The World Is My Interactive Interface: ubicomp

Maybe this will sprout up on outdoor building walls in a city near you!

There's more to life than a Volvo - Frankfurt 2009
"3D projection and production by NuFormer in coorporation with Saatchi & Saatchi"

RELATED

3D Projections on Buildings: A distinctive way of communicating

Communicating Through Architecture: Media Facades and the Digital Infrastructure The Rathous
Contains an assortment of videos and pictures)

Art and Commerce Meet on Building's Interactive Media Facades
Kelsey Keith, Fast Company, 10/2/209
Book:
Media Facades: History, Technology and Content, M.Hank Haeusler
Media Facades: History, Technology And Content // M. Hank Haeusler

International Urban Screens Association

"Urban Screens are dynamic digital displays and visual interfaces located within urban public spaces. They include LED screens and signs, plasma screens, information terminals and projection surfaces as well as intelligent architectural surfaces and media facades."

"Urban Screens transform the capacity of public spaces to serve as a platform for user-generated civic and cultural expression, community building, multiculturalism and public engagment in issues related to social, cultural and environmental sustainability."

"Through networking, content sharing and joint broadcasting, they constitute a rapidly expanding and still largely experimental global multimedia infrastructure for commercial and cultural exchange."

"The IUSA aims to inform and support the ‘worldwide Urban Screens movement’: the expanding use of dynamic digital displays in public spaces; their considerate and sustainable integration in the urban landscape; and the ability for screen communities to collaborate in the digital space to share content, experience, ideas, innovations and emerging possibilities."

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Martijn de Waal's Blog: The Mobile City - Locative & Mobile Media/Urban Culture/Identity, his post about Towards the Sentient City

I subscribe to Martijn de Waal's blog, The Mobile City: Locative & Mobile Media/Urban Culture/Identity, partly because of my interest in ubiquitous/pervasive computing (specifically how technology can support interaction and collaboration between people across screens of all sizes in public spaces), and partly because I am interested in looking at the ways different disciplines adopt, adapt, and transform emerging interactive technologies.

Martijn is a writer and a researcher who co-founded The Mobile City conference and blog with Michiel de Lange. He is working on a Ph.D. in new media and urban culture, as part of the New Media, Public Sphere and Urban Culture research in Groningen. Martijn spent some time as a visiting scholar at MIT between March and June of this year (2009).

I posted about Towards the Sentient City, an exhibit taking place in NYC from 9/17 through 11/7/09 in NYC, a few weeks ago: Towards the Sentient City: The Intersection of Ubicomp and Architecture, and....? I was planning to write another post about my reflections about the exhibit, but I think Martijn's reflections reach beyond anything I could have imagined.

Below is a link to Martijn's recent post about his reflections about Towards the Sentient City, along with a quote:

Three philosophical questions about the "sentient city" - a response to the exhibition Towards the Sentient City

"At certain points in the history of architecture and urban planning, the internal debate on how to apply new technologies surpasses the boundaries of the discipline. At those times, the hopes and fears found in the disputes between architects, policy makers, engineers and planners are extended to a broader discussion about urban and societal change. Then, the central issue is not merely how to solve a specific spatial problem with the help of new technology. Rather, the debate starts to revolve around its possible impact on urban society at large. What does this new technology mean for urban culture, what impact does it have on how we shape our identities and live together in the city?"

Martijn's three questions form the framework for even more questions, all very important:

Who are we and who is acting?
What can we know?
How should we live together in the City?

At the end of his post, Martijn concludes, "Toward the Sentient City thus doesn't give us any emphatic leads about which way the technology will take us. It succeeds in bringing up many important questions and diverting the discussion on the sentient city from a path of technological determinism to an open ended affair, a concern not just for engineers, planners and architects but for all of us."

Martijn's links at the end of his post are worth a look if this is an area that interests you:

(1) Ann Galloway's PhD thesis A Brief History of the Future of Urban Computing and Locative Media is highly informative in giving insight in different discourses around urban computing
(2) See Manuel de Landa A new Philosophy of Society for a theory of assemblage.
(3) In Smart Mobs, Howard Rheingold has also written about technology and the organization of a commons

Some of Martijn's interesting blog posts:

Picnic 09 Report 2: The City as and Interaction Platform

Storytelling with Locative Media: Michael Epstein's take on "terratives"

Digital Cities 6: urban media/urban informatics and different notions of public space

Mediated Space. Or: How to translate the logic of media into architecture

Handbook of Research on Urban Informatics: a matter of "U-City" or "U-Citizens?"

