Epidemic Menace: "Epidemic Menace" is the first cross media IPerG prototype and will be played at the Fraunhofer Institutszentrum Birlinghoven in Sankt Augustin. The campus will be integrated in the game via mobile computers, smart phones and augmented reality- and will transform the campus into a ...
Baffle Ball
As written in the article "Are we having fun yet?: computers as entertainment objects", "baffle ball" is a curious old"computer-like" devices for entertainment is positively ancient. It's been invented in 1931 by D. Gottlieb. It allows players to use a plunger to propel small metallic balls up an i...
Junk prototyping
In the last issue of ACM Interactions, there is an intriguing article about prototyping with junk by Nancy Frishberg. The idea is to go beyond paper by using the materials of kindergarten to the world of design. This can be used to achive four goals: encourages communication both within a team, giv...
The Orb: Passive Stumbling and Information Awareness
Hector Jaime from Restate Media pointed me on their project called The Orb, which is a wireless network stumbling platform. They describe the purposes of stumbling as: we could make out of the information visualisation. all those nice net art pictures or fancy colours making up forms. [people] ...
Entrepreneurial spirit is alive in Europe, on the web
The IHT has an article showing how "anyone who thought that Europeans were not as entrepreneurial as Americans has not been watching people doing business on eBay". Over 170,000 people in 12 European countries make money selling on the site and 50 million Europeans buy or browse, according to resea...
Some of those things that blog
Working on the blogject workshop debriefing, I tried to gather some examples of 'objects that blog', or objects that upload their story up to web. The simplest form Alex Pang from the IFTF suggested me are webcams but they are rather passive instruments, "reporting" whatever they see. Another simpl...
Support the Basel Action Network
Basel Action Network BAN is the world's only organization focused on confronting the excesses of unbridled free trade in the form of “Toxic Trade” (trade in toxic wastes, toxic products and toxic technologies) and its devastating impact on global environmental justice. Working at the nexus of human...
CSCW course take-away
Some take-away for students of our Computer-Supported Collaborative Work course: Common errors: Media Richness is the solution: no adding video channel is not necessarily better in terms of coordination effectiveness and group collaboration. Text is knowledge: text is information but not knowledg...
Astrodiapers
A picture of what astronauts had to wear when flying to the moon: undershorts layered with absorbent material: At that time it was really lowtech, now it can recycle fluids into drinkable water. ...
Robot toy: beyond Furbies: Pleo
It seems that while Sony is stopping its Aibo/Qrio projects, some others are still believing in robot toys: the SF-based company Ugobe. Here are some excerpts from the FT: Sony may have abandoned its Aibo robot dog but metal pet lovers will soon have a replacement in Pleo, a lifelike dinosaur robot...