Hertzian space and architecture

Obviously related to my talk about the invisiblity of ubicomp, Kazys Varnelis wrote an intersting A+U paper that you can find on his blog about how we live in "Hertzian space" the cloud of electromagnetic radiation that surrounds us and wonder how architecture that actively engage Hertzian space would look like:

"Two examples tentatively suggest ways in which urbanism might take into account our radically changed environment. The first of these forces us to confront the invisible forces in our environment. The second proposes to warp the very fabric of the city. (...) In Osman and Omar Khan’s project “SEEN-Fruits of Our Labor” the designers crafted (...) acrylic screen, (...) The designers set out to foreground questions of labor in the United States by asking members of three groups crucial to the Silicon Valley economy—technology workers, undocumented service workers and outsourced call center workers—the question “What is the fruit of your labor?” The Khans displayed the responses on the screen via a grid of infrared LEDs. (...) viewers saw a message that otherwise existed only in Hertzian space, invisible to the eye, on their camera screens (...) Robert Sumrell and I produced the second piece, “Windows on the World” (...) Windows on the World proposes to site multiple portals in multiple cities to create a true world planetary network, based not on capital and planning but on chance encounters. Remixing Hole in Space and Guy Debord’s map of the “Naked City,” we propose a telematic dérive, with each portal becoming what the Situationists called a plaque tournante, a center, a place of exchange, a site where ambiance dominates and the power of planners to control our lives can be disrupted. "

Why do I blog this? documenting interesting examples of the interlinkage between the digital and the physical, as usual.

Renamed bus stops

Seen in Torino, last week. The practice of changing names (and also to put a random "grazie").

Salient design factors for kinetic user interfaces

In a recent issue of Communications of the ACM, Designing kinetic interactions for organic user interfaces, Parkes, Poupyrev and Ishii reflects on the notion of "kinetic user interface":

"Kinetic interaction design forms part of the larger framework of Organic User Interfaces (OUI) discussed in the articles in this special section: interfaces that can have any shape or form. We define Kinetic Organic Interfaces (KOIs) as organic user interfaces that employ physical kinetic motion to embody and communicate information to people. Shape-changing inherently involves some form of motion since any body transformation can be represented as motion of its parts. Thus kinetic interaction and kinetic design are key components of the OUI concept. With KOIs, the entire real world, rather then a small computer screen, becomes the design environment for future interaction designers."

They also discuss "salient design parameters and research" issues to consider when utilizing kinetic motion in interaction design:

"Form and Materiality. In order to recognize and comprehend motion, it must be embodied in a material form. Hence, a crucial and little-understood design parameter is how properties of materials and forms affect motion perception and control. (...) Understanding the material affordances, their interaction with the user and other objects, environmental light and sound is crucial in designing kinetic interactions.

Kinetic Memory and Temporality. While computational control allows actuated systems to provide real-time physical feedback, it also offers the capability to record, replay, and manipulate kinetic data as if it were any other kind of computational data. We refer to such data as kinetic memory (...) for example, objects can fast-forward or slow down motion sequences, move backward or forward in time; or the objects can "memorize" their shape history and share them with other objects.

Repeatability and Exactness. We can easily distinguish artificial motion because of its exact repeatability. In designing kinetic interactions, repeatable exactness is the simplest form of control state, and in many behaviors it is easily identifiable.

Granularity and Emergence. If this principle of dissecting form and mechanics into single elements—kinetic phrases—is combined with contemporary digital control structures, new materials, and actuators, it becomes possible to imagine a system where a kinetic behavior could be designed both concretely and formally."

Why do I blog this? working recently on tangible UI project in which sensors can be put on everyday objects, the ideas expressed in that paper are relevant to what sort of design parameters should be taken into account (and serves as design constraints).

