New 55'' Perceptive Pixel @ nsquared studio

There are big smiles in the nsquared studio this week with the exciting delivery of the 55'' LCD Multi-Touch Display by Perceptive Pixel!

Following our mission, we literally are putting digital tables everywhere. While the PPI screen is originally intended to be placed vertically, we have enhanced its multi-touch, multi-user capabilities by mounting it horizontally. If the display wasn't enticing enough, our LED, steel structure stand changes colours - perfect to blend into any educational, business or public space environment. 

5 cool features of this device include:

1.  Large 55'' Pro Cap Display (Projected Capacitive display)
2.  2.5'' trim profile
3.  1920 x 1080  HD
4.  Supports massive multi-touch, and input from 6 stylus simultaneously
5.  Built in colour correction 

We are very excited to have this new piece of hardware in the nsquared studio and look forward to adding and testing our variety of nsquared business, education and hospitality applications on it.

If you are interested or want to know more about this product and our software, please do not hesitate to ring us on + 61 2 9262 3386 or email enquiries@nsquaredsolutions.com. 

Taking the magic of touch technology to Tamworth

Yesterday nsquared traveled with our partners at Samsung and Worlds Best Technology Distributors to demonstrate the power of touch technology to Tamworth, New South Wales.

The event was hosted at the Tamworth TAFE and attended by a number of key decision makers, all of whom were interested in bringing leading edge technology to their students.

It was great to see the educators literally get their hands on the technology, a Samsung SUR40.

One of the main attractors was the nsquared presenter application. nsquared presenter allows you to collaboratively create and deliver presentations using all the devices you find in a meeting room – tablets, mobile phones, overhead projectors and multi-touch tables. Groups of people are able to come together to build a presentation “timeline” of content including slides, spreadsheets, documents, images and videos from different  files. The staff felt this application had the most potential for their educational environment as it has the ability for students collectively interact with their digital course material over a familiar table setting.

Some of the other crowd favorites included:

- nsquared circuits

- nsquared paint

- nsquared chemistry 

    We are very excited to be working with Team Tamworth and look forward to helping them engage their students through multi-touch technology!

Update: nsquared makewords on Windows 8. Perfect for the Surface Pro!

We have been working hard here in the nsquared studio to update our FREE educational app on the Windows 8 store - nsquared makewords. 

This educational game is aimed to help students (aged 3+) with object recognition, differentiation and to improve their recall and spelling. nsquared makewords has the ability to switch between a range of content packs, therefore allowing you to change and download new content as it is released.

Features 

- Multi Touch, Multi User (for up to 4 people)

- Drag tiles to spell different animals, objects, flags and more

- Competitive and co-operative learning against the clock

The update features the following:

- Fun music and sound effects

- Better, easier to use layout

- Great visual feedback for incorrect letters and words!

- Reshuffle the letters to make it easier to find the ones you're looking for 

- Use the bottom app bar to choose between vertical and table mode play

- Word order in each pack has been randomized for more replay-ability

- Completely revised and updated menu system

Please try nsquared makewords today for FREE - http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-au/app/nsquared-makewords/e182deac-77d6-4679-91a9-71ebfea82515  

An introduction to Digital Tables

Enhance the meeting room
conversation with a
digital table

A digital table defines an obvious meeting place, offers a true multi-user experience and enhances collaborative engagement. If you’ve started to think about purchasing a digital table then this article will help you decide what type of hardware and software you will need.

Tabletop computing and digital tables are becoming integrated into business life and work places at an increasing pace. The integration of these devices into business, education and sales spaces is largely in recognition of the increased value of collaborative activities over directed activities.

Where we’ve been using interactive whiteboards and relying on a single person to talk us through a PowerPoint presentation, we’re now engaging in higher levels of discussion for information sharing and problem solving. The technology needs to support and enhance this shift in behavior. While interactive whiteboards offer opportunities for some interaction (by one person who is often facing away from the audience) they cannot replace the humble table as a meeting place and they do not encourage face-to-face communication. 

