"in", not "on" the network

It's 2009 and we have to make choices, as proposed by Julian Bleecker in A Manifesto for Networked Objects — Cohabiting with Pigeons, Arphids and Aibos in the Internet of Things few years ago: "we'll have to begin choosing our prepositions with care — we are now in an era of pervasive networks and...

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Beach computing

Seen this afternoon in Marie-Galante (a french island in the Caribbean sea), a desktop PC screen that someone tossed 2 meters from the sea. Computing is reaching the very end, isn't it? Last post for 2008. ...

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Protected device

Interestingly, this radio has been protected by a ziploc because of its context of use (the bathroom). Sometimes, the context dictates a necessary protection to the owner... who reported me how she ingeniuously had to use it as the room can be highly humid. ...

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Lovegety: proximity-based matchmaking

Doing some research for my book project about locative media, i was curious about early version of proximity-based interactions. The Lovegety was an interesting primer, especially given that it was a real product. They actually shipped more than 350,000 of them in two and half months after the rele...

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Wembley moustraps as blogjects

It seems that mousetraps too can become blogjects: "[Rentokil] added a small sensor and a wireless module to its traps so that they notify the building staff when a rodent is caught. This is a big improvement on traps that need to be regularly inspected. A large building might contain hundreds of t...

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Virtual/Physical touch interface

Same interface for metro tickets vending machine in GTA 4 (above) and in Paris (below). Why do I blog this? this is an interesting connection between the digital and the physical: this a digital interface found in the physical environment which found its way in a digital environment. Quite recurs...

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Urban honey

Certainly one of the most intriguing urban project I've encountered lately: miel béton (which means "concrete honey" in french): the production of honey on urban roofs in the northern Parisian suburb of Saint Denis. According to new paris bohemian: "A graphic designer and visual artist by trade, O...

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From our desktop to our mobiles

James A. Landay and Todd R. Kaufmann in 1993 ("User Interface Issues in Mobile Computing"): "A theme common to much of the past work on mobile computing devices is the desire to run similar computing environments on the mobile machines and on the user’s office workstation. Although running many of ...

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