Access point Games and WiFi

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Use Wi-Fi To Play Access Point Games is a column in extreme tech about using WiFi acces points in mobile games. That's actually what we do in CatchBob.

Briefly, the games described in this article are:
  1. Foxhunt—Find the hidden access point
  2. AP-Hunt—Discover the most access points in a set amount of time
  3. Treasure Hunt—Step through a planned route where each new discovery gives you a clue to the next destination
  4. Capture the Flag—Find all the "enemy" access points and return to base with your booty, a log file showing their locations
  5. Virtual Real-Space Tours—Bridge the digital and the real with location-aware content fed to visitors within a matrix of access points. (Not quite a game, but very entertaining!)

Why do I blog this? Clearly it's because I am trying to find ideas for CatchBob 2 with a more complex scenario (less spatial, more cognitively complex); the treasure hunt presented in this article sounds good. It's still to simple but it's a first step.

A model of spatial awareness

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This picture quickly depicts the two level of the model of inference I am working on. People tend to make inferences/decisions influenced by the position of others in space plus all the affordances of space (cultural meaning + physical settings + topography...). The focus of our work here is also to understand how both are intricately related.

Is this the street art future?

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I am a great fan of 'fiducial marker', namely, the tag used to be recognized by Augmented Reality systems to display virtual stuff on glasses or screen. I like it because it tells me that the area I visit has some related content (since somebody tagged it). Of course I would need glasses to access this content (would it be a monster? a postit?). It can also be a simple trick related to nothing (absurd tagging!). Would this be a street art artifact in the near future? Anyhow, we should take into account that the marker as shown below are to be seens by both users: on the one hand, the one with augmented glasses and on the other hand, the regular passersby who will have to learn mor about this weird black and white dotted pictures... Picture taken from a paper about ARQuake

What computer professionals call \"software hell\"

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Nicholas Carr strikes again in the IHT:

A look at the private sector reveals that software debacles are routine. And the more ambitious the project, the higher the odds of disappointment. (...) Research by the Standish Group, a software research and consulting firm, illustrates the troubled fates of most big software initiatives. In 1994, researchers found, only 16 percent were completed on time, on budget and fulfilling the original specifications. Nearly a third were canceled outright, and the remainder fell short of their objectives. More than half of the cost overruns amounted to at least 50 percent of the original budget. Of the projects that went off schedule, almost half took more than twice as long as originally planned. A follow-up survey in 2003, however, showed that corporate software projects were doing better; researchers found that the percentage of successful projects had risen to 34 percent. (...) What happened between 1994 and 2003? The Internet boom went bust. Stung by wasted investments in complicated software systems, business executives began taking a more skeptical view of such projects. They scaled back their expectations, pursuing more modest software enhancements with narrower goals - and far higher chances of success. Equally important, they stopped trying to be creative. Rather than try to customize their software, they began looking for cheaper, off-the-shelf programs that would get the job done with a minimum of fuss. When necessary, they changed their own procedures to fit the available software. Old, generic technology may not be glamorous, but it has an important advantage: It works.

It may well turn out that the FBI's biggest problem was its desire to be innovative - to build a new wheel rather than use an old one within easy reach. When it comes to developing software today, innovation should be a last resort, not a first instinct.

Why do I blog this?It 's because the Carr debate it something important we should keep in mind even though we don't agree with Carr. The author has still mixed feeling toward innovation...

Are OutRaGeouS jobs the jobs of tomorrow?

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Just got this from my tribe account:

Hi tribers, We know our members have cool & unusual interests and talents. So to make the most of that, we've created a new jobs category called OutRaGeouS jobs. This is the place to list non-mature stuff that you need to hire for (or have to offer) that might be considered a little wacky, bizarre, or just plain unusual. For example, listings like:

Midget courier wanted (Los Angeles) Need Psychic to perform dog seance, $50 (SF Bay Area) OFFERED: I will clean your chimney dressed as a gargoyle $110 (SF Bay Area) Dial-A-Bedtime-Story (Los Angeles)

When communication is not possible...

