Tangible/Intangible

Another Furby hacking

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eecue.com is into Furby hacking! Here is his research agenda with this marvelous toy:

The coolest thing I saw once I opened up Furby was that the board designers were nice enough to leave nice large pads for the RSC-4128 diagnostic interface, which hopefully should allow programming of the Furby. I am not sure, but I think the diagnostic port is a serial interface. I have ordered the development kit from Sensory Inc, and I'm sure this will help answer some of my questions. If I do end up being able to alter the programming / data on the Furby here are some things I plan on doing:

Give Furby a more colorful vocabulary Teach Furby some tasteless jokes Change Furby's voice tone to be less cute and more evil Give Furby a funny accent and maybe a lisp and a twitch Hook up some of the unused I/O ports to control other things (the chips has 24 I/O ports with 10mA outputs) Expand Furby's memory Utilize the voice recording function of the RSC-4128 Make Furby a voice controlled DTMF dialer Utilize the MIDI synth contained in the RSC-4128

Here is what I plan on doing even if I can change the code or data:

Add nicer switches to the make the Skeletal Furby easier to Pet Feed Tickle Turn off LEDs that light up when Furby moves Volume control for the speaker Put the Furby head on a Robosapien body

Make your own electronic sewing kit.

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Sewing Circuits is a project by some folks I met in Japan: Leah Buechley Nwanua Elumeze and Sue Hendrix (from University of Colorado), a construction kit and acompanying activities that will allow kids to learn about circuits through sewing.

Each kit contained a patch of fabric, a fabric switch, two LEDs, a needle, conductive thread, and a battery attached to snaps. The girls designed images that incorporated the lights and switch, drew their designs with fabric markers and then sewed the lights and switch to their patches, creating a simple series circuit

In order to make your own electronic sewing kit, go check this page.

Intriguing Toys, an LBS for kids

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Today I went in a toy shop to buy some presents and I stumbled across this very curious Spy Gear by Wild Planet Toy, among I others I noticed: The Spy tracker system: "Set up three secret spy trackers, draw a map on your control panel showing where each one is, and you will know where and when intruders (e.g., little sisters or parents) have entered the secured zone (...) Track movement up to 75 feet away. Includes cool tracking headquarters case with light-up display, audible warning signals and 3 remote motion sensors. Works indoors and out. ". Better than the follow-your-kids-with-a-GPS, it's a "be-tracked-by-your-kids". Note the vocabulary deployed: "you will know where and when intruders (e.g., little sisters or parents) have entered the secured zone " (well of course there is the spy rethoric). Now, things are reverse, there are location-based services for kids!

There are also an eavesdropping device in the form of a pair of glasses or of a little car or as a pod. Besides, the night vision goggles looks cool. My favorite is definitely the Eye-Link Communicators: a headset display and arm-mounted keypad to transmit silent messages to other "agents".

Finally, while venturing around on the web to find these toys, I was amazed by the comments/reviews, see for instance: "The worst part is that the batteries are EXPENSIVE and kids NEVER remember to turn it off because the switch is so small and almost hidden. The batteries ran down after about an hour of play and about an hour of sitting in the room before he remembered to go turn them off", "This is a frustrating toy because it looks cool, and might even be worth the price if it weren't so easy to forget to turn off and had a bigger switch that is clearly marked "on" and "off."", "A Kid's Review: I go this for my birthday. It works poorly, and i can barely hear any better than i can without it"... Of course some are less pertinent but funny: "I am a twenty-year-old professional secret agent, and was delighted to find this ultra-cool-looking piece of equipment at such an affordable price"...

Garment-Augmented Technology: Cell phones and Shoulder Pad

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A Shoulder Pad Insert Vibrotactile Display by Aaron Toney, Lucy Dunne, Bruce H. Thomas, Susan P. Ashdown describes a project that aims at integrate a vibrotatcitle display and support electronics into a standard clothing insert, the shoulder pad.

The shoulder pad in particular was chosen as a highly useful garment insert because of its common integration into the standard business suit, one of the most culturally pervasive garments in western society. (...) The objective for this project was to develop a tactile display contained within a standard shoulder pad that could present a stimulus to the user. More specifically, the display needed to be capable of presenting several distinct stimuli in multiple locations at once, and it needed to maintain the the functions of a shoulder pad: shape, stability, and flexibility.

