You are cordially invited... to a "field trip"

Drinks after tonight's class (at a to be disclosed location once we are done) to celebrate our final class and Ravi's new bundle of joy :)

Group A: Jakadia Blog

Hello everyone, please visit our project blog for information regarding the fantastically wonderful world of Jakadia...

jakadia.blogspot.com

Group C presents: Cyber Routes

The goal of our project was to create a website/database of videos and blogs that house a library of real actual videos of certain running or training clips. The videos would be shot from the first person perspective and could be played at fullscreen and viewed while someone runs on a treadmill at home or at a gym. Shooting from the first person would be a great way to simulate the actual body movement while running/walking. Additionally, we could set up a blog feature that allows usees to rate or comment on the videos/training sessions and potentially upload their own.
Details of quality control and ownership were decided upon so that the produt remains the possession of the company and the overallquality of material is kept to a consistent standard.
As part of the project, we also came up with long-term goals for the project including marketing startegy plans. Advertising opportunities such as product placement with a ticker or greenscreen would be lucrative means of commercializing the product as well as cutomizing it for the individual user. There is also potential partnerships with travel, hiking, and adventure companies.

DEMO

Web Spot:
It would give the user access on the web and it is then outputted to a TV http://www.quanicomedia.com/neu/cyber_routes/index.html

TreadMill Spot:
Demo of video display on a treadmill

http://www.quanicomedia.com/neu/cyber_routes/treadmill.html

*The project management software Comindwork was used for project management and scheduling. Our website: http://CONVERGEC.comindwork.com/

Group B Final Project Statement (RealTime)

We first started by discussing the RealTime concept and figuring out exactly what we wanted it to do and look like. We spent time going back and forth on menu options and different settings the user would possibly need. We started with the wireframes that Christine created and went from there to finalize the technical aspects of our plugin menu options. First was the main menu (i.e. "Log In," "Manage Account," "Collaborate," etc.). Then we developed secondary menus for each of these options. We had to consider that different software would require different options within the secondary menus. We chose to use ProTools and InDesign as our primary examples for the plugin. These two programs were chosen because they allowed us to demonstrate some of the different options that would be required. Once we finalized the menus, we needed to determine the best way of pitching this preliminary idea. We finally decided on creating a website from which the viewer would be abe to view "demonstrations" on how the plugin would be used.


RealTime "Pitch"

RealTime develops plugins that allow business professionals to collaborate on the same document in real time. Our plugins currently work for selected music, desktop publishing, print and web design, and film software. We have also recently expanded into drafting software by developing a plugin for AutoCAD.

RealTime understands the need for customers to be able to work together on documents. This ability should not be limited by one’s geographic location, nor should clumsy back and forth correspondences be required in order to get input on a document. This is why RealTime developed plugins for individual programs. What is simpler than opening up a document and, within seconds, having your colleague view it simultaneously as you make edits? You can also give control of the document to your colleague so he/she can edit while you watch. Last but not least, RealTime provides a chat function with text, audio and video capabilities so that you and your colleagues can easily correspond while collaborating on your document.

www.mtholyoke.edu/~susanlee/realtime

Final Project Details

For next week -- our last class -- I look forward to the three group presentations.

In terms of deliverables, I would like to see a group project statement.

Each student should also email to me a description of their contributions to the final project, as well as an assessment of the group process. This will help me in evaluating your final grades.

A reminder that you should all be contributing to the class blog -- participation is an element of your final grade.

If you have any questions email me and I will try to get back to you between diapering!

Class is ON for Monday

We will be having class on Monday, but I will need to leave a bit early due to my new parenting tasks for my five day old!

Realtime

Here is an example of the Realtime homepage.

Big Kick #1

Click to Play

The first episode of big kicks -- Ravi almost pops his hamstring.

Group C : Cyber Routes

Below is a design comp of the home page of our running / training video product. There will be a web interface and custom interface for treadmils in gyms where available. Thid comp also helps understand the brand and the type of experiece for the user.

RealTime

For our final presentation, we will be presenting the RealTime website, which will include an informative multimedia piece about how the RealTime plugin works. We will be posting a screen shot of the home page shortly. The website will function as a way for users to purchase and download the plugin as well as register for a username and account.

Group A: "Node"

So we went ahead with the idea of a "user created world" where artists and storytellers collaborate to create content about a single, fictional world and bring the world to life through their own imagination.

For this portion of our project we constructed a graphical prototype of what the finished homepage and other pages may look like. This homepage has an area where the user can sign in. Buttons (that will be drop-down menus) for navigating the site and uploading art/stories (The Tavern is a chat room/message board, by the way). There is also a brief introduction story and links to recently added content and top/most popular content as well as a story of the day.

The layout for each page will be very similar and the map will always be on every page. The map currently in there is from Warcraft, but it serves as a good example of a fictional map that still leaves much to the imagination.


This second page is an example of a story page. On story pages, a marker on the map shows where the events in the story are taking place. On the left hand side are images and descriptions of characters and places in the story. These can be minimized or maximized by clicking on them.

Class is on for tonight (8/11/8)

No baby as of Monday morning so class is on as usual tonight (no field trip).

If anything changes, I will update this post.

Looking for a house? Try Trulia Snapshot

Trulia.com is an independent real estate search engine that aggregates real estate information from various real estate websites. More visually notable, however, is its Trulia Snapshot interactive map of houses for sale (pictured above). It lets you browse homes in a city in a picture slideshow-like fashion. You can also view results by price range with their graphical scroll/browse bar that shows you all the prices available.

I've only browsed through its features briefly, but if you take a look and find other features of note, please do share, especially if you have been in the market for a home before and can be a better judge of how well this website suits the needs of home buyers.

08/11/08 class update

As of Sunday evening at 8 pm, my wife and I have not had our baby. So I can assume that we will either have class as usual or will have no class (if the baby comes in the next 24 hours). Regardless, we will not be doing our field trip tomorrow.

Please monitor the blog for any updates!

Online tutorials

I found these older tutorials for the versions of iMovie and GarageBand that we have in the lab.

Assignment for 08/11/08

1. Monitor the class blog to check on the status of our potential field trip.

2. Access the tutorials for Garageband and iMovie if working in those applications.

3. Check out blip and creative commons per this post.

4. Stay on schedule with final project -- complete one "node".

blip learning

I find blip.tv to be a great place to post media (especially video).



And I just discovered this nicely organized learning center -- check it out!


Also -- check out Creative Commons.

Field trip?

I'm pondering a field trip for all of us next week (08/11).

One possibility is to go over to meet with some of the folks at Harmonix, makers of the game phenom Rock Band.

But I'm open to other suggestions in the area. Usually I like taking classes over to the List at MIT, but they don't seem to have a show up right now.

Group B — Real Time

Target Audience: Business Professionals and Students

We are creating a plug-in for individual software packages and suites. For example we are going to create one for Adobe products. There would be a separate one for Microsoft and also for Audio programs. 

Once the user installed the plug-in they would create a username and password. The plug-in would be housed on a server. In order to access the file they would have to be logged in, inside of the program of choice.  There will be a separate drop down menu once the plug in was installed displaying different options. The user would have to grant access to other users in order to file share and work in the real time environment. One option would be to display a window of all users that were logged into the real time server that were part of your group. The user would be able to send an invitation to be able to collaborate on the file.  Another window would be history of changes to the file.  The user can also have the option of audio and/or video chat. 

Group C Wireframe - Virtual Training

Below are two images for a wireframe simulating a landing page and an actual "video page" where the user would run along with the video simulation.







Here also is a sketch of the experience / interface with a treadmil from Robert.