I travelled back from London yesterday after a great couple of days at the BETT show. Last year was the first time we’d really shown off any of our applications, demonstrating our Silverlight and SharePoint based VLE, but this year we were launching our new brand OPENHIVE and releasing our full suite of products to the world.
there were a number of other stands I wanted to visit during my time there having heard a lot of chat on twitter (#BETT2010) in the days before and at the start of the event. So here are a few of my personal highlights…
OPENHIVE Launch
It was Wednesday morning when we unveiled the stand to an expectant crowd. I was at home after a couple of long days ensuring everything was up to scratch with our application interfaces and some of the digital aspects of the marketing. We had some positive feedback get back to the office, but it wasn’t until I arrived and could for myself see how well everything had come together – the stand, branding, demo pods, screen animations and ‘freeBees’ including of course – the bee balloons! What really got me was how positive and excited everyone on the stand was, clearly ‘buzzing’ from the great feedback and reception we’d been getting. A great launch, bringing together almost a year’s hard work.
Futurelab
I’d come across Futurelab via a reference on twitter and noted them as being an interesting company doing interesting things. Aside from some game-based learning apps and some great creative use of display and interaction, something that caught my attention was a Haptic feedback HCI device. Using a pen type element mounted via universal joint on an articulated arm, the user is able to manipulate a cursor on screen, interacting with an elastic 3d plane and receive feedback provided via resistance in the movement of the device’s arm.
It’s one of those things that gets you thinking about potential applications. The technology isn’t brand new, being employed in medical training (think surgery without the patients) and neither is the concept of feedback to anyone who’s played a games console in the last 5/10 years. But it should be considered as another option in the ever growing menu of ways to interact with a digital environment (especially where feedback is an important factor), as well as being really quite cool to play with.
SIMS Discover
For those who may not be familiar with technology in the UK education sector, SIMS from Capita education services is the MIS used in around 80% of schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. They were attracting quite a bit of attention with their prototype Discover application which interested me for a couple of reasons. Firstly they are now a (step?) sister company to my employer, Synetrix. Second, I’d heard that it had been developed in Silverlight – a technology we also make much use of in presentation of schools data, often derived from SIMS.
I was quite impressed with their consideration of touch, and drag and drop functionality. The interface itself is nothing ground breaking, and in it’s current prototype form seems slightly limited (though doing a small number of things well is no bad thing) but it’s great to see some real thought being given to how an everyday user can manipulate a large range of data sources, in a usable manner, to gain some real value as a result. Their mantra during development of ‘as easy to use as an iPhone’ is a good one when considering touch based interfaces for the masses.
Smart Augmented Reality camera concept
Continuing a 3D theme that many thought was the hallmark of this years BETT (from a new technology perspective at least), Smart technologies had a proof of concept being demonstrated using one of their document cameras and some clever software. Making use of plastic cubes with 6 different patterned sides, the software is able to recognise the shape ad position, displaying a 3D model in the position, angle and direction of the cube. It was set up so that on shaking the cube, an new model was loaded. Alternative methods showed flash cards and a book with different patterns on every other page, presenting the possibility of having a truly 3D popup book ‘experience’.
Garlic and Shots!
Finally, apologies to anyone who visited the stand on Saturday and got more than they bargained for during a demonstration or conversation. I suspect it may have been a joke on the part of a certain member of staff who recommended the Olsson Bros restaurant for the team dinner on Friday night but while a great time was had by all, Saturday found us munching the mints, and trying hard to talk to people without breathing on them!
All in all – a great show for lots of different reasons, it doesn’t get much BETTer than that ;)