Pneumatic tubes and networks (as the one described in Boris Vian's novels) have always fascinated me. The name itself is gorgeous and it really looks like a strange vehicle. Although there are sometimes still use to transport cash and documents (transparent supermarkets pneumatics are intriguing), ...
Minimize or counter digital traces?
Younghee's post about surveillance techniques tackle a very important issues wrt to digital traces: "How would people drop out of, or at least minimize their digital traces and minimize contributing to create others’? We are probably not expecting stickers and badges showing “this person does NOT h...
Skateboarding readings of space
The other day I mentioned this short article I wrote in JCDecaux trend report. It was about how skateboarders "read" space, make decision about where they do skateboard or to hang out with peers. In a sense, it's about "social navigation" and what sort of "footprints in the snow" matter for skatebo...
Today's urban computing versus "I just want to catch a bus"
Some tough but relevant issues presented in Backbone about how technology help solve the problems of city dwellers ("Or even just tell them when a bus is coming?). An excerpt that is particularly strong (about a Microsoft urban computing project) " So what impact does this sort of thing really have...
How do people use manual?
Random street encounter tonight in Geneva: A manual for a flat-screen LCD television, obviously tossed out in a trash. Made me think about the value of manuals from technological devices. It can also be a manual on one the 3 languages (+english) of Switzerland. We have often get 3 of 4 manuals for...
Delay in technological innovation: the "MS Surface" case
Glenn Derene in Popular Mechanics address the reasons why it took so long for Microsoft Surface to be "finally here": "Microsoft's initial plan was to put a very limited number of Surface machines in stores and hotels with demonstration software just to show what the thing could do. But now AT&T ha...
Location-awareness and automation
Mobile map interactions during a rendezvous: exploring the implications of automation by Dearman, Inkpen and Truong is an interesting paper, to be published in Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, about automation and mutual location-awareness, a topic I dealt with in my PhD research. The paper descr...
Contribution for urban trend-report
Recently wrote a short article for a trend report of urban company JCDecaux. The whole book is called Les Audiences dans la Ville (The Audiences of the City) and addresses the new practices of people in contemporary cities. Other writers include: Fabien, Adam Greenfield, Frederic Kaplan, Daniel Kap...
Technology conservative of face
Wandering around Verone last week made me think of various things and the picture below reminded me of Thesis 75 in "Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing". "About all that we can properly ask for is that our technology be designed in such a way that it is conservative of face: that u...
Towards the next step, leaving academia
Today was my last day at Media and Design Lab and consequently at EPFL. So, I leave academia and... here's the whole story. It's been 5 years that most of my time was spent there (although other ventures such as simpliquity, LIFT and the near future laboratory also took me some time) doing a PhD in...