Technology Trends – Page 2 – American Alliance of Museums

Monday Musing: Making it Personal with Telepresence

By Elizabeth Merritt

This video caught my attention this morning: a crowdfunding pitch for what is billed as “the world’s first social innovation telepresence experience.” This system, Omnipresenz, is designed to let you control a human …
Futurist Friday: Siri on Steroids?

By Elizabeth Merritt

Yesterday Amazon launched Echo, a digital assistant that sounds a lot like a female version of Hal (from 2001: A Space Odyssey). Or better, Majel Barrett channeling the brain of the starship Enterprise. “Far-field voice …
Looking Through the (Google) Glass

By Elizabeth Merritt

So, you may have seen me looking like this, lately. Yup, that’s Google Glass. And that’s me trying not to be a Glasshole. Neil Stimler, Digital Asset Specialist at the Met, has been sporting Glass for over a year and sharing his …
Meet Watson, Your Personal Museum Learning Agent

By Elizabeth Merritt

A recent post by Steve Hamm wrote on the IBM Smarter Planet sparked a new thought about a role for AI (artificial intelligence) in museums. Steve writes about IBM Watson’s new gig: improving the customer experience, as demonstrated in this …
Machine Learning and the Future of Authentication

By Elizabeth Merritt

Look what machines are teaching themselves to do: Recognize cats on the internet Tell when people are lying about pain Diagnose diseases Be educational coaches & tutors All courtesy of what is called “machine learning”: the …
Futurist Friday: Bossy Wearable Tech

By Elizabeth Merritt

We humans use technology–digital or analog–to outsource our brainwork. Calculators mean we don’t have to remember the times table anymore; calendars track our schedules; Diigo means I don’t have to remember where I …
Futurist Friday: Virtual Reality & the Museum of the Future

By Elizabeth Merritt

The immersive virtual museum experience (at least the visual dimension) is creeping closer and closer. Your Futurist Friday assignment: this 2 min video by Europeana, using Oculus’ head-mounted display to tour a 3D model of the …
Futurist Friday: Visitor Analytics

By Elizabeth Merritt

Your Futurist Friday assignment is this very brief (1.58 min) video from Cisco about using Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX) analytics to locate and track every wireless device in a venue. While the commentary in this piece is about …
Access: No Longer About Unlocking the Front Door

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’ve blogged about my brief experience with Google Glass at the Tech@LEAD conference. Turns out @nealstimler loaned that same pair of specs to Nik Honeysett, head of administration at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Today Nik shares his …
Smithsonian X 3D: Putting 3D to work for museums

By Elizabeth Merritt

Last week I played hooky from writing TrendsWatch 2014 to catch up on one of our 2013 picks: 3D scanning and printing. The Smithsonian X 3D conference featured speakers from around the world sharing the latest developments in this rapidly …