I’ve been playing with the idea of an inexpensive large collaborative wall. Part of the requirements for my large interactive touch screen is that it has to be multitouch and provide a more natural way of interfacing with it other than mouse and keyboard. Johnny Lee has shown that you can build one pretty cheaply. You can set one up using just a couple Wii remotes, a projection screen, and a homemade IR pen. You can then create a virtual whiteboard application pretty easily.
The problem with virtual whiteboards is that all the drawings and text are just graphics. They don’t mean anything to the system. The text isn’t really text. It would be better if you could write the letters and have them be interpreted as real text.
Using an open source Flash based mouse gesture library, I put together a concept virtual corkboard that lets you write letters with your mouse (or IR pen) and put that text on virtual PostIt notes that you can place anywhere on the board.
Check out the video:
Of course, this isn’t the only way to tackle this problem. One could just do OCR on the drawings and figure out the text that way like the mobile app EverNote, but this is just one solution.
Open demo in lightbox
Pek Pongpaet is an internet entrepreneur. Pongpaet’s expertise ranges from product design and development, user experience, and martial arts. Pongpaet worked at Accenture Technology Labs in the research department coming up with next generation user interfaces. At Roundarch, a technology and strategy consulting firm, Pongpaet’s work included envisioning and designing the dashboard of the future for the Tesla Model S electric car. He has given talks at Northwestern University, DePaul University, and University of Chicago on topics such as Design, Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship.
My name is Pek Pongpaet and I'm an entrepreneur, developer, designer, tech geek, martial artist, mac enthusiast, tinkerer, foodie, and blogger.
You are definitely onto something here!
The handwriting recognition reminded me of Graffiti from my old Palm days (daze?). I was able to use it without even watching the video.
This would be great to sit down sometime with a bunch of people and brainstorm using it! For one, I can see this as a great tool for modeling Web site hierarchy, blog categories, etc.!
mp/m