It´s king of funny to watch those Iphone apps running on a vertical touch screen. But the user experience is quite nice. I think it´s a good test, since some people believe Apple is planning to launch a 10″ multitouch device of some sort. Of course here at Sandbox we still think multitouch seems more useful for larger screens, where more than one user can interact at the same time (although it´s so rare to see this kind of use for mtouch tables).
Simtouch, built in AIR, is a very useful tool for testing your multitouch application since not everyone has a multitouch table. But even when you do, it´s faster to test it with you mouse then actually booting up the table everytime Simtouch is cool because it´s actually a transparent screen so you can click right on your Flash/Flex/AIR mtouch application.
There is also another tool, built in Java, called “Tuio Simulator”, you can grab it here, it works pretty well too.
We came across a very interesting project calle Mü, which is a multitouch table who is capable of recognizing objects. The applications, built for kids from 5 to 7 years old, are very interesting and teaches kids how to read/write and other stuff. We highly recommend you to visit their site and watch the videos.
We finally decided to publish our multitouch blog, where we expect to share things with everyone who is working with this wonderful technology!
For us it all started in 2007, when we got involved in projects with Fundação CERTI, here in Florianopolis, Brazil. They built their own multitouch table and did some very interesting projetcs specifically for corporate training for companies like Petrobras. Our role was to build Flash apps who could handle not only the multitouch interaction, but also communicate between the table and the screen – yes, the equipment has a LCD TV in front of the table. So we have two Flash apps who communicate using Local Connection. Because Fundação CERTI wanted two teams playing against each other, we also had to handle the communication between PCs, using a socket server built in Java.
Well, we had to learn a LOT this year, and it was great! Multitouch interaction is vey challenging and we are passionate about it. We hope through this blog to show some work we are doing and most of all, to present all the cool stuff that is being done by the multitouch community.
Sandbox is a brazilian company who develops software solutions for internet, desktop and multitouch tables with focus on aesthetics, interaction and usability, using technologies such as Flash, Flex, AIR and Java.