Digital tables are obvious meeting spaces. The form factor of a table is perfect for face-to-face conversations and true multi-user experiences. The digital tabletop further supports and enhances conversations and collaboration by providing quick access to resources. Business, education and sales spaces consistently report increased engagement and long-term connection of participants interacting with digital tables, with corresponding increases in sales revenue and educational success.

Multi-user devices are designed to bring people together and help them to engage and connect at much deeper levels than they would normally. When single user devices are present, they often detract from collaborative experiences, providing distractions from the core conversation and in turn reducing the value of the conversation. Think about the differences in interactions between sitting around a dinner table and standing in front of a digital sign.

A digital table at an auto show

Microsoft released the first commercially available multi-user product, named “Microsoft Surface”, in 2008. 

Five years later Microsoft Surface’s successor, the Samsung SUR40, still provides a premium experience, though in a significantly sleeker form factor than its forebear. Following the lead of Microsoft and Samsung, various other hardware providers have also created digital tabletops. Some of them utilise vision systems and others continue with time-honoured and proven touch detection methods. Each has its benefits and drawbacks. These will be discussed briefly in the following passages.

While there is magic in the hardware, it is the software interface that will determine how the devices can be used and whether or not your space is set up for productive, engaging collaboration and discussion. The design of the software interface will determine the level of engagement and productivity that can be gained from your investment and whether or not your space is set up for true multi-user experiences. 

Multi Touch or Multi-User?

As a first step, decide what you need to achieve. Do you want to create:

1. a space that enables people to browse digital content and discover information; or
2. a space that enables several people to interact with each other and digital content seamlessly and simultaneously?

If you’re looking to achieve the latter, you’re looking to create a multi user space.

Digital multi-user spaces enable discussion and collaboration around digital content. To ensure that everyone around the table has equal access to what’s on the screen, you’ll require a table form factor with massive multi-touch capabilities, and a 360-degree software interface. 

How many touch points are required?

For premium experiences, we recommend that you allow for five to 10 touches per person that you plan to have around the table. That said, the decision will be highly budget dependent and for groups of two to ten people, the device and software both need to be capable of responding to a minimum of three simultaneous touches per person. This is especially true for smaller groups of two to four people. In a few cases, you might be able to get away with catering for fewer touches per person. This is generally due to the fact that as groups of adults get larger in number, less people in the group are likely to interact with the device simultaneously. Allow for three simultaneous screen touches per person at a minimum. 

Benefits of multi-user screen spaces and digital tabletops

A multi-user experience is one in which several people will be working on the same screen at the same time. A great multi-user experience can be created with a canvas where all users can face each other to directly interact while still sharing, creating and annotating digital content. Placing interactive screens horizontally, to act as the table around which the users can gather and engage, can create this digital canvas. 

In a sales meeting a digital table can help focus
people's attention on the content

The horizontal screen becomes a shared space for all the users to work together and focus on the task at hand. 

Compare this with many meeting room experiences where the participants arrive with personal devices (laptops, tablets, phones) and the activity on each device is hidden from the other people. This often leads to more distractions during the meeting as people start answering emails, chatting on IM or even other personal tasks rather than being focused on the meeting.

By keeping the people focused on the content, meetings around a digital table should be faster and more focused than those using an interactive whiteboard as the focus for the meeting.

The benefit of a table hosting the content, as opposed to a vertical screen, is that people are face to face and no one has their back to the rest of the team at any time. Vertical screens are often used for presentations, which are an exercise in pushing information out rather than creating a discussion involving everyone at the table. Horizontally mounted screens promote information sharing and problem solving better than vertically mounted screens. 

