Robot fictions: entertainment cultures and engineering research entanglements

in

Yesterday in a "secret robot house" in Hatfield, in the suburbs of London, I gave a quick talk about how popular robot fictions influence the design process. The speech was about the propagation of the robot myth in engineering spheres and the influence of certain topics (robot idioms, shapes, behavior and automation)... and how they appear as inevitable tropes in technological research. I tried to uncover what is hidden behind this phenomenon and looked at the complex interactions between entertainment cultures (Science-Fiction mostly) and scientific research. I've uploaded the slides on Slideshare:

[slideshare id=8330333&doc=robot-hatfield2011-110616134210-phpapp01]

Thanks Alex for the invitation!

Domestic complexity: home(s)

in

Reading Divining a Digital Future: Mess and Mythology in Ubiquitous Computing by Paul Dourish and Genevieve Bell last week-end, I was interested by several things. Among others, as I was about to prepare a speech about robot interactions, the part concerning home and ubiquitous computing was of particular interest. Some excerpts I found important:

"That there are so many words, metaphors, and imaginings for home should serve to remind us that homes exist within a wide range of physical, infrastructure, and legislative contexts and that they are also embedded within highly varied systems of meaning. (...) Materially, homes are hugely varied and the challenges of designing for and into these many homes are immense. First, there are the practical considerations: size, density, scale, and history. (...) Second, homes are the sites of a range of social and cultural practices, dysfunctions, and aspirations, even within a single city. There are a myriad of patterns of occupation, floor plans, household size, and composition. (...) Third, few homes operate in a vacuum or complete isolation; they are part of a larger social, cultural, and sometimes physical institutions. (...) Lastly, and complicating the picture still further, the different kinds of metaphors and symbols of and for home mean that things we wrap around design or that we imagine design might implicate - ideas about security, trust, the future, and even the relationship between public and private - are all flexible. (...) this complexity seems at odds with the current, deceptively simple visions of the digital home. Not only is the home in these visions always singular, but it is nearly always unrealistically large, frequently freestanding, connected to the rest of the world only for the provisioning of services, and newly constructed - without legacy hardware, infrastructure or quirks. It is almost always occupied by a heterosexual nuclear family, which is remarkably accident-and-trouble-free and perfectly happy to perform daily tasks and rituals in series or parallel, entirely without incident. (...) these has been visions of domestic life that celebrated technology and its transformative power at the expense of home as a lived and living practice"

Why do I blog this? Some good material here about the problems of "smart homes" and the complexity of context.

Urban dérive on the (urban) information superhighways

in

This video of two Japanese guys using Google Streetview to visit the USA from their living room is quite fascinating.

It's not necessarily the numbers that caught my attention (90 hours, 104,619 clicks, lots of energy drinks). Of course, they're quite extreme but what's curious here is the practice itself. Unlike some commenters who fund it useless and pathetic, I find it rather curious and intriguing as a human practice.

This made me think about a recent project by French writer François Bon called "Une traversée de Buffalo" in which he gives an account of how he lost himself in this area of North America using Google Earth (via).

On the same topic, it's clear that the recent release of Liberty City Streetview map by GTA4net is also relevant (via). It basically allows you to "plunge into the boroughs of Liberty City from the safety of your own chair". But again, this is only a partial view. The point is not just use this as a complement of the game... exploring this Street View map is a game in itself (a playful activity let's say).

Why do I blog this? This kind of (extreme) practice can be considered as an intriguing signal for narratives or services that would tell stories in new ways. A sort of dérive is happening here.

Ursula LeGuin on Science-Fiction

in

Interesting excerpts from Ursula LeGuin's introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness (1976)... about the fact that "science-fiction does not predict":

"though extrapolation is an element in science fiction, it isn't the name of the game by any means. It is far too rationalist and simplistic to satisfy the imaginative mind, whether the writer's or reader's. Variables are the spice of life. (...) The weather bureau will tell you what next Tuesday will be like, and the Rand Corporation will tell you what the twenty-first century will be like. I don't recommend that you turn to the writers of fiction for such information. (...) All fiction is metaphor. Science fiction is metaphor. What sets it apart from older forms of fiction seems to be its use of new metaphors, drawn from certain great dominants of our contemporary life — science, all the sciences, and technology, and the relativistic and the historical outlook, among them. Space travel is one of these metaphors; so is an alternative society, an alternative biology; the future is another. The future, in fiction, is a metaphor."

