Corrections or additions?
These articles by Barbara Fox were prepared for the
March 28, 2001 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
For Firefighters, E-Training From Stonehouse Media
You are a volunteer firefighter called to an arson
scene.
Do you pick up the wrong pieces of evidence and fail to collect the
right ones? Not if you trained with a virtual reality program devised
by Stonehouse Media.
With a group of reinsurance companies Stonehouse Media created and
produced the recreation of a fire scene, called InterFire, which was
distributed 18 months ago to 80,000 law enforcement and fire
investigators
around the country.
The project cost more than $700,000, yet anyone can buy this program
at the online cost, $9.95. "The whole idea was to raise the base
knowledge for fire investigation," says Rod Ammon, the president
of Stonehouse, which expanded last fall to new offices on Lenox Drive.
"We really needed to do something to educate firefighters who
are walking into a fire scene." Two other sections include a
tutorial
with hours of material — video, audio, and print — and a
resource
center with 600 pages of searchable reference material. His firm
handled
the distribution and the website and has a contract to run the website
for a year.
Click within a scene to examine objects, pick them up, collect
evidence,
and do an investigation. A website supports this "game" with
750 pages of material and hundreds of pieces of information that need
to be collected with witness interviews. "They can choose from
a list of questions, and until you ask the right questions, you don’t
get more," says Ammon. "While this is being done, it is
tracked
to create a report for a superior or to review for themselves."
"One of our greatest successes has been using virtual reality
for training under contract with pharmaceutical companies, producers,
and the Secret Service. We are using virtual reality interfaces to
create experiences that help bring the user to a surrounding that
is not easy to create," says Ammon. His firm is now involved
teaching
officers worldwide how to fight electronic crime, not only Secret
Service agents but any law enforcement personnel. It is working with
Media By Design to create virtual reality training for a
pharmaceutical
company.
Ammon and his 50-percent partner, Jim Paulus, met at VideoSmith.
Ammon went to Northern Michigan University, Class of 1987, and Paulus
is an alumnus of Temple, Class of 1976. When VideoSmith moved from
Independence
Way to Philadelphia, they declined to move. "We wanted to take
what we know about television and high-end design and tie it into
interactive applications," says Ammon. "Now we have a total
media company supporting Fortune 100 firms, government agencies, and
local clients, for everything from television production and
commercials
to interactive training."
Among their clients and partners are InfoFirst and a Sarnoff spinoff,
LifeClips, which is going to use video and compression for an online
retail business. Also with Sarnoff, it interviewed teenagers to
produce
a piece telling how the work environment needs to be changed to
attract
the bright ones.
Stonehouse Media offers support for producers of video production,
animation, and multimedia, also Internet consulting. "A client
who used to ask for video production can now work on the total design
for whatever they are doing, from marketing through training,"
Ammon says, pointing to inhouse services for compression (rich media
for Internet applications) and distribution via tape, CDs, DVD, or
the web.
"Stonehouse takes advantage of what we know about high quality
production and stay focused on design and programming," says
Ammon.
"This keeps us from becoming a commodity. We get great looking
solutions that take advantage of databases but are enticing.
Princeton 08540. Rod Ammon, president. 609-896-9555; fax,
609-896-4477.
Home page: www.stonehousemedia.com.
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This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com
— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
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