Finally, after a LIFT I managed to have more time for reading good papers such as Yesterday's tomorrows: notes on ubiquitous computing’s dominant vision by Genevieve Bell and Paul Dourish (Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 2006). The paper deeply discusses Mark Weiser's vision of ubiquitous comput...
The architecture of research facilities
The last issue of Metropolis features different articles about the "The Architecture of Research" that addresses the extent to which architecture can inspire science practice. There is a lot to draw there but have a look at the one called "The DNA of Science Labs". It postulates that scientific res...
Interaction design research
Reading "Interaction Design: Foundations, Experiments" by Lars Hallnäs,Johan Redström, I was quite fascinated by the chapter about methods concerning "interaction design research". Maybe it's because my research work is more and more linked to design. Some excerpts that I find relevant: Is this sci...
Valentin's day, Switzerland Circa 2007
Heard in the train between Geneva and Gstaadt: "Have you heard what I told you yesterday in WoW?" [World Of Wacraft] "hmm?" "I told you five times that I'll visit you this afternoon to give her present to Cathy" ...
Haptic interfaces
Acroe is a company that does haptic interfaces such as the following ones: Since the first haptic device designed in 1976 by the ACROE laboratory, the first prototype of ERGOS was designed and built in 1988, and was mainly dedicated to artistic applications. This third version of ERGOS, using an in...
Elmer and Elsie: Machina Speculatrix
It's always good to think about past instance of technological artifacts. For example, look at the two turtles created by Grey Walter. Also called "Machina Speculatrix", the turtles have an curious history: Over fifty years ago W. Grey Walter started building three wheeled, turtle like, mobi...
What's missing in MMO
An interview of Ralph Koster in RealMMO addresses some interesting question regarding MMORPG: I think WoW sets us back only in specific ways. I think it moves us forward in other specific ways. Blizzard, as usual, nailed polish, nailed guiding the player, nailed a look and feel. They took the old ...
Mobzombies
Julian kept talking me about this mobzombies project (by William Carter, Aaron Meyers, William Bredbeck): MobZombies explores a new dimension of handheld gaming by adding motion awareness to classic arcade style gameplay. Using a handheld device, and a custom motion sensor, players enter a virtual ...
First life externality
A dish washer that has been trashed with clothes still inside. One of the critical externalities of the our techno-material world... one hour later in the night the device has been removed... soon to be hijacked by silent and tech-savy wizards who operate at the heart of our cities. Pay attention ...
Ubicomp and user experience at LIFT07
Not very well structured thoughts on the LIFT07 talks about ubiquitous computing. There was a dedicated session about it with Julian Bleecker, Ben Cerveny and Adam Greenfield but some other talks can also be considered as part of that topic (Frédéric Kaplan, Fabien, Girardin, Jan Chipchase). Adam...