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In the digital era, the paper-based collage and mind-map have been gradually developed into digital forms. This study aims to develop a new digital collage tool called EDOS-Touch for helping novice designers (students) to generate design ideas through the design exploration. The authors propose two characteristics, i.e. intuitive manipulation and immersive experience; both are important to build a better digital collage tool. For evaluating its effectiveness, the authors conducted an experiment to answer two research questions. Eight subjects were selected from five groups of all participants involved; those in session 1 used EDOS-Touch and those in session 2 a paper-based collage. Quantitative results are presented, and significant observation notes and interview comments discussed. The conclusion reached is that EDOS-Touch provides novice designers with appropriate assistance in generating design ideas (like the paper-based collage), but is even better. The authors suggest that the multi-touch interface and big screen size are two important considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to current kindergarten curricula, game play is an important basis for children development and it is the main driving force when designing educational activities during early childhood. This paper presents a review of the current state of the art of game technologies that support pre-kindergarten and kindergarten children development. Moreover, the most emergent technologies for developing educational games for preschool children are identified and a set of future challenges are discussed. The main goal of this work is to review the state of the art in interactive technologies which will help educators, game designers and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) experts in the area of game-based kindergarten instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Applications of augmented reality have a great immersion potential for education, edutainment or cultural heritage presentations. The combination of intuitive and playful interaction with multi-faceted presentation options proved to be an effective mixture that attracts viewers to educational or cultural content. We introduce a multi-touch augmented reality system (MARS) using two display units for showing two contexts of the same object(s). One of the displays serves as primary context and hosts a multi-touch surface for user input. The second display shows a camera feed of user interacting with the primary context and replaces the primary context in real-time by the secondary context and adds the augmented reality presentation of the object(s). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are considered a powerful tool for economic development and the growth of societies. However, instead of helping overcome society''s inequalities caused by the digital era, they have instigated an increase of the people that rested aside of the information age. The digital divide refers to the difficulty info- excluded people have in keeping up with technological advances. This phenomenon was triggered by the rapid growth and dissemination of technological equipment, as a portion of society did not have the proper time or knowledge to adjust. This paper sets forth a new approach to help fight the Portuguese digital divide by presenting new ways of interaction. Resorting to multi-touch technology, we examine how this new natural interaction paradigm can have a positive influence in the struggle against info-exclusion. For this purpose, we present a multi-touch game envisioned to encourage and teach digitally excluded people on how to use an important and needed everyday equipment – the ATM (Automated Teller Machine) – as it is still avoided by some. We believe that our pilot case study can show preliminary results on how natural user interfaces may be beneficial to help overcome some difficulties enforced by the digital divide. We consider that our findings may be valuable to show a possible path of how the new natural user interfaces can help bring technology and people closer. After being asked about their user experience, the participants of this exploratory study agreed that the game encouraged them to explore more about new technologies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, the A0 Lamb wave propagating in a thin finite copper plate is investigated to design a new multi-touch tactile instrument, which could localize one or several fingers. The position of index is localized by identifying the absorption signals of Lamb waves when it is in contact with the plate. Statistic models are used to improve the robustness of this interface. An artificial silicone finger is fabricated in the calibration procedure. The multi-touch (two fingers or more) applications using this plate is also presented. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]