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August 18, 2009
Vector graphics software... from 1963
JFK was in office, and yet the app Sketchpad (from then-25-year-old Ivan Sutherland) offered multitouch input, auto-correction of vector strokes, and even reusable symbols (a la Flash, Illustrator, etc.). Very cool:
Apparently Dr. Sutherland once employed--you guessed it--John Warnock, seen here introducing Adobe Illustrator in 1987. [Via]
August 17, 2009
Cool interface demos o' the day
- SLAP Widgets are "real live plastic and silicone objects that are used in conjunction with a multi-touch table to allow users to control interface values through physical push buttons, sliders, knobs, keypads and keyboards." Here's a very cool (albeit slow-loading) video of the system in action*. (Can Slap Chop integration be far behind?)
- Fontplore is "an interactive application designed for searching and exploring font databases... It does all that on an interactive table, using tangible objects to navigate and control actions." The site includes a brief video demo.
I keep wanting to see great font exploration & management built into Adobe apps. TypeDNA offers a cool Photoshop-plug-in, using optical character recognition to determine a given font's name, suggesting font harmonies, and more. I'd like to see these concepts taken even farther, offering browsing, comparison, activation, and purchase in all Suite apps via Flash panels.
* Who knew that Frustrated Total Internal Reflection is a multitouch technology & not just the story of my teenage years (okay, most of my years).
April 24, 2009
Multitouch coolness o' the day: WiiSpray.com
I don't have a lot of background on the project, but WiiSpray.com--using a Nintendo Wii controller + Flash to enable collaborative graffiti painting--caught my eye:
The site is light on info, but you can see a few photos of the spray can controller. I particularly like the idea of controlling a stencil with one hand while spraying paint with the other.
Previously in a similar vein:
- Dr. Woohoo has combined WiiFlash + Papervision3d + Flash Panels + Photoshop CS4 Extended
- BLITZ Agency built a Flash Interactive Holographic Wall for Adobe MAX (details).
February 25, 2009
Optional plug-in disables trackpad rotation
During the CS4 development cycle, the Photoshop and Bridge teams worked closely with Apple* to support the multitouch gestures supported on MacBook Air and newer MacBook Pro systems. As a result you can zoom and rotate documents using three-finger combinations.
The rub is that especially on the latest systems (with the enormous trackpads), it can be too easy to zoom or rotate accidentally. Unfortunately Photoshop doesn't ship with a preference that would govern the behavior. Therefore we've released an optional plug-in that will disable zooming and rotating via the keyboard if you'd like. Just drop it into your Plug-Ins folder, restart Photoshop, and you'll be set.
* Next time you hear someone start in with a bunch of "Adobe doesn't care about the Mac" crap, I'd like you to think of this. People here go the extra mile because they do care. Deeply.
May 16, 2008
Flash-based multitouch coolness
Christian Moore & the folks at the NUI Group have created Lux, an open-source framework for creating multitouch-savvy applications. Check out the video demo & a short interview with Christian on how they've used Flash to prototype a very cool implementation. I'd love to see it updated to take advantage of the GPU hardware acceleration in the upcoming Flash Player 10 (just posted in preview form on Adobe Labs). Oh, and how about this running in a Smart Object on the Photoshop canvas? (Hey, I'm just thinking aloud, not dropping any near-term.) [Via Jerry Harris]
Interesting related bits:
- Gizmodo features a short recent interview with Jeff Han, the guy whose multitouch work really lit a fire under the whole area two years ago.
- Macworld's Dan Frakes provides a video tour of MultiClutch, a free utility for extending the multitouch features in the latest MacBook Pro & MacBook Air notebooks. (I was bummed to discover that my wife's brand new MacBook doesn't offer the same support. She's just happy to have two-finger scrolling, something missing from her deceased PowerBook.)
- I need to pull together a category for multitouch; in the meantime, past interesting bits are here.
February 27, 2008
Leather + multitouch = foxy
Ooh, now that's nice: student Nedzad Mujcinovic has crafted "Livre," a concept for a leather-wrapped, multitouch-aware electronic book. Check out the photos as well as the overview. Could a large e-ink screen, organic materials, gesture-based navigation, and a minimum of button clutter change the game and make e-books widespread? It would be fun to find out. [Via]
In other cool device news:
- Small format:
- Like sketching ideas on cocktail napkins, but wish they were more expensive and susceptible to water damage? Then perhaps you'd like the Napkin PC. Naw, the concept is cooler than that--especially if you could combine multiple Napkin PCs into a single work area. [Via Jana Sedivy]
- Inchworm brings sketching and painting to the Nintendo DS. It was created by Bob Sabiston, the developer of the "Rotoshop" software used to create Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly. [Via Greg Geisler]
- Nokia envisions a future full of shape-shifting phones; peep the video for their Morph concept.
- Multitouch:
- Web developers Cynergy have built a Minority Report-style multitouch interface.
- Meanwhile Mary Jo Foley discusses some of the latest developments in Microsoft's multitouch Surface project. (This one's still not setting my hair on fire.)
- In a related vein, Dell showed off their multitouch laptop design. [Via Jerry Harris]
- And, as you almost certainly know already, Apple has brought their multitouch trackpad to the full line of new MacBooks. Wouldn't it be cool if Adobe apps could take advantage of those gestures?
- CNET reports on startup company CeeLite (note: not the singer from Gnarls Barkley) creating flexible sheets of light, useful for wrapping on buses, poles, and other objects.
