Photo by Shelly Bernstein

Using an iPod touch as a video display in a gallery is a really great idea for a number of reasons:

• iPods are cheap (relatively).
• The screens are offer a high resolution and an acceptable size.
• They’re small and unobtrusive, so they have the potential to not irritate curators who dislike too much stuff near the art. 
• The playback hardware is contained right in the unit, so no need for extra wires to a DVD player or other playback device.
• They have WiFi, so there is potential for remote administration, updating, and connecting to content on the Net. 
• If you get a first generation, they’re hackable. The second generation will probably be hackable soon. Thanks to things like Cydia, you can install SSH and all kinds of useful goodies.
• The interface is simple. Though I’m not sure if my grandma would know how to interact with it. 

The only real downside to the IPod touch is the cord comes out a weird angle, making the mounting and display a little tricky.

• Andrew dropped us a note about a table that design house Moto put together. One of the tables is currently at the Art Center College of Design, for their students to play with. Check the video out:

  Andrew notes that Moto was one of the development partners with the Julie Snow/Post Tool proposal from the finalist pool on the Telematic Table competition. The Telematic Table was what eventually became the Dialog Table.

• There is now an instructable for how to build your very own multitouch display. Eleven easy steps. People afraid of soldering need not apply.
• David Wallin, author of touchlib, has a new video posted of a mutlitouch screen he made for the Archer group. Looks pretty responsive:

WebWalker is getting touchy feely all over in this edition with some computer interface goodness.

• This one might be a bit old, but it seems Panasonic demonstrated some sort of multi-touch table a last year, as well as a gigantic interactive video wall. I don’t really know how to describe the table. The video looks very nice in 720P glory, but the narration that goes with it is worth a chuckle and the interface is just a bit weird. Translucent fish?
• Another big multitouch screen, this time from DAHAN T&S (via nuigroup via engadget). This time we get dolphins instead of fish, but my questions still remain, why so many creatures of the sea on multitouch screens? There’s no video, so I can’t tell if their dolphin talks like ours.
• Speaking of sea creatures, did someone say calamari? The iPhone is certainly putting some pressure onto the demand for multitouch, we should remember multitouch is not actually that new. Case in point, Powerbook trackpads have been multitouch for years, giving users that lovely two-fingered scrolling. Apple even owns a multitouch patent. The iPhone is taking the idea and coupling it with a screen, which is really the important part. I’m rather curious to know how it works and what kind of tech they’re using to make it happen. None of us in NMI plan on getting an iPhone for various reasons, so who’s going to be the first person to take apart their iPhone?
• And while it is not multitouch, this is a neat project: The digital newsstand. It is basically a newspaper box with a computer screen replacing the window showing todays issue. It is not entirely practical, but I certainly appreciate consistency of the visual language and presentation. If you were going to show newspapers, you might as well do it in the right box. (via Paul)

I guess most of the people reading this will have seen some of the multi-touch demos by Jeff Han, Apple and Tactiva. I wanted to play around with some ideas that required a multi-touch pad, but there aren’t any devices available (Tactiva aren’t shipping…)

Long story short, I made a simple one from a plastic bag, some dye and a camera.

This is interesting, but there are a couple problems with it. First, it is just a multitouch surface, not a screen, making it a lot different from Jeff Han or Apple. There is no projection onto the back, and I can’t see an easy way to ever project onto or into water or other liquids. Secondly, $2 is pretty cheap, but you get what you pay for. You might want to spend $3 to get the heavy duty freezer ziploc so that it would last a week of touching rather than an afternoon. A true FTIR screen made of plexi or glass will be more expensive, but the screen itself is never the expensive part. A fancy FTIR screen in an enclosure might cost $300, but that is still nothing next to the computer, projector and software needed. And a plexi FTIR screen will probably give better blobs, since not the whole surface is going to morph when pressed on.

That said, it is still an interesting exploration and use of what I am assuming is touchlib.

[Via Daily Irrelevant]

Gattis took out a digital camera and placed it on the Surface. Instantly, digital pictures spilled out onto the tabletop. As Gattis touched and dragged each picture, it followed his fingers around the screen. Using two fingers, he pulled the corners of a photo and stretched it to a new size. Then, Gattis put a cellphone on the surface and dragged several photos to it — just like that, the pictures uploaded to the phone. It was like a magic trick. He was dragging and dropping virtual content to physical objects. I’m not often surprised by new technology, but I can honestly say I’d never seen anything like it.

It looks and feels a lot like CityWall and some of Jeff Han’s work, but it does not appear that Han has worked with Microsoft. One of the notable differences between Han’s tables (which are pricey) and Surface is price. Surface is supposedly going to be on sale this year for $5,000 to $10,000. The article mentions commercial applications, but I would think that education and museums would also have a huge interest. While I wouldn’t be able to afford one for my home, $10,000 is a very accessible price point for a museum.