The pad is meant to display to mimic social conventions such as tapping on the shoulder area for alerts or guidance. One of the authors, Bruce Thomas, reports that:

"As one example, we are working on a set of pager motors integrated into a shoulder pad for a business suit," Thomas said. One idea is to have silent vibration patterns -- similar to custom ring tones -- coded to incoming phone numbers. "This way, when you are in a meeting you have a better idea of who is trying to contact you and you are not always pulling your phone out to see who is calling,"

...

Wearable computing and Mobile computing convergence

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Via Roland's sunday trend: What Would You Do with a Wearable Computer? By Mark Long.Here is a summary of the pertinent statements the article presents:

  • "Although we've been talking about wearable computing for a decade, it is only now that the general public gets what that is, there's still a long way to go before the technology is embedded right into our garments." (Michael Sung)
  • "we could start taking steps in the right direction by putting advanced technology in the electronics devices that people are actually willing to carry for extended periods, such as cell phones or wrist watches."(Michael Sung)
  • "The whole wearable-computing space is folding into the mobile-computing environment these days, and it is becoming tough to draw any lines of distinction between the two" (Bruce Lambert)
  • "Early efforts to introduce wearable computers failed because of what used to be perceived as the inherent "dork factor,", "When you used to see a person talking to himself while walking down the street, you'd have thought he was crazy. But with Bluetooth headsets and other wireless technologies so prevalent today, we now see this type of activity as normal" (Stephen Glaser)

Although there are some issues I don't agree with ("We see the biggest market growth coming from people having video streamed to a cell phone," ) the article gives a good picture of how computing is now pervasive.

CaffeMug: a tangible interface for regulating caffeine consumption

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Previously, we had the mediacup designed by TeCo that I blogged about last year: "an ordinary coffee cup augmented with sensing, processing and communication capabilities (integrated in the cup's bottom), to collect and communicate general context information in a given environment.":

Now there is CaffeMug by Neeti Gupta, Kazue Kobayashi, Jason Nawyn, Jun Oishi, Jennifer Yoon .

a ceramic coffee cup that has been augmented with computational capabilities to help users monitor and regulate their caffeine consumption. Caffe Mug features a visual display that consists of four circular illuminator nodes that glow in accordance with the user’s caffeine levels. The visual display provides an appropriate mapping between the accumulative process of caffeine intake and the summative qualities of illuminating multiple feedback nodes. Caffe Mug is offered as an example of how computational augmentation can transform everyday objects into agents for behavior change. With Caffe Mug, we explore the effectiveness of embedding subtle “ambient” feedback into devices that enable certain behaviors. We believe that this form of embedded feedback will play a central role in the development of more effective behavior change technologies.

Symphony-Q: A Support System for Learning Music through Collaboration

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Symphony-Q: A Support System for Learning Music through Collaboration by Kusunoki, F., Sugimoto, M., Hashizume, H presented at the CSCL Conference 2002 in Boulder.

This system integrates a sensing board and a computer, and is used for collaborative learning in a face-to-face setting. One of the aims of Symphony-Q is to enhance music experiences: children who do not have music skills can easily participate in music learning, enjoy making sounds, and play rhythmically to music in collaboration with others. (...) The system creates an immersive environment by using augmented reality technology, and allows learners to play music by placing pieces on a board in a face-to-face situation

PhD position at the lab

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We're looking for a PhD student at our lab: PROJECT Group mirrors provide users with a reflection of their collaborative processes. The noise sensitive table is an example of interactive furniture based on the concept of group mirror (http://craftsrv1.epfl.ch/research/interactivetable/). Its matrix of LED, embedded in the physical table, provides users with a representation of their social interactions. The table namely reflects turn-taking patterns when students work collaboratively. The peripheral perception of this feedback allows them reflecting on the group verbal interaction or on individual contributions and, finally, deepening learning and regulating their collaboration. The first prototype of the noise sensitive table showed the interest of the concept. Continuing this project now requires improving the software detecting speech configuration and develop adequate visual grammars for the feed-back. This project overlaps the domains of roomware and computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL).

POSITION A PhD position, for 3 years is offered. The gross salary is approx. 3600 Swiss Francs per month. The PhD candidate will participate into a doctoral program at EPFL (12 credits).

