I love seeing things I have designed in use

You know, there are not that many things greater than seeing something you worked on being put to practical use. I think the only bad thing would be if they were complaining about it. Here, they are absolutely loving it. Granted, I only did a little bit of the work and there is a large team of great designers responsible. I was in on it and loved being able to contribute.

I think the visuals are stunning as well. I love seeing how fluid the animations are. Lovely!

I have been off of the Surface Team for months but I talk to the current members almost daily. I’m still doing Natural User Interface work, just not directly for them. Its so great to see what is still coming out of that great team over there.

N-Trig’s excellent hardware demo apps

This video demonstrates a number of new multi-touch software applications, designed using N-trig’s DuoSense® technology, in collaboration with some of N-trig’s ISV partners, including FingerTapps, Natural User Interface Europe AB, and SpaceClaim. The applications show full multi-touch utilizing up to four fingers, and range across areas of interest from consumer gaming, multi-media management, retail shopping and high-end engineering applications. More info on www.n-trig.com.

The most important thing to pull out of this hardware is that it is dual-mode, which means it can handle touch with fingers as well as with a pen. This is exactly what I am hoping for in the future of all hardware.

3d modeling with Spaceclaim’s prototype multi-touch

A preview demonstration of modeling in 3D using a SpaceClaim’s prototype multi-touch user interface that will be added to SpaceClaim this fall. Also includes clips of ANSYS Workbench, Blue Ridge Numerics CFdesign, and Bunkspeed Hypershot, showing some finger dancing that you can do without multi-touch.

Multi-touch is here now, no matter what Apple says

There is a lot of random talk about multi-touch out right now due to Apple’s recent “leak” about their possible tablet. Talking to a few Apple fans I came to a realization: they had no idea that multi-touch was out right now. Absolutely clueless that Windows 7 supports MT (multi-touch) and that there is a very large array of hardware that you can purchase to take advantage of it. I was actually a little amazed, but not because of the simple fact they didn’t know about it. I was amazed because they seemed so versed in the subject, but had not even done a simple Google Search to look around.

MT has been around quite a long time. Bill Buxton’s very thorough page written on the subject gives a great history and is far better than I would want to replicate here. I will quote a great line from it though, as it definitely deserves it.

Multi-touch technologies have a long history. To put it in perspective, the original work undertaken by my team was done in 1984, the same year that the first Macintosh computer was released, and we were not the first. Furthermore, during the development of the iPhone, Apple was very much aware of the history of multi-touch, dating at least back to 1982, and the use of the pinch gesture, dating back to 1983.  – http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html

I highly recommend reading through his page.

I have tested, played with, and tortured just about every multi-touch piece of hardware out there and I can tell you that there are some stellar pieces of equipment floating around. The Touchsmart’s are very nice. I currently use one of those as well as a few other devices.

Here is the Official Touchsmart Page as well as some nice movies showcasing the technology and features.

Remember to install the Windows 7 Touch pack if you get one to really see some of the great things that you can do using ….. both hands, or one hand, or whatever!

The Windows 7 Touch Pack includes:

• Microsoft Surface Globe
• Microsoft Surface Collage
• Microsoft Surface Lagoon
• Microsoft Blackboard
• Microsoft Rebound
• Microsoft Garden Pond

If anyone has any user experience feedback about these products, feel free to drop me a line.