Read in "Mind the Gap: The London Underground Map and Users’ Representations of Urban Space" by Janet Vertesi (Social Studies of Science 38, 2008). Hacker Mullins Prize, American Sociological Association: Science, Knowledge and Technology Section, 2006.): "A stable, iconic representation such as t...
Lamp evolution
Evolution of the electronic tube from 1924 to 1952 quoted by Gilbert Simondon’s Genetic “Mecanology” and the understanding of laws of technical evolution by Vincent Bontems and found in "On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects" by Gilbert Simondon. As the author mentions: "The ebonite base b...
Testing Sony Eyepet Augmented Reality
Into testing Eyepet, a game for the PlayStation 3 that is based on Augmented Reality. It basically uses the PlayStation Eye camera to allow you to interact with a virtual pet and objects in the real world. The process is very straight-forward. You have this black plastic placard shown on the pictu...
Sidewalk expansion
An interesting depiction of a recent phenomenon: the expansion of sidewalk in occidental cities. In this example, it used to be very tiny and the new version will make it wider. The design of the urban environment is strongly modified according to recent concerns about global warming (less room fo...
Mushroom meme circulation: physical digital physical
The real-world, a classic mushroom encountered in the mountains in the French Alps. A digital representation in Super Mario Bros by Nintendo. Back to the physical world with mario-like mushrooms spotted in San Francisco, next to Union Square. Why do I blog this? sorting out some pictures of Flick...
Video Games and possibilities
Two quick Unified Resource Locator that caught my eyes yesterday evening during my commute: Sometips by Jordan Mechner about game design principles for narrative games. The second hand "List the actions the player actually performs in the game and take a cold hard look at it. Does it sound like fu...
Lift seminar @ lift offices
Last monday, at the Lift seminar at our offices, we organized a set of talks about urban informatics. We discussed the large variety of data that are generated on top of the physical environment and their opportunities in terms of representations, analyses and services. When it comes to digital da...
When your walkman asks you to do something...
The use of RJDJ applications such as Trippy and Shake is fascinating. These are basically two "reactive music" applications that use the iPhone's built-in microphone (Trippy) or accelerometer (Shake) to adjust/modify/transform the soundtrack you're listening to: "RjDj uses the power of the new gen...
Akrich about scripts
An interesting quote from Akrich, M. (1992). The De-Scription of Technical Objects. In W. Bijker and J. Law (Eds.) Shaping Technology, Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change. Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press: 205-224. Why do I blog this? The paper describes how users' attributes are inscribe...
Evolution charts
Various charts by Raymond Loewy, "Evolution Chart of the Desk Telephone,""Evolution Chart of the Railcar," and "Evolution Chart of Female Dress and the Female Figure." 1934 Why do I blog this? currently working on gamepad evolution for a book project, I am always curious about such charts, especia...