The city, being measured

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The city being measured Some measurement devices, capturing and collecting data about the urban environment (paris above, geneva below).

Urban computing measurement device

The sort of stuff which allows some people to design mash-ups, chronotopic representations and visualizations.

Tesla on wireless electricity

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Electricity Being involved in a project about the Internet of Things and electricity consumption led me back to some stunning texts by Nikola Tesla, written back at the end of the 19th century.

For instance, in "On Electricity",

"I wish much to tell you on this occasion—I may say I actually burn for desire of telling you—what electricity really is (...) But we shall not satisfy ourselves simply with improving steam and explosive engines or inventing new batteries; we have something much better to work for, a greater task to fulfill. We have to evolve means for obtaining energy from stores which are forever inexhaustible, to perfect methods which do not imply consumption and waste of any material whatever. (...) In fact, progress in this field has given me fresh hope that I shall see the fulfillment of one of my fondest dreams; namely, the transmission of power from station to station without the employment of any connecting wire. Still, whatever method of transmission be ultimately adopted, nearness to the source of power will remain an important advantage."

Also more to draw from World System of Wireless Transmission of Energy:

"The transmission of power without wires is not a theory or a mere possibility, as it appears to most people, but a fact demonstrated by me in experiments which have extended for years. Nor did the idea present itself to me all of a sudden, but was the result of a very slow and gradual development and a logical consequence of my investigations which were earnestly undertaken in 1893 when I gave the world the first outline of my system of broadcasting wireless energy for all purposes. (...) The transmitters have to be greatly improved and the receivers simplified and in the distribution of wireless energy for all purposes the precedent established by the telegraph, telephone and power companies must be followed, for while the means are different the service is of the same character. Technical invention is akin to architecture and the experts must in time come to the same conclusions I have reached long ago. Sooner or later my power system will have to be adopted in its entirety and so far as I am concerned it is as good as done. I"

Why do I blog this? of course Tesla's exhuberant (and ultra-positivist) claims are kind of weird today (although you can find them stated by lots of people) but what I find intriguing here is how his long-chased goal is still a research purpose lately. Some great lessons about the relationship between time and innovation. If your read his stuff, you can notice how the end of the 19th century was described and seen as an accelerating moment in time, where innovations was sparkling here and there "like never before".

Locative versus non locative social practices

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In her short paper entitled Understanding Socio-locative Practices", Ingrid Erickson describes her research project, which aims at understanding the motivations behind and impacts of what she calls "new socio-locative practices: geotagging online photographs or microblogging using location-based presence cues. In particular, she focused on two recent social practices that have locative and non-locative components: photo sharing on Flickr (with and without geotags) and "broadcast microbloging" via Jaiku (locative) and Twitter (non-locative). Her objective is the following:

"to compare two sets of locative and non-locative practices to assess how, if at all, the introduction and use of locative information in social, digitally-mediated interactions is beginning to evoke new ways of relating among people and between individuals and place."

She then reports on a preliminary study she carried out, which aimed exploring the perceived difference between locative metadata attached to an object and to a person. To do so, she both interviewed industry representatives/researchers and users (experienced and non-experienced):

" Findings from the pilot study revealed that experienced subjects framed both practices as opportunities for broadcasting within a social context regardless of the prevailing rhetoric that normalized the use of social mapping applications primarily for finding others. "

She is now investigating the roles played by location in the broadcast practices of individuals within social interaction orders. She is contrasting the usage of Flickr between groups who use geotags and groups who don't, as well as comparing usages of Jaiku (locative) to Twitter (non-locative). Why do I blog this? Mauro and I approached that topic in our PhD research, although our research angle was more psychological than sociological. Look forward to read the results!

Wii-like consoles

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Digging some material for a project about gestural interfaces in France lately, I stumbled across this sudden (and curious) surge of Wii-like platform, see for example these 3 devices:

First, the technigame, a very rouge game console which allows to play bowling/soccer/tennis with a stick that has "infraroufe" connectivity (the typo is funny). The game seems to be entirely ripped off from the Sega Master System reshuffled with manga-style characters in a very weird way. The name itself is also stunning.