Why do I blog this? Gathering notes for an upcoming talk about robot, scifi and predictions.

About The City and the City by China Miéville

in

One of the best novel I've read recently was The City and the City by China Miéville. Quick notes I've taken while reading it: What struck me (as well as lots of other readers of course) as fascinating in this book was the role played by the cityscape in the whole narrative. The action takes place in the distinct cities of Besźel and Ul Qoma. However, both of them actually occupy the same physical space. It's the city and the city. Because the citizens chose this separation, Besźel and Ul Quoma are perceived by people as two different cities... which means that inhabitants are taught to "unsee" or "unhear" the persons from the other city:

"They knew I was in Ul Quoma: I could find them and could walk alongside them in the street and we would be inches apart but unable to acknowledge each other. Like the old story. Not that I would ever do such a thing. Having to unsee acquaintances or friends is a rare and notoriously uncomfortable circumstance."

Unseeing, as described above, is supposed to be unconscious. This ability is important because it doesn't mean that people would'nt notice anything (e.g. if you drive in Beszel, you have to be aware of Ul Qoma car presence but you must not see them). This of course means that this ability is taught very early to children and that each cities has its own peculiar design/color/shape/architecture. This "unseeing" process is so deeply grounded in the cities denizens that it almost act as a physical barrier.

The act of ignoring this separation, even by accident, is called "breaching". Illegal passage between the two cities or discussing with an Ul qoman citizen while being in Beszel can be qualified as "breach" (" Someone said graffiti were appearing on walls in Ul Qoma in styles that suggested Besźel artists."). But this is hard to do, as shown by this excerpt:

"An elderly woman was walking slowly away from me in a shambling sway. She turned her head and looked at me. I was struck by her motion, and I met her eyes. I wondered if she wanted to tell me something. In my glance I took in her clothes, her way of walking, of holding herself, and looking.

With a hard start, I realized that she was not on GunterStrász at all, and that I should not have seen her.

Immediately and flustered I looked away, and she did the same, with the same speed. I raised my head, towards an aircraft on its final descent. When after some seconds I looked back up, unnoticing the old woman stepping heavily away…"

Besides, the fact that the twin cities exist in the same physical space leads to highly curious topological problems... such as the intriguing typology of places:

  • Total areas: locations which are entirely in one of the two cities
  • Alter areas: locations which are entirely in the other city (as a resident of your city, you would have to ignore it).
  • Crosshatched areas: places where inhabitants of both cities walk alongside one another (unseeing each other). Most of the crosshatched areas have different names depending on which city you're in. However, some crosshatched locations (such as Copula Hall) have the same name in both city as this place plays the role of a border between the two towns.
  • Dissensi: "As the two cities had grown together, places, spaces had opened between them, or failed to be claimed, or been those controversial dissensi". This is perhaps the most curious

And this is just part of the remarkable vocabulary that the author employed to create this odd geography. See also "fractured city boards", "Schrödinger's pedestrian", "maybe-grosstopic proximity", not to mention Orciny (I don't want to spoil anything about this).

Why do I blog this? I am currently preparing a workshop (planned to be conducted in Zürich at the end of the week) and I wonder whether I could use this spatial typology in the design brief (to engage students in designing locative media based on this universe). Despite the importance of spatiality in this novel, it's curious to see that the various covers do not try to pick on that. I would have been intrigued to see how the cities could have been represented visually.

