Google table idea

Thinking about things with google earth I realised that with apple script I could send move messages to GEarth from gestures which I have recognised from the table. 

So could do the whole Jeff Han zooming in but with the table. 

No hint of multi touch what would more than one person get from it. Nothing but good for demos.

Floor system.

Another couple of small set backs for the floor sensors. 

1. Paul went off with his old laptop - hard to set up the other sensors with out it.

2. I lost my key's today so I couldn't get into the lab - not a really bad day did other work but tomorrow is a big staff meeting followed by possible PHD meeting. This slows everything down.

3. I'm short of money other wise I would order the web based sensor stuff.

On the good news front I've put in 2 abstracts for the Space Syntax conference. 

New Table delivered.

Big panic when I got back from Spatial Cognition. I ended up demoing the old fish table to the vice chancellor. 

Chris from Technology pulled out all the stops to get the table delivered. There was a projector problem ( my faulty calculations not his) so I wasn't confident in demoing the new table. While we waited for the evening event I checked out the images on my laptop and the 450 IR system was very bright. Bright enough to track  worked nicely with the new Reactorvision software.

So I'm very excited with the new table - I can think of lots of things to do with it. 

Y likes the idea of new  demos which I'm itching to write. 

Odd whole body experiment.

I was wondering what would happen if you let children loose on a floor based calculator. If you got them to play with the calculator - adding multiplying, subtracting etc but using buttons as big as they were would this be any different or memorable than using a normal calculator? 

Share it 2 - Orbit table

Another idea I had was a table to 'make your own solar system'. 

Simple gravity simulation -might do this on the new table.

ShareIT workshop

We had a workshop generating shareable interfaces. The group 

I was with were thinking about new astronomy exhibits. 

The one I came up with was a simulation of a particle accelerator . You wave your arm through two 'magnets' this throws particles into the system. Different stations have different colours. Fast arm waves make faster particals.

 This sends particles around the system (running round the round room). 

Occasionally these particals collide in a huge explosion of components. 

Lab meeting and large projector

Had some intreasting activity today - We had a lab meeing for most of the morning. Y not to pleased with the huge video projector. She is not sure we can run an experiment in the atrium space - I wasn’t sure we would know if the projector was bright enough until we had projected on the floor its self. Jeff doesn’t think it will be that bright, but projectors don’t get much bigger than this. 

Had a long time running up and down stairs trying to get the mac mini to run with the sunspot. I’ve got Wednesday to get it finished. I also need to get a presentation done for next week. 

Over lunch Y said I should think about doing a trials and tribulations paper about installing the system. Sunspots vs Aduino’s vs Wired board. Should aim for pervasive not pursasive. 

Podcasting experiments

I was reading a student essay on podcasting and while I was had a number of thoughts for experiments. 

1. Use of enhanced sound in podcasting. 

How much do students remember in a podcast? does the kind of information they retain change in a podcast vs written word. It is asserted (Shlosser & Burmeiser/Warbutern) that audio leads to greader understanding and clarification of concepts but with a reduction in 'facts' retention compared written text.  

Pod casts it is said can carry over some of the 'feel' and atmosphere that pure text cannot. 

Experiment: Create two identical podcasts (content wise) first one is a straight audio content ( speeach) the second one includes more 'atmosphere' (sound effects, use of imagery?) . Compare retention.

2. Blended education (Porter 2006) this asserts students need to pull information together and that modern learning methods imply the student is doing more than passive listening. 

Experiment: To identical podcasts but one keeps asking the student to do something ( look up in wiki or follow the podcast and type in what is said). She which has best retention.

3. Isolation ( Lee/Chan 07). The use of voice is suggestive that students form a stronger link to teacher and so less isolated and less likly to drop out. 

Experiment: Two pod casts again Use both enthusiastic and dull voice to see which students are more likely to stop listening too and when.  

Choices

The old PC is behaving weirdly ( strange things happen when screen closes). I'm thinking I would like to get some form of Linux working on it. But then do I use an audio to do the data collection?

I want to get something working quickly so I can work on another method to get the floor sensor working. I'm  tempted to get the MacMini started then think about getting another box (Eze-PC I've borrowed) going.

Command lines

I was chatting to Paul about Ubiquity ( and the new google app). I said that ubiquity was just the new way of doing a command line. We talked about the benefits of command lines (large numbers of things you can do). I like the idea of reinventing the command line so verbs are shared (does Ubiquity do this?). 

For example LOOK at file calls 'more' and LOOK at folder calls 'ls' in unix speak. Paul suggested doing a command line version of Simon's direct combination. I quite like the idea. I think what makes Ubiquity work is that you are in a web browser and you have some kind of context which can help the program help figure out what to do. 

Wiki thoughts

I'm sitting in a meeting about Wikis (Wikies?). 

The thing that strikes me is that there are two features that would be useful which are not currently available. 

1. A view when you can see the text coloured by 

 a) who has edited this (last) 

         b) How old is the text being edited. 

2. We need a wiki based on CVS (or subversion). This way may people can edit simultaneously, with out locking. 

The other thought I find interesting is a web based editor to collaboratively edit code.