Monday, October 15, 2007

CLF 2.0 Standards and Guidelines

I was surprised to find out the other day that a website has to allow access to everyone and this is a stringent law. Click here to see the Common Look and Feel for the Internet.

This would include Flash Sites only sites. This is still something that I am researching and will provide more information in future.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Visit to Gesturetek

On October 12, we visited Gesturetek (Video Gesture Control Technology) as part of our Multimedia Pioneering Class. We met with Vincent John Vincent, the President and Co-Founder.

Our class met at the Gesturetek office on Adelaide; and like the company, it is beyond the norm. The atmosphere and architecture is a mixture of taking something that was old and renovating it to retain the orignal beauty giving it an air of the surreal. The same can be said for their technology. Taking older technolgy (video cameras) and mixing it with human gesture and the latest cutting edge technology to create a product that is not only for entertainment, advertising and gaming, but also for education, assisting the disabled and provide a way to exercise. Vincent John Vincent and his partner, Francis MacDougall are true pioneers in this industry and encompass everything that Interactive Multimedia is all about.

Vincent John Vincent gave us a demonstration of all the latest technology. We experienced the gaming, interactive walls, tables, and floors. One of the highlights for me was when he was giving a demonstration of how this technology has assisted in physical rehabilitation by using the gesture technology. Each person has a session programmed for them to follow along depending upon what they need to work on. I was very impressed.

Go to the GESTURETEK WEBSITE and you can see for yourself all the groundbreaking Computer Vision Technology. They are too numerous to display.

Friday, October 5, 2007

Jelauddin Rumi - 13th Century Mystic

From Santas Little Helper Simpson to Rumi. But here goes.

In our Web Authoring Class we talked about Creativity. One thing that struck me was one of my favorite quotes "The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep!"
-Jelaluddin Rumi, the 13th Century Sufi mystic

Read a great article on Rumi

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Tutorial Creation Software

Free Tutorial Software similiar to Camtasia if cost is a factor.

http://www.debugmode.com/wink/

Visualization Lab

Today we took a trip upstairs to visit the Sheridan Visualization Lab. I was impressed with the atmosphere and the culture.

We were shown some interactive multimedia applications by going through the Lab's project site.

The first example was a application created for the Police. Go to for a look. This was used for many reasons but the one shown was developed for Police Officers as an investigation tool to enable them to write a report for a traffic accident. This was a Flash-XML based application.

The next link was for Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) was using an XML Driven Engine using Flash 6. It was an imported swf that plays fla files. This is a Go to

We also were shown a demonstration using Facial Recognition Software.

I was surprised to learn that the graphics used for game type programs was from a graphics applications, but more complex using api. The free Opensource graphic engine that they used with a game type application using OGRE

I was also happy walking around seeing some of the manuals, books and software that they use.

Go to their site. Amazing and you don't have to physically be there.

Click Here to go to the Sheridan Visualization Labs Main Page