Then you have this other "technigame" version sold at the lowcost shop "La foirfouille" for 39.99euros. it looks like a Wii although reshaped by people who misunderstood Karim Rashid's blobject concept.

Perhaps, the "Kiu" by Videojet is a tad more personality, with its own globular shape. The console only offers 5 built-in games.

Why do I blog this? It's always intriguing to look at product copies as they are generally curious attempts to re-appropriate ideas in a new way. From a more abstract POV, it also shows how certain people think the Zeitgeist is. What seems to be the value proposition here is clearly the price, ranging from 40 to 90 euros, cheaper than Nintendo's platform. However, the only thing these devices appears to bring to the user, apart from the nasty wii-ripped shape, is the use of gestural interaction (as if it was the only innovation on the Wii). Of course, in addition, the way these devices are advertised, using the family-tech momentum of the Wii, is revealing.

That said, I haven't tested these consoles (yet).

Overmodern in the present

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Marc Augé on space and place issues regarding subway practices in this interview:

"JPC: The subtitle of Non-lieux is "An introduction to an anthropology of the overmodern." What can you say about this phrase?

MA: The word "overmodern" is an attempt to suggest the logic of excess at work in our present-day modernity. There is first of all an excess of information, making us prisoners of the news--as if history had caught up with us in the form of news. Yesterday's news becomes history, already just barely perceptible. It ages even more rapidly than fashion, of which it is an accelerated form.

There is also an excess of space that paradoxically amounts to a shrinking of space: we now feel we live on a finite planet where all we can do is go around in circles. (Pascal's anguish is democratized, so to speak.)"

Why do I blog this? simply because this is one of the starting point for the Lift09 program. As Augé formulated, we're kind of stuck in present-prison, which made the future vanish as he also described in his latest book: "Où est passé l'avenir).

Where did the future go? Beyond robotic houses and 3d videophones, as well as deterministic mindset, are there any interesting changes under the glossy surface of iphone releases? That's what the Lift conference in 2009 will try to address.

Remediating both gramophone and photography with a tape recorder

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There is this moment in time when companies (after accounting computations and equation solving) release this sort of things and wonder about what sorts of added value it will have for people. The tape recorder was not primarily marketed as a music-playing device. It was meant to store memorable moments (babies), funny situations (snoring people? wet farts?), “voice letters” and the brave “sound hunting”. That's the topic Karin Bijsterveld tackle in her paper What Do I Do with My Tape Recorder …?’: sound hunting and the sounds of everyday Dutch life in the 1950s and 1960s (Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television Vol. 24, No. 4, 2004).

Above all the use case scenario envisioned by audio-tape designers and engineers, the "sound hunting" one is the most intriguing with all these weird photos with people bringing recorder here and there. There is an inherent poetry in this will to capture the sound of the environment. This hobby held for a while and is not a bit defunct; it's surely curious though as attested by this quote from a BASF ad campaign:

"Today’s hunters no longer turn to the woods or fields, but to the noisy big cities. Instead of banging rifles they take their silent tape recorders with them. These modern day hunters call themselves ‘sound hunters’. Instead of hunting for deer, foxes and rabbits, they are after sounds and noises. To be sure, sound hunting is no less exciting than hunting in the green fields"

The paper reports how companies came out with this "sound hunting" hobby as a way to engage people in the usage of their product:

"Apparently the recorder’s usefulness had to be established against all odds, for tape recorder books also highlighted, and exasperatingly so, that after a short period of great enthusiasm many people no longer knew what to do with their tape recorder. (...) other publications underlined that the tape recorder, unlike the gramophone or the radio or TV set, did not produce sounds automatically, but that this quality depended on the effort and creativity of the user and that therein was the secret of the satisfaction the device could give. (...) the enthusiasts and manufacturers of tape recorders tried to link up the tape recorder fad with hobbies and leisure activities that were already familiar: photography, writing letters, amateur music-playing, learning languages, tinkering, and even cooking, painting, reading and, increasingly so, music listening. (...) It is of course a common and often successful marketing ploy to link up a new technology with old and familiar practices "

Why do I blog this? I enjoy reading material about history of sciences/techniques lately as they always give interesting ideas or case studies regarding the user experience of technologies. In the present case, the tape recorder history seems to give an interesting instance of how a "new media often incorporate elements from the practice of older media". As we can realize now, the tape recorder tried to remediate both gramophone (recording and listening to music) and photography (through "sound hunting"). While the former remediation was a success, the latter only lasted few years and is now almost forgotten.

