduate Nikolai Cornell based on his thesis project. For more information, video, and pictures of the system, see:

www.interactivemirror.net