The distinction between "space" and "place" is commonly discussed in recent academic work in ubiquitous computing/HCI by researchers such as Paul Dourish. In a seminal paper form 1996, Harrison and Dourish express that "space is the opportunity; place is the understood reality." They raised the soc...
Subway poetry
A short poem written on a post-it stuck in the subway in Paris. A basic form of location-based annotation. ...
The more comfortable we become with being stupid
(via) Sometimes you don't expect titles like that in scientific press but "The importance of stupidity in scientific research" by Martin Schwartz in Journal of Cell Science is an intriguing read. Some excerpts I liked: "we don't do a good enough job of teaching our students how to be productively s...
Ubiquitous computing naming issue
There's an interesting discussion of the term "ubiquitous computing"by Mike Kuniavsky at Orange Cone. Mike basically explains the ambiguity of terms and deconstruct the very notion of ubicomp: ""Lately, I've been thinking about why "ubiquitous computing" has such problems as a name. When I talk abo...
The red button interface
Possibly some weird work for computer case and cell phone designers: Parents should have a "red button" to disable a game they feel is inappropriate for their child, says the EP Internal Market Committee. So, the solution to avoid kids playing with games that are not suitable for them is... a red b...
Location-awareness and power management
The Potential for Location-Aware Power Management by Harle and Hopper is an interesting paper presented at Ubicomp 2002 that explore the use of location-awareness to dynamically optimise the energy consumption of an office. It basically shows how capturing workers' location can be helpful in a diff...
RFID key mixed with and old key assemblage
An intriguing mix of the bleeding-edge of recent times (seen at my hotel in Paris yesterday): - this rfid key that you swipe on your door to enter your room - the stability of the past: this old and commong keyring which is so heavy that you would not keep the rfid key in your pocket during a whol...
Lift09 tag cloud
A tag cloud that my colleague John Elbing generated using the information Lift participants entered to describe their interests. Why do i blog this? As a program organizer, it's interesting to see the profile and the interests of Lift attendants. Using this wordle is a good way to get an impressio...
The importance of blinking lights
This article in IEEE Spectrum made me think about this earlier post about what stays awake during the night. In the article, Robert W. Lucky describes the importance of blinking lights in hardware. He takes the example of modem boxes which are full of indicator lights and explain that "people want...
Speaking objects in Amsterdam
Two curious encounters on my way from the Waag to the train station: the interesting use of speech bubbles in both cases, as if the designers of these elements wanted to convey the message that objects are close to have self-expression. This way to express objects' agency in our physical environm...