- Researchers at Stanford have revealed details on their plenoptic camera work.
- Alienware offers a cool, curved display for widescreen gaming. I wonder how well it would work for design & photo editing.
- Art Lebedev's Photoshop-savvy Optimus Maximus OLED keyboard (mentioned previously) has started shipping. You can see it being set up, or you can watch the droll Art himself work his geek-fu on a real live girl. :-) [Via Jesse Zibble]
October 13, 2007
Multitouch, holograms, & other next-gen I/O
- A team at USC has built a holographic "360° Light Field Display" using a spinning mirror, and the resulting video is pretty amazing. Note: Do not attempt to make out with images depicted this way. (I do wonder if you can sing "Iron Man" into it, as you would an oscillating fan.)
- Italian design firm V12 Design+Engineering has come up with an interesting proposal: the Canova dual-display touch-screen notebook computer. Here are additional images, including a mockup of the device running Photoshop. [Via Rob Corell]
- The Ecko LCD bus shelter is designed to let passersby scribble graffiti via Bluetooth-enabled cell phones; here's a slightly larger image. I'm having trouble finding more on the topic, making me wonder whether it ever got out of the concept phase.
- Helsinki's CityWall collaborative social space "is a large mutli-touch display installed in a central location in Helsinki which acts as a collaborative and playful interface," enabling navigation of specially tags media from Flickr & YouTube. [Via]
- The crew at Minimaforms has brought SMS-driven laser writing on smoke to Bristol's OFFLOAD festival. [Via]
- CNET has posted additional images & details on the Microsoft Surface touch-sensitive screen.
- My old colleague Noah Mittman offers a useful clarification regarding "haptic interfaces": "For an interface to be haptic, touch must be its output"--not just the input. He points out a crazy haptic glove shown this year at SIGGRAPH. See also this CAD interface that simulates sculpting.
- For more info on how these things have evolved & where they might be going, see Robert Cravotta's history of gesture interfaces. [Via]
July 13, 2007
Interactive Adobe video wall comes to NYC
According to an article in today's NYT,
Adobe will unveil an interactive wall of projected animation [see video] this morning in Union Square, along the 14th Street side of the Virgin Megastore. As pedestrians walk past the wall, infrared sensors will lock on to the person closest to the wall, who will then be able to control a projected slider button at the bottom of the wall. As the selected pedestrian continues walking and moves the slider along, the wall will start displaying colorful animation and playing music, effects that will grow or recede at the pace that the person advances or retreats.
Measuring 95 square feet, and created by Goodby Silverstein working with animators at Brand New School and video peeps Obscura Digital, the wall is meant to offer "a single and multiuser experience simultaneously." Gizmodo wants to see multitouch interactivity added to the project, saying "Sure, you'd probably wind up with more than a few obscene renderings, but it's New York, people can handle it." (Yes, but could Adobe Corporate*? ;-))
I hope to get photos and videos from the unveiling to share. If you know of any, please pass 'em along. [Update: Gothamist has posted a bit more info.]
*Then again, Bruce is from Brooklyn, so I imagine him remaining unfazed.
July 3, 2007
Multitouch, real & imagined
- MIT's Technology Review features multi-touch UI pioneer Jeff Han in a new video. He talks about ways these screens can get around the "thin straw" of keyboard mouse input; the potential for better storyboarding applications; and more.
- Mark Coleran has carved out what seems to be a pretty cool gig, designing computer interfaces shown in movies. His design for a table in The Island resembles the Microsoft Surface concept. [Via] Mark's work reminds me of the time we visited the set of one of the CSI shows and met the folks responsible for those Director-powered graphics--you know, the ones that convince average viewers that computers can read The Iliad reflected off the head of a pin. Thanks a lot for that, guys. ;-)
- Meanwhile the interface of the iPhone I picked up on Saturday remains a completely imaginary one: thanks to AT&T, I can't activate the damn thing with my corporate cell number, which means I can't get past the welcome screen. Note to self: the whole sequence of
- Get all excited, buy lovely, seductive gizmo
- Figure out whether said gizmo can actually be used with phone number, work email, etc.
June 20, 2007
Multitouch: $2 or $10,000?
The folks at Medallia claim to have devised a multitouch user input device using two dollars' worth of dye and Ziploc bags. Hmm--interesting clip, but doesn't it seem they've pretty much mashed up a couple seconds of new footage (producing colored blobs) with chunks of other people's demos (the chess demo from Tactiva, etc.)? Beyond the technology, I'm struck by the number of comments below the video that boil down to "hah hah u pwned those fat-cats lolz!!" Man are there some credulous people in the world. [Via Tom Attix]
Speaking of pwning Microsoft, however, this parody of the recently-announced, $10,000-a-pop Surface project is pretty damn funny. I can't wait to get tanked with my friends, using a device the size of a small car. [Via]
March 15, 2007
Multi-touch photo editing demo
I don't have much context for this video, but I'm passing it along as it's an interesting demo of image editing using a multi-touch screen. The pie menus look useful (is that a Healing Brush icon I see?), though to compete against a keyboard and mouse, I think it would need to be much faster and more fluid.
Sidenote: I like imagining that the choice of bloopy, electro-spacey music may not just be a video editing choice, and that it's actually emitted by the multi-touch monitors themselves (see also the Jeff Han origin of the genre). "Hey man, cool screen, but why does it keep playing the pseudo-Moby?"