Low / no cost input devices for RoomWare

August 10, 2009

Low cost means of input:

  1. QR-codes
  2. Virtual Dials (AR Toolkit + camera + fiducials)
  3. Scraping / sound

QR-codes


QR-codes can be printed on plain paper and contain any kind of data. Several scenarios are possible.

  1. To link your personal profile on an online service to a RFID tag / card
  2. To do a handshake using a mobile phone to show the QR code you get from the RoomWare application to a reader in the room

QR-codes, user input, web cams and Flash

Flash ActionScript is fast enough to translate QR-codes and map fiducials

Virtual dials

Using the RoomWare Server, Flash, a web cam, a glass plate, fiducials pasted on a hard surface and the part of AR Toolkit that reads position and location you can translate position, rotation and tilt to data which links to specific objects. Each object can be manipulated by the virtual dials.

You can use it to set temperature, volume, light intensity, etcetera via the RoomWare Server.

It does the same as the part of the reactable that reads the fiducials (the printed shapes on the cubes)

Scraping / sound

Using Adobe Flash, a microphone, sound and patterns in sound, you can use “gestures” on a surface to perform specific action. See this page and video from Chris Harrison for a simple implementation.

More sophisticated is this solution, using sound and mapping of sound on surfaces to define the X/Y position of the sound origin. Making it possible to create virtual keyboards.

Sound input can be i.e. by simple means of speed of sound intervals (scraping your nail across a ribbled surface like used on “3D” post cards to up/lower the volume of your MP3 player), volume (tapping harder or softer on the surface to confirm/deny) or frequency (high/low) and sound patterns (like the scraping example by Chris Harrison) do perform specific tasks.

Biggest benefit is that any surface can act as an interactive element without you having to build/solder anything.

It extends the screen and can be used as an alternate form of input.


“Help the NPOX Festival to get their RoomWare Installation”

July 9, 2009

[to be edited for final version] At Reboot11 I was approached by Marieke Hermans: if we could do a RoomWare installation at their event. On the morming of Juli 9, 2009 I had a meeting with three members of the NPOX Festival team.

The main theme of these festivals (this will the 3rd) is – in my words: “To introduce, promote and advocate the new thinking of sharing and cooperation as is common ground for Open Source Projects”

At the NPOX Festival (see the festival site of 2008) more than a thousand media professionals (Radio and TV) get together: writers, researchers, journalists, planners, presenters, programmers, content managers and so on.

The initial investment for a RoomWare installation with hardware and software is between 30.000 to 50.000 euro.

The NPOX simply does not have that budget.

So today I started the first part of a campaign to “Help NPOX to get their RoomWare Installation”. You can respond with tips and leads using the “Leave a reply” box at the bottom of this post.

Here is the plan:

  1. To find one or more parties, “the Sponsor”, who have a clear added value to the RoomWare installation we will use at the NPOX 2009 festival
  2. To create a complete solution catering festivals, events and venues
  3. To have the Sponsor sponsor the costs to create this RoomWare Event / Venue solution

Here is the approach:

  1. The RoomWare application will be created in such a way that it is applicable for the NPOX festival and directly applicable to cater the needs of the Sponsor
  2. It will be launched at the NPOX Festival
  3. After the NPOX festival it will be installed in the venue of the Sponsor

This is what we can build:

  1. A tracking and tracing system for people within the venue. Based on a simple BlueTooth device people get when entering the venue the flow of people can be tracked in real time. This information can be used to:
    1. Optimize the space and the flow of people in that space
    2. Help people to find other people (“Where the F#ck is [anyperson]?” and “Tell me who matchs with [anypreference]“)
    3. Display user generated content, like photo’s, blog posts and twitter feeds
    4. Change the mood of the space, based on i.e. a balanced collection of the personal musical preferences of the people in the room
    5. Re-trace who was with whom in that same space
  2. A RFID-tag based link and presentation system. Using RFID-tags connected to personal public profiles, RFID-tags can be used to:
    1. Connect people using public services like LinkedIn and FaceBook
    2. Recieve a personalized agenda of the event and venue based on personal preferences (using proximity and scheduled time to define priorities)
    3. Show your different (professional) outings as part of the conversation
    4. Tag places and events for later recall
    5. Vote on objects or events (“I like it”, “I do not like it”) and track these votes real time

Where a RoomWare installation like this comes in handy

Finding people: a RoomWare installation linked to personal profiles can cater you in finding people fast and effectively while being there. When you are on an event like the NPOX Festival; where you can expand your network, potentially meet a lot of new people sharing the same interest, or requiring your services, or who can potentially solve one or another problem.

Connecting to people directly: Instead of collecting business cards, you can potentially directly connect to the person and the public services you share, like Linked In and FaceBook. The system can immediately send out an e-mail stating that you linked using the RFID-tags and when and where this happened. If your profile includes the links to these public services you can also link via that.

Find commonalities and added values: Public data from services like LinkedIn can show you which contacts you have in common or how you are connected while you are talking. If you have basic data like showcases, you can present them directly – showing who you are, what you do and what you have achieved.

