Surely You Gesture

Integrated Systems Europe 2012 was held two weeks ago in Amsterdam. One of the more interesting items to come out of it was a demo by Crestron that showed a Microsoft Kinect integrated with a control system – in this case controlling the PowerPoint and lighting. Here is the link. Go watch it. I’ll wait….

http://www.commercialintegrator.com/article/crestron_demos_microsoft_kinect_gesture_control

Cool huh? Sure it’s pretty basic, but could this be the predecessor of our future control systems? It is Crestron dabbling in this after all; I don’t think that’s insignificant.

One advantage I have heard mentioned is no more gunky touch screens. (Do you really have people who clean them periodically?)

A gesture based system may allow for control from a wider range of locations. I am assuming, like mine, your faculty relate to AV control locations the way cats relate to patio doors: the other side would be better.

Many of us have wondered where touch-sensitive monitors are going. Are they going to take over for interactive whiteboards and give us something easier to integrate into an auditorium? If gesture control develops fast enough could it steal some of that thunder and let us turn any image into an interactive whiteboard? I think that level of annotation and interaction, coupled with the ability to wander around the teaching area, might just be the “killer app.”

Voice control? I don’t know. Siri seems to be having quite a bit of trouble with accents. I’m sure the algorithms will get better, but most of our campuses are quite the eclectic mix of nationalities. I can’t help but think we will be a difficult application to master. Besides, how much error-free consistency do you want to see in a control system before you install it in a room? With voice control the first one they yell at is the system, and you know who the second is….

I think it’s intriguing. I think it’s something we are going to see more of. I think it has some great potential. What do you think? Is this the (ahem) wave of the future.

Tiner’s Take on Customer Service Through Controls

“Our rooms talk to us,” says Scott Tiner, Assistant Director for Classroom Technologies at Bates College. In his recent InfoCOMM webinar titled Leveraging Existing Technologies to Create Exceptional Customer Service Tiner mapped out the importance of tapping the usage-tracking capabilities of the technologies we already have in place in order to maximize not just customer service, but also to contribute valuable data to institutional planning.

This is important stuff. Networked control systems can do much more than just dim the lights and raise the volume, all current systems provide hooks to a database in which every button-push and device-selection is recorded and time-stamped. Furthermore, graphic touch panels offer the added benefit of serving as real-time trouble-shooting tools that can minimize session interruptions and empower users to “fix the glitch” before it turns into everyone’s problem.

Report from InfoCOMM 2011

Orlando, FL. While attending InfoCOMM 2011, we asked key industry insiders to speak directly to the AV-1 community and to share their views of the most critical issues ahead. The following articles include brief video clips from individuals possessing uncommon insight, intuition and experience.

While this is by no means an exhaustive report, we hope that you find these views useful to your due diligence and decision-making.

[Editor’s note: Interviews are provided for informational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement. Neither AV-1, nor the author have received any form of compensation in exchange for these posts.]

This list is shown in last-in-first-out (LIFO) order. In the coming weeks, additional interviews and articles will be posted to the top of this list.

Table of Contents

Mark Valenti, The Sextant Group, discusses the up-side of a down economy as an inspiration for outside-the-box tech planning.

Ernie Bailey, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, speaks about the importance of cross-training to get the best out of AV and IT support staff.

 
Jody Forehand, Luidia, on the cost-effective approach of adding components as-needed.

Jackie Deluna, AMX on the importance of social proof for mission-critical technologies.

John Heffelfinger, Crestron, on the value of end-to-end technology solutions. 

Andrew Edwards, President of Extron, on the zen of simplification and support.

Andrew J. Milne, PhD, Tidebreak CEO, on the meaning and impact of collaborative learning environments. 

Mario Maltese, Audio Visual Resources CEO, on the impact of the AV9000 Standard and the future of zero-defect projects.

What’s your view? Are we seeing the big picture? Leave a reply below or discuss it with fellow AV-1 members on the AV-1 List.

Report from InfoCOMM 2011 – Luidia

This interview is part of AV-1’s Report from InfoCOMM 2011, in which we ask key industry insiders to share their views on the critical issues ahead. You can contribute your thoughts on this interview in the Comment Area below. AV-1 members may discuss this important topic in greater detail on the AV-1 List.

“Classroom technology should be a seamless integration into current workflow.”
-Jody Forehand”

The folks at Luidia built their business around the nifty eBeam whiteboard capture device. Seems oh-so-simple now… stick it to any whiteboard and record your board notes straight to the computer… but when they started out, the general consensus was that you needed a big honking piece of dedicated equipment to get the job done.

