Toekomst: iPad blijft marktleider in versnipperde tabletmarkt.

Bron; wwwipadclub.nl


De iPad kwam in 2010 op de markt en pakte meteen een koppositie met 85% marktaandeel. Eind 2011 was dat gezakt naar 58 procent en dit jaar zal het naar verwachting nog ietsje verder zakken. De exacte percentages zijn helemaal afhankelijk van de partij die je gelooft, maar ABI REsearch heeft nu berekend dat Apple in het derde kwartaal van 2012 een marktaandeel van 55 procent heeft weten te behouden. Dit is meer dan elke andere speler. Het is daarom interessant om eens te kijken hoe de nabije toekomst eruit gaat zien.

Een brede groep spelers is bezig met tablets: pc-fabrikanten, mobiele telefoonmakers als Samsung, boekwinkels als Amazon en Barnes & Noble, zoekmachinereuzen zoals Google en zelfs softwaregiganten zoals Microsoft. Tientallen partijen proberen een voet aan de grond te krijgen. De kans is klein dat één van die spelers een serieuze concurrent voor de iPad wordt of dat er een echte iPad-killer opstaat.

In plaats daarvan zal de tabletmarkt de komende jaren gedomineerd blijven door de iPad. De rest van de markt moet worden verdeeld onder een steeds groter wordende groep gelukszoekers. Apple’s iPad was niet de eerste tablet op de markt, maar wel kwalitatief de beste, met het beste ecosysteem en de beste marketing. Met de iPad mini gebeurt eigenlijk weer hetzelfde: Apple is niet de eerste met een mini-tablet maar brengt wel een product op de markt dat kwalitatief beter is dan de concurrentie. Toch heeft ABI Research wel wat kritische punten richting Apple: door ook een goedkopere iPad mini te maken geeft Apple eigenlijk toe dat de Android-fabrikanten met hun 7-inch tablets eigenlijk gelijk hadden. En om nou te zeggen dat de iPad mini uitblinkt door innovatie, prijsniveau of beschikbaarheid…? Drie factoren die volgens ABI Research ook belangrijk zijn om een product te laten slagen.

Visualisation tool harnesses 416 displays and 1.5bn pixels.

A 416 screen, 1.5 billion pixel display is being hailed by its creators at Stony Brook University as the largest immersive display, driven by a graphic supercomputer, ever to be built. The New York education institution unveiled the Reality Deck at its Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology (CEWIT) on November 15. Its primary purpose is to enable scientists, engineers and physicians visualise vast amounts of data and was constructed with a $1.4 million (€1.1 million) National Science Foundation (NSF) grant and a $600,000 match from Stony Brook University. Arie E. Kaufman, PhD, Distinguished Professor and chair of the Computer Science Department and Chief Scientist of CEWIT, directed the project. He illustrated the display’s capability, saying that the United States population of approximately 300 million people could take a "class photo" from a satellite, and "there would be enough resolution for each person to be depicted in five pixels in colour". Dr. Kaufman continued: "In the Reality Deck, data is displayed with an unprecedented amount of resolution that saturates the human eye, provides 20/20 vision, and renders traditional panning or zooming motions obsolete. Users just have to walk up to a display in order to resolve the minutiae, while walking back in order to appreciate the context that completely surrounds them." A 360-degree "smart screen" changes images according to the location of the viewer walking around the Reality Deck. Future applications to stream video in real time are planned.

Interactive desks boost learning.

Bron; www.inavateonthenet.net



Interactive tables hold the key to increasing understanding of maths for primary school pupils, according to researchers at the UK's Durham University. Findings from a three-year project called SynergyNet suggest that multitouch, multi-user desks increase fluency and flexibility in maths. The study, which involved more than 400 pupils mostly aged between eight and ten, also demonstrated benefits of interactive desks over paper. The findings, published in the journal Learning and Instruction, showed that 45% of students who used collaboration tool, NumberNet increased in the number of unique mathematical expressions they created after using NumberNet, compared to 16% of students in the traditional paper-based activity. Professor Liz Burd, lead researcher on the project from Durham’s School of Education, said: "Our aim was to encourage far higher levels of active student engagement, where knowledge is obtained by sharing, problem-solving and creating, rather than by passive listening. This classroom enables both active engagement and equal access. "We found our tables encouraged students to collaborate more effectively. We were delighted to observe groups of students enhancing others’ understanding of mathematical concepts. Such collaboration just did not happen when students used paper-based approaches." The Durham University team designed software and desks that recognise multiple touches on the desktop using vision systems that see infrared light. These desks are networked and linked to a main smartboard. The teacher can send tasks to different tables to individuals and groups can send one group’s answers on to the next group to work on and add to, or to the board for a class discussion. A live feed of the desks goes directly to the teacher who can intervene quickly to help an individual while allowing the group work to continue.

BMW's Performance sport steering wheel

Bron; www.engadget.com

Extra information when driving can be useful, but also distracting. Enter BMW's new M Performance sport steering wheel -- which offers a whole bunch of data and information while letting you keep your eyes (mostly) on the road. Essentially it's a high-grip Alcantara wheel, with a small OLED display at 12 o'clock, and two LED meters on either side. There are three readout modes: EfficientDynamics, Sport and Race. The former will tell you average fuel consumption, speed as well as oil and water temperature. Sport mode will tell you lateral g-force data (that cleverly remains on the display until you bring the wheel back to its neutral position) while the LED strips provide cues for gear shifts. Like to take things out on the track? Lap times, with section splits, and even a drag-style Christmas tree mode will help you get those times down. How much for this king of steering wheels? A racy $1,700.

