TouchTones

It’s musical, it’s magical, and it’s free. Stimulant is thrilled to announce the release of TouchTones as a freeware application for Microsoft Surface.

TouchTones (formerly ToneGrid) is a multi-user collaborative music maker that doesn’t require any musical knowledge in order to make something beautiful. Just tap the colored spheres to get them started and change the melody in real time! TouchTones has a range of innovative features:

• TouchTones features four sounds and a four-octave “grid,” which acts like a keyboard.
• Up to four people can use TouchTones at once.
• Symmetrical controls on all sides let any user control any sound.
• Holding down a colored button while tapping an arrow with another lets the user play the grid like an instrument. You can even play chords!
• Volume control, reset button, and integrated help video makes learning and playing a snap.
• No written instructions are needed to learn how to use TouchTones!

TouchTones is being made available for free for any Microsoft Surface running Service Pack 1 or higher. If you’re interested in having Stimulant visually reskin the application, replace the stock sounds with something custom, or want additional features, just ask. TouchTones is designed to be fully customized to meet your specific branding goals. Feel free to contact us for any general inquiries regarding TouchTones.

To learn more about TouchTones, or to download the installer, visit Stimulant’s Product Page.

Stimulant’s Nathan Moody on SXSW 2010 “Beyond the Desktop” Panel

Going to South by Southwest (SXSW) this year? Check out the Beyond the Desktop panel on Monday, March 15 at 3:30pm.

Nathan and friends will rock SXSW on March 15!

Hosted by Adaptive Path’s Peter Merholz, our design director, Nathan Moody, will be honored to chat with such luminaries as Michele Parras of the Mobile Experience Innovation Centre, David Merrill from Sifteo (the group behind Siftables), and Johnny Lee (of WiiMote hacking fame) of Microsoft’s Applied Sciences Group.

We expect the panel discussion will be cover a lot of ground between research and application, private and public computing, mobile and installation experiences, and a great overview of how human-computer interactions are evolving beyond the traditional desktop form factor. For more updates, follow @stimulant at Twitter and don’t hesitate to reach out directly by emailing us at sxsw10 [at] stimulant [dot] io … and definitely say hello if you find yourself in Austin, too!

WIND Mobile Multi-User In-Store Experience

Stimulant, in partnership with Trapeze, helped WIND Mobile extend their core brand philosophy of “The Power of Conversation” to the in-store experience with a Microsoft Surface-based assisted sales application. Surface lives in the heart of the store in most WIND Mobile retail locations, providing delightfully simple access to key product information and facilitating two-way conversation between employees and customers.

As a consultative tool, the Surface table allows customers to compare devices and plans side-by-side, helping to identify the options that work best for them. Information is made available quickly, clearly and in one layer of engagement. Stimulant worked closely with Trapeze to bring the WIND Mobile brand alive on Microsoft Surface, leveraging custom sound design, playful 2D physics and object recognition, all carefully blended into a seamless and engaging experience. The application leverages Stimulant’s proprietary product comparison engine, as well as a custom content management system to enable easy updating across all stores. Like all of our projects, extra care was taken to ensure scalability and stability for years to come.

Subsequent versions of the application will focus on the customization of services and devices directly from Surface.

Stimulant helps Microsoft and the Kauffman Foundation showcase their citizenship efforts at TED2010

We are thrilled to have a custom version of the Microsoft Surface edition of Microsoft Local Impact Map premiering at the TED2010 Conference this week. Stimulant worked closely with the Kauffman Foundation and the Microsoft Corporate Citizenship team to create a special version of the Surface application that not only showcases Microsoft’s contributions around the globe, but features exciting new Microsoft content and over 200 new stories detailing the positive impact that the Kauffman Foundation is making worldwide. Kauffman worked with Stimulant to create inspiring new narratives in every US State and many countries around the world, including 1.5 gigabytes of new images and video that help tell the Kauffman story in an interactive and engaging way.

Stimulant created a unique Kauffman-specific filter on the Microsoft Local Impact Map so that any user can view the globe through a Kauffman-centric lens, which highlights countries around the world where the Kauffman Foundation is making a direct impact. Building on the previous functionality of the Microsoft Local Impact Map, this new version provides multiple users an engaging way to navigate to any country and read stories, while simultaneously flipping through images and watching videos that enhance each story.

