An inspiring talk of Pranav Mistry about his “Sixth Sense” project at TEDIndia. Beside some other cool projects and great examples of real-world use cases of “Sixth Sense” he announces that the used software will be published open-source soon.
This video shows a well-done iPhone interface for controlling the movements of a robot. I thought to post this here, since – as some might remember – we had an assignment for a couple of years, where the task was to come up with an alternative remote control interface for the Robosapien.
It was always interesting to see emerging products as inspiration for the redesign in many assignment submissions. Last time we run this assignment, many students came up with WII like interfaces. We actually dropped the assignment the year the iPhone was released, since we feared a majority of iPhone-like interfaces.
UX Booth has a nice overview of “The Future of Interface Design“.
Did you know the first “brain-tweet” was sent out this year? How about that we may someday be customizing windshields with widgets? In the not-to-distant future, we may be interfacing with computers in exciting and innovative new ways.
An interesting read, even though some of the concepts aren’t as novel or futuristic as they may seem: Just consider that the first patent for Head Mounted Displays dates back to 1916:
A must-read article written by Bill Buxton for everyone who is interested in touch technology describes that touch is not the reason why products become successful. So keep in mind, that “God is in the details” and “Everything - including touch – is best for something and worst for something else”.
So while executives and marketers all seem to be saying, “It has to have touch,” I am more inclined to say that anyone who describes a product as having a “touch interface” is likely unqualified to comment on the topic.
A very well-designed video explaining the history and problems of desktop interfaces and window managers (first part) and suggesting a new way for interacting with desktop computers using multitouch for input (second part). It’s a great video prototype with many detail considerations. And although there are some issues with it, it’s definitely inspirational for anyone thinking about the next human-computer interface. More information on 10gui.com.
Courier is a real device, and we’ve heard that its in the “late prototype” stage of development. Its not a tablet, its a booklet. The dual 7-inch or so screens are multitouch, and designed for writing, flicking and drawing with a stylus, in addition to fingers.
via Courier: First Details of Microsoft’s Secret Tablet – Microsoft courier tablet – Gizmodo.
Tags: challenge, competition, conference, hci, interaction design
The 24h Student Design Challenge is part of this year’s OZCHI (the Australian Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group – SIGCHI) conference. It offers a great opportunity for students from around the world to participate in an international challenge about interaction design, and even win a travel scholarship to Melbourne, Australia for attending OZCHI.
In line with the conference theme “Design: Open 24/7″ the challenge is organised as two separate 24 hour events:
The first 24-hour event takes place online, on 12-13 September 2009. The three top entries will be published in the official conference proceedings. The winning team will be awarded a travel scholarship for attending OZCHI in Melbourne, to (partly) cover travel, accommodation and/or conference registration.
The second 24-hour event will take place at the OZCHI conference, in Melbourne, on 23-24 September 2009. The top three entries from this round will earn a Certificate of Recognition and prizes sponsored by our industry partners.
Registration for the online challenge is now open at: http://ozchi24.org
Tags: 2009, hci, multi-touch, multitouch, project, seminar, students, summer, touchscreen
We proudly present a video summary of student projects from our HCI Seminar with special focus on multi-touch.
Tags: android, application, gps, location, mobile, phone, reality, software
Another augmented reality browser for mobile phones has entered the Android Market. Layar uses the built-in GPS and digital compass to detect your position and orientation and overlays the camera view with information from your neighborhood. In contrast to Wikitude, which uses general information from Google, Layar is currently only available in the Netherlands, showing information from specific content partners. A great feature is the little radar view, which visualizes found places around you.
Further plans include a roll-out in Germany, the UK and the United States this year and availability for other mobile phones with GPS and compass such as the iPhone 3GS.
Tags: keyboard, mobile, multitouch, practical course, teaching, topic, touchscreen
Two new topics for practical courses (Praktikumsthemen) have been added to our site:
If you are interested in one of the topics, please contact us per mail. Don’t forget to describe your field of study, what type of practical course you need and why you are interested in the chosen topic.