(Refers to the book, Handbook of Research on Urban Informatics: The Practice and Promise of the Real-Time City Marcus Foth, Institute for Creative Industries and Innovations, Queensland University of Technology, Australia)

The Mobile City website has additional information and links:

About the Mobile City

About Locative Media

The Mobile City Conference '08
(On the site you'll find links to videos and slides from the keynote speakers and additional resources.)

Conference: Connectivity @ IABR (NAi Rotterdam, November 5-12 2009)

The Mobile City's Recommended Readings:

The Architectural League of New York | Publications / situated_technologies publication urban_computing

Now out: Situated Technologies Pamphlets 5 - "A synchronicity: Design Fictions for Asynchronous Urban Computing" with Julian Bleecker and Nicolas Nova

e-cultuur weblog» Weblog Archief » report: gRig seminar on research in new media (Oslo)

Report on the gRig (Guild for Reality Integrators and Generators) seminar on research in new media in Oslo

The ghost in the field – Blog – BERG
Beautiful visualization of the active field in which an RFID chip can be read near a transponder

Digital cities highlights by Anne Galloway / digital_city wired

For those who find the Wired UK special on Digital Cities a tad long to read, Anne Galloway has highlighted some excerpts from the collection of articles.

Wired special: "Digital Cities" / digital_city wired urban_design

Wired has a series of articles about 'Digital Cities'. Topics include: 'Sense-able' urban design, Transport of tomorrow, Words on the street, Your neighbourhood is now Facebook Live

Total Immersion and the “Transfigured City:” Shared Augmented Realities, the “Web Squared Era,” and Google Wave | UgoTrade / augmented_reality

Recommended elaborate take on Augmented Reality

jnd: An emergent vocabulary of form for urban screens « Adam Greenfield’s Speedbird / urban_screens

Interesting take on the aesthetics of urban screens: the paradigm of the just noticeable difference

Martijn also is interested in Digital Media Storytelling and New Media Journalism, topics that I hold close to my heart. I use these techniques in my work with young who have special needs, and also incorporate digital media in my blogs.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Towards the Sentient City: The Intersection of Ubicomp and Architecture, and....?

It seems that my recent blog posts have centered around convergence, inter-disciplinary work, and "transdisciplinarity". Towards the Sentient City is a set of exhibits at the Architectural League of New York is a good example of this concept.

The exhibit started on September 17, 2009, and runs until November 7. This post is a collection of quotes, photos, videos, and links.

About

Towards the Sentient City:

"Over the past several years, as the Architectural League has become increasingly involved in exploring the proliferation of various types of ambient, mobile, and ubiquitous computer technologies, we have often been asked, what does this have to do with architecture? "

"...We are now on the cusp of a similarly fundamental reconfiguration of physical space, one in which a vast and mostly invisible layer of technology is being embedded into the world around us. Using a wide range of complex technologies and devices — from microprocessors and electronic identification tags to sensors and networked information systems — buildings and cities are being transformed, imbued with the capacity to sense, record, process, transmit, and respond to information and activity taking place within and around them." -Gregory Wessner, Exhibitions Director, The Architectural League of New York

Excerpt from the curator's statement:
"Today, as computing leaves the desktop and spills out onto the sidewalks, streets and public spaces of the city, we increasingly find information processing capacity embedded within and distributed throughout the material fabric of everyday urban space. Artifacts and systems we interact with daily collect, store and process information about us, or are activated by our movements and transactions. Ubiquitous computing evangelists herald a coming age of urban infrastructure capable of sensing and responding to the events and activities transpiring around them. Imbued with the capacity to remember, correlate and anticipate, this near-future “sentient” [2] city is envisioned as being capable of reflexively monitoring its environment and our behavior within it, becoming an active agent in the organization of everyday life in urban public space." - Mark Shepard, curator

EXHIBITS

Too Smart City
Video of the Too Smart City project proposal, via Katherine R.'s "You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet!" blog

Too Smart City from David Jimison on Vimeo.
"Too Smart City is a set of three street furniture pieces that come to life with embedded intelligence and robotic systems. The Smart Bench is a gorgeous two-person seater that recognizes vagrancy and is capable of lifting people up and dumping them off. The Smart Sign displays the latest legal codes on its glossy video monitor, pointing at and addressing people as they walk by. The Smart Trashcan is a sleek metal bin that analyzes what is being discarded. Throw the wrong trash away, and the Smart Trashcan throws it right back at you."

