Doing ethnographical research about game controllers and carrying out home visit makes me encounter very curious assemblage like the one above. How to turn a chair into a speedy car-simulation seat where the player seats on the back, spread the leg and pump pedals to the maximum. A very intriguing...
Relying on previous interface
In his Language of Interaction talk at Interaction08, Bill DeRouchey addresses an interesting issue: how people learn how to use technology from other technology. Given the quantity of consumer electronics that surround us, people become more tech-savvy and learn from experience with other product...
Video game weaponry
The screenshot depicts a GDF Artillery Interceptor Turret from Quake Wars (left) and the original device that inspired it: Raytheon’s Phalanx Close-in Weapon System (right). Both have been taken from an insightful article in Popular Mechanics by Erik Sofge which deals with the design of weaponry i...
long+slow+blurry innovation
The introduction of "Mobile Usability: How Nokia Changed the Face of the Mobile Phone" by Lindholm, Keinonen and Kiljander features this interesting excerpt: "the only way to get a working assumption of what the technology enable us to do and how they are likely to be used is to be involved in thes...
Design Thinking in HBR (Tim Brown)
Once in a while the Harvard Business Review tackles topics close to my field. Sometimes it's about foresight, today it's about design with this article by Tim Brown called "Design Thinking" (in the june 2008 edition). Starting an insightful model in R&D/innovation, namely Thomas Edison, Brown descr...
video interview about urban computing
it's always anxious to be on video... but i've been interviewed by infonomia.tv about "the future of urban computing" (following the text version). The video is available there. Thanks Alfons Cornella and Doris Obermair. ...
Softness for the ears
Ears are an important part of our body and consumer electronics is often adapted to them through various process. But sometimes, the aging of technologies make them fall apart and people need to fix the device they have. When it comes to intimate products such as headphones, people look for easy-a...
Video games and its influence on the military industry
(via) In The Disruptive Potential of Game Technologies: Lessons Learned from its Impact on the Military Simulation Industry, Roger Smith discusses how computer games have a disruptive impact on military industry and suggest that these will disrupt other industries in the future. It basically tells ...
Game on the street
Simpler than ARG but surely along the same line, this sort of street game (spotted yesterday in Lyon, France) always makes me wondering about Jane Jacobs and the importance to have people/eyes/activity on the street. ...
Conviviel/Mixware
Via Etienne Mineur, I found some photo captures of this amazing book about designing for the french minitel. The book's called "Conviviel 1, dialogues et images électroniques de grande diffusion" (in english: "Mixware: electronic dialogues and images for the general public"). See here some parts o...