Screen Size

We consider 30” to be the minimum size required for a good experience by more than two users. Bigger is not necessarily better, once a horizontal screen gets past around 60” some areas on the screen will become hard to access by everyone sitting around the screen. Once a screen is bigger than 100” then the software needs to be designed with the consideration there will likely be an area in the center of the screen that will be hard for anyone to reach even if they’re standing. For digital tables, the most functional screen sizes are between 30 and 65 inches.

Screen orientation

For a true multi-user experience, the screen will need to be mounted horizontally like a table. This allows people to sit or stand around the device and meet as they always have, face to face around a table, and without extraneous distractions.

Placing the screen horizontally changes the way people can engage with the content.

Remember that as soon as there is any vertical component in the mounting (such as in the case of a lectern), it’s difficult to see the content on the screen from all angles and sides. Make sure that your multi-user space offers a horizontally mounted screen for multi-user engagement.

Do you want object recognition capabilities?

Do you want internal users to have quick, direct access to their own content?

Do you want to be able to place content or objects onto the table and invoke different behaviours? Do you want to be able to put your phone on the table and access specified content? If you want any of those features, you’ll need object recognition capabilities that only a vision system with camera-like functionality will provide.

Lighting

If the space has a lot of natural sunlight, or is flooded with halogen or other incandescent lighting, and the hardware you’re considering operates with an infrared vision system (such as the Samsung SUR40), you’re going to have to make some choices. 

These will most likely involve considering removing or reducing the infrared light sources by replacing halogen or other incandescent lighting with LED or CFC lighting; and (or also) the installation of physical screens like walls, or specialized infrared filtering film (3M’s PR 40 and PR 70 window films are known to block infrared sufficiently in several cases). Work with your supplier to determine what the best way forward is for you.

Software

The most important piece to the puzzle is the software. Just as the hardware needs to promote face-to-face interaction, so does the software. Whether the software is custom built or an off the shelf solution, it should always enable multiple people to interact simultaneously, and at least as they would if the table wasn’t a digital one.

Good multi-user experiences are those in which each person around the table can access the interface equally and easily no matter where they are located around the table. Everyone should be able to consider the content the right way up. No one should have to look at anything upside down. The software should automatically adjust items to the orientation of each individual viewing it.

In addition, those same people need to be able to rely on the device to respond without lag to each and every touch made. People-to people and people to digital content interactions should be intuitive, smooth, and relatively effortless.

Custom Build or Off the Shelf (OTS) Software?

The budget you have available will always be a factor for consideration. Generally speaking, off the shelf software will always be financially less taxing than having custom software built for your organization. Procurement times should also be far less for off the shelf solutions than for custom builds. As time goes on and the market for digital tables increases, it stands to reason that there will be more off the shelf solutions available.

Digital Table at Australian Museum in Sydney

There will always be cases where custom builds are required. That said, unless you already have significant experience using tabletop computers in day-to-day business activities, it’s always best to start with off the shelf offerings that provide close to what you think you need. Check the features. Many applications provide administrator tools that allow you to customize certain aspects of the application for your preferences or brand. This way you can spend time assessing whether you really need all of the features on your wish list, and whether the custom build you’d envisioned will be justified in terms of return on your investment (ROI). Good off the shelf software may be all you need and at the very least will allow you to determine your absolute requirements at significantly lower costs and delivery time frames than those associated with custom builds.

Sharing content with personal devices

People will often arrive to a meeting with content on their personal devices that they have gathered or created. A good tabletop experience will enable those people to easily transfer that content onto the digital table for the conversation. It should be a single hit transfer, where the materials being shared can be placed on the table without the need to constantly refer back to the personal device. Once the content is on the table, it is best for the personal device to be put away. Private personal devices are still an important part of the digital world and digital tables should interact with those devices in a way that promotes the content being shared when suitable. Ensure the software enables quick and easy transfer of content between personal and corporate devices where relevant use cases exist. 

Conclusion

Every situation and scenario is different, but wherever you are creating indoor spaces for people to gather in order to collaborate you can expect digital tables to enhance that experience. In the coming years you will start to see more and more digital tables emerge in meeting rooms, libraries, schools, universities and even as peoples’ work desks and in their homes.

