UserZen

Several years ago, I found TED and started watching amazing 18 minute videos of people changing the world.

One of the most amazing videos I saw

(and posted) was of Pattie Maes of MIT’s Media Labs showing what her graduate student, Pranav Mistry, had created; a 6th Sense hardware that was cobbled together from existing technology, along with a software program that allowed you to have a mobile virtual multi-touch gestural interface that was a predecessor of the augmented reality applications we have seen developing for the smartphones over the last few years.

I went to check in on the program out of curiosity. They are now calling it the Wear Ur World (WUW)

I want to create several of these. I mean, take a look at the demonstration that Pranav Mistry did more recently in TED India.

Doesn’t it look cool?

So he mentioned he wanted to make it open source, but I was not able to find it. Possibly waiting until it can be improved a bit. I don’t know, but if it is out there, I would love to hear where.

More information about Pranav’s ideas, motivations and details of the project are available in an interview he did with TED

You can also find his papers and other ideas on his website.

http://www.pranavmistry.com/

The SCS.3M is an amazing touch sensitive DJ controller that works with many music software programs.

You can check out their site for more information. Stanton

Richard Devine puts it through its paces here and describes why he likes it.

As a researcher and professional working with accessibility, special needs, education, usability and interaction design, I am constantly searching for better ways to present information. Especially complex and dynamic information.

Web 2.0 has introduced cloud sourced information that defies traditional representations (graphs and pie charts). We as an industry of information technology specialists need to find ways to present interactive information in an understandable, interesting and fun way.

I have written about ManyEyes before as a great idea (in thought, while maybe not implementation) of how to ask society at large how they wish to be presented with this information, hopefully to find a way that works across cultures in way finding and understanding of information.

As I get ready to leave for UPA 2009 Conference in Portland, I am following and connecting with my colleagues who are already there or on their way. This is easily done through Twitter and its myriad of applications. Squidoo List of Twitter Apps.

Over the last couple of years, I have seen several implementations that collect social feeds, but this UPA2009 Twitter Feed’s animation styles are really interesting.

I took that and created a search based on My Tweets

I highly recommend going to The Man in Blue’s VisibleTweets Site and try creating one for yourself.