Tagging places and events for after service: Using the RFID-tag or Bluetooth ID’s connected to your profile, you can tag- or bookmark a talk, a place or something else you are interested in for later reference. For instance, if a talk is recorded and photo’s are made, the moment this material is released online you will be notified.  All the people you were with in a room at a certain moment can be found so making connections afterward is easy.

Tracking and tracing the flow of people: As mentioned before, using the RoomWare  data you can see how many people were in a room at a certain time, how they moved and how this relates to the goals you stated. You can track back the number of people who attended lectures or talks or specific spaces of your exhibition. You can see for how long people stayed in one room. You can see how many left during a talk and where they went to.

Type of locations a solution like this can be suited to

  1. Conference spaces
  2. Festivals and conferences
  3. Network meetings
  4. Business fairs
  5. Musea and exposition spaces
  6. .. (anything I forgot or am not aware of)

At the NPOX festival, November 16

With RoomWare at NPOX we like to:

  1. Help people find other people based on names or preferences (skills, job titles, who knows who)
  2. Present showcases of people on big screens (photo’s, video productions, audio productions, writings, portfolio’s)
  3. Connect people using RFID tags
  4. Show connections between people (who knows who?)
  5. Track who was together in the same space and open this info to the people who were part of that group and specific moment

Protection of pivacy

As with these kind of technologies we need to keep privacy high. We will present the “how” in a later post.


Do It At Home RoomWare / AnyWhere flow

June 30, 2009

[CONCEPT]

Last week the RoomWare team (James Burke, Tijs Teulings and Tom Burger, J.T.T. for short) and I had a meeting regarding the next steps. One of the outcomes was (in my words) “Help James’ sister to set up a RoomWare Party”.

Basics:

  1. Anyone should be able to run an RoomWare installation
  2. Runs out of the box
  3. Simple installation (standard Windows / Mac setup scheme)
  4. No expertise needed
  5. Expandable set of services
  6. No local webserver required
  7. Neither the RoomWare- nor the AnyWhere Server / Identity Broker makes any call to any Web2.0 service. That is done by the Local or Remote Web Applications

AnyWhere Server: link between DevideID and people

The database on the AnyWhere Server consists of:

profile

  • [PK] personID
  • First name
  • Last name

devices

  • [PK] ID
  • [FK] personID
  • DeviceType
  • deviceID (string)

identities

  • [PK] ID
  • [FK] personID
  • [FK] serviceID (pointig to list: Flicker, Twitter, …)
  • identity

XML

<XML source=”roomware server” target=”identity broker”><ping><id>01234</id><type>rfid</type></ping></XML>

<XML source=”anywhere server” target=”caller”><ping><id>01234</id><type>rfid</type><identities><id type=”flickr” alias=”peterkaptein”><id type=”lastfm” alias=”djpkap”><id type=”twitter” alias=”peterbird”></identities></ping></XML>

<XML source=”roomware server” target=”roomware web service” roomwareserverID=”{serverID}”><ping><id>01234</id><type>rfid</type><identities><id type=”flickr” alias=”peterkaptein”><id type=”lastfm” alias=”djpkap”><id type=”twitter” alias=”peterbird”></identities></ping></XML>

The result XML from pinging the AnyWhere Server is sent to any online RoomWare Web Application.

This Web-application expects a specific format XML and will use that internally to call web 2.0 services.

RoomWare + AnyWhere = Local Reader + Remote Identity Broker

Where RoomWare reads reasonably abstract data (an numeric ID from RFID, an MAC-address / Bluetooth name that could be enyone), the AnyWhere server contains a list of users and the names of their social accounts.

Schema / sample setup

Picture 156

A: RFID card or any means of Object ID is offered to corresponding reader

B: Reader registers Object ID and sends event to RoomWare Server (or event is registered by RoomWare server)

C: RoomWare server registers the Object ID’s, creates an XML list of currently registered ID’s and sends this to an Identity Broker (Whic can be defined in the RoomWare Server settings)

D: The Identity Broker matches the abstract Object ID’s with what is in the database. WHEN a use has connected this ID to his or her account, the Identity Broker will Query for any social Identity the user has arrached to his or her profile. The result is sent back to the caller

E: The RoomWare server sends the result list form the Identity Broker to one or more RoomWare Web Applications via a HTTP POST. (part of this post is the session ID unique for the user / linked to that RoomWare Server.)

F: The RoomWare Web Application (built by anyone) retrieves the user specific information from any web2.0 service and presents the results in the web browser.

Things to think about: Privacy and breach of privacy

As the remote RoomWare Web Application can be written by anyone and draws in social data, we need to think about how to protect the individual data.

Perhaps the RoomWare server pings the remote Web Application first, asking what data it required, then lets the user selects explicitly wich data they will unveil via the RoomWare Server, thus preventing that the remote service will recieve all socially connected data neatly presented to read and possibly abuse.