Toying around Grand Theft Auto IV lately, I've been interested in how today's ubiquitous computing can help to create original game play features in a console game. There are three interesting elements about this topics: the in-game GPS, the use of the cell-phone in the game and the role of tangib...
Attach a knob to your display
(via), an intriguing assemblage between a touch/gestural interface and a classic laptop screen: Sense Surface allows to use real physical controls added on the display on the top row: Here's their description: "SenseSurface can be used with most laptops with a USB input. The sensing knobs have a ...
"Future overwhelmed"
Starting with a discussion of Disney's Tomorrowland, Joel Garreau has a good piece in the Washington Post concerning how americans feel very little connection to the future anymore. Unlike the past, especially in the 50s (till the 80s), he describes how people are "future overwhelmed" using the ter...
Design and robotics
Focusing lately on networked objects and robots for a project, I re-visited the interview of Carl Di Salvo made by Dan Saffer in his book Designing for interaction. (Nintendo Chiritorie, a remote controlled vacuum cleaner designed by Nintendo back in 1979) The point which interested me here is the...
Orange "identity studio"
Seen yesterday in France, an Orange shop with an "identity studio". The sort of place where you can get a picture of you and translate it into a digital identity with the consentment of the french government (as attested by the little sticker on the upper left-hand corner). ...
Failure of business on-line communities
A recent study conducted by Deloitte on more than 100 businesses with online communities reported by Josh Catone deals why these platforms often fail or don't meet the expectations: "Businesses are being enticed by fancy technology. Mesmerized by bells and whistles, many business are foolishly bl...
Anecdotes about swiss [edge] urban practices
Following odd performances lately and being interested by issues related to mobility and new spatial practices, I've noted these intriguing anecdotes in Switzerland. First, the Bigger pineapple is a mobile collective who aims at "interrogating new means of transport" (apart from doing this). Their ...
Privacy concerns about the capture of electronic traces in urban viz projects
Recent advancements in the field of urban computing and visualization of electronic traces left by people in the physical space are more and more raising privacy issues. After a time where they've been carried out by public bodies, artists and research labs, some private initiatives and private res...
Information remnant
Pen annotations on a concrete wall... or when information put by builders in context stay in place. Beyond the aesthetic rendering through the glass, that picture nicely depicts the presence of certain indications about the building process which remains over time. ...
Unrealistic use cases and personas
Browsing the previous content of Vodafone's receiver, I ran across this old article by Adam Greenfield about persona that struck me as relevant for current discussions about the role of persona/use cases in design (in the context of video game design). The main point of the article is that use case...