The WSJ has a curious piece about how of cords, devices and outlets can be managed by furniture designers: As more consumers buy gadgets like cellphones and MP3 players that need frequent recharging, manufacturers are offering new ways to manage the tangle of cords, devices and outlets. Their solut...
Art of Noise + Max Headroom
For those who remenber the 80s cyberpunk frenziness: Art of Noise (feat. Max Headroom) - Paranoimia: The others who would like to know who is this whitey, the Wikipedia page of Max Headroom could be valuable: Max Headroom is the name of a fictional artificial intelligence, known for his surreal wi...
Experientia report about the new ecology of play
One of my favorite design/foresignt/scouting company Experientia recently produced an insightful report about the latest trends in electronic toys and games. It's called "Play Today" (pdf, 4.7 mb, 71 pages) and is definitely a must-read for people like me in the game-research/industry. It's written...
Musical interface: the magic cube
The Magic Cube described in this paper is an interesting example of the tangible interactions paradigm to listen to music. It's designed by Miguel Bruns Alonso (ID StudioLab, Delft University of Technology). Listening to digital music on a computer has led to a loss of part of the physical experien...
Is Nabaztag about calm computing?
Just had a quick chat with frederic (one of our new lab colleague) about the fact that the notion of "disappearing computer" or Weiser's "calm technology" is more and more criticized. Computers were supposed to become invisible and information would then becomes ambient. He took the example of the ...
User-generated content matters in the video game industry
(via wonderland) Edery has a a good list about why user-generated content matters in the video game industry: It can extend the life and drive the sales of existing games. (Example 1, Example 2) It can lead to entirely new games, not just new styles of play. (Example 1) It can drive virtual busin...
Workshop at NordiChi: Near field interactions
This is a call for proposals for a workshop on user-centred interactions with the internet of things at Nordichi 2006, October 14 and 15, 2006 in Oslo, Norway. The user-centred Internet of Things The so-called ‘Internet of Things’ is a vision of the future of networked things that share a record of...
A machine to create new dishes
The A machine to create new dishes is a project carried out by INRA (the french agronomy research institution) which is geared toward the production of a machine which creates new dishes or cocktails, not on the basis of the sentiments expressed by a tune but from formulae developed by Hervé This t...
Information Vizualisation of 3D virtual worlds
Just read that paper (Via Infosthetic): Katy Börner, Shashikant Penumarthy: Social diffusion patterns in three-dimensional virtual worlds , Information Visualization 2(3): 182-198 (2003). The paper is about a visualization tool set that can be used to visualize the evolution of three-dimensional (3...
Insights about kids-tracking devices
Location-Based Applications seems to be very appealing as kids tracking devices. Kelly Goto has a smart post about it; she presents some insights drawn from parents interviews: - Most kids between 2 and 8 lose anything that is not permanently attached. Some come home with one shoe, a sock missing o...