IMD Forum for 8/26/09: Curtis Wong
Speaker: Curtis Wong, Microsoft Research
Time: Wednesday, August 26, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)
Title: Tuva and the whole Universe - Experiments in Interactive Media Learning
The application of Interactive Media for learning has been one of the compelling but elusive goals for the technology since its early days. In this talk I will briefly focus on the evolution of “ECR” an information architecture for learning gleaned from twenty years of developing Interactive media from interactive laserdiscs, CD-ROMs, enhanced digital television, broadband Web, Web applications and cloud services. The balance of my talk will focus on the origins, learnings, challenges, goals and aspirations behind two recent interactive media learning projects: The WorldWide Telescope and Project Tuva.
“ECR is for Engagement | Context | Reference. It’s a simple idea: first, you hook someone—whether they’re using a CD-ROM, watching a video, or visiting a website or a museum—with a story or an object that produces an immediate emotional impact. Then, at the very moment they’re most engaged and curious, you offer them context that broadens their understanding. Finally, you provide a deep reference layer, for the people who get so intrigued that they want to know a lot more.”
Excerpted from Xconomy.com blog: “Project Tuva or Bust: How Microsoft’s Spin on Feynman Could Change the Way We Learn”
BIO: Curtis Wong is a Principal Researcher in Microsoft Research focusing on interaction, media, visualization, gaming and storytelling. Curtis and his collaborators have built advanced prototypes which have influenced Microsoft products and have been featured in numerous executive keynotes on the future of computing. He also spends a portion of his time working with selected non-profit organizations to develop examples of next generation media such as his collaboration with PBS’s television series Frontline to produce The Age of AIDS on the global AIDS pandemic and the broadband enhanced documentary Commanding Heights ~ The Battle for the World Economy, winning a British Academy Award and nominated for the first interactive TV Emmy. Continued......
His most recent work at Microsoft was Project Tuva in collaboration with Bill Gates to make the Messenger Lectures by acclaimed Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist Richard P. Feynman freely available over the Internet. Prior to Project Tuva, Curtis led the tiny team that built the WorldWide Telescope which is a rich interactive learning environment of the Universe populated by the highest resolution ground and space based imagery ever assembled. WWT features an integrated rich media authoring, animation and playback engine to allow the simple creation of multimedia stories in the form of guided tour to any area within the rich visual environment. In the first year of its launch WWT has enabled millions of kids of all ages from every continent on Earth to explore the Universe and learn about astronomy from scientists and educators. www.worldwidetelescope.org
Prior to Microsoft in 1997, Curtis was Director of Intel Productions where he conceived and developed ArtMuseum.net, the first Broadband blockbuster art museum exhibition network on the World Wide Web. ArtMuseum.net featured faithful 3D recreations of concurrent art exhibitions in major museums such as The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam so that visitors to the virtual museum could see and closely examine the works of art as well as converse with other visitors to the virtual museum. Curtis was also responsible for creation of the first enhanced digital television program broadcast in the US - The Poetry of Structure accompanying the broadcast of the Ken Burns film Frank Lloyd Wright. Visitors would experience the broadcast digital television program and then enter the virtual environments of the most famous Wright buildings and virtually explore them with grandson Eric Lloyd Wright as their guide.
Curtis was General Manager of Corbis Productions where he was responsible for the creation of a critically acclaimed series of CD-ROM's on art, history and science. His CD-ROM on Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester for Bill Gates in 1997 remains the state of the art in ancient manuscript interpretation for public and scholarly access.
Before Corbis, Curtis was producer for the Voyager Company where he was a producer for Criterion producing special editions of feature films winning Video Magazine’s top award for the Last Picture Show and Jason and the Argonauts. He was also responsible for the group producing Multimedia Beethoven, one of the first ten multimedia CD-ROM's for Windows and the first multimedia CD-ROM title launched by Microsoft in 1991.
Curtis currently serves on the board of trustees for the Seattle Art Museum, the advisory boards for PBS Kids in Washington D.C. and the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. He has previously served as a trustee for the Rhode Island School of Design and the advisory boards for Ovation - The Arts Network, PBS Online, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Strategic Planning Steering Committee for the National Constitution Center, the Canadian Film Centre, and the American Film Institute. He is a voting member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, a member of the American Astronomical Society and American Association for the Advancement of Science. Curtis is included in TED conference creator Richard Saul Wurman's book, Who's Really Who: 1000 Most Creative Individuals in the USA.
Curtis’ earlier work has received numerous industry awards including the first interactive television Emmy nomination, a British Academy Award, New York Film Festivals Gold Medals 1995,1996,1997, ID Magazine’s Interactive Design Review 1997, Communication Arts Interactive Design Annual 1996 & 1997, many New Media Invision Gold awards, Time Magazine’s Best of the Web. This past year the WorldWide Telescope was selected ID Magazine Annual Design Review, Best of Category: Interactive and AIGA Certificate of Excellence in Design for the 365: AIGA Annual Design Competition.