Surface Space, Content Space, and Interactive Space.Interactive TV Design Discussion

.The following video is a presentation by Dale Herigstad, Chief Interaction Officer at Possible Worldwide, from the 2012 TV of Tomorrow Show. If you are interested in interactivity and UX across screens and spaces, it is worth taking the time to watch! The "new world" combines TV and the internet, and poses new opportunities for design. Dale encourages flexibility and fearlessness, and setting goals for the long term. This means that organizations must move away from the "silo" approach, and create teams that can integrate across screens, platforms, content, and input methods, moving from flat-space to interactive, dynamic,layered, 3D, and augmented space.

BTW, Dale Herigstad was one of the people commissioned by Steven Spielberg to work on the interface design for Minority Report.

Surface Tablet vs. iPad Video, via SAY Media.

On Monday june 18th, Microsoft held a secret press event in Los Angeles where it announced a new family of tablets under the Surface moniker. Along with Surface, the event revealed a branding shift for Microsoft, one that values the unity of hardware and software, and the idolization of aesthetics. Something about it felt familiar...

Microsoft wil ook een augmented reality-bril.

Bron; www.nu.nl
Microsoft heeft net als Apple en Google interesse in een augmented reality-bril. Het bedrijf heeft een patent aangevraagd op een dergelijke bril die specifiek voor live-evenementen geschikt is. Dat blijkt uit een patentaanvraag van Microsoft die Techcrunch op het spoor kwam. Microsoft wil informatie via de bril projecteren op objecten en gebeurtenissen uit de echte wereld. Zo kan tijdens een sportwedstrijd informatie worden gegeven over statistieken van de wedstrijd of uitslagen van andere teams. Google heeft al prototypes van een dergelijk product (zie foto) uitgebracht. Onder de naam Project Glass is de zoekgigant bezig met de ontwikkeling van een augmented reality-bril. Google richt het apparaat echter meer op het dagelijks leven. Gebruikers kunnen bijvoorbeeld informatie krijgen over het weer of gebouwen waar ze naar kijken. Eind 2013 of begin 2014 moeten de eerste Google-brillen in de winkel liggen. Apple Onlangs bleek dat ook Apple bezig is met een vergelijkbaar project en daarvoor een patent aangevraagd heeft. Of Apple en Microsoft ook echt al bezig zijn met de productie van een bril is onduidelijk.

Multi-iPad table.

The iPad table, a project of the Universal Mind interactive agency in Grand Rapids, links 15 iPads together to create one synchronized display. The co-creator of the iPad table, Joe Johnston (who put it together with David Tucker), told us that the system was conceived and built from scratch including the industrial design of the table and the custom app driving the connected iPads. A private wireless LAN hands off object information from iPad to iPad, allowing the moving "hypercards" to bounce and sail across the full extent of the iPad matrix. Double-tapping one of the cards expands it into a full webpage or other content.

It's easy to see how this sort of system could be popular and useful in a conference, retail or exhibit context. In fact, it strongly resembles another tabletop approach to touch computing that's had its branding co-opted to launch a different product: Microsoft Surface, Mark I. Before the Surface name was attached to the tablet convertible with the snappy keyboard, Microsoft was marketing Surface as a cocktail table-sized touchable computer intended for public, tourism and exhibit functions; that concept lives on as Samsung's SUR40 with Microsoft PixelSense. If you're interested in experimenting with multiple iOS displays linked together, Aachen University's Mobile Multi Display app is in the App Store now; for single-device inexpensive digital displays on the iPad, check out DynaSign or Digital Signage X. The utility of the iPad as a kiosk device took a big leap forward with iOS 6's Guided Access, which permits non-jailbroken devices to lock in a specific app and restrict sensitive screen areas while disabling the home & sleep buttons (making our "best of 2011" iPad accessory, the BubCap, a bit less necessary). Professional multi-display solutions from companies like Videro (profiled by us here) and Sedna are capable of driving the iPad as well as the Mac, but haven't yet reached the point of multi-device iPad display configurations.
More information here

Liquid crystals: a new type of LCD display screen.

These very low power screens will have a variety of uses in the market in the future. They can be update wirelessly and the first place you can expect to see them is in a supermarket near you. Dr Cliff Jones, Shaun Gray and Dr Emma Wood of ZBD Displays Ltd, winner of the 2012 Innovation Award, awarded by the Institute of Physics for developing and commercialising a novel e-paper display for use in shelf-edge labelling in supermarkets and other retail settings. ZBD has created an e-paper display by applying a sub-micron texture onto the glass surface of a liquid crystal display, allowing it to hold an image even when the power is removed. The work is the product of world-leading research at the liquid crystal research centre at DERA.

3D displays on view at Amsterdam Central Station.

Last week Balfour – a London based 3D advertising company installed multiple Dimenco glasses-free 3D displays at Amsterdam Central Station (Metro lobby). Along with the displays in the recently opened cinema Pathe Amersfoort the 3D glasses-free displays are now truly making their debut at public places in the Netherlands. The advertisements range from Star Wars Lego to City Box to Durex placements and are all in 3D. The 3D effect can be seen from far, and in despite of everyone’s busy schedule, many by passers stop to take a look at one of the displays to see what’s going on. This is what we call “3D stopping power”.
If you’re in the neighborhood of Amsterdam Central Station, be sure to stop by and take a look at the next big step in glasses-free 3D display technology.