Yet another incredible architecture: Lingotto rooftop

Last week in Torino, Italy, I spent some time in the Lingotto building which was a huge FIAT car factory built from 1916 and opened in 1923. A place Le Corbusier called it "one of the most impressive sights in industry", and "a guideline for town planning". It's now a complex, with concert halls, theatre, a convention centre, shopping arcades and the hotel where I was staying.

The most impressive part if of course the rooftop track for testing cars. I ain't a car enthusiast by any means but that piece of architecture is very intriguing to observe. Especially, if you consider how it has been pointed out as an "example for the future". According to Jonathan Glancey in Architectural Review:

"The Futurists claimed that 'Fiat Lingotto was the first built invention of Futurism', although Matte-Trucco (1869-1934) was a level-headed, if adventurous, structural engineer, much indebted to Albert Kahn, and very much not a Futurist. His famous reinforced-concrete factory boasting a test-bed race-track on the roof, and now remodelled as a civic, commercial and arts centre, by Renzo Piano (AR November 1996), was designed very much in line with Giovanni Agnelli's curt instruction: 'You will not be allowed to enter the Biennale Exhibition. You must have no aesthetic concerns. That's how you must work for industry.' Matte-Trucco did not question his FIAT boss. The result, in any case, was a masterpiece, a building that was all but mythical before it was completed."

Wandering around the track is still a curious experience, especially when the weather's very hot. The ground looks like a skateboarding grip and the curves are quite steep as attested by how Mr. Greenfield is taking care not to slip:

Moreover, the structure is not only about a flat rooftop... there is also the path to get the car on the very roof:

Why do I blog this? Like the Atomium, la Grande motte, this piece is inspiring to me as it exemplifies the avantgarde of the industrial era... the very presence of a tremendously big testbed as part of the architecture of the factory. Surely an interesting remnant from a past future, relevant to keep in mind when doing foresight research. Both in terms of urban and design research.

Bruce Sterling about failed futures

In his talk at Frontiers of Interaction in Torino, Italy last week, Bruce Sterling dealt with the failure of technology and why we don't have jetpacks or flying cars:

"to say a word is not the same as engineer a thing (...) we/people think it's a smooth and practical process but it's not (...) they don't fail because of science they fail because of political frontiers between groups that we don't know how to cross (...) the real frontiers are no longer engineers' law like Moore's law or Metcalfe's law but social and legal practices"

Why do I blog this? this echoes with the list of failing factors I am trying to write-up for a project.

Delineating the future of making

The IFTF recently released an interesting "future map" called "Future of Making Map:

"Two future forces, one mostly social, one mostly technological, are intersecting to transform how goods, services, and experiences—the “stuff” of our world—will be designed, manufactured, and distributed over the next decade. An emerging do-it-yourself culture of “makers” is boldly voiding warranties to tweak, hack, and customize the products they buy. And what they can’t purchase, they build from scratch. Meanwhile, flexible manufacturing technologies on the horizon will change fabrication from massive and centralized to lightweight and ad hoc. These trends sit atop a platform of grassroots economics—new market structures developing online that embody a shift from stores and sales to communities and connections."

Why do I blog this? this topic quite resonates with the near future laboratory purposes and concerns. It's interestingly frames in that document showing the driving forces (eco-motivation, rise of amateur-professionals...), the signals from today and trends.

21st Century Digital Boy

"I cant believe it, the way you look sometimes,Like a trampled flag on a city street, oh yeah,

And I dont want it, the things youre offering me, Symbolized bar code, quick id, oh yeah,

cause Im a 21st century digital boy, I dont know how to live but Ive got a lot of toys, My daddys a lazy middle class intellectual, My mommys on valium, so ineffectual, Aint life a mystery? "

Bad Religion - 21st Century Digital Boy Why do I blog this? listening to old tunes while reading critical studies about new media often leads to interesting encounters and resonance.

Map for blind

How to represent a map for blind people. Seen this week in Torino.

Overtrusting technology?

Some device usages sometimes rely on a great confidence of certain technologies.