Whiz-bang aside, the table also reminds me a bit of Pac Man. I also wonder if it can run linux. I’m actually sure that when this comes out, there will be a linux distro that includes a Pac Man knock-off.

EDIT: Create Digital Music has some commentary, as does Chris O’Shea.

Continuing my research into multitouch environments, I came across a project I had not seen before. It is called CityWall, and it is located in Helsinki, Finland:

The content displayed on the CityWall is periodically organized into themes or events that are currently taking place in the city such as festivals, carnivals or sports events. The CityWall is designed to support the navigation of media, specifically annotated photos and videos which are continuously gathered in realtime from public sources such as Flickr and YouTube. To contribute content to the CityWall please send pictures and videos via MMS or email to post@citywall.org. Alternatively, tag your media on YouTube or Flickr with ‘Helsinki’ and we will pick up your media and display it here on the CityWall.

It looks like a combination of some of the social networking work the Brooklyn Museum is doing and a beautiful multitouch environment. The video notes that the screen works both during the day and the night. I am a little foggy on how that works with a FTIR screen, but if UIx has worked around the daylight problem, it would be extremely useful. I will just have to go to Helsinki to find out.

I found an interesting blog today: Touch. According to the about:

Touch is a research project looking at the intersections between the digital and the physical. Its aim is to explore and develop new uses for RFID, NFC and mobile technology in areas such as retail, public services, social and personal communication.

NFC, or Near Field Communication, in a nutshell is the technology that will some day let us pay for a Coke or pump a parking meeter with our mobile phone. Or, perhaps, wave our phone at a piece of art and hear the Art On Call stop and an image on our phone’s screen. If you’re wondering why a blog about wireless communication is called touch, it is because NFC generally requires very close proximity, often requiring the access card or phone to touch the receiver.

Dig back through the archives, there are some great posts, such as RFID Form Factors and A Graphic Language for RFID. This one is definitely going in my RSS reader.

Photos borrowed from Touch

There are two great events happening this weekend in the Twin Cities if you’re a hardware hacking or development geek. The first is Bentfest MN. The three day festival (starting tonight) consists of demos, workshops and concerts all centered around circuit bending, happening right down the street at Intermedia Arts. What is circuit bending? This youtube video describes better than I ever could:

The second thing to check out this weekend is MinneBar. What is MinneBar?

minnēbar is an ad-hoc gathering of technology enthusiasts born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. Participants work together and try to create something exciting by being in close proximity to lots of smart people. Each person contributes in some way by leading discussions, demos, asking questions, or volunteering.

The conference/gathering is going on in St. Paul tomorrow, is totally free, and will feature many sweet demos, workshops and networking opportunities. Brent and I are both planning on attending.

Photo Credits:

Circuit Bending Photo from salimfadhley.

Minnebar Photo from alt text.

There are two great events happening this weekend in the Twin Cities if you’re a hardware hacking or development geek. The first is Bentfest MN. The three day festival (starting tonight) consists of demos, workshops and concerts all centered around circuit bending, happening right down the street at Intermedia Arts. What is circuit bending? This youtube video describes better than I ever could:

The second thing to check out this weekend is MinneBar. What is MinneBar?

minnēbar is an ad-hoc gathering of technology enthusiasts born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. Participants work together and try to create something exciting by being in close proximity to lots of smart people. Each person contributes in some way by leading discussions, demos, asking questions, or volunteering.

The conference/gathering is going on in St. Paul tomorrow, is totally free, and will feature many sweet demos, workshops and networking opportunities. Brent and I are both planning on attending.

Photo Credits:

Circuit Bending Photo from salimfadhley.

Minnebar Photo from alt text.

There are two great events happening this weekend in the Twin Cities if you’re a hardware hacking or development geek. The first is Bentfest MN. The three day festival (starting tonight) consists of demos, workshops and concerts all centered around circuit bending, happening right down the street at Intermedia Arts. What is circuit bending? This youtube video describes better than I ever could:

The second thing to check out this weekend is MinneBar. What is MinneBar?

minnēbar is an ad-hoc gathering of technology enthusiasts born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. Participants work together and try to create something exciting by being in close proximity to lots of smart people. Each person contributes in some way by leading discussions, demos, asking questions, or volunteering.

The conference/gathering is going on in St. Paul tomorrow, is totally free, and will feature many sweet demos, workshops and networking opportunities. Brent and I are both planning on attending.

Photo Credits:

Circuit Bending Photo from salimfadhley.

Minnebar Photo from alt text.