This morning I was in a masters thesis jury at the University of Geneva. The presenter, Melie Genet showed her work, which consists in three tools allowing to discover communities of interest and to find help in a collaborative learning context. The most relevant part of the work is certainly the a...
Taking cognitive science into account in architecture
Steelcase's last newsletter has a very relevant piece about taking cognitive psychology/neuropsychological information into account to improve architectural design: Do specific colors support patient recovery in hospitals? Can certain acoustic conditions support learning in classrooms? Do windows s...
Multi-agent modeling of pop/youth subcultures dynamic
Modelling the Dynamics of Youth Subcultures by Petter Holme and Andreas Grönlund (2005), Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation vol. 8, no. 3: What are the dynamics behind youth subcultures such as punk, hippie, or hip-hop cultures? How does the global dynamics of these subcultures r...
Field experiment critique in CatchBob
Reading Lucy Suchman's "Plans and Situated Actions", I was wondering about the notion of "plan". In our experiment with CatchBob!, people tell use what they did during the game, explaining why they did this and that; how come they explored the campus in some areas, why did they communicated like th...
From remote control to dialogue systems
via lau, : Philips wants to ditch the remote control. Instead, you have to talk to a dialogue system, or Smart Companion, as the Dutch consumer electronics giant calls its newest invention. The Smart Companion will act as a friend in the home and, according to Philips, provide an easy-to-use interf...
Paper for WMTE 2005 accepted
My full paper for the IEEE International Workshop on Wireless and Mobile Technologies in Education WMTE 2005 has been accepted. That means that I'll go to Japan in november, yipee! ‘Location is not enough!’: an Empirical Study of Location-Awareness in Mobile Collaboration by Nicolas Nova, Fabien Gi...
Electronics companies less reluctant towards enthusiasts' modifications
A great article in Washington Post about the fact that electronics companies less reluctant towards enthusiasts' modifications. what is interesting here is that you cannot suspect journals like the Washington Post to be really hacker-driven. The trend now seems to be recognized at the business leve...
Book-shaped library
(via) Literally speaking, this library is book-based (Kansas city): ...
Technology as material in design
Technology as material in design by Johan Redström is a very relevant paper in the journal Design Philosophy. It's about the ambivalence between materiality and immateriality in design and the relations with technology. I won't enter into too much details but I think the starting point is very pert...
Jail Cell Reconstitution
(via) Jail Cell reconstitution by GENEPI ...