Powerful data visualization filters enable a visual comparison of technology metrics between countries, revealing disparities and underscoring the importance of Kauffman’s work. By allowing each user to view the globe through their own individual lens and choose their area of interest, and providing multiple lenses to focus on different stories and metrics at the same time, this application remains one of Stimulant’s finest examples of how multi-user interactions on Microsoft Surface can enhance a learning experience.

Kodak’s Surface Experience at CES 2010

The Microsoft Surface experience we developed for Kodak was revamped for CES 2010, this time focusing on Kodak’s consumer products – cameras, printers, photo frames, and more. With new content, interactivity and a refreshed skin, our Microsoft Surface application segued elegantly in with the amazing pieces developed by our partners at Obscura Digital.

Our application allows multiple visitors to place a Kodak device on Surface at the same time and spawn an interactive deck of information specific to each device. We’re thrilled to be a part of Kodak’s booth as they present one of the most forward-thinking interactive product experiences at the entire show.

Kodak Product Explorer for Microsoft Surface

Kodak, a stalwart exhibitor at the annual Print tradeshow, did something different in 2009. They bucked the industry practice of bringing truly massive commercial printing presses to the show. Instead decided to attract attendee interest with final printed samples, and use a nearly all-digital environment to tell the story of the Kodak technology used to bring these printed materials to life.

Working with Kodak’s marketing firm Partners + Napier, exhibit design firm Mirrorshow, and our old friends Obscura Digital, Stimulant created software for Microsoft Surface that allowed trade show attendees to simply pick up a printed sample or object, place it on Surface, and have Surface reveal details on that object’s printing methods and what Kodak products were used in its manufacture. We created a byte tag recognition system that’s more robust than is typical, so that even large objects could be only partially placed on Surface but still be recognized by the system. Traditional “attract modes” were replaced with local “attract messages” to entice attendees to use the table even when another user was already doing so, leveraging the inherent multi-user capabilities of Surface. Our team also externalized all content so that the client could manage all content themselves, even after the trade show doors opened.

Hundreds of trade show attendees and booth personnel used six Surface units in the Kodak booth without a hiccup during the entire show. Sales personnel found it invaluable to have such information at their fingertips without requiring printed collateral, and trade show attendees could follow along or even acquire knowledge on their own, given the utter simplicity of Stimulant’s nearly-invisible interface, based on their own interests and needs.

Stimulant at the Event Design Summit

Nathan, Stimulant’s Design Director, will be speaking at the Event Design Summit in Los Angeles next Tuesday! His talk, “Surface-Based Interaction,” will be at 10am on Tuesday, September 29, and will cover anything and everything as it relates to table-based computing experiences (including, of course, Microsoft Surface). Every topic will be backed with examples from Stimulant’s own work and experiences, so it is sure to be in-depth, informative, and fun. Bring your thinking caps and say hi to Nathan if you see him there!

Surface and Stimulant at Decibel Festival

Decibel Festival starts in Seattle tomorrow, and this year there is a conference portion. One of the sessions tomorrow is on multitouch interfaces for music production and experimentation. We’re excited to see the latest from Fashionbuddha, Randy Jones, and Let’s Go Outside.

Aside from the speakers, Eric Havir will be bringing a Surface unit for attendees to play with. Stimulant will be there showing off a never-before seen version of our Surface music application, called TouchTones (formerly ToneGrid, now redesigned and much-improved). There will be other apps to play with as well.

The session is 7:30-8:30p, but Surface will be there around 6:00-8:45p. The event is open to the public and will be in the board room at the Seattle Art Museum.

Nathan talks NUI at Interaction09

Here’s Stimulant’s Design Director, Nathan Moody, speaking about the design of Natural User Interfaces, or NUI’s, at the IxDA’s Interaction09 conference in Vancouver in February 2009. Thanks for all who turned out and enjoyed the talk!

We’re actually bummed that the random blast of smooth jazz that started playing in the middle of the talk (around 15 minutes in) didn’t come through very loudly in the mic, nor did the cameraman catch Nathan groovin’ to the smoothness onstage. Ah, well, there’s always Interaction10 in Savannah. Enjoy!

Interested in seeing us in person soon? You’re in luck: We’ll be speaking about installation/destination computing at the Event Design Summit in Los Angeles, doing a hands-on workshop at UXWeek in San Francisco, and talking about NUI at the Heartland Developer’s Conference in Omaha!