SAP unveils InSite Studio at SAPPHIRE Now

InSite Studio enables collaborative access to real-time business analytics from distributed locations.

We’re on-site in Orlando this week helping SAP showcase their InSite Studio initiative on the Innovations Campus, which marries in-memory computing with a large-scale, Windows 7 touch-based UI and a Cisco TelePresence System 3000. The last slide of SAP chairman Hasso Plattner’s Sapphire 2009 keynote was a sketch of this idea, and we were asked to help bring his vision to life for SAPPHIRE Now. The solution enables business decision makers to drill down into business analytics, review data and make changes from distributed locations in real-time, using SAP’s suite of business software, a variety of devices, and a bespoke multi-touch interface designed and built by Stimulant. Our UI integrates deeply with Windows 7, providing an efficient way to control and share live applications via the Cisco TelePresence System 3000, using only touch. This is a massive engineering feat, and we’re thrilled to have had the pleasure of working side-by-side with the insanely talented folks on SAP’s Chairman’s Special Projects and Design Services teams. A full case study is forthcoming, but for now, come swing by the studio at SAPPHIRE Now — we’ll be demoing every hour until Wednesday.

Stimulant’s Darren David at Web 2.0: “Blurring the Lines”

Darren’s been invited to participate on the Blurring the Lines: From Human Centered Design to Customer Driven Development panel, talking shop with colleagues and stellar thought leaders Alon Salant from Carbon Five, Maria Giudice from Hot Studio, and Rob Spiro from Aardvark, moderated by our good friend Josh Damon Williams from Hot Studio. To quote our panel’s charter:

This panel investigates and drills down into the practices that designers, developers and product owners are learning to use across their disciplines to ensure they successfully deliver their vision to engaged customers.

Our panel will lay out specific guidelines on how best to accomplish this—and showcase techniques like Wizard of Oz testing and running experiments in the working product. Strategies and systems will be explored to clearly address and answer questions such as: “When and how do I do my research?”, “Am I defining a solution or a system?”, and “Will my design ever be fully realized?”

We’re on at 2:35pm on Wednesday, May 05. Hope to see you at the show.

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!

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 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!

Stimulant on NUI and Multi-Touch at UXWeek: 2008 and 2009

Stimulant has been invited back to UXWeek this year to lead a workshop on designing large-scale multi-touch user experiences. Following on the heels of our talk from 2008 (above) we’ll be diving in much deeper and getting hands on with participants on actual multi-touch equipment.

Nathan is also going to be on-site at the Interactive Displays Conference in San Jose from April 21-23, so please drop a line if you’ll be in town and would like to connect.

"Brave NUI World:" Stimulant at SXSW

SXSW Interactive rolls in to Austin on March 13th.

Darren has been invited to participate on a panel at SXSW Interactive 2009, entitled Brave NUI World: The Fearless Future of Device Interaction and moderated by Lee Shupp. He’ll be talking NUI with Kristin Alexander, Director at Microsoft Xbox, Jay Baik Myong, Director at Samsung and Chris Schmidt, Director of occo Design. If you’re headed to SXSW and want to connect, please email us at sxsw09 (at) stimulant.io or follow our Stimulant Twitter feed (handle: Stimulant) for real-time updates during the conference.