A Social Screensaver or a Game?

Matt just sent this: The endless forest is a kind of game, described as a "a social screensaver". It's designed and directed by Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn (belgian game studio Tales of tales): The Endless Forest is a social screensaver, a virtual place where you can play with your friends. When ...

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Reboot 8 in Copenhagen

Some few thoughts about Reboot8 first day. Thomas' introduced the concept of this edition, which is re-naissance (re-birth) = understanding the past and improving on that. It's about easy reality, sustainable change, not just about business but also changing society and changing our own lifestyle;...

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When robot mimic tongues and tentacles...

What a curious device on "extreme engineering" (Discovery channel): A robot with a flexible, trunk-like arm could one day work like an elephant to grasp unwieldy loads, navigate like a snake through the rubble of a disaster zone, or feel around inside the dark crevasses of other planets.: Unlike c...

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Extreme behavior

I am always mesmerized by sort of attitude: 70,000 Beer Cans Found in Ogden Townhouse: When property manager Ryan Froerer got a call from a realtor last year to check on a townhouse, he knew something was up. Ryan Froerer, Century 21: "As we approached the door, there were beer boxes, all the way ...

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Role played by artifacts in cognition

How social is the social? Rethinking the role of artifacts in cognitive science is a paper by Ana Viseu that I came across while sorting my "to read" txt file. It's basically a good account of the role played by artifacts in cognition. It describes them from the perspectives of 3 different schools ...

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meanwhile... 2nd blogject workshop

These last 2 days, I am busy managing the blogject workshop 2 with Julian Bleecker at EPFL. There's a small group of very relevant people there (Julian Bleecker, Fabien Girardin, Mauro Cherubini, Mark Meagher, Frédéric Kaplan, Laurent Sciboz, Timo Arnall, Sascha Pohflepp, Regine Debatty, Fabio Serg...

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Communications of the ACM on hacking and innovation

The last issue of Communications of the ACM is about "Hacking and Innovation". There are some very interesting papers about that topic; ranging from hacker ethic to hardware hacking and academic freedom. Hacking and Innovation Gregory Conti, Guest Editor Academic Freedom and the Hacker Ethic Tom Cr...

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When location information undermines navigation

Does Location Come for Free?The Effects of Navigation Aids on Location Learning by Carl Gutwin and Diana Anton; Technical report HCI-TR-06-03. Navigation aids such as bookmarks, target prediction, or history mechanisms help users find desired objects in visual workspaces. They work by highlighting ...

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Extraordinary architecture: futurism from the 70s

Last week I went to La Grande Motte, an impressive city created in France in 1974 to be populated with tourists during the summer. Why do I blog this? The architecture is very intriguing to me, very stylish and not passé at all; I like the shape, the colors and the global impression (it reminds...

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Carpet fighting

An interesting project from the //////////fur//// workshop @ ECAL, 2004 : CARPET FIGHTING by Patricia Armada / Pierre-Abraham Rochat / Gabriel Walt / Mathias Forbach Compete on the keyboard against a player in the real space in this multiple reality crossing, tic-tac-toe like game. (PC Laptop, EZIO...

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