Change in urban environments in the past centuries

In their introduction to the great "Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilites and the Urban Condition" book, Graham and Marvin describes the 5 most important changes cities and urban infrastructures have experienced in the past century:

• "the intensity, power and reach of those connections [water, electrical, heat, car infrastructures];
• the pervasiveness of reliance on urban life based on material and technological networks and the mobilities they support;
• the scale of technologically mediated urban life;
• the duplicating, extending variety and density of networked infrastructures;
• the speed of sophistication of the more powerful and advanced infrastructures."

(Of course the discussion of change here is limited to infrastructures) why do I blog this? because it simply gives the global pictures in which one can think about the present and future situation of cities. Always interesting to keep in mind while working on urban computing and city futures projects.

From Ubiquitous Technologies to Human Context (World Congress of Architecture)

Yesterday in Turin, Italy for the World Congress of Architecture (UIA) where I've been asked by the organizers to put together a session about ubiquitous computing and human needs/desires. It was called “From Ubiquitous Technologies to Human Context" and three great speakers joined me on stage: Adam Greenfield, Jeffrey Huang and Younghee Jung. See the text I wrote for the conference leaflet below. The recent dissemination of information and communication technologies in the everyday environment, also referred to as “Ubiquitous Computing”, is expected to influence the design of our environment. More specifically, tangible examples concern the use of location services to track people’s or goods movement in space, temperature or pollution sensors to collect information about the state of the environment and enable the reconfiguration of building component based on these information. Other examples are not so distant in the future as shown by different examples. For instance RFID chips in the London subway allow people to swipe access card against metro terminal to enter the underground premises. Or, Singapore’s road transit system is based on wireless communication and vehicle identification to provide drivers with different pricing schemes.

In the field of architecture, some envisions the presence of “ambient displays” on walls, ceilings or billboards to represent various flows of information integrated as visualization in the everyday human environment. A tremendous amount of projects in this field also deals with interactive table that aim at supporting collaboration and new affordances for collective usage. Operating at a different level than interactive furnitures, smart home systems are meant to allow voice control, distant access to home features (like starting the heating before being at home) or automating certain functions. At the city scale, location-based services refer to applications that take advantage of the users’ location in space to provide them with dedicated services such as navigation aid, the tracking of individuals or the possibility to attach text or audio messages to specific places. Some applications running on cell phones allow people to assign ratings to places such as restaurants or clubs so that others passers-by can be notified about the quality of the place.

Such services are enabled by wireless communication, the combination of the availability of sensors, identification technologies and the miniaturization of chips in charge of data-processing. As this description reveals, the inclusion of technologies in our environment and objects appears to be highly technical and mostly driven by the development of new technologies. There is indeed a growing gap between what technologies make possible and their relevance to people. In lots of case the scenarios promoted by designers of these services are often transferred from past work in other fields such as business applications or collaborative work. The representation of the user propelled by the early scenarios of ubiquitous computing is often the one of a quest for efficiency and very limited models of people’s desires. Translated into the home domain or the city level, these scenarios are often irrelevant or purely instrumentalist vision of individuals and groups behavior. They for example assume the need to fill “dead moments” when waiting for a bus or the absolute need to “connect” to other people, regardless of the actual context, mood or culture of the users of such systems. In addition, the notion of “automation” is taken for granted, as if every action should be transferred to machines that may anticipate what the users want to do based on previous behavior that was “sensed” and “mined”. Moreover, the notion of “user” itself can be questioned when you have services that operate invisibly in the environment without any specific sign of their presence to remind people that they can be tracked or that sensor collect information about their behavior.

In the context of day about “Hope, Future, Technology”, this session will address the relation between these technological innovations and human needs as well as desires. We would describe how there is a crux need to take people, their culture, desires and context into account in the building of such applications.