Depending on the environment and number of people involved, different hardware options need to be considered. The software should always account for people approaching the table from any side and work seamlessly for all the participants around the table.

For More Information

If you have any more questions regarding about digital tables or which solution is right for you, contact us at nsquared:

Web: http://www.nsquaredsolutions.com 
Email: info@nsquaredsolutions.com 

AU Phone: +61 2 9262 3386 
USA Phone: +1 206 236 0354 

nsquared chemistry on Windows 8

Here at nsquared we’re excited for the future of collaborative gaming and education.

More and more touch devices are being developed with larger and better screens. This means that the encouraging nature of collaborative learning can finally make a return on PC’s and tablets.

This new form factor, pioneered by devices such as the Sony Vaio Tap 20, is more commonly referred to as the “table” computer and it may allow all of your students to play at once on a single device!

We’re proud to announce another addition to our educational suite on the windows 8 store, nsquared chemistry!

As a collaborative game, it encourages learning between players. As the game progresses, players can teach one another how a specific element is made, or which elements the next compound will contain. The game lets players build a working memory of common elements as they build each compound, and teach others what comprises an element or compound. It is an excellent accompanying tool to any level of high school chemistry as the exercises mimic those found in many textbooks.

 

It’s also one of our first games to take advantage of the “Snapping” feature of windows 8 devices. Players are encouraged to snap the app to the side and open a browser to research an exercise if they are stuck.

Also, on a technical note, nsquared chemistry is one of the only apps in the store constructed with DirectX, C++ and XAML interoperation, and also our first 3D Windows 8 game!

Have fun bouncing elements around!

Try chemistry for free here: http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/app/nsquared-chemistry/122ae62d-6c0e-4f2f-878d-25716293959d

nsquared photobook

We are excited to announce nsquared photobook, a fantastic new product for digital tables to help a group of people create and share a photo album.
Contact nsquared to find out more about this and other great products for digital tables.

Windows 8 Education Apps

At nsquared we have been busy getting a range of educational applications ready for Windows 8. 
A number of the new computers being released are incredibly exciting, providing new ways for multiple people to interact around a single screen. Devices such as the Sony Tap 20 and the Lenovo Horizon will bring small digital tables into the home and classroom at very affordable prices.
Our history producing software for digital tables, such as Microsoft PixelSense, has lead to creating some truly outstanding multi-user experiences for Windows 8 devices. 

To start the new year we have released six new applications aimed at the younger audience, that is learning to read, write and count. These applications are great for small group learning.

nsquared letters 
A free form language application designed for use with or without guidance. The nsquared letters application allows students to explore words in virtually any language that uses the Latin alphabet. 
Get it here

nsquared numbers 
A free-form application that can be used to teach basic mathematical concepts. How many ways can your students make the sum of ‘7’, or ‘48’, or any other number you’d like to explore? How many ways can they create those same results? 
Get it here

nsquared make words
This structured educational game will help students learn object recognition and differentiation, and improve their recall and spelling. nsquared makewords has the ability to switch between a range of content packs through the menu and download new content as it's released.
Get it here

nsquared herding
nsquared herding is designed to develop numeracy, pattern matching and object recognition skills.

Designed for one to four players (depending on the size of your device, you may only be able to have up to two players), herding requires each player to collect the correct numbers of each target object and place them into their own playing area.

Get it here

nsquared snap
nsquared snap is designed to develop pattern matching, memory, and object recognition skills.
This turn based memory game requires up to four students to match overturned cards. Only two cards may be turned over at any time in an attempt to find a matching pair.
Each player must take a turn individually, with a point being awarded when a pair of cards is matched successfully.
Get it here

nsquared missing card
nsquared missing card is designed to develop pattern matching and object recognition skills.
This is a multi-player game for up to four students. Players must chose the best match from three options presented to them. 
Get it here