Escape mechanism for location-based services

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As stated by Roy Want and colleagues in 1993 in their paper that describes "The Active Badge Location System"

"there will always be some days when for whatever reason somebody does not wish to be located. The location system tracks badges and NOT people. Anybody wearing a badge can remove it and leave it on a desk. The Active Badge system will then be misled into locating that person in an area that has been chosen for this deception. This kind of escape mechanism is not an undesirable system feature and may be an important factor in making this system acceptable for common use. "

Spectrum range and human activities

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This colorful diagram depicts the allocations of frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum in the US. It's stunning to see how revealing the comparison between different media/communication system and the spectrum range they "inhabit". For instance, blue is “tv broadcasting". Navigation is very present too.

Why do I blog this? Lots of stuff to analyze with these inscription, it's intriguing to see what you can draw in terms of social organization (as well as assumptions about society) from technical diagrams like this. A nice exercise for the bored reader, try to find 3 hidden patterns about human activities in this representation.

On a more user-centric angle, see also “the bubbles of radio”.

The sociality of the play setting

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In People, places, and play: player experience in a socio-spatial context, De Kort and Ijsselsteijn (Computers in Entertainment (CIE), 6(2), April/June 2008) discuss the "situatedness" of digital gaming. That is to say, the socio-spatial contingencies of the player experience. Of interest here is the exploration of how co-players or the audience, as well as the spatial context can shape the player experience:

"This social context cannot be described by the presence of others alone. It also encompasses the player’s ability to monitor other players’ actions, performance and emotions. It includes the other's role in this setting – acting or observing, competing, co-operating, or co-acting. And it comprises their opportunities for verbal and non-verbal communication. Together, the social affordances and the objective characteristics of the game and play context that contain them define the 'sociality' of the play setting. (...) The presence of others, or social presence, is seen here as a continuous dimension (as opposed to a dichotomous one) that varies based on the level of perceptual access to the real or virtual others, their communicative realism, and a shared behavioural engagement. "

Why do I blog this? I've always been intrigued by the role of audience/bystanders/co-located people in gaming situations, and of course of they influence the game experience. One of the topic I find intriguing is how game design can benefit from this and explicitly create interactions that would take advantage of the complexity of the social setting.

User experience of potentiometer in gaming

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DS controller An interesting add-on for the Nintendo DS is this lovely potentiometer by Taito, somewhat reminiscent from paddle controller. Using a geared potentiometer actuation mechanism, the user experience is quite basic with brick-games such as Arkanoid. Rotating that sole button is intriguing and quite smooth. Of course some folks nailed it down more thoroughly and manage to control Mario Kart DS. Surely something to think about tangentially to this.

From speculative meals to design

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A one-day trip to Paris in the TGV gave me plenty of time to skim through Speculative visions and imaginary meals: Food and the environment in (post-apocalyptic) science fiction films by Jean P. Retzinger (Cultural Studies Vol. 22, Nos. 3-4, May-July 2008, pp. 369-390). The paper interestingly addresses how science fiction highlight dream and anxieties of the present, as particularly shown by the depiction of food. In an insightful content analysis, the authors describe how food scenes can be seen as witness of "popular perceptions about nature, technology, and humanity" or a "liminal cultural symbol".

