TouchSmarter: Touch Screen Gadgets

I previously mentioned that NUITEQ freely assisted handicapped children with their education, by applying multi-touch technology for Action For Kids, a UK based national charity working with children and young people with physical and learning disabilities.

The children used NUITEQ’s award winning multi-touch software product Snowflake Suite, to enhance their way of learning, by offering a more playful and intuitive solution, in comparison to conventional learning methods.

A case study related to this effort can now be found here.

A previous news item regarding this, can be found here.

I clearly remember from my school time, that when the learning process was fun, you more easily remembered what you were actually supposed to learn.

I think multi-touch is an extraordinary tool/technology to make learning more playful, fun, collaborative and engaging, which is one of the reasons why NUITEQ focuses its efforts also specifically on the educational market vertical.

It is very rewarding to see that our product helps children and puts a smile on the face of children that are physically and mentally challenged.

Apple has today announced that it has sold over 3 million iPads in just 80 days. Yesterday marked the 80th day of the iPad going on sale in the US.

Using Apple’s past sales figures it is clear that sales of the iPad are accelerating, even taking into account the expanding international sales. It took 28 days for Apple to sell the first million iPads, 31 days to sell the second million, and 21 days to reach the three million mark.

“People are loving iPad as it becomes a part of their daily lives,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more people around the world, including those in nine more countries next month.”

Apple also took the opportunity offer stats on iPad apps, the store now has 11,000 apps on board and the iPad can also run all the 225,000 iPhone and iPod touch apps.

iPhone 4 running iOS 4.0

As expected Apple has released iOS 4.0 for the iPhone and iPod touch. iOS 4.0 can be downloaded using iTunes 9.2.

The following devices are compatible with iOS 4:

• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 4
• Second and third generation iPod touch (late 2009 models with 32GB or 64GB).

For detailed coverage of iOS 4.0 please see our post from earlier today. iOS 4 comes with the following release notes:

This update contains over 100 new features, including the following:

* Requires iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPod touch 3rd generation.
** Requires iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 4. SMS/MMS messaging and Visual Voicemail require support from your wireless carrier.

iPhone 4 running iOS 4.0

As expected Apple has released iOS 4.0 for the iPhone and iPod touch. iOS 4.0 can be downloaded using iTunes 9.2.

The following devices are compatible with iOS 4:

• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 4
• Second and third generation iPod touch (late 2009 models with 32GB or 64GB).

For detailed coverage of iOS 4.0 please see our post from earlier today. iOS 4 comes with the following release notes:

This update contains over 100 new features, including the following:

* Requires iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPod touch 3rd generation.
** Requires iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 4. SMS/MMS messaging and Visual Voicemail require support from your wireless carrier.

Apple has previously labelled June 21 as the day in which it will release its next major OS upgrade for iPhones and iPod touches. iOS 4 (nee iPhone OS 4) as it is known was first shown off by Apple in early April, ever since then a steady trickle of betas has helped developers take advantage of the new features.

Apple has not announced a time for iOS 4 release but around 10am Pacific Time (6pm London) would be in line with previous releases.

The following devices are compatible with iOS 4:

• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 4
• Second and third generation iPod touch (late 2009 models with 32GB or 64GB).

iOS 4 is a free update for all compatible devices.

A look at iOS 4

iOS 4 carries over 100 new features and seven major features.

During the keynote presentation Apple demonstrated these seven major features:

• Multitasking
• App Folders
• Enhanced Mail app
• iBooks for iPhone and iPod touch
• Enhanced enterprise features
• Game Center
• iAd

Apple also alluded to the following features:

• File & delete Mail search results
• Search SMS/MMS messages
• Web search suggestions
• Choose image size in Mail messages
• Bluetooth keyboards
• CalDav invitations
• Larger fonts for Mail, SMS & alerts
• Cell data only setting
• Spell check
• Persistent Wi-Fi
• Gift Apps
• Birthday calendar
• Recent Web searches
• Create Playlists
• Sync IMAP notes
• Top Hit in search
• 5x digital zoom
• Nested Playlists
• CardDav
• Tap to focus video
• Upload workouts to Nike+
• Places in Photos
• iPod Out
• Home screen wallpaper
• Search SMS/MMS messages
• Wake on wireless

Below a series of screenshots obtained from across the numerous betas, some features may have changed before the final build but they offer a good idea of new features.

Left: Home screen with default wallpaper. Middle: App folder filled with maximum 12 apps. Right: App folder as seen from home screen.

Left: Options to set wallpaper. Middle: double click the home button to get the running app dock. Right: Press and hold an app in the dock to quit it.

Left: About. Middle: Location services showing apps recently using my location. Right: The time can now be set automatically or manually.

Left: SMS messages can now have a character count. Middle: Emails can be threaded into a conversation. Right: List of mailbox inboxes.

Left: Notes can be synced to different IMAP servers. Middle: Photos now has events, faces and places. All photos taken with iPhone are geo-tagged and put on the map in Places. Right: Camera app has 5x digital zoom.

Left: Swiping left on the App tray now reveals the orientation lock button and iPod controls. Middle: iPod controls and orientation lock. Right: Even when iPhone is in landscape orientation the App dock appears on the right of the display.

Left: About. Middle: Places in action. Right: Individual icons are pinned on the map in Places.

Yesterday NUITEQ got featured in Swedens #1 business news paper Dagens Industri.

You can find the article in the media section of the NUITEQ website, located at http://nuiteq.com/aboutus/inthemedia.php.

Now I’m heading off to attend the final day of Creative Summit.

Want to wish everybody a good weekend in advance and enjoy the World Cup.

NUITEQ was appointed by Västerbotten Investment Agency (VIA) to develop a custom map exploration tool for the event Euro Mine Expo, which took place on 8-10 of June in Skelleftea.

The application allowed visitors of the VIA booth, to explore the locations of different mines in Sweden, through a natural and intuitive gesture based interaction, giving users detailed insight into the mines, which minerals are processed, which companies own the mines and other information, that was available at their fingertips.

The emerging experience of this mine exploration was showcased on NUITEQ’s 46″ multi-touch LCD.

NUITEQ published the June Newsletter, which can be found here.

To subscribe to the NUITEQ Newsletter, visit the following link and fill out your email address.

Last Tuesday, the 1st of June, I was invited to present NUITEQ in the semi-finals of the Innovate!100 Pitch Slam at the Microsoft Sweden office in, an award program that nominates and awards the world’s most promising Tech Startups.

This event was initially going to take place earlier, but was postponed due to the Icelandic ash clouds.

NUITEQ was 1 out of 11 companies, selected from a group of around 350 companies in the Nordic region, to give a 5 minute pitch slam in front of an audience of fellow entrepreneurs as well as a jury consisting out of industry professionals and venture capital / angel investment firms.

Even though NUITEQ did not win the pitch, we appreciated the opportunity to present NUITEQ.
Canatu from Finland was the clear winner, a company that has an amazingly exciting nanotube technology.
Their technology is price competitive, they hold several patents, are a Red Herring 100 Europe and Global winner and they have a strong founding team, including the former CTO from Nokia.
David Brown, Canatu’s CEO gave a very good presentation.
They were definitely my favorite to win.
Congrats!

It was great to meet passionate fellow entrepreneurs, all with exciting companies, products and services.

Special thanks go out to Microsoft for hosting the event, Guidewire Group for organizing the event and thanks to the jury for taking the time to listen to the stories of all the exciting start-up companies.

A video of my presentation you can find below:

Nuiteq - (with feedback) Stockholm Pitch Slam from Guidewire Group on Vimeo.