Report from InfoCOMM 2011 – Ernie Bailey, Univ. of AR

This interview is part of AV-1’s Report from InfoCOMM 2011, in which we ask key industry insiders to share their views on the critical issues ahead. You can contribute your thoughts on this interview in the Comment Area below. AV-1 members may discuss this important topic in greater detail on the AV-1 List.

Cross-training and communications are crucial for “getting AV and IT to work together.”
-Ernie Bailey

Ernie Bailey has played a key role in the development of multimedia learning space at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. He served as chairman for InfoCOMM’s Technology Managers Council and contributes to other key industry councils.

Report from InfoCOMM 2011 – Crestron

This interview is part of AV-1’s Report from InfoCOMM 2011, in which we ask key industry insiders to share their views on the critical issues ahead. You can contribute your thoughts on this interview in the Comment Area below. AV-1 members may discuss this important topic in greater detail on the AV-1 List.

It’s all about providing “an end-to-end solution at an affordable price.”
-John Heffelfinger

Over the past decade, Crestron has redefined the traditional boundaries between electronics manufacturers. In 2000, the company embarked on an ambitious course, redefining itself from a manufacturer of control systems to an indomitable provider of integrated presentation systems — systems designed to interconnect and automatically communicate with each other.

Report from InfoCOMM 2011 – Extron

This interview is part of AV-1’s Report from InfoCOMM 2011, in which we ask key industry insiders to share their views on the critical issues ahead. You can contribute your thoughts on this interview in the Comment Area below. AV-1 members may discuss this important topic in greater detail on the AV-1 List.

Technology in learning would not be what it is today without Extron. When computer manufacturers needed a way to display a computer screen image on a 3-beam projector, Extron worked it out… a quarter of a century ago.

“It’s got to work. It’s got to come out of the box and work.”
-Andrew Edwards

But just “working it out” has never been Extron’s style. In addition to designing cutting-edge components that play well with others, the company has amassed the most comprehensive open library of whitepapers and technical briefs serving to demystify the wild array of protocols and topologies that complicate our lives.

Report from InfoCOMM 2011: Audio Visual Resources

This interview is part of AV-1’s Report from InfoCOMM 2011, in which we ask key industry insiders to share their views on the critical issues ahead. You can contribute your thoughts on this interview in the Comment Area below. AV-1 members may discuss this important topic in greater detail on the AV-1 List.

“You can’t beat the economics of doing things right the first time.”
-Mario Maltese

For more than three decades, Mario Maltese has been at the forefront of high-profile audio visual projects in the New York Tri-state area. A recipient of InfoCOMM’s prestigious Educator of the Year award and Fred Dixon Service in Education award, his portfolio includes sound systems for the New York State Assembly and the New York Stock Exchange’s Trading Floor.

Survey: Analog-to-Digital Transition

Recent discussions regarding the transition from analog to digital video transport suggest that many feel that they have little control over this technological sea-change.

In an ideal world, we might leap at the chance to dig into new technologies that promise breathtaking video resolution with minimal tweaking, however transitioning also brings the potential to disrupt and/or bankrupt services at a time when few operations have capacity to spare for a major overhaul of RGB-based analog video systems.

Please take a moment to respond to the following eight questions so that we may will put a finer point on the “state of digital” — particularly as we approach summer upgrade season.

The Big Picture…

This survey departs from previous anonymous surveys by asking for your email address. We ask this in preparation for AV-1’s upcoming budget survey series in which we hope to gain a better understanding of prevailing budget and lifecycle practices. An undertaking of this magnitude will take more than six or eight questions, so rather than try your patience, we have devised a plan for a series of short-but-sweet surveys on key operational areas. We hope to use your email address as an internal “key field” to re-assemble your responses across multiple surveys so that we can begin to map data to institutional demographics (i.e. Midwest private liberal arts college with 10,000 enrolled). As always, your survey responses will remain anonymous.

Scott Tiner

Bates College

The Final Yard

This is a reprint of an article posted in 2004 after the Red Sox won the World Series. -Editor

Our work is just like this: The last 5% of the job is tougher than the previous  95%.

This assertion is my attempt to break it to you gently; truth is, THE LAST 2% OF THE JOB IS TOUGHER THAN THE PREVIOUS 98%.