Recent columns debunking videogame "trends"

in

Two interesting columns on Gamasutra caught my attention recently. Both of them have been written by people I follow for a long time and they both debunk myths about video games. On the one hand, Ian Bogost writes about how hard it is to make games and the inherent problem of "serious games" or "gamification" approaches. His point is that making game is super hard and that making good games to serve external purposes is even harder. Some excerpts I found important:

"key game mechanics are the operational parts of games that produce an experience of interest, enlightenment, terror, fascination, hope, or any number of other sensations. Points and levels and the like are mere gestures that provide structure and measure progress within such a system. (...) The sanctity of games' unique means of expression is just not of much concern to the gamifiers. Instead they value facility -- the easiest way possible to capture some of the fairy dust of games and spread it upon products and services. Games or points isn't the point -- for gamifiers, there's no difference. It's the -ification that's most important (...) In the modern marketing business, the best solutions are generic ones, ideas that can be repeated without much thought from brand to brand, billed by consultants and agencies at a clear markup. Gamification offers this exactly. No thinking is required, just simple, absentminded iteration and the promise of empty metrics to prove its value."

On the other hand, Greg Costikyan gives his perspective on the "social" of social games. He basically wonder about the asocial or even antisocial characters of these games:

" Developers of social games have clearly given great thought to using the social graph to foster player acquisition, retention, and monetization; but as far as I can see, no thought whatsoever has given to the use of player connections to foster interesting gameplay. It's all about the money, and not at all about the socialization.

The peculiarity of this is that social networks are actually far better suited than most online environments to fostering social gameplay. Messaging and chat are built into the system, and need not be separately implemented by developers; but more importantly, the social graph allows players to interact with people who are their actual friends."

Interestingly, Costikyan then describes what could be a "social gameplay": the value of having teams, diplomacy, negotiated trade, resource competition, hierarchy or performative play (not as "winning point to get the best performance", rather "speaking and acting in character").

Why do I blog this? These two columns are important and interesting read as they reduce the inflated reputation of two current "trend" candidates. They also offer relevant counter-versions about what is relevant in game design.

From Hal to Kinect: live visuals, music and body tracking technologies - Mapping Festival Geneva

in

A bunch of curious visuals from the nice media art exhibit at the Mapping Festival in Geneva. A festival dedicated to VJing practices, Mapping combines various events ranging from VJ sets to workshops, conferences and art installation.

In this context, I'll be moderating a conference session called "From Hal to Kinect: live visuals, music and body tracking technologies" on Wednesday 25, at 4:30pm (BAC):

"Recent advances in body-tracking technologies have lead to the emergence of mass-market products that can be repurposed for live visuals and music. The Nintendo Wii, Sony Move and Microsoft Kinect are the most recent ones but other platforms has been used for VJing and live performances. This session will give an overview of the opportunities they enable.

Speakers: Douglas Edric Stanley, Abstract Machine/ HEAD-Genève (FR/US), Jean-Baptiste Labrune, Bell-Labs (FR), James Cui, VJ Fader (US)"

Why do I blog this? Working on the user experience of gestural interfaces for quite sometime, I am curious to see a different pespective here. More specifically, I'm intrigued by how a community such as VJs repurposed gaming platforms for their own goals. Certainly a good domain to see détournement and bricolage for a peculiar angle.

About the influence of failed products on technological change

in

Design failures and recurring non-products is of course a favorite topic of mine. Hence, a paper entitled "The Curious Case of the Kitchen Computer: Products and Non-Products in Design History" by Paul Atkinson appears clearly promising for a Friday afternoon train ride between two European countries.

I wasn't disappointed. This article takes the Honeywell Kitchen Computer, a futuristic computer product that never sold, as a starting point to ask questions concerning design history, the significant agency that non-products can have and the role of a period zeitgeist in design.

The Honeywell H316 was a so-called "pedestal computer", a sort of miniature computer compared to the mainframes, released in the 1960s. They were meant to be used for scientific and engineering calculations, processing business information, file handling and access to pre-punched computer cards. The design of the various models is quite radical with this intriguing pedestal form. As pointed out in Atkinson's paper, "the final result was a futuristically styled, red, white and black pedestal unit that looked as if it could have been taken straight from the set of Star Trek or 2001: A Space Odyssey".