I've put my introductory slides here. The whole point of the session was to show why architects should pay attention to ubiquitous computing:

• Designers of such systems are implicitly dealing with architecture in their projects BUT they are not architects so they apply their previous knowledge: generally utilitarian, “design an augmented house like designing MS Word”
• Ubiquitous computing is a complex problem, lots of issues need to be taken into account: human expectations, acceptance of automation...
• Start the dialogue to create this “parallel world”

Thanks Raffaela Lecchi for the invitation, thanks Adam, Jef and Younghee for participating!

Digital Yet Invisible: Making Ambient Informatics More Explicit to People

In Torino today for the Frontiers of Interaction conference where I've just given a talk entitled "Digital Yet Invisible: Making Ambient Informatics More Explicit to People". Slides can be found here. The talk was about the paradoxical relationship between visibility and ubiquitous computing, a topic I already tackled in Paris few months ago:

"To some extent, the “disappearing computing” paradigm that Mark Weiser described has been some taken to the letter that digitality services are invisible. There is a very intriguing and recursive tension here that can be summarized by this dilemma: “how to make visible invisible techniques that aim at making visible the invisible“. And what often happens is that this lead to a situation where people think technology works like magic."

Thanks Leandro for the invitation! The video is available here.

Visualizing the information distance between cities

(via), City Distance is a neat project by bestirario that aims at measuring informational distance between cities. What this means is simple: it creates a visual representation of the the world comparing real geographical distances with informational distances as defined by Google:

"This tridimensional scheme represents the strength of relations between cities from searches on google. The main idea is to compare the number of pages on internet [sic] where the two cities appear one close to the other, with the number of pages they appear isolated. This position indicates some kind of intensity of relation between the cities. After measuring this “google proximity” we divide it by its geographical distance. By this process we obtain an indicator about the strength of the relation in spite of the real distance, a kind of informational distance between cities."

Which is what the authors of this project calls the "google platonic distance between cities" (See the website for more information about how to compute this).

Why do I blog this? A very curious and insightful representation comes out from this sort of viz. I guess the granularity can be different and reveal finer-grained patterns at smaller levels. Yet another interesting type of urban visualization.

Nintendo DS and Sony PSP information architecture

Last year, during a project with Nokia and the EPFL Media and Design Lab, we "mapped" the structures of the "digital world" as represented in mobile devices (cell phones, iphones, ipods, portable consoles). The point was to graphically represent the information architecture so that we could understand how it evolves over time in different devices. Francesco Cara, design strategist at Nokia is talking about it in his LIFT08 presentation.

Anyhow, I was in charge of looking at mobile entertainment devices (such as the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP, among others) because one my research them is about the exploration of portable technologies to understand the implications in terms of mobility and new interactions. The underlying idea, consists in analysing the usage of the technologies to determine opportunities and constraints for design.

This type of quick graph is interesting at it represent different information architecture strategies (menus globally speaking) and to so in a quick glance how Nintendo simplifies interfaces with a limited depth unlike the PSP. This graph was a first step before other more evolved representations mostly focused on cell phones that I can't show here (non disclosable yet).

Monocle on cities

The latest issue of Monocle has some interesting article about city life. Of course, there is the Monocle spin that some may not like but there are interesting bits and pieces.

An old french bread vending machine

At a certain moment in time, bread used to be sold in vending machine in France, as shown by the picture below taken last week in Arles. It may have been perceived dreadful (or the machine broke) and the owner it would be better to pain it using the same color of the baker building. Depending on the culture what is acceptable to be sold in vending machine?

Presence of radio waves, revealed

Making radio waves more explicit through stickers.

Urban safari in modern architecture

Each time I'm around Camargue (South of France, near Montpellier), I try to spend time around La Grande Motte. An intriguing beach resort built in the late 60s, early 70s, the place was formerly a desert of sand dunes and lagoons where giant mole hilles ("mottes" in French) has been designed. The architecture was based on the Inca pyramids models in Mexico, designed with terrace systems along with triangular, round and rectangular features to provide wind and sun shields and sea views.