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The last issued of Ericsson's ON magazine has an article about coordination of field workers.

when police, fire, rescue and medical personnel can not talk to each toher on the same network, accidents can quickly become tragedies.

Why do I blog this? because it's interesting to strengthen the fact that communication and cooperation are intricately related fo foster better coordination. Now specific applications are not just research project but are applied in real contexts as described in the paper.

[LifeHack] Blogpost structure

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I am trying to move forward into work efficiency. Blogposts from Pasta And Vinegar will have the following structure from now on:

  1. title with the [category]
  2. content with the link + author + date when available
  3. a short note with "why do I blog this" to explains why it interested me

I am not sure whether I will have time for the last note but it might be a nice way to get the point of what interests me and why it is relevant for my work/purposes.

[Space and Place] Research about the importance of crowds

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The Stanford Humanity Lab has a research project about crowds that sounds pretty nice.

CROWDS focuses on the rise and fall of the crowd -- particularly the revolutionary crowd -- in the Western sociopolitical imagination between 1789 and the present. Participants are broadly concerned with exploring the intersection between a number of disciplines: psychology, photography, literature, painting, cartooning, film, and history, to speak only of the foremost. In the long-term, we plan to publish a multi-authored volume on the subject of crowds, create a searchable digital archive of rare, out-of-print books and articles, and mount a large-scale exhibition tracing the history of the rise and fall of the crowd in modern art. Our preliminary research results take the form of this image-intensive web site.

The website gives more information.

Why do I blog this? One of the reason I am interested in crowds is because I see them as an indirect social cues available in the environment. People usually tend to rely on this kind of information to make decisions. Crowds is a peculiar example: a crowd has severeal meaning: something is happening, the lenght might also inform the importance of the event...

[VideoGames] Friendship formation in MMORPG

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Nick Yee conducted a project about friendship formation in MMORPG. It seems pretty interesting and well documented on this website.

While there are many factors inherent in MMORPGs that facilitate the formation of relationships online, it is also equally clear that not all players choose to do so. There are players who consciously do not bring their real lives into the game. Another way to look at the phenomenon is to ask whether certain individuals are more predisposed to these online relationships. One group of such individuals might be teenagers who are struggling with identity and acceptance issues in real life. Many teenagers feel they have no one to talk to because it is their peers and family who are part of the issue they are trying to deal with, and the online environment might present itself as a way to talk about them with someone else. But approval and acceptance are needs that everyone requires to sustain a normal level of self-esteem. Individuals struggling with self-esteem issues might therefore be more likely to form relationships online.

[Social] People who don\'t like to network + social software issues

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I refuse to hobnob for advantage by Lucy Kellaway (financial times).

The whole networking process defeats me, in particular the business cards. I keep my own at the bottom of my handbag, and they are usually a bit grubby on the rare occasions I am required to produce one. Other people's cards go back into my bag, and get fished out whenever I spring clean it. They then sit on my desk for a while before eventually going into the bin. (...)The more I think about it, the odder I find the whole networking process. The very word is off-putting: it sounds so pushy and calculating. The point of networking is to meet someone more important than you are. But if everyone goes to a party determined to network, the whole exercise becomes self-defeating. It also offends against the idea that we work in a meritocracy, where talent will out, eventually. In true life, of course, talent does not always out. The smarmiest have an annoying way of getting to the top. But it does not follow that the collecting of business cards at drinks parties is a good use of time. Ah yes, networkers say.

Besides, social software's relevance is also discussed nicely in the New York Times (with regard to the business model) as well as in other blogs like andy oram.

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Rapport très intéressant sur la production d'idées à Lyon:

"Une vie intellectuelle à Lyon ? Allons donc, vous rêvez !", s'est ainsi entendu répondre Pierre-Alain Four, qui a eu l'audace d'aller interroger sur le sujet des acteurs de la cité exerçant ce qu'il est convenu d'appeler un "métier intellectuel". A première vue : néant. Les intellectuels ne manquent pas, expliquent les uns et les autres, mais de vie, point. Première et fausse impression, explique ce jeune chercheur2 , qui a poursuivi l'enquête au-delà des préjugés, pour découvrir le foisonnement qui anime en fait la cité : des cafés philo aux grandes écoles, en passant par les réseaux militants, les lieux culturels et les laboratoires de recherche, la ville bouge... mais méconnait son propre dynamisme et ne cherche pas à le valoriser.

