We like to pretend we compete with the ginormous-brained folks at IDEO but the truth of the matter is they have no idea who we are.. (we pretend we will sneak up on them and… BOOO!) Regardless, we are huge fans of the IDEO: ToyLab Balloonimals app and are now quite smitten with Elmo’s Monster Maker. It’s obvious they did some real thinking on the user experience (UX) as it is dead simple and perfect for kids who just want to touch things (like noses). Throw Elmo into the mix and you’re guaranteed to witness a kid-neuron supernova.
Nice job on this guys, and thank you. My daughter is going to love playing with this. You can get yours here: http://ideotoylab.com/sesamestreet/ It’s $4 on the AppStore (ouch).
One last thing… Can we get an iPad version? Thanks!
If you have ever watched a NFL broadcast you’ve seen Riddell’s logo on the grill of just about every pro-player’s helmet that screams across the screen. Riddell, a Chicago institution and Easton Bell Sports subsidiary, makes the best helmets in the industry. Their lifesaving concussion-reduction technology is available as an option on helmets for youth players all the way up to their professional models. If you haven’t seen the Revolution Speed Helmet, you should check it out, it’s amazing. My kids will definitely wear Revo Speeds if they choose to play football. They are statistically proven.
Tanagram has been working with Riddell for several years helping them evolve their marketing and sales presence on the web and this launch marks a key point in their evolution roadmap. E-commerce has been implemented using SAP’s shopping cart and while we’re not huge fans of the SAP product, it works pretty darned well. The short story is you can now buy Riddell products online and have them shipped to your home. WOOT!! As the site continues to mature, advanced metrics are being measured and SEO is being implemented. In the near future we will be expanding Riddell’s online community to do some really amazing things that will be meaningful to those who adore football.
We had a blast putting this site together using some cutting edge technologies including Adobe AS3, Papervision, and the not-so-cutting edge WordPress CMS engine.
Tanagram would like to thank the brilliant folks at Riddell for being such great partners. This site reflects the hard work invested by the entire team. You guys rock!
The past year has been something of a nirvana for local craft beer fans, as their local options increase with the openings of Metropolitan Brewing, Half Acre Beer Company and Revolution Brewing. If all things go well, a fourth microbrewery/brewpub will be joining those ranks by late summer.
Construction is currently underway on Haymarket Pub and Brewing, in the former Bar Louie space at 741 W. Randolph. The project is a partnership between Pete Crowley, senior brewer at Rock Bottom Chicago, and his friend John Neurauter. We’d been hearing rumblings for weeks about Haymarket and Crowley, who’s also president of the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild, was more than happy to fill us in on some of the details.
Crowley said that Haymarket will focus on “classic Belgian and contemporary American ales and lagers paired with hand made sausages, pulled pork, pizza and rotisserie chicken.” There are plans for an outdoor beer garden, full bar, dining area with pool tables and games. About 600 square feet downstairs will be allocated for a barrel room for aging and blending. The centerpiece of the pub will be a walk through kitchen and brewery that leads to a “drinking and writing” theater. This means that, when Haymarket opens its doors, the long running and popular Drinking & Writing series with Sean Benjamin and Steve Mosqueda will have a home. Crowley is the “brewer” for Drinking and Brewing.
The folks here at Tanagram get very excited when we see products exploring visualizations that truly utilize the advantages of current display technologies. We’ve always adored Weatherunderground for their approach to syndicating data, but today they get a vigorous hat tip for some nicely done User Experience (UX). Sure there could be a nicer font, or better color palette, but this experience is so much of an improvement over the state of the union, we don’t really care. Thanks guys for being great. We salute you.
Tanagram is proud to announce the launch of Touch.Codeplex.com. Our exploration into the state of the Natural User Interface (NUI) connected us with folks at Microsoft and together we identified an adoption issue. While the technology to build Touch applications exists, it is currently cumbersome to implement. Marc Schweigert and James Chittenden had an idea to use Expression Behaviors (literally drag-and-drop onto any object) to act as a bridge. Together we launch this humble beginning with a bold vision. We hope you join us as we expand this library in the months to come.
Writeboard Panorama of calculation debugging.
Project Overview
The APIs in WPF4 plus the Surface Toolkit for Windows Touch make building common touch scenarios easy. However, implementing many of the same touch scenarios using WPF3.5SP1 or Silverlight 3/4 involves writing a fair bit more code. Furthermore, the touch APIs across WPF4, WPF3.5SP1, and Silverlight are different.
Project Goals
The goal of this project is to simplify building common touch scenarios when using WPF 3.5 SP1 or Silverlight 3/4 by using Expression Blend Behaviors to provide a consistent way to implement these scenarios across WPF & Silverlight. Expression Blend Behaviors can be used within Visual Studio without a dependency on Expression Blend by downloading the Expression Blend 3 SDK. You can also find more Expression Blend Behaviors at http://expressionblend.codeplex.com/ and http://tinyurl.com/ExpressionGalleryBehaviors.
Project Roadmap
Beta Release of core Scroll and TranslateRotateScale behaviors to developer community. <– You are here
Revised Scroll and TranslateRotateScale behaviors
Gesture Behavior (repurpose awesome code from here)
Erase (Back and Forth Gesture)
Create (Single Finger Draw ‘+’)
Delete (Single Finger ‘X’ Drawn Over Target)
Select Lasso (Single Finger Draw Lasso)
Split (Single Finger Diagonal Line)
Hold Menu (Single Finger Touch & Hold Context Menu)
Draw (Three Finger Pen Grasp)
Clone (Two Finger Double Tap)
Open / Edit (Single Finger Double Tap)
Select (Single Finger Tap)
Global Rotate (Five Finger Grab and Rotate of Application)
Global Perspective Rotate (Five Finger Pressure to Rotate Application Perspective)
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