(Image of the Kitchen Computer from Life magazine, 12 December 1969. © Yale Joel/Time & Life Pictures/ Getty Images)

What I found interesting in this article is the description of how a non-product such as his Kitchen Computer can influence technological change:

"As a ‘real’ product, the adoption of a science fiction-inspired form provided the means for Honeywell to promote itself as a progressive company, to differentiate itself from its more mainstream traditional competitors such as IBM, and to align itself with younger, more innovative companies such as Data General Corporation. The fact that actual orders were received for the product despite its being purely a marketing ploy is a reflection of its success and the acceptance of such iconography amongst at least some of its customers. As a non-product, the Kitchen Computer had even more agency. It created a huge amount of publicity for Neiman Marcus and, because of its price, reinforced the position of the company as an exclusive retailer to the upper classes. It also reinforced popular cultural representations of the domestic kitchen as the focus of family interactions with technology in the home, in a variety of fora. In addition, it inspired those working at the forefront of computer developments to realize that, despite the limitations of technology at the time, there was real value in seriously considering a domestic market for computer products. Finally, despite the fact that both the product and the non-product were consumed largely as a piece of visual culture, as a part of the cultural milieu or zeitgeist, they provided very pragmatic, positive results for both Honeywell and Neiman Marcus, as well as having a direct influence on the future direction of the computer industry itself."

Why do I blog this? Yet another great reference for my research about technological, product failures and their significance. Which, by the way, recently led to a French book about this very topic.

Different kinds of feedback of what a robot is perceiving

in

One of the talk at the Robolift11 conference that I found highly inspiring was the one by Pierre-Yves Oudeyer. In his presentation, he addressed different projects he conducted and several topics he and his research team focuses on. Among the material he showed, he described an interesting experiment they conducted about how robot users are provided with different kind of feedback of what the robot is perceiving. Results from this study can be found in a paper called "A Robotic Game to Evaluate Interfaces used to Show and Teach Visual Objects to a Robot in Real World Condition. Their investigation is about the impact of showing what a robot is perceiving on teaching visual objects (to the robots) and the usability of human-robot interactions. Their research showed that providing non-expert users with a feedback of what the robot is perceiving is needed if one is interested in robust interaction:

"as naive participants seem to have strong wrong assumptions about humanoids visual apparatus, we argue that the design of the interface should not only help users to better under- stand what the robot perceive but should also drive them to pay attention to the learning examples they are collecting. (...) the interface naturally force them to monitor the quality of the examples they collected."

Why do I blog this? reading Matt Jones' blogpost about sensors the other day made me think about this talk at robolift. The notion of Robot readable world mentioned in the article is curious and it's interesting to think about how this perception can be reflected to human users.

Lift France 11 program

in

Lift France 11 (in Marseilles) is 7 weeks ahead and the program is now complete. The general theme revolves around radical innovation and disruptions: when (high- or low-)tech contributes to redefining a market's terms of reference, a whole industry, a share of social life, etc. The program basically consists in 5 main sessions with the following speakers :

  1. URBAN - Who needs to become "smart" in tomorrow's cities? with Saskia Sassen, Robin Chase (GoLoco / Meadow Network), Adam Greenfield (Urbanscale) and Alain Renk (UFO / Cities Without Limits)
  2. CARE - Disruptive innovation in healthcare and well-being with Paul Wicks (PatientsLikeMe), Tobie Kerridge (Material Belief), Jonathan Kuniholm (Open Prosthetics Project)
  3. WORK/LEARN: Transforming the way we work, innovate and learn, with John Robb (Global Guerillas), Ville Keränen (Monkey Business) and Geoff Mulgan (The Young Foundation / Nesta)
  4. SLOW - Can we use technology to reclaim control over how we and our organizations manage time? with Alex Soojung-Kim Pang (Microsoft Research / Contemplative Computing), Anna Meroni (Politecnico Milano / Slow Food movement) and Kris de Decker (Low-Tech Magazine)
  5. OPEN - What happens when barriers to innovation become drastically lower? with Juliana Rotich (Ushaidi), Georgina Voss (CENTRIM, University of Brighton) and Gabriel Borges (AgênciaClick Isobar)

In addition, there will be a Masterclass session that will aim at giving learning material about emerging technologies with Remi Sussan, the futures of innovation and innovation management, with Philine Warnke, and the importance of data with Nicolas Kayser-Bril.

