whiteboarding

Interactive whiteboards are one of those unsexy business tools that companies everywhere depend on. All told, it's a $1.8 billion market that might seem to some to be one of the stodgiest around.

But a 38-year-old company on the hunt for a new business thinks it has found a way to upend that market. At the Demo conference this week, Interphase is unveiling its Penveu interactive whiteboard device, a tool that gives businesses an inexpensive, easy to use, and portable alternative to options out there today that can cost $2,000 to $7,000.

All that's needed … Read more

Imagine having a real-time card game with a friend thousands of miles away without looking at a computer screen.

Microsoft Research is showing off IllumiShare, a virtual shared whiteboard that works on any surface. Despite having the innocent appearance of a lamp, the low-cost device actually shares the surface it's illuminating over the Internet. This means you could sketch a portrait with someone else using real paper, or create a real-time dynamic learning scenario that enables a remote tutor to teach a child much more effectively than ever before. You could even play a game of Canasta with your grandmother if you wanted to. … Read more

When it comes to sharing ideas and communicating stories, sometimes it's just easier to present your thoughts by drawing them out. Not just for Pictionary, online whiteboards are great collaborative tools to help you visualize your thoughts and brainstorm ideas. These Web apps not only throw out the smelly dry-erase markers, but also add a few tricks to make sharing your works faster and easier than ever.

A Web Whiteboard (AWW), developed by Senko Rasic, was designed to be minimalistic and simple to use like a real whiteboard. Coded in HTML5, AWW not only performs smoothly, but leaves little … Read more

Whiteboard Collaborative Drawing is a free app that turns your iPhone or iPod Touch's screen into a small, shared drawing space, like a whiteboard or sketchpad. The simple touch-screen interface lets you choose the width of your "marker" (from a fine, pencil-like point to a wide spray-paint-style brush), with six different colors plus an eraser. You just tap on the screen to begin drawing, and you tap with two fingers to bring back the settings screen.

Whiteboard Collaborative Drawing becomes even more useful over Wi-Fi, as users on two different devices on the same network can draw … Read more

If you've been using MS Paint to brainstorm it's time to upgrade. A whiteboard solution called Dabbleboard is one of the better efforts I've seen. It lets you put together a map of ideas very quickly, and supports both free-hand drawing, along with a system that will automatically convert basic doodles into sold shapes like circles, triangles, and squares.

Dabbleboard's killer feature is that it lets you save bits and pieces of these doodles into your library for later use. Once you've added anything to your library you can simply drag and drop it into … Read more

Collaborative whiteboarding applications can be handy tools for small groups looking to do some brainstorming despite geographical displacement. Meet Twiddla, a free tool that lets you mark up media and live Web sites, or simply organize ideas together on a virtual whiteboard. It also tacks on live communication with text chat and free VoIP conference calling that doesn't require additional plug-ins or software.

The application won an award for technical achievement at last night's SXSW Interactive Web Awards. While technologically fantastic, in my testing I ran up against some noticeable speed and local resource problems. At times I … Read more

Whiteboarding tools associated with virtual conference solutions frequently don't offer an easy way to record what's being written down, or distribute it elsewhere after the fact. And for presenting, we're often limited to PowerPoints, video, or audio recordings--or sometimes a hodgepodge of all three at once. Enter Sketchcast, a happy medium between voice and whiteboard recording that the service coins as "Sketchcasts." Users can create their own audio-enriched doodle sessions for all to see, and embed them on blogs or Web sites to distribute their work.

Sketchcast creator Richard Ziade drummed up the idea after finding it cumbersome to spend the time blogging out his ideas, and equated his experiences in meeting rooms, with the potential for blog readership. At least that's the concept, anyway. If Sketchcasting has anything in common with Podcasting (which it does), both require your audience to absorb content in a linear fashion, which is far slower than giving someone several paragraphs of writing that they can peruse at their leisure. There's also the problem of indexing and searching the content, which (for now) is only made possible with tags and user-submitted descriptions.

As a tool, Sketchcast gives users a massive color pallet to choose from, along with an eraser and text tool. All three of the tools can be summoned or dismissed in an instant with keyboard shortcuts, which is a big help to power users. The recording feature is also incredibly simple to use, and can be paused at any time if you need time to draw out your next slide. When finished, the tool gives you the standard smattering of links, including a simple URL, e-mail link, and embed code. Videos are broken down into four categories, including one just for tutorials. The service also is also set up to support user ratings (on a five-star scale), and comments that show up just like they do on YouTube.

I'd definitely recommend giving Sketchcast a spin, if only to play with its editor, which is incredibly simple and fun to use (Ed: It requires registration to use.) As for its worth as a blogging tool, I can only say that preparing a proper Sketchcast takes more of my, and likely more of my reader's, time, which is hardly a suitable replacement for text--as much as it is a complement to whatever is being written. I've embedded an example Sketchcast after the break.

[via TechCrunch]

Related: Live whiteboard collaboration with Scriblink… Read more

Looking for a quick way to pass along ideas with a few other folks? Check out Scriblink, a new site for whiteboarding and conference calling. Setup is dead simple--just load the page and give the service your name to get going. There's a half-page workspace to sketch and write down ideas, a full color pallet to differentiate each user, and an undo button that will let you get rid of every addition you've made. There's also built-in multi-user chat on the right-hand side. If you feel like talking, the service can set up a free conference line (… Read more

Qipit is a free service for turning digital photos into sharable, online documents. It works with any photo taken with a digital camera, or from your mobile phone. Like ScanR (review), Qipit will store and host your photos, and let you rotate them to your heart's content. This works the best with shots of documents taken at an angle, and with whiteboards, business cards, etc. Once uploaded, Qipit will tweak the contrast of your shot, drawing out the text, and doing its best to correct perspective warp. Unlike ScanR however, you're not getting the archival goodness of optical … Read more