Sticking objects on street premises seem to be a new trend as one can see with this floppy disk above or the lego blocks hereafter: After tags (and painted walls in cave), stickers, striped glasses, now it's about sticking objects. The first picture has been taken in Lausanne and the second in Ge...
Modalities of access
An extraordinary layering of different modalities to access that building, either using humans (pressing a button, asking a human individual to open up the door) or non-humans (inserting a key, swiping a card vertically or inserting a card horizontally). But why? are there different level of acces...
Wii Helmet
(via) Finally, there is a Wii Helmet, but it is an april fool: "Problem is the average gaming geek is just not up to the strenuous task of vigorous arm movement for longer than 10 minutes. This makes those extended play sessions a thing of the past... and who wants to beef up at the gym just to pl...
Science fiction and predictions
"Corporate research evolved in the 1990s from the invention of science fiction to creating scientific and technological fact (...) the wonders science fiction authors predicted for around the year 2000 - such as mass transportation to the moon and glass-doomed cities on the ocean floor - are within...
An bunch of old stuff
Why do I blog this? I just found nice this picture of old keytags (taken last week in Nice, France). To me, it's very evocative of the passage of time and how design evolves. In addition, think about the value of objects and how this little artifacts made sense in certain period of your life: this...
User experience of sound and earlids
Interaction designers, researchers and architects interested in sound and the user experience of sound in space should really have a look at Karrie Jacobs' latest column in Metropolis magazine about that topic. Analyzing how noise-cancelling headphones works out, She is making the point that althou...
Creative design and human-computer interaction
Dispelling Design as the ‘Black Art’ of CHI , Wolf TV, Rode JA, Sussman J, Kellogg WA, Proceedings of CHI 2006. The paper interestingly tackle the issue of "creative design" and differentiate it from the notion of "design" as propelled by HCI researchers. The authors' main claim is that the typical...
Video hat for policemen
(Via Ananova) look at this news: "Police in a Chinese city have been equipped with video hats. More than 100 patrol officers have been issued with the cameras which link to digital video-recorders attached to their belts. Head Officer Diao, of Chongqing City Police, said: "The officer only needs to...
Artifacts, values and bonds
Via Dr. Fish, this interesting short news about TU Delft that deals with the values of artifacts and how can a designer increase the degree to which people bond with them. Some excerpt: "During her doctoral research Ruth Mugge investigated the topic of product bonding – the strength of the emotiona...
Chaos theory and hype around scientific trends
Discover Magazine has a good piece about what happened to the overhyped Chaos Theory "From The Simpsons to Jurassic Park, chaos theory became fashionable and funny, terrifying and true. In the 21st century, chaos theory, for all its previous pomp, makes barely a peep on the mainstream radar. Still,...