Moreover, there's also the open program. Feel free to submit your workshop :)

Potential user experience of pico-projectors

in

There's a currently a lot of interest directed towards screens and ubiquitous displays in interaction design. Interestingly, I've always been ambivalent about this topic and scarcely addressed it in my own research/consulting gigs. However, given that more and more client projects (as well as students/media requests) are related to multi-screen design, I started to collect material about it. The approach, as usual at the lab, is to investigate what one could refer to as the "Long tail of insights", that is to say, research results, informed opinions, expert views or little field observations that go beyond the general discourse about the topic at hand. Concerning multi-screen design, one of the sub-theme that I rarely see addressed consist in the body of work done on pico-projectors. The potential use of built-in projectors in mobile phone seems to be a curious prospect and researchers, designers and engineers of course wonder about what can be done once the camera in phones are not just an input and allow users to create so-called "mobile projections". As a matter of fact, the mobile character of this capability looks intriguing and the next question to be answered here concerns the "real potential uses of projections in the wild".

The uneventful train trip to Paris this morning provided a good opportunity to read a paper about it. Called "Pico-ing into the Future of Mobile Projection and Contexts" and authored by Max L. Wilson and his colleagues from Future Interaction Technology Lab at Swansea University in the UK, it reports the results from a study about how people will want to use such technology, how they will feel when using it, and what social effects we can expect to see.

On the methodology side, the paper adopt an interesting approach:

"Our first-phase study used the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) to elicit the reactions of participants to a range of media regardless of whether they would consider projecting them during undirected usage. In the second phase, we performed a diary study of potential mobile projection scenarios. Although consumer-level mobile projector phones were not available for use or study at the time, we believe that using prototype systems allowed participants to concentrate on the potential use of such devices, rather than the qualities of a finished product. The reactions in the first-phase study also helped to finalise the design of the materials in the second study, which in turn provided deeper insight into the reasoning behind the possible projections recorded in the second"

Some excerpts that caught my attention:

"the study noted a surprisingly negative response to potentially personal content, such as text messages, with some reporting that they felt anxious being asked to project such content on the wall. Further, we saw that public observers showed very little interest in the projections being made by study participants. We did not see any significantly negative responses to projecting in social situations, although people were significantly less anxious about projecting and finding suitable surfaces when not at work. We were also able to identify some usability constraints, where participants expected to be able to control a reasonable amount of focus and projection size within one arm length. For the sake of augmentation, we also recommend that projection technology face the same way as the device’s inbuilt camera.

Our second study revealed more direct insight into the types of content people actually wished they were able to project. Compared to a general study of mobile information needs, we speculate that participants might consider projecting information to solve around two-thirds of the noted scenarios. While a large proportion was time, location and object sensitive, participants also recorded many cases of projecting static text that had no immediate or short-term benefit."

The paper gives some details about surfaces sought for projection, the type of content people may want to project or temporality.

Why do I blog this? being agnostic about this topic, this kind of reading is meant to shape my perspective.

Various clock-like devices to express time in public space

in

Why do I blog this? fascinating towards the diversity of clock-related devices to indicate time in public space. The first one is definitely my favorite as it's sort of absurd.

It's been a while that i collect such examples, I don't know what to do with them. Perhaps something will emerge out of this, a typology or sth else and I'd have to think about a design research workshop with students.

Technological convergence in your toilet

in

Anyone interested in robots and networked objects in multi-functions artifacts may be intrigued by this gorgeous AM/FM restroom radio with telephone that I ran across at the flea market the other day.

This device is an intriguing example of technological convergence, the tendency of certain technologies to be combined in a single device (as opposed to their existence as multiple products).

Of course, it's an example of awkward convergence as you can imagine. However, I definitely find it highly curious. So much so that the use case provided on the package if quite important to observe:

... which is reminiscent of another brilliant (and more recent) converging device found by Fabien some time ago:

Why do I blog this ? basic observation about how convergence can lead to strange solution, especially due to contextual reasons. This led me back to what Henry Jenkins wrote some time ago:

"Rather than a single machine that suits every need, technology is converging into many Black Boxes that address the needs of the consumer depending on the constraints of their situation"

Tensions between #gamification elements and location-sharing in #Foursquare

in

At the recent workshop on Gamification and game design elements in non-gaming contexts at CHI 2011 in Vancouver, there was an interesting paper about Foursquare entitled Gamification and location-sharing: some emerging social conflicts. The paper reports various observations on conflict that appeared between gamification elements (supposed to drive user engagement) and other usage motivations for location-sharing. The results are based on users interviews, surveys and ongoing analysis of real-time ‘check-in data’ involving 20 active foursquare users from Sweden, The Netherlands and the US.