In France, bashing this sort of architecture is a sort of regular sport, although lots of people go there and enjoy the place. The unity and the coherence of the place is amazingly interesting, and although this city has been created ex nihilo it definitely feels more urban than lots of other beach resorts in the area. Some urban aspects are important: such as the fact that the beach and the building are not separated by a road with cars (but only a promenade for pedestrian and bikes).

Wandering around the city after midnight with a digital camera, food bits and flip flops is a curious experience, especially when the place is not yet crowded with semi-naked humans flocking there for the grandes vacances. The first picture shows a global view taken form the harbor showing the odd ambiance mixing modernist architecture and weird lightings. The other pictures I took give the impression of a retrofuturistic spin that you can also get when you go to University of California Irvine.

Strange angles, fantastic cladding textures are also deeply intriguing in this night atmosphere. Lots of small details, big shapes that you discover and rediscover and stumble across a group of teenagers riding their bikes on curved shapes, old cats trying to get some food and a lost tourist sat on the beach with a laptop.

Lots of people consider this sort of urbanism as a big (and ugly) failure, I don't by that argument and I would be interested in scratching more the surface to understand what works and what doesn't to understand how that modern urbanism project has some good lessons to draw. Surely the low presence of cars would be an interesting topic. Also, I am pretty sure the infrastructure layer of the city may be fantastic to inspect more closely.

GPS versus maps versus direct experience

In Wayfinding with a Mobile GPS System, Ishikawa et al. examined the effectiveness of GPS navigation in comparison to paper maps and direct experience. Since it's a psychological study, the study is focused, more specifically on the user's wayfinding behavior and acquired spatial knowledge. The results show the following patterns:

"Based on information received from one of these three media, participants walked six routes finding the way to goals. Results showed that GPS users traveled longer distances and made more stops during the walk than map users and direct-experience participants. Also, GPS users traveled more slowly, made larger direction errors, drew sketch maps with poorer topological accuracy, and rated wayfinding tasks as more difficult than direct-experience participants. Characteristics of navigation with these three learning media and possible reasons for the ineffectiveness of the GPS-based navigation system are discussed."

go4walk describes some of the factors of explanation:

"The researchers have suggested a number of possible reasons for their observations - the users' unfamiliarity with the technology, the small size of the screen that prevented users seeing their current location and the target at the same time, and the temptation to look at the GPS screen rather than the actual surroundings. This third factor is interesting because it suggests that over reliance on a GPS makes it hard to build up a mental model of your surroundings - where you are and how you got there. The obvious consequence is that should your batteries fail or your GPS 'lose' its satellite fix for some reason - you would become instantly lost with no idea how to get back safely."

Why do I blog this? the paper is interesting as it tries to define the differences between specific medium. Results are intriguing and the last one concerning the over-reliance on the screen versus the surroundings is an important one. It echoes with some results we noticed in the CatchBob experiment with people puzzled by the mismatch between the screen and the context.

Toru Ishikawa, Hiromichi Fujiwara, Osamu Imai, and Atsuyuki Okabe. 2008. “Wayfinding with a GPS-Based Mobile Navigation System: A Comparison with Maps and Direct Experience.” Journal of Environmental Behavior, vol. 28, pp. 74-82.

Why do you read Pasta and Vinegar?

Time for a quick address: it's been 5 years that I keep this blog and things have changed over time. Topics discussed here vary but revolves around ubiquitous computing, tangible interactions, innovation and foresight, user experience and research. My situation also evolved from the one of a master student to the one of an independent researcher with a PhD. Of course I know some of the readers and got some feedback about what they find here but I wanted to know more about it from people I do not necessarily know. So two questions: (1) Why do you read Pasta and Vinegar? and (2) What do you find here?

Not sure whether the answers would have an influence but I am curious about it.