Projects with commercial appeal on display at ’07 Media Lab Exhibition

Tour guides may soon find themselves housed among museums' relics and treasures if Augmented Reality Experience (ARE) Mobile's Strata program catches on. Mobile-based and GPS-enabled, the interactive mediascape guides users through historical sites, cities, galleries or museums, accompanying them with narrated stories. It's a virtual tour guide that fits in the palm of your hand, Strata was one of several projects unveiled at last week's Canadian Film Centre (CFC)'s Media Lab Exhibition 2007. Beginning September 27 at Toronto's Lennox Contemporary Gallery and titled "Digital Alchemy," this year's CFC Media Lab featured a number of projects from graduating residents of the Telus Interactive Art and Entertainment Program, Canada's first post-graduate program for new media training and production.All of the projects embraced interactivity, art and education, but some, such as Strata and Cieo Creative Inc.'s LMNO Pics, are poised to be commercial hits."We're in this space at the right time. We'll be ready just as everybody gets used to working with, and has, GPS on their phones," explains ARE's Katie Kehoe, who collaborated with Gregory Richardson, Bruce Seignoret and Sanjay Papinazath, to create Strata.The program harnesses the power of Windows Mobile and Hewlett Packard's Mscape, a social networking device that incorporates audio interactions and digital images with GPS-enabled devices. Although still in development, Strata users would typically download and launch the site-specific program on mobile devices. An audio recording will then indicate which GPS node- or "waypoint"- is nearby, while a map guides the user to the site. Once the user reaches a waypoint, an audio recording will recount some of the site's history and stories. "At this stage it's just voice but we are looking at expanding the experience to include pictures, videos and other forms of media," says Kehoe.A demonstration version of the program, created specifically for the exhibit, featured the storied Centre for Addiction and Mental Health on Toronto's Queen St. West. Armed with an HP Ipaq, users heard short tales surrounding the architecture, patients and practices of the centre. After hearing a story about the construction of the site, users felt compelled to inspect and touch a wall's bricks. "We really wanted to foster interaction between users and the sites," explains Richardson, who led the tour.ARE has also developed a full-length program for Toronto's historic Fort York and the group has its sights on more landmarks. "We'd like to go across Canada, as a start, with this project," says Kehoe. "But eventually we'd like to go worldwide."Kehoe says ARE is exploring two routes in terms of funding and further content development; approaching organizations that focus on history, such as Heritage Canada, and dealing directly with telecommunications providers. "We really consider ourselves mobile content developers in all sorts of areas that involve GPS and mobile."While Strata's developers are seeking out partnerships and contracts, Cieo Creative Inc. has already secured a licensing agreement for LMNO Pics with a major US toy manufacturer.LMNO Pics' letter blocks, console and interactive interface, helps children learn to spell while exploring their personal lives. The device acts as a search engine of sorts; when users place a letter block on the console, LMNO Pics searches for all photo-tags that contain that letter. When another block is added, the learning tool narrows down the search to all tags with that particular letter sequence. The prototype logs into a specific Flickr account but Jason Goodman, one of the creators, says future versions will likely include a photo application developed specifically for the game.The developers, Mary Plasterer, Sarah Townshend, Dave Reynolds and Goodman, aim to personalize the education and learning experience through their project. Parents can choose to upload specific photos geared around their children's interests or tag photos with words their children are struggling with. "It's customizable and that's important because kids are very particular about their interests" says Goodman, drawing on his extensive background in special education. "When I was a kid, I was really only interested in baseball. My mom or my dad could've uploaded lots of baseball photos.Goodman is confident LMNO Pics can have a very positive impact on language learning, and sees an immediate need for the product. Fortunately, educators, parents and children won't have to wait long to buy it. While he wouldn't disclose the name of the toy manufacturer Cieo is collaborating with, Goodman says the agreement will be announced in coming weeks at the Toy Industry Association's Fall Toy Show in Dallas. The learning device is scheduled to hit stores in August 2008.While the more commercially friendly projects received significant attention, some of the less marketable pieces still generated considerable interest. The new media installation "World Without Water" saw a constant stream of activity from attendees. Created by Suzette Araujo, Tahir Mahmood and Kalli Paaskpuu, the display transforms the everyday task of washing one's hands into a lesson in resource management.Visitors face a seemingly conventional bathroom mirror in front of a sink. As users turn on the taps, water flow sensors affixed to the pipes communicate with an off-stage computer. Images from baron lands and dehydrated children to ice caps and flowing rivers are downloaded from Flickr and projected onto the mirror. The objective, says Araujo, is not only to demonstrate the disparity between the haves and have-nots of water, but to "gently increase awareness of (this disparity) without making people feel guilty."Official attendance numbers for the Media Lab were not available, but there appeared to be more visitors at this year's exhibit than the 2006 show. Part of this may be attributable to the change in dates. This year's showcase coincided with Toronto's Nuit Blanche, a weekend where art literally takes over the city. The ingenuity and relevancy of the projects themselves, however, may have been the greatest lure."We've hit a target in the sense that we're working where everything needs and everything wants to be right now," gushes Kehoe.

Projects with commercial appeal on display at ’07 Media Lab Exhibition

Broadcast | October 2, 2007

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