RepRap: Replicating Rapid-Prototyper. The RepRap project is working towards creating a universal constructor by using rapid prototyping, and then giving the results away free under the GNU General Public Licence to allow other investigators to work on the same idea. We are trying to prove the hypot...
Kids, toys, interactivity and the next big thing
The NYT gives a list of digital electronics between adult technology and children's play: Fisher-Price, synonymous with Elmo and Power Wheels, will introduce a digital music player and digital camera for children ages 3 and older that will be sold during the 2006 holiday season. Tek Nek Toys will s...
Julie Mehretu's paintings: futuristic environments
(via), Julie Mehretu - Psychogeographic paintings: The twelve paintings in Julie Mehretu: Drawing into Painting, curated by Douglas Fogle and originated at the Walker Art Center in 2003, are densely layered works that describe a futuristic environment capturing the sense of our time in history. (.....
Similarity in on-line communities
In two interesting papers, Ludford and others discuss the importance of similarity in on-line communities: In face-to-face interaction, people become friends with others who have interests and demographics similar to their own. This notion, supported by empirical sociology research, has not yet bee...
Technology forecasting strategies
This morning in the train I skimmed through a neat report called ""strategies in technology forecasting and roadmapping" by Corporate Executive Board (this doc can be bought here). The document summarizes approaches to implement roadmapping practices to evaluate technological developmentopportuniti...
Projects review for the Cluster of Digital Entertainment Companies
Tomorrow I have to go to Lyon, France. I was asked to be part of the scientific committee of the "Pêle de compétitivité: Loisirs Numériques" (i.e. Cluster of Digital Entertainment Companies). Video game companies and research lab worked in the past month on common project about Research and Develop...
Bruce Sterling's talk at LIFT06
Here are my notes from Bruce Sterling presentation at LIFT06: Spimes and the future of artifacts by Bruce Sterling. Some exceprts which are very insightful in terms of what would be a "world-with spime", the point of his next novel: so... now the challenge for the year is to try to describe in a no...
Pervasive Games and CSCW
New uses for mobile pervasive games - Lessons learned for CSCW systems to support collaboration in vast work sites by Matthew Chalmers and Oskar Juhlin, paper for the workshop about gaming at European CSCW in September 2005. The paper brings forward the idea of advances in pervasive games research...
Moving Pictures: tangible manipulation of videos
Moving Picture is a project by Cati Vaucelle and others at the MIT Media Lab, Media Fabrics group. Moving pictures: Looking Out/Looking In is a robust, tangible, multi-user system that invites young users to create, explore, manipulate and share video content with others. The Moving Pictures concep...
About forecasting, intelligent fridge and emotions
In the BBC article The business of future gazing by Spencer Kelly, there are some pertinent elements about forecasting ideas: "So if I'm tracking what people are starting to do research and development on today, by going to conferences and reading technical magazines and stuff, I've got a fair idea...