Some excerpts I found interesting:

"Familiar foods serve as an anchor in an altered world (evoking both nostalgia and parody), whereas unfamiliar food may become one of the clearest measures of how far we have journeyed from the present. (...) In nearly every instance where food is prepared, shared, and eaten in science fiction films, it aids in what Vivian Sobchack (1988) describes as science fiction’s central theme: a ‘poetic mapping of social relations as they are created and changed by new technological modes of ‘‘being-in-the-world’’ ’ (...) The presence of food at the critical junctures in which the familiar and the strange, the past, present, and future all collide lends materiality to the answers being worked out on screen. (...) Science fiction food scenes help obscure, expose, perpetuate, and challenge the divisions of culture and nature. "

Lots of interesting examples ranging from futuristic food representing a nostalgia for a world that has been lost to unfamiliar meals (with shape or color betraying people's expectations) in "alienated" places. Why do I blog this? Well, although one might find weird that I take a look at food issues, the questions (as well as the methodology) described in this paper is relevant to whatever object you can find in science-fiction production and their resonance in design in general. In this case it's about food, but if you look at other artifacts (be it Marty McFly's shoes in Back to the Future or BG4's flying gear), it's definitely encounters with claims of what the author refers to as "past and present, nostalgia and progress, memory and desire, familiarity and difference (...) and the significance of these many issues and the choices made to satiate our needs and our desires.".

So what is the take-away here? as it seems, sci-fi movies, as exemplified by food scenes, explore moral aspects of production, consumption and object appropriation showing both constant design patterns (nostlgia from the past?) or unfamiliar/alienated depictions (fear from an uncertain present?).

Spontaneous kid play activities with cell-phones

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Yet another interesting reference for a project about children and mobile gaming devices (ranging from the Nintendo DS to cell phones): In the hands of children: exploring the use of mobile phone functionality in casual play settings by a swedish team of researchers: Petra Jarkievich, My Frankhammar, and Ylva Fernaeus (taken from the Mobile HCI conference 2008). The paper reports the results of a field study concerning swedish kids (10-12 y.o) and their use of mobile phones in indoor and outdoor settings. The authors mention that they were interested by unsupervised social play and "spontaneous play activities" taking kids as a particular use case of mobile devices target. The locus of their study was therefore peculiar: situations where children were able to play fairly undisrupted for a longer period of time, and in explicit social settings. This is why they chose play centres located in parks. In terms of methodology, it's a mix of observation and kids interview (focus groups) about cell phone usage over the course of 6 weeks.

A quick overview of the results (although reading the whole finding section is very important to get the sense of what happens):

"The first general observation concerns the dual nature of the phones; simultaneously being serious and important communication tools for parents, as among the children being treated and valued primarily as resources to act locally in the group (...) Sharing media content was one of the key activities that we observed and seemed to play a central role in these respects, where individual ownership of the media content was assessed and valued largely based on its social context. (...) Our second general observation has to do with the skills that the children displayed at using the different features of the technology, and how these were constantly appropriated in a variety of ways. Existing physical play activities were sometimes altered and expanded to suit the technical resources, and the discovery of new functionality also inspired entirely new play scenarios. The children thereby also made use of functions in the phones to do things that these functions were clearly not intended for. We also observed several ways to overcome, and even make use of, the technical limitations of the devices. This suggests that children at this age put much value into the freedom of creating their own play scenarios, as a way to make meaningful use of the technologies at hand. (...) Our last more general observation is related to the long-established worry that computing technology may make children less physically stimulated, often favouring passive forms of learning, and how it has tended to force children’s play environments to move indoors."

And the following "implication for design" is also intriguing:

"some of the most meaningful and interesting technical functions were those that allowed users to invent and develop their own activities. We see no reason to suspect that this would not be a much appreciated feature also among adult users, at least in certain settings"

Why do I blog this? accumulating material about kids and mobile devices for a client project about mobile gaming. I am preparing a field study about that topic and try to get both methodological/results from other researchers. Reading the findings also worth it as it shows mobile phone usage is articulated with kids games such as 'cops and robbers'.

WASD, ESDF, IJKL et al

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WASD WASD according to the Wikipedia:

"WASD is a set of four keys on a QWERTY or QWERTZ computer keyboard which mimics the inverted-T configuration of the arrow keys. These keys are often used to control the player character's movement in computer games. W/S control forward and backward and A/D control strafing left and right. Primarily, WASD is used to account for the fact that the arrow keys are not ergonomic to use in conjunction with a right-handed mouse.