Some examples of the conflicts described in the paper:

  • "Playing for points vs. ‘nonsense’ venues: A way to gain additional points and mayorships is creating new venues to check-into. However, venues that just have been created for ‘the game’, can also be a non-informational annoyance
  • Mayors & badges vs. privacy & identity management: Mayorships are publically visible on users’ profile, and are also shown to any user checking- in to that venue. This means that mayorships can threaten privacy (...) Some participants worried about getting mayorships or badges that would threaten their identity. Would one want to become the mayor of the cheapest eatery in town?
  • Mayorships vs. ownership: A mayorship appeared to communicate not only identity, but also public ‘ownership’ over a place, which was not always desired.
  • Anti-cheating aka ‘you’re using it wrong’: services employing gamification need to consider which messages their ‘game-rules’ send to users who might have very well appropriated the service in other ways.
  • Inappropriate can be more fun: Multiple participants described 'getting caught' and ‘doing it under the table’. Exactly this social unacceptable aspect of using the service also invoked playful behaviors"

It's interesting to see how their results show that game design elements such as mayorships, points or badges can both engage participants and restrict the use of the service.

Why do I blog this? I'm interested in this sort of frictions as they reveal relevant tensions in users' behavior. Mostly because we've been conducting a field study to understand the usage of Foursquare here in Switzerland. I'm looking forward to see the other results from this research team.

A visual taxonomy of objects by emphase.ch

in

An interesting project by emphase.ch encountered at the Panorama exhibit in Geneva last Saturday: ZWISCHENSAISON Knowledge Visualization is a visual taxonomy of an hotel archives (a set of artifacts). The list of artifacts is presented on the first page:

And then, each page keeps the same arrangement with pictograms to describe object traits:

Why do I blog this? Working on the game controller book project, I'm interested in different ways to depict object categories. It's interesting that design research seem to offer various exploration about how to create visual catalogues with compelling solutions like the one above.

The design of cell-phone trees

in

The ubiquitous presence of cell phone towers in urban and rural landscapes have led to protestation against their visual presence (the ugly mast/transmitter aesthetics) and their electromagnetic waves (which are invisible). A side-effect of people's "need" for uninterrupted connectivity, the design and building of phone towers is now influenced by various strategies. One of them consist in the use of camouflage techniques... and obviously the "natural" metaphor plays an important role here, as attested by these examples encountered in Lipari, Sicily last week.

Fake trees such as these palm transmitter species are great candidate but there are also other concealment possibilities such as fake chimneys, cross ("already a transmission tower of sorts", clock tower, water towers, etc.

As pointed out by Rick Miller and Ted Kane in their chapter on mobile phones in The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles edited by Kazys Varnelis:

"the result is the camouflaged cell phone tower, the by-product of the only position available to communities who oppose cell phone towers, that is to demand their invisibility. Hiding its presence from public view, the ubiquitous cell phone tower camouflaged as a palm tree becomes an appropriate icon for the private infrastructural network of our day"

It would be intriguing to discover the whole design and construction process, especially how the the details have been taken care of. See for example the tower base and the antennas below... the design of the trunk, the branches and the leaves is of great quality, leading to some surreal piece of nature. Even more important here is the fact that the tree itself is (or must be) protected because it's an infrastructural installation that have inherent dangers for the genpop (electricity, etc.). The tree itself is just part of this ecosystem of components (electricity adapater, barriers, light system for night inspections, etc).

Why do I blog this? I see this sort of design as a curious sign of how certain norms lead to fascinating (absurd and perhaps depressing) solutions like transmitters concealed in fake trees:

  • Social and aesthetic norms about what should be visible or not and the type of tree/leaves that can be employed in an italian island.
  • Technological norms about how certain technologies should be protected, concealed or be accessible 24/7 (hence the presence of light).