Virtual Ink Corp. today announced mimio 1.6 for the Macintosh. Mimio is the company’s digital whiteboard tool — it converts color text and drawings on a conventional whiteboard into digital content that can be shared on a computer.
Mimio is comprised of infrared and ultrasound sensor technology that fits onto a standard whiteboard and regular dry-erase pens. As the user draws on the whiteboard, the Mimio sensors record what’s being drawn or written, and transfer that information into a digital format.
The new version of Mimio, version 1.6, sports Mac OS X compatibility. It also features the ability to directly export content as video clips to Apple’s iMovie digital video editing software.
Virtual Ink CEO and president Greg McHale said that the new version demonstrates his company’s full commitment to the Mac platform.
“The dry erase whiteboard is a center-point for creating, sharing and presenting ideas in both schools and offices. With mimio 1.6 for the Mac, those ideas can be combined with audio and video to create media files more easily on Apple’s advanced new operating system,” said McHale.
Mimio records “strokes over time,” so the new iMovie export feature helps user sequentially display the content as it was originally produced. Once the mimio content is captured, it can be segmented and viewed as thumbnails, which can in turn be exported as individual clips to iMovie. iMovie users could then conceivably combine the mimio data with voice over narration or splice the footage together with footage shot from a digital video camera, then compress as a QuickTime movie for later distribution.
The mimio for Mac kit includes a capture bar, eraser, USB adapter and light, and four color-coded mimio styli. The kit also include mimioMouse software, which, when combined with a Mac with video-out and an LCD project, enables any whiteboard to be converted into an interactive touch screen.
mimio 1.6 will be released this summer for download from the mimio Web site at no charge.