Amphibious Architecture

The Amphibious Architcture project was created by xClinic Environmental Health Clinic at New York University and the Living Architecture Lab at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation

Picture from the Amphiobus Architecture exhibit webpage
"Two networks of floating interactive tubes, installed at sites in the East River and the Bronx River, house a range of sensors below water and an array of lights above water. The sensors monitor water quality, presence of fish, and human interest in the river ecosystem. The lights respond to the sensors and create feedback loops between humans, fish, and their shared environment. An SMS interface allows citizens to text-message the fish, to receive real-time information about the river, and to contribute to a display of collective interest in the environment." You can text the rivers: “EastRiver” or “BronxRiver” to 41411

Video from Chris Woebken's Flickr.

Natural Fuse
Electronically-assisted plants that act as energy-producers and circuit-breakers.

According to information on the Natural Fuse website, "Natural Fuse creates a city-wide network of electronically-assisted plants that act both as energy providers and as circuit breakers...Every seemingly helpful device that a human being uses has its own carbon “footprint” which, in excess, can harm other living beings. “Natural fuse” is a micro scale CO2 monitoring & overload protection framework that works locally and globally, harnessing the carbon-sinking capabilities of plants...Natural fuses allow only a limited amount of energy to be expended in the system; that amount is balanced by the amount of CO2 that can be absorbed by the plants that are growing in the system...In the same way that circuit-breakers are useful for preventing excessive current use, so too can the Natural Fuse plants break the CO2 footprint “circuit”." Related Videos can be found on the Natural Fuse blog.

Trash Track
Electronically talking trash!

"Imagine a future where immense amounts of trash didn’t pile up on the peripheries of our cities: a future where we understand the ‘removal-chain’ as we do the ‘supply-chain’, and where we can use this knowledge to not only build more efficient and sustainable infrastructures but to promote behavioral change. In this future city, the invisible infrastructures of trash removal will become visible and the final journey of our trash will no longer be “out of sight, out of mind”...Elaborated by the SENSEable City Lab and inspired by the NYC Green Initiative, TrashTrack focuses on how pervasive technologies can expose the challenges of waste management and sustainability. Can these same pervasive technologies make 100% recycling a reality?" - TrashTrack, MIT's Senseable City Lab

Deployment example.

Trash Tag

inGeo CMA8110 CDMA tracking device by Qualcomm
How the Trash Tracker system works (pdf).

Breakout! Escape from the office:
"Breakout! is a festival of work in the city, that explores the dynamic possibilities of a single question: what if the entire city was your office? Drawing inspiration from the shared office spaces of the coworking movement, Breakout! creates alternative venues for collaborative work outside of traditional office buildings by injecting lightweight versions of essential office infrastructure into urban public spaces." -The Sentient City
Example of a Breakout! session:
"Using the data gathered at the September 28 "Flash Mob Ethnography" session, the group will collaboratively code and analyze the field notes, sketches, photos and video. The group will employ tools from design research methods to visualize key themes from the data."

What is a Flash Mob Ethnography session?
"Taking a cue from an earlier exploration of Japanese convenience stores, we will be conducting flash-mob style ethnographic research. The session will begin with a short introduction to ethnographic research before heading out into the field. Working in teams of 3, we will explore and document the city using field notes, sketches, photography and video. Finally, we will pool our research together as a group and conduct some collaborative coding though a discussion of key themes. Please bring the following: laptop, digital camera, video camera, sketch book, pens, markers and pencils."

RELATED
Situated Technologies
I'll post my reflections related to this exhibit if I have the chance to get to NYC to see it! The closing reception is Saturday, November 7th.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Mobile Art && Code Workshop, November 6-8, Carnegie Mellon University.

The following information is from the MOBILE ART CODE Ning social network.

Art & & Code is an event series and online community dedicated to the democratization of computer programming for artists, young people, and the rest of us.

This November 6-8, we continue our successful workshop/lecture series with MOBILE ART & & CODE: Mobile Media and Interactive Arts - a symposium on the aesthetic and tactical potentials of mobile, networked and locative media. The three-day event will feature intimate, practical, arts-oriented programming workshops for popular mobile platforms (such as the iPhone, Android, Nokia Smartphones, Arduino, SMS, and Asterisk PBX systems) along with an all-day series of free lecture presentations that contextualizes the use of these technologies in a variety of contemporary critical, artistic and design practices.

MOBILE ART && CODE is made possible by a generous grant from Microsoft Research, with oversight by the Center for Computational Thinking at CMU. The ART && CODE symposium series is a project of the CMU STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, directed by Golan Levin. If you have questions or concerns about MOBILE ART && CODE, please email Golan Levin at golan@andrew.cmu.edu.

MOBILE ART && CODE is a symposium on the artistic and tactical potential of mobile, networked and locative media: November 6-8, 2009 at CMU!