Some gamers prefer the WASD keys to the arrow keys for other various reasons, including the fact that more keys (and therefore, game commands) are easily accessible with the left hand when placed near WASD. Left-handed mouse users may prefer using the numpad or IJKL with their right hands instead for similar reasons.

After being popularized by first-person shooters, WASD became more common in other computer game genres as well. Many of the games that have adopted this layout use a first-person or over-the-shoulder third-person perspective."

There are other alernatives such as WQSE, ESDF (sometimes preferred because it provides access to movement independent keys for the little finger), IJKL (common in browser games because employing the arrow keys woud make the window to scroll and thus hinder gameplay), and of course the unix-based HJKL. Why do I blog this? documenting different styles of interaction, it's intriguing to see how the arrow key configuration evolves and mutates.

"Designed by an engineer"

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The city of Lausanne is very proud to have the first swiss subway system (opening very soon). After two years of constructions, some new urban elements are appearing and it's funny to see the pride of the persons who took care of that. See for example this stunning sticker that is pervasive around the new subway entrance: "Designed by an engineer"

It basically says "Conceived/designed by an engineer", I wonder about the background decisions that led to this sticker campaign and find it utterly fascinating. Also what will be people's reaction? Does that make you more confident before taking that elevator?

Of course, I am always thinking how OTHER stickers (such as "Designed by a crocodile wrangler" or "Built by a chicken sexer") would do.

Internet of Things+PicNic

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If you by any chance you go to PicNic next week in Amserdam, be sure to check this nice special event called "Internet of Things: Toys for hackers or real business opportunities" put together by Vlad Trifa:

"The purpose of this session is to raise awareness that a new ecology of tiny interconnected objects - the Internet of Things - is quickly and silently pervading even the most intimate corners of our lives. Still, many companies are reluctant to invest in this field, as these devices are perceived as unreliable toys that are not mature enough to be turned into real products. As a counterpart of the Mediamatic Hacker’s Camp - where the focus is on brainstorming and fast prototyping of new gadgets and ideas - this special event will focus on what happens when such an idea gets turned into a commercial product. To encourage research in this field, six world-class experts in this field accompanied with a bunch of interactive demos will present how they have transformed some toys for hackers into readily available products used both in research and industrial applications."

With good people such as David Orban, Mike Kuniavsky, Rafi Haladjian and others.

"Making" WiFi

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Yet another one(presence of wifi in Geneva, revealed on a tree)

My interest in the invisibility of the digital (on par with its pervasiveness in the physical) led me to Katrina Jungnickel's research project called Making Wifi. Her work basically explores the role and importance of visual representations and practices in the making of a new digital technology: Wireless Fidelity (WiFi):

"Drawing on an ethnography (participant observation and interviews) of the largest not-for-profit volunteer community WiFi network in Australia, she examines how members design, make, tinker, break, fix and share a wireless network that spans across the city of Adelaide. To do this she foregrounds the visual representations members make in everyday situated practice and examine what types of work they do. She shows how members regularly encounter trees, thieves, animals, neighbours, legal restrictions, technical complications, a myriad of materials and the weather in the daily practice of making WiFi. However, rather than filtering out and tidying up mundane mess, members build it into their visual practices. They make WiFi because of uncertainty and ambiguity, not in spite of it."

More specifically, she is interested in DIY as well as the role of mess as a conduit to new forms of expression and innovation:

"One thing I’m currently exploring is the paradox implicit in DIY WiFi. If WiFi is an invisible, fragile, temperamental and complicated technology that predicates meticulous precision, advanced technical skills and abstract diagrammatic schema then what constitutes DIY or "homebrew" high tech? How do members negotiate the intersection of wireless technology and tinkering? What is the role of hands-on knowledge in making, understanding and innovating and how, if at all, does a hands-on engagement influence their relationship to the technology and the network as a whole?"

More on her research blog Why do I blog this? it seems a relevant exploration of intriguing DIY practices as well as situated practice regarding technological development, always good to read/investigate to understand the complexity of technology and how it is hybridized with other elements (be they legal restrictions or the presence of animal). Would be nice to read the whole phd or papers. Personally, it's in this sort of research that I like reading thick description of how design and usage, the kind of material I like skimming as case studies of "messy" innovation.