[Space and place] Space hijackers

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I recently discovered the Space Hijackers, an anarchitect group made up of smart folks who seem to hack the urban environment in various ways.

Our group is dedicated to battling the constant oppressive encroachment onto public spaces of institutions, corporations and urban planners. We oppose the way that public space is being eroded and replaced by corporate profit making space. We oppose the way that users of space are being put under increasing scrutiny and control by those who own or run it. Be this via CCTV installed to monitor us, or architectural elements designed to control our moods.We oppose the blanding out and destruction of local culture in the name of global economic progress. Newer and Bigger is not always better, it is usually both impersonal and imposing.

Through our various actions we attempt to raise awareness of issues within spaces and change how these spaces are used and percieved in the future. We intend to destroy heirarchies within spaces and claim back public ownership. Our projects act as another voice within space, and become engrained upon the places we Hijack.

Have a look at their equipment department, it's impressive. Their ideas are wonderful. My favorite is definitely the Mobile Headquarter: A Mobile command centre to control Hijacker action in the field: French fans would also check http://www.guidedurenard.org/.

[Space and place] Now it\'s about road design

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The International Herald Tribune has a piece about road design. It's about Hans Monderman, a dutch traffic engineer who advocates for virtually naked cities, "stripped of all lights, signs and road markings, but there was no division between road and sidewalk. It was, basically, a bare brick square".

He made his first nervous foray into shared space in a small village whose residents were upset at its being used as a daily thoroughfare for 6,000 speeding cars. When he took away the signs, lights and sidewalks, people drove more carefully. Within two weeks, speeds on the road had dropped by more than half. In fact, he said, there has never been a fatal accident on any of his roads. Several early studies bear out his contention that shared spaces are safer. In England, the district of Wiltshire found that removing the center line from a stretch of road reduced drivers' speed without any increase in accidents.

Of course, this is of interest since I'm into research about how people makes sens of physical space to do stuff together. The point is that the design of the streets should be based on a social model. You can find more about it here. This shared space looks like:

[Tech] The georb!

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The georb by Global Haptics is an interesting interface meant for various purposes: 3D design, VR, web3D, animation, telemanipulation, gaming, or science and technology applications.

Our solution is a patented mapping of convex surfaces to 3D geometries through an integrated network of tactile sensors. The user controls 3D movement simply by touching the part of the Orb that maps to the desired direction. For example, if the user wants upward motion, the user touches the top of the Orb. To move right, the user touches the right side of the Orb, and so on. Rotations are controlled intuitively as well.

The geOrb is easily operated on the desktop or away from it. It doesn't need tracking equipment, even when it is held away from the desk.

The geOrb fits comfortably in one hand or two. Since it only relies on touch, there is no tugging, twisting, or pulling, required. Since there is no need for tracking, there is also no need to hold your hands out in any awkward or uncomfortable positions. That means greater comfort.

[Research] Self-confrontation to the replay in our experiments

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In our experiments, we are using a self-confrontation to the replay of the game. Players are shown the path they took and I ask them few questions ranging from very open at the beginning to more specific at the end. The point is to get information about they inferred the partners strategies. As you can see, our methodology is a kind of field experiment. The self confrontation here is not meant to rebuild all the activity as in an explicitation interview.

  1. Open questions at the beginning
    1. how was it? did you enjoy it?
    2. how did you coordinate? what was your strategy?
    3. did you understand what your partners wanted to do/where they wanted to go?
    4. was there any conflictual moments? how was it solved? what was the outcome?
    5. any moment where you were lost?
  2. Replay (5-6 times)
    1. what happened here?
    2. ask A if he/she understood what B was doing at that time
    3. ask B if what A said is right
  3. Summary – synthesis
    1. how did you knew the partner’s strategy?
    2. how did you use the tool (drawings…)