Conference Schedule
6 Nov (Fri): Three-Hour Workshops, 9am-Noon and 2pm-5pm ($75/ea.)
7 Nov (Sat): Free All-Day Artist Presentations + Evening Performances
8 Nov (Sun): Three-Hour Workshops, 9am-Noon and 2pm-5pm ($75/ea.)

Workshop Schedule for MOBILE ART CODE:

WORKSHOPS	Instructors	Friday 11/6 AM (9am-12)	Friday 11/6 PM (2-5pm)	Sunday 11/8 AM (9am-12)	Sunday 11/8 PM (2-5pm)
Introduction to Arduino	Gaye	$75 + 75m	$75 + 75m
Design Tech. for Mobiles	Bleecker	$75	$75
FlashLite on Mobiles	Kam et al.	$75		$75
iPhone + openFrmwks.	Akten & Gage	$75		$75
Interactive SMS	Evans	$75			$75
Python + Nokia	Scheible		$75	$75
Interactive Telephony	Van Every		$75	$75
Android + Arduino	Anderson & Marlinspike		$75 + $120m		$75 + $120m
Scrapyard Challenge!	Brucker-Cohen & Moriwaki			$75 + $50m. Note: 6 hours.
Master's Seminar	Behrendt, Paulos et al.			$75	$75
iPhone + Pure Data	Steiner			$75	$75
How to Make Ringtones	Foley				$25

Some of the workshops do not require any programming experience, and only two (iPhone + OpenFrameworks and Android + Arduino) recommend that participants have some programming experience.

Cross-posted on the Interactive Multimedia Technology blog.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

The World is My Web Browser: Interactive Technology in Public Spaces

Off-the desktop Interactive technologies are spreading quickly, across many platforms. It seems that within the next 3-5 years we will be able to have instant access to a social and dynamic web, with information and entertainment at our fingertips, anywhere we go.

The "world-as-web-browser" concept is one I've touched upon in the past. I'd like to focus on this topic in future posts.

I came across some of the information in this post on the Future of Media Blog,maintained by the folks at the Interpublic Emerging Media La b, based in California. This blog is a must-read!

The Saatchi & Saatchi ad agency in the UK created interactive games that provide people waiting in bus shelters the opportunity to pass the time by bashing digital falling eggs.

A more utilitarian approach to interactive touch screens is the EyeStop bus stop, a concept created by researchers MIT's SENSEable City Lab, along with the city of Florence and the city's transit service:

MIT

MIT researchers unveil the EyeStop: "Bus stop of the future" can sense its surroundings (pdf)

SOMEWHAT RELATED

IPG Future of Media Blog

(Cross-posted on the Interactive Multimedia Technology blog.)

Monday, May 4, 2009

Pachube and the Internet of Things: Design, Ubicomp, RFID, and Usman Haque

I have a growing interest in the emerging "web of things", and figuring out how computers and gadgets can inter-operate more smoothly. This summer, I'm planning on playing with my RFID toys and learning more about wireless sensor networks. I can't wait until waiting for my MIR:ROR and Nabaztag arrive. I'm also looking forward to exploring the Pachube concept.

So what is Pachube?

Pachube: "A web service that enables people to tag and share real time sensor data from objects, devices and spaces around the world, facilitating interaction between remote environments, both physical and virtual."

You can sign up for Pachube on the web, and learn more about it by exploring the following links:

Pachube, Patching the Planet: Interview with Usman Haque
Ways to User Pachube
Pachube Website
Pachube Tutorials
Extended Environments Markup Language
EEML library for Processing

Pachube iGoogle Gadget: Create a monitoring dashboard

Usman Haque is an architect and director of Haque Design + Research.

"The domain of architecture has been transformed by developments in interaction research, wearable computing, mobile connectivity, people-centered design, contextual awareness, RFID systems and ubiquitous computing. These technologies alter our understanding of space and change the way we relate to each other. We no longer think of architecture as static and immutable; instead we see it as dynamic, responsive and conversant. Our projects explore some of this territory."

(cross-posted on the Interactive Multimedia Technology blog)

Friday, March 6, 2009

More cool stuff from the Web of Things blog...

I just had to share a little more info from Web of Things blog! Enjoy.

Discussing the Web of Things Lift '09

From the InternetS of Things to a Web of Things

View more presentations from Dominique Guinard. (tags: iot internetofthings)

Internet of Things: Roadmap for the Future

LIFT Workshop

View more presentations from vladounet. (tags: internet lift09wot)

Video from the Internet of Things Workshop at Lift'09

LIFT09 - Internet of Things Workshop - webofthings.com from vlad trifa on Vimeo.

