In 1831 Michael Faraday built a small generator that produced electricity, but a generation passed before an industrial version was built, then another 25 years before all the necessary accoutrements for electrification came into place—power companies, neighborhood wiring, appliances (like light bulbs) that required electricity, and so on. But when that infrastructure finally took hold, everything changed—homes, work places, transportation, entertainment, architecture, what we ate, even when we went to bed. Worldwide, electricity became a transformative medium for social practices. In quite
This article introduces a new interaction model called Instrumental Interaction that extends and generalizes the principles of direct manipulation. It covers existing interaction styles, including traditional WIMP interfaces, as well as new interaction styles such as two-handed input and augmented reality. It defines a design space for new interaction techniques and a set of properties for comparing them.
Carnegie Mellon University is developing an interactive, multimedia planetarium presentation about the human brain. The interdisciplinary project team will build upon and refine the experience gained from its recently completed planetarium show, Journey Into the Living Cell. The context for this work is the need for increased public understanding of the human brain - an organ central to the very concept of humanity. The understanding of the human brain is located at the lively crossroads of research in many disciplines, including psychiatry, psychology, neuroscience, computer science and biology. The proposed medium to address this important issue is a 45-minute planetarium show. A broad audience ranging from pre-adolescent to adult will be targeted. Sophisticated and entertaining imaging technologies, including animation and virtual reality, will be used throughout the work. Narration and sound will be tightly integrated into the work. The hemispherical display surface of the planetarium will be fully utilized both visually and sonically. Recent advances in the brain sciences as well as long held understandings about the brain will be presented. Basic brain biology and principles of brain function including cooperativity in brain region activity and brain region specialization will be introduced.
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James McClellandPaul OlesBryan Rogers
The Reuben H. Fleet Space Center is developing "The Search for Infinity," a large-format film on mathematics and nature. The current concept, based on a film idea developed in collaboration with Sir Arthur C. Clarke, is to center the film on an intelligent computer running an unmanned space probe. By following the actions of the computer, audiences will learn about mathematical fractals and the relationships between fractals and the natural world. A key effect planned for the film will be a prolonged zoom into the endless details of the celebrated Mandelbrot Set fractal. Jeffrey Kirsch, Director of the Reuben H. Fleet Space Center, will be PI and Executive Producer for the film. The Co-Executive Producer will be Christina Schmidlin, Vice-President of XAOS, Inc, one of the world's leading computer graphics studios, and the Producer-Director will be Ronald Fricke. This production team will work with Sir Arthur Clarke to write the treatment for the film. Scientists working directly in the pre-production phase of the project include Ian Stewart, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick, and Rudy Rucker of San Jose State University. Other advisors include: Benoit Mandelbrot, Yale University; Maxine Brown, University of Illinois at Chicago; Bernard Pailthorpe, San Diego Supercomputer Center; and David Brin, Science Fiction author and astrophysicist. During this planning phase the project will: (1) identify subjects that are best suited to illustrate the fractal geometry of nature in large format film; (2) conduct front-end evaluation to assess the potential educational benefits of such a film; (3) write a treatment and develop a storyboard for the film; conduct formative evaluation of the treatment; (4) produce a motion picture sequence to demonstrate the educational power of the large format film medium to convey complicated ideas related to computer processes; and (5) develop interactive web-based activity concepts to exploit the film's distribution in the museum-dominated large format film community.