PROFILE The candidate will join the EPFL doctoral program in computer science. He must have a strong background in computers science and interest for research in collaborative activity, roomware or human-computer interaction. Knowledge in signal processing would also be appreciated. Working language is English.

FUNDING This project in funded by an internal source for three years.

START Spring 06 (as soon as possible).

TEAM CRAFT (http://craft.epfl.ch ) is a learning technology lab, with a focus on technologies for collaboration. Related current projects focus on mobile technologies, locative media and interactive furniture. CRAFT is an interdisciplinary research team, combining computer science, educational research and cognitive psychology. EPFL (http://www.epfl.ch ) is the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. It has about 6000 students a 5000 staff and about the 10th European University for the quality of its research and as the 1st university worldwide with respect to the geographical diversity of its staff. The campus is located on the beautiful lake side, in front of the mountains. You may ski in the morning and sail in the afternoon.

APPLYING? In order to postulate for this job, you should first be accepted by the EPFL doctoral school. You can get the application forms there: http://infowww.epfl.ch/Imoniteur/doctoral_web.htm (Choose the ´ Computer, Communication and Information Science ª doctoral program).

For more information: jean-baptiste.haue (at) epfl (dot) ch

Pervasive computing on the road

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Pervasive computing for road trips is a project by Marc Böhlen, Jesse Fabian, Dirk Pfeifer, and JT Rinker from The MediaRobotics Lab, University at Buffalo In this project, setudents had to design applications using sensors (temperature sensors, 2D accelerometers, miniature color cameras, an OBD-II diagnostic interface, and a microprocessor-based control environment) to react to the experience of being on the road. One of the project explored the possibility of using the changing scenery as an input into a massage seat:

The RGB vibrator extracted a histogram of the miniature camera’s three main color bands and mapped them to motor commands for a massage seat, resulting in situation-specific massages while driving. Blue colors will generate a lower-body massage, red colors an upper-body massage, and green colors a middle-body massage.

Another project was about soft toys collecingt image and vibrational travel data and relay it to a base station:

a student integrated the miniature camera and a 2D accelerometer into two stuffed toy animals. As the car drove around, the camera-enabled toy recorded the optical flow of the changing scenery and the accelerometer-enabled toy registered large bumps on the road. As the vehicle approached home, the toys sent their data via wireless link back to the garage where a screen greeted the returning passengers with a free-form interpretation of the data acquired during the trip.

Augmented Reality Game Design

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Some lessons and insights about Augmented Reality/Pervasive games are described in this document by Bruce Thomas, Wayne Piekarski, Benjamin Avery and Joe Velikosvky. It's actually an overview with some results that concerns AR Quake, 3 Moon Lander and 3D Sky Invaders. What is interesting is that they deal with gameplay/design issues as well as human-computer interaction topics (like hardware weight or interfaces). There are some relevant information, especially with regards to feasibility issue (difference between indoor/outdoor platforms for instance).

This document is produces by a-rage (an acronym for : Augmented Reality Active Game Engine), a spin-off company from the University of South Australia. The purpose of A_Rage is to commercialise outdoor augmented reality gaming technology developed at the Wearable Computer Lab at the University of South Australia.

Toaster prints weather forecast on bread

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I am sure this will be blogged and reblogged everywhere but I like this concept: using bread as a display device , for instance to show weather forecast (seen in The Register):

Robin Southgate's Java toaster, a device he assembled as part of his final year design project at Brunel University in England. The toaster dials a freephone number to get the weather forecast and burns the appropriate symbol on a piece of toast.

Telegotchi

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Another cool project developed at the Georgia Tech Mobile Technologies Group: Telegotchi

Telegotchi is an electronic pet based game for your mobile device. However, unlike tradition e-pet games, the emotional state of your pet is linked to the physiological state of other players. There are two types of players in this game, ``Pets'' and ``Adopters''. Pets wear a small, wireless sensor that measure physical/physiological responses and have a corresponding e-pet persona. Adopters are the caregivers for the e-pets. An e-pet personality is based on the stress and activity levels of the corresponding pet player. Adopters can interact with their e-pet in one of two ways: (1) SMS with the pet player directly; (2) interact with e-pet within your mobile device (allowing the pet player to influence the e-pet persona, but not be directly involved in the adopters game). Adopters should play with their e-pet when it is bored, tell the e-pet jokes when it is sad, and take the e-pet for walks when it is feeling lazy. At the end of the day, Adopters can rate how they like their e-pet, and have the option to exchange them for a new e-pet. Likewise, interactive pets can rate their owner and have the option to stay with them or run away. Thus, players can compete to be the most loved pet and/or adopter.