Sample of Interesting Links from Web of Things:
Designing with RFIDNatural Interaction: The Real World, Naturally Interactive
Adam Greenfield's Speedbird
Yanko Design: Form Beyond Function
sixthsense: a wearable gestural interface (MIT Fluid Interface Group)
Palantiri Systems: Next Generation Device Connectivity - Collaborative Devices
Manifesto of Open Disruption and Participation (Eric Paulos, 2/20/09)
blip: Berkeley IP Implementation: IPv6 for TinyOS
Tom Igoe: notes on physical interaction, sustainability, networks, simians, cats, and more
also try: Tom Igo.net

For animal lovers: Sniftag

"The SNIF Tag gives you, a dog owner, peace of mind and a unique insight into your pet's activity around the clock. By monitoring your dog's actions at home, in the park, and when you're apart, the SNIF Tag lets you track behavioral patterns, determine fitness levels, and better understand the life of your dog."

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Locative and Mobile Media & The Mobile City Blog

In February 2008, a conference was held at the Netherlands Architecture Institute: The Mobile City: A Conference on Locative Media, Urban Culture and Identity

"The Mobile City is an initiative that focuses on locative and mobile media, urban culture and identity. We aim to bring professionals from different disciplines (academics, urban professionals, media designers, artists, telecom operators, etc) together to address the question: what happens to urban culture when physical and digital spaces merge?"

I think it is important to take an interdisciplinary approach when we think of emerging technologies, especially those that play out in public spaces, especially if we are interested in promoting these technologies for the "greater good".

It is worth exploring the Mobile City Blog. You can link to videos from the keynote speakers, find information about related conferences, such as the Digital Cities 6 Workshop (June 24, Penn State University), and check out the blogroll, which I've included in this post for convenience.

I especially liked the thoughtful review by Michiel de Lange of a chapter of a new book edited by Rich Ling and Scott W. Campbell. "The Reconstruction of Space and Time: Mobile Communication Practices"

I'll be visiting the site again soon, partly because there are quite a few interesting links. I just visited Christian Nold's BioMapping.net site. Biomapping is a community mapping project in which people weare Galvanic Skin Response recording devices as they explore their environment to create communal emotion maps that include data as well as personal observations. The project has grown and now has several map projects with their own websites. Christian Nold's main website is also worth exploring.

Backround
"The Mobile City is an initiative by Martijn de Waal and Michiel de Lange. The first Mobile City Conference was organized with the Netherlands Architecture Institute and the research groups New Media, Public Sphere and Urban Culture at the University of Groningen, and Playful Identities at the the Erasmus University Rotterdam & University of Utrecht. Tijmen Schep is an occasional contributor to The Mobile City Weblog."

Here is the awesome Mobile Cities blogroll:
‘Playful Identities’ - Michiel de Lange Adam Greenfield Air Roots
Andrea Gaggioli Anthony Townsend ArchiNed - de architectuur site van Nederland
Blog Like You Give A Damn Changeist cityofsound Digital Urban
Digitaler Urbanismus Doors of Perception weblog
Home - Berkman Center for Internet & Society IFTF’s Future Now Informationlab
Institute for the Future - Future Cities Institute of Network Cultures Jan Chipchase
LIFT Conference Blog Mark Shepard Martijn de Waal Mimi Ito -Weblog
MIT Convergence Culture Consortium: Weblog Mixed Realities MobHappy
Mobi Mundi Mobilities neo-nomad New Media & Society recent issues
New Mobilities: Ce-more about what’s happening in the mobile world
Nicis Institute - Nicis Kenniscentrum Grote Steden pasta and vinegar
Performative Environments Planetizen Purse Lip Square Jaw
Relevant History Rhizome Ronald.waag.org Ruimtelijk Planbureau
Situated Technologies Small Surfaces Smart Mobs
Smartspace - Smartspace Journal Space & Culture The End of Cyberspace
The Mobile City The Where Blog thinkwhere Timo Arnall
urbanscreens.org varnelis.net - network culture Villes 2.0
we make money not art weekly INCITE Where
Where 2.0 - O’Reilly Conferences zengestrom.com

The World Is My Interactive Interface

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

More links to posts, videos, and pics about interactivity, NUI, HCI, interactive infoviz, multitouch, UX...

EyeTube for YouTube! Eye-gaze interaction software, free and downloadable from GazeGroup

Open-source Eye-tracking: The ITU Gaze Tracker 2.0 Beta, Via Martin Tall, NUI Group Member

3D Browser-based Science Games from Muzzy Lane: T...

Links to posts, videos, and pics related to interactivity and technology

Friday, December 4, 2009

More Urban Screens and 3D Media Facades