We are delighted to announce that Gooii will be working with the Scottish Council on Archives and Jisc‘s Archives Hub teams to develop a new archive portal. ‘Your Scottish Archives’ will provide online access to previously unseen collections from Scotland, particularly those held by local authorities, universities and smaller repositories.

Providing resources for members of the public, historians, researchers and genealogists it will also provide learning tools for teachers and archivists working with schools and colleges.

Working again with Archives Hub and consuming data from Knowledge Integration’s middleware via our custom built API, we are developing the portal for both mobile and desktop users, giving them the ability to explore the archives by searching and filtering.

Read the announcement on the SCA website here.

We are delighted to have been chosen as a supplier for Jisc’s Virtual and Augmented Reality supplier framework, which aims to help Higher Education institutions use VR and AR technologies to create learning environments for use in the classroom.

Compared to more traditional learning methods, building training spaces using VR and AR technology offers increased user engagement, immersion, excitement and learner safety. Students can tour the inside of an ancient pyramid, or be trained to operate complex machinery or medical equipment – there are so many possible real world applications.

We are excited to be a part of this initiative and we hope to help to make Jisc’s Education 4.0 a reality. Have a look at Jisc’s video of a virtual student called Natalie, to see what the student experience could look like.

Our team design, code and create 3D models and environments for our VR and AR apps in-house – get in touch about your next project.

You can read Jisc’s framework announcement here.

Manx National Heritage are creating digitised 3D models of hundreds of the most important Manx Crosses from the island, producing extremely detailed models for both conservation and research purposes. These models are stored in MNH’s Sketchfab channel. We were commissioned to integrate the Sketchfab viewer within the iMuseum website itself, via use of the Sketchfab API. Now when a Manx Cross is viewed on the website, the 3D model loads, allowing users to rotate, zoom in and out, and choose which layers they wish to see. Users can also view the 3D models using a VR headset for full immersion.

To see it in action, please visit one of the Manx Crosses on iMuseum

More information about the project is available on the Manx National Heritage website and also on the BBC

We worked closely with Manx National Heritage and Knowledge Integration on this enhancement.

A major new gallery exhibition entitled ‘Mann at War’ has opened at the Manx Museum in Douglas to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One. The exhibition showcases hundreds of important objects, including the oldest Napoleonic light cavalry uniform in the British Isles, and aims to commemorate the role of Manx men, women and children in conflict from the 1700’s to the present day.

Manx National Heritage commissioned Gooii to develop a touchscreen digital interactive user interface to allow visitors to explore the personal human stories and the impact of conflict on Isle of Mann residents. High definition touchscreens kiosks are placed throughout the gallery, visitors explore the themes, eras and personal stories using the touchscreens. Visitors can also scan a QR code to view the stories and themes on their devices as they explore further, allowing them to continue exploring at home, as the interactive content is also visible on the web as part of Manx National Heritage iMuseum, which Gooii also developed.

For this project, Gooii partnered with Knowledge Integration, and worked closely with Manx National Heritage to develop and launch the system, with the CIIM middleware producing Elasticsearch data for the UI. The user interface itself is built using a combination of PHP and ReactJs.

The Archives Hub system we developed for Jisc provides researchers with access to collection descriptions from over 320 institutions across the UK and includes millions of records.

The Archives Hub website, built to Jisc branding guidelines, uses our own server side RESTful API to interrogate Elasticsearch, the data being aggregated by Knowledge Integration‘s CIIM middleware. As hierarchical data results in many levels, clarity and ease of use is critical for researchers to access what they need quickly, on any modern device.

We adopted a ‘mobile first’ design approach, enabling us to distil the feature-set down to the most crucial elements for mobile users. As screen-estate increases we present additional UI options, such as the ‘mini-map’ tree viewer element on desktop browsers. Filtering search results by holding repositories plots their location on a map. The advanced search builder facility allows researchers and the wider public to quickly find what they are looking for. The main search box allows for both phrase and boolean searching, for example, “ industrial revolution” (with quotes). 

The RESTFul API Gooii developed for this system can also be exposed to other websites and apps to consume. The system is developed using ClojureScript for the UI and Clojure for the serverside system which includes the API. 

How can you go about getting advertising revenue from internet access to people who are in the back of beyond, miles from any kind of existing network? Well, if you’re Google, you launch a load of transmitter equipped, solar powered balloons, and “sail” them about by changing their altitude so that they’re directed by stratospheric winds. These then transmit data to each other and eventually down to a bank account an ISP on the ground. To read all about it check out the main Project Loon page and the Google Plus page. Pretty interesting project!

In a recent interview with the BBC, Valve head honcho (and all round gaming guru) Gabe Newell talks about the development of their new Valve Box console, and mentions the possibility of a heart rate monitor built into the controller. He says, “you need to actually be able to directly measure how aroused the player is – what their heart rate is, things like that – in order to offer them a new experience each time they play.”

I got jumpy enough playing Left for Dead II as it is, so I’m not sure I need additional zombies jumping out at me if my heart rate drops during a quietish part of the game!

He also talks about the challenges of designing what is essentially a high end gaming PC based console to the living room successfully. Prototypes are due to be shipped to suppliers in the next few months!

Check out the full interview with Gabe on the BBC site.

It’s not really a “printer” in the traditional sense, it’s more like a turbo charged glue pen, but it’s still pretty cool, and no doubt good fun to create things with. Wobbleworks have created something which allows you to “draw” in the air and make sculptures (and no doubt a huge mess while you’re doing it!) – they’ve also completely smashed their Kickstarter funding goal within hours.

Check out the 3Doodler Kickstarter page, and also on their the3doodler.com

I really enjoyed playing the original Elite game on the BBC Micro – it seems hard to believe that was almost 30 years ago! It was the first real open world game I saw, and although it was fiendishly difficult (docking anyone?) it felt like the future had arrived. So I was really pleased to see that David Braben’s Elite:Dangerous project on Kickstarter recently made its funding target. I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy and get stuck in when it comes out, and based upon the videos I’ve seen so far, it’s going to be outstanding.

There’s loads of information about the project on Elite:Dangerous website, and also on their Kickstarter page.

I really like Windows 7. It’s logical and easy to use. However, I’ve been using Windows 8 recently. I have to say I’ve found it a fairly frustrating experience.

Don’t get me wrong, some of it’s pretty nice, but overall I wish I was back on 7. This article talks about usability (or lack thereof) within the new Microsoft operating system. Some of it is just plain silly.

From the article:

‘One of the worst aspects of Windows 8 for power users is that the product’s very name has become a misnomer. “Windows” no longer supports multiple windows on the screen. Win8 does have an option to temporarily show a second area in a small part of the screen, but none of our test users were able to make this work. Also, the main UI restricts users to a single window, so the product ought to be renamed “Microsoft Window.”‘

Read the full review / article here

http://www.nngroup.com/articles/windows-8-disappointing-usability-both-novice-and-power-users/