I liked this exercise of summarising the key abilities that any serious interactive development should involve, and since I have to assume most of them into my single head for my thesys I’ve created this image that groups all his presentation slides:

Finally I’ve tried to translate this team oriented approach to a research or conceptual oriented context:

I’m not sure if this quick research translation is valid but I fell it practical. Anyway I hope to come back regularly to this diagram while I complete my UX readings and see what updates requires, if any.

You can also download an editable version of these images in Powerpoint format.

Microsoft explains here the operation of its project Natal, derived mainly from the use of two cameras and the principles of the stereoscopic vision to recreate with a high detail 3D geometry the real environment perceived by both cameras:

Compatible with any Xbox 360 system, the “Project Natal” sensor is the world’s first to combine an RGB camera, depth sensor, multi-array microphone and custom processor

running proprietary software all in one device. Unlike 2-D cameras and controllers, “Project Natal” tracks your full body movement in 3-D, while responding to commands, directions and even a shift of emotion in your voice.

In addition, unlike other devices, the “Project Natal” sensor is not light-dependent. It can recognize you just by looking at your face, and it doesn’t just react to key words but understands what you’re saying. Call a play in a football game, and players will actually respond.

At the same time another  interface to recognize the movements of the player has been presented in E3, which also tries to go beyond the Nintendo Wiimote:
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via: The Cosmonauts

Indoor navegation:

Exploring city services floor by floor:

Small objets could also be analised:

Although the most interesting is the application of projected augmented reality. This is a new AR type I have not submitted to the blog, which I’ll resolve in the next post. But for the moment:

This is not a pure AR interface, but still using motion tracking and mapping (Reminds me another interactive art projects wich i’ll get to find later).

Enkin from Enkin on Vimeo.

Enkin follows the line of projects like Rixome in its beginnings, seeking to connect the map with the real space that represents through augmented reality systems. Its visualization system have a 2D and a 3D mode, as well as a first-person mode that reminds the navigation of Google Earth. The difference is that we are really located in the streets so it shows, instead of a 3D model of the city, the image coming in real time from the camera.

I can easily imagine how Google could get inspired by this kind of system to implement all the visual information already incorporated in Street View, to apply it in real-time to the image taken from the camera of our mobiles.

The Nokia Explore video introduced a mobile augmented interface, but the video quality and fast motion made difficult to realize its features. Nowadays Nokia removed the videos from its site but still stay in Youtube, and since recently Youtube allow us to see them in a higher resolution, we can now analize what was really going on. Check this gothrough gallery (screenshots descriptions after a click):

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Google compró esta herramienta poco después de que Rosling la presentara y la hizo públicamente disponible en Gapminder

Para aquellos que aún no los conozcan, estos son tres blogs esenciales en con los que estar al tanto de nuevas herramientas y teoría de visualización de datos: Information aesthetics, Dataesthetics y visualcomplexity.

La mejor recopilación de herramientas de visualización de datos está disponible en Internet en Smashing Magazine y es áltamente recomendable. Estas herramientas tienen un gran valor didáctico, su uso en las escuelas sin duda ayudaría a profesores de todo tipo de rangos educativos a enseñar contenidos que pudieran parecer aburridos, hasta lograr hacerlos fascinantes a los ojos de los alumnos.

Dentro del ámbito hispanoamericano, hay que referenciar al colombiano Santiago Ortiz, con el que coincidí durante un largo periodo en el Medialab Madrid mientras él preparaba, entre otros proyectos, sus dos exposiciones (1,2) en el Medialab. Santiago lleva varios años creando este tipo de aplicaciones, en su página web pueden verse varios ejemplos sobre cómo aplicar estas herramientas en la educación para enseñar proyecciones ortogonales y música.

Extra, visualización de información en español: el blog Visualizar, el festival ArtFutura 2006 “Estética de datos” y la revista digital Infovis. (Actualización: olvidé nombrar a Bestiario, una empresa española de la que Santiago también forma parte).

Recordatorio: Simposio internacional y taller a partir del 12 de Noviembre en Madrid: Visualizar de Medialab Matadero. Convocatoria abierta de proyectos y comunicaciones hasta el 5 y el 15 de octubre respectivamente.

Desde su creación, el Medialab ha grabado cada una de las conferencias que se han dado dentro de sus programas. Hoy ya podemos ver en su nueva web una de ellas que hace referencia a esta exposición. Es la presentación de José Luis de Vicente (de Elástico) sobre la historia del mapping y del diseño de la información en general. Dura alrededor de hora y media pero es excelente para introducirse en estos temas y comprender la importancia de este tipo de herramientas:

Además en este otro vídeo podéis ver una entrevista a Steven Johnson, el autor de Ghost Map, uno de los libros que José Luis comenta en la conferencia:

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ACTUALIZACIÓN: ¡Vaya! Si Regine les hizo una entrevista no hace mucho: Interview With Marcos from MediaLab Madrid