Playing Pong on Cell-Phones

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Gesture-based games using camera phones is a project carried out by the Georgia Tech Mobile Lab

We have developed a collection of mobile phone games that incorporate physical gesture interactions. Users interact with the game by physically moving the phone in free space. For example, in Pong, a user moves the phone left and right to control the paddle. The games do not rely on special motion sensors. Instead, they use the mobile phone's camera as the motion detector. By using computer vision techniques like motion blur detection and optical flow it is possible to detect up to 6 degrees of freedom. We have developed three entertainment applications to explore this application domain. The first is a simple single player Pong game. The second is a Doodle application that demonstrates the various degrees of freedom. The third is a multiplayer version of the Pong game that leverages the Bluetooth capabilities available on many camera phones.

Why do I blog this? their system seems to be compelling: instead of using motion sensors, they take advantage of the camera lens, through motion detection. I am curious to know the accuracy of such a system to embed the tangible interactions they describe.

Last issue of Vodafone's Receiver

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I just saw the last issue of Vodafone's Receiver which seems to be a great wine. There are papers by Mark Pesce, Jonathan Donner, Marc Prensky, James Katz,Mark Lowenstein,Nathan Eagle and Alex (Sandy) Pentland, Lars Erik Holmquist, Sara Price and Yvonne Rogers and Jeff Pierce.

Sara Price and Yvonne Rogers's Designing new learning experiences with pervasive technologies, Lars Erik Holmquist's The mobile user experience - how boundaries between devices are starting to disappear are of particular interest with regard to my work. More and comments about those later on here.

A study of martial art in mixed reality

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I think I alreadyRegine blogged about Kick-ass Kung-Fu last year. It's a mixed reality game that merges virtual and real worlds to let players control a Kung-Fu game with their movements.

What is interesting is that, the designers conducted some studies about its usage:, 46 persons tried the system: Hämäläinen, P., Ilmonen, T., Höysniemi, J., Lindholm, M. & Nykänen, A. (2005). Martial Arts in Artificial Reality. In Proceedings of Conference of Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2005), 2-7 April 2005, Portland, Oregon, USA.

Various factors are studied. However the most interesting investigation is certainly the motion exageration which seems to be an intriguing factor to investigate. I guess it might contribute to the 'fun' of the game.

According to our experience, Kick Ass Kung-Fu can augment and motivate martial arts and acrobatics training, at least at beginner and intermediate levels. For more advanced technique and combat training, the users wanted the game to be more realistic. Our low-level computer vision system allows multiple players and practically all weapons, but in the future, we will consider model based computer vision for increased realism. Using a skeleton model would enable you to block attacks and interact more realistically with the virtual environment. However, realism poses challenges in interaction design as well as technology, since it is nontrivial to control an avatar that reacts to the environment. Currently, the mapping between the user and the avatar is one-to-one, except with respect to vertical position. The mapping breaks if the avatar can trip over virtual obstacles without real-world counterparts, or if impact forces are applied to the avatar.

Although motion exaggeration was found fun in the game, many experienced martial artists requested a training mode with realistic motion and enemies.The Kick Ass Kung-Fu user interface can be considered to develop motor skills and fitness, but from an educational point of view, this is only part of the experience.

Ubiquitous-Computing System for Learning Japanese Polite Expression

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Tonight, Hiroaki Ogata will present their paper about an ubiquitous-computing system for learning japanese polite expression. I think it's going to be close to the demo we had at CRAFT when he visited us last year. At that time he showed us 2 systems:

JAPELAS (Japanese polite expressions learning assisting system). This system provides learner the appropriate polite expressions deriving the learner’s situation and personal information. (...) JAPELAS provides the right polite-expression that is derived from hyponymy, social distance, and situation through the identification of the target user and the place.

The second system is called TANGO (Tag Added learNinG Objects) system, which detects the objects around learner using RFID tags, and provides the learner the educational information.

In those projects, the context (room for instance) is detected using RFID tag and GPS.