Tocquigny

To add some flash to a recent new business pitch, we decided to utilize one of the first concepts that we toyed with in Tocquigny Labs.

Projection mapping, as it’s commonly called, is the process of projecting images onto 3D geometry.  It’s been used quite frequently on a large scale to transform buildings into massive canvases, like with Coca Cola’s 125th Anniversary Celebration, but the idea itself is quite scalable.

For our presentation, instead of just creating a PowerPoint, we decided to bring projection mapping to the conference room. We designed an arrangement of four white canvases at different aspect ratios and then wrote custom software that allows us to map different images and videos to each surface using only one projector, all while being able to control the presentation like a normal PowerPoint.

Just the small element of depth introduced by the physical canvases makes the presentation feel strikingly different, and despite the fact that the light actually comes from one projector, it often seems as if the canvases are self-illuminating.

Finding ways such as this to introduce some tactility to the digital world can be a great way to create engaging, memorable experiences. In fact, many recent tech trends such as augmented reality, multi-touch screens and natural user interfaces all deal with the merging of digital information and physical interaction. Projection mapping is just another tool in the technologist’s arsenal, but the results can be quite compelling.

On Sunday, during the dramatic end to the women’s world cup final in Germany, as Japan tied with the U.S. with three minutes remaining and went on to win on penalties, an all-time Twitter record of 7,196 tweets per second (TPS) was set. This moment surpassed the previous record, set on New Years Eve in Japan in 2010, which hit 6,939 TPS, the earthquake and tsunami which hit Japan in March (5,530 TPS), the death of Osama bin laden (5,106 TPS), the 2011 Super Bowl (4,064 TPS) and the Royal Wedding in April (3,966 TPS).

The record-breaking numbers on Sunday, of course, reflect a rise in Twitter usage. Currently, Twitter users send 200 million tweets per day, compared to 10 million two years ago. What’s more, 600,000 new users are signing up daily. We should all expect upcoming noteworthy events are clearly going to lead to a greater number of tweets as well as new record breakers, but what else can we take away from this?

While the record is arbitrary and will most certainly be broken sooner than later, it is a small indication that there are more ways to judge the worthiness of cultural events beyond the traditional measuring sticks like television ratings. In the past, television ratings were always the single barometer for measuring the significance and popularity of current events. All the common-man chatter and hype that was built up around big events happened strictly in private conversations. Today, people have their entertainment attention divided, the individual has the power to choose how and when they consume their entertainment and events, and everyone has a voice that is very public and available worldwide in real-time. Decidedly, tweets-per-second isn’t a perfect gage for establishing cultural significance, and it is not going to take the place of TV ratings altogether, but it is like seeing the water cooler chatter on a worldwide level as it happens, not just what our personal friends and colleagues think. I predict, pretty soon, we will be inventing all sorts of new metrics, outside of TV ratings, to determine social impact and status.

One of our core responsibilities at Tocquigny (and more specifically within Tocquigny Labs) is to immerse ourselves in emerging technologies, with the key objective of identifying their respective applicabilities within our space. When something is launched, for instance Google+, it is my team’s task to become the resident experts, with the capability of answering a wide gamut of business and technical questions from both internal stakeholders and clients. Like scientists, we must see beyond the buzz-ridden Mashable articles and “Trending Topics”, and actually submerge ourselves in the technology. This all leads up to the key function of Labs: adding relevance & context. Every day we get to don our creative caps and architect innovative applications of the technology specific to our diversified client-base and their short- and long-term needs.

We have a roadmap of technologies in queue, but this week’s was one we had been waiting to test out for quite some time: the Kinect motion-sensing input device (created by Microsoft). Released in conjunction with the XBox 360, it didn’t take long for technologists to see the Kinect’s applicability beyond gaming. The infrared device brings John Underkoffler’s visionary gesture-control interface from Minority Report to life.

This $150 consumer-facing infrared camera has introduced natural user interfaces (through gesture- and voice-control) to the masses. Offered many different names by the tech-crowd (computer vision, NUI, gesture-control, feature-recognition, spatial navigation, et al), the Kinect represents what many feel is the future of physical computing. 

This week, we took the Kinect for a lengthy test-drive. Most notably, we used the device to capture full-body movements and converted them into commands that were fed into a piece of music composition software. Illustrated by the above photo, a person can control a digital symphony simply by moving any joint in their body. Sounds like a toy, right? A pretty practical toy… After all, this experiment was the catalyst for dozens of ideas pertinent to our future-facing clientele.

As broadcast TV and radio media look to transform their business models and content delivery, some new media pioneers are making serious headway in claiming valuable niche territory.  For a few years now, I’ve been listening to various shows on a “podcast network” dubbed “TWiT” (originating from This Week in Technology).

Created by broadcast radio personality Leo LaPorte, aka “The Tech Guy,” this single network has around 35 niche shows – which LaPorte prefers to call “netcasts,” because “podcast” implies it’s only been uploaded to iTunes.  In fact, each weekly netcast can be viewed LIVE or pre-recorded via any smart phone, iTunes, Android app, iPhone app, various set-top boxes, YouTube, you name it.

The live version is mostly for the die-hard fans, many of which log into a chat room to provide real-time fact finding and expert consensus.  Every once in a while, the host needs help on a topic faster than a Google search, so they’ll say something like, “I don’t know…chat room, can you help me?” and within seconds the question is answered accurately, and you’re moving on to the next topic.

All content is free, and their ad model depends upon each show host to put their own spin on in-show mini-monologues that are often much less annoying than a produced piece. If you’re out and about while listening, and want to dive in deeper once you’re at your computer, each show has easy-to-find show notes with related resources and links.

So, we all know what podcasts are…it’s just amazing to watch LaPorte build his empire on a shoestring with everyday technologies like Skype and to realize how hard it will be for other players to catch up in the niches that TWiT chooses to dominate.

My favorite netcasts are TWiG (This Week in Google  - covering all things ‘cloud’ with special focus on Google) and TWiT…the flagship netcast after which the network was named. 

One fun and useless thing I learned this week is that you can Google the phrase “Google logos” to find a repository of all those clever holiday Google logo doodles – cool to see them all in one gallery.

Check it out on www.twit.tv. Even better, look up ‘twig’ or ‘twit’ in your iTunes app (or one of the various Android apps) next time you hit the gym or walk the dog…if there’s any geek in you at all, I promise it will not disappoint!