Blogject front-end using the Xbox360 XML data feeds.

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Trapper Markelz designed a nice exemplification of the blogject concept: he built a Blogject front-end using the Xbox360 XML data feeds. Here is how it looks like "I am a XBOX 360 and I can talk".

So what is all this talk about Blogjects? While at eTech I had an idea to build a Blogject front-end using the Xbox360 XML data feeds. Steve and I have been working on it a few weeks on and off and here is what we have so far. The next step is putting it into a linear blog format so that you can have an RSS feed for your Xbox and it will tell you each day what happened to it.

 Why do I blog this? it seems to expand on the concept of datablogging by leaving the game console uploading informations to the web in the form of a blog.

Cyborglog, Glog and Gargoyle log

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Via: a new term has been coined (by werable computing researcher Steve Mann): Glog:

Early cyborg communities of the late 1970s and early 1980s were constructed to explore the creation of visual art within a computer mediated reality. Then with the advent of the World Wide Web in the 1990s, cyborg logs (glogs, short for cyborGLOGS) became shared spaces.

The main difference between weBLOGS and cyborGLOGS is that blogs often originate from a desktop computer, wheras glogs can originate while walking around, often without any conscious thought and effort, as stream-of-(de)consciousness glogging:

nym from inforgargoyle says that he prefers the notion of "gargoyle log" (remenber Neal Steaphenson's Snowcrash?, a gargoyle is a guy "capturing vast ammounts of information around him")

moblogging is of course part of this

datablogging surely is too

Interaction Analysis in a Pervasive Game

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After a good research meeting today about my PhD agenda, we discussed one of the application of the coordination model that emerged from the first CatchBob experiment. One of the interesting problem would be to use it to inform/help the game interaction analysis. Given that the model focuses on the exchange of coordination information over time (with a peculiar emphasis on location-awareness information), it might be a good way to describe a grammar of players' act of communications, their content, pragmatics as well as the way they are mutually recognized by the players among a group (with of course a time dimension: how this evolved over time). For that matter, there is a very good literature review document about it:

Dimitracopoulou, A., Mones, A, Dimitriadis, Y., Morch, A., Ludvigsen, S., Harrer, A., et al. (2005). State of the Art on Interaction Analysis: “Interaction Analysis Indicators”. Deliverable from the Interaction & Collaboration Analysis’ supporting Teachers & Students’ Self-regulation (ICALT) project.

In the context of CSCW, Interaction analysis has different purposes, one of them is to help researchers to "collect data and analyse interactions afterwards in order to understand interaction or collaborative processes". (p.5)

The data extracted from the activity (that involves or not the usage of a certain technology) are then processed as follows:

Based on these interaction data, the application of ‘data processing methods’ could produce a number of “interaction analysis ‘indicators’’. These indicators constitute variables that describe ‘something’ related to:

  • the mode, the process or the ‘quality’ of the considered ‘cognitive system’ activity;
  • the features or the quality of the interaction product;
  • the mode or the quality of the collaboration, when acting in the frame of a social context forming via the technology based learning environment.

Now, how this is related to CatchBob? According to Harrer et al. (2004), "Interaction" can be defined as a certain kind of action that affect (or may affect) the collaboration between different agents. I am particularly interested in a specific kind of interactions: the exchange of coordination information during mobile collaboration; and CatchBob is one of example of such a context.

I have two kinds of data that are usable for that matter: logfiles and coding of players' annotation (done with two ontologies I defined: pragmatics and content + maybe another one related to the definition of a specific coordination event). Note that this coding is done by hand.

To allow an automatic interaction analysis based on those data, I need to define a specific data-structure that would describe the catchbob game with specific interactions over time. A tree-based data structure would fit to my needs. And, of course, it will be drawn upon my model of coordination.

I haven't mentionned that this kind of data structure will allow me to apply specific visual treatments, for example to have visualization or statistics about each game or to compare different games so that I can get insights about the quality of collaboration.

User Generated Content, Youtube in the NYT

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A good piece in the NYT about user generated digital content. The article describes the amateur creation of video content on You Tube

It's not seminudes or celebrity satire or kittens' antics that dominate the most-viewed list at YouTube.com, the popular clearinghouse for international homemade video. So exactly what videos are drawing viewers to this ascendant site, which, less than a year after its launch, averages about 25 million hits each day?

YouTube makes this question easy to answer by giving users several ways to sort the videos, including by "most discussed," "most recent" and, handily, "most viewed." It turns out that most of the videos that get millions of looks are humorous posturings by kids who in other places and at other times might be collecting near-mint X-Men comics, or practicing Metallica licks.

Why do I blog this? first because I tend to replace tv watching by you tube scanninng, and second because I am really impressed by the burst of creation on the net. See for instance this graph generated via Alexaholic: after the explosion of pictures exchanged on flickr (in red which is still increasing), the traffic on youtube (in blue) is now starting to skyrocket, even more than flickr:

Eurovision, Computer Simulations and Patterns of Collusive Voting Alliances

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The Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation has always very intriguing article. In the last issue, there is a piece called "Comparison of Eurovision Song Contest Simulation with Actual Results Reveals Shifting Patterns of Collusive Voting Alliances".

The voting patterns in the Eurovision Song Contest have attracted attention from various researchers, spawning a small cross-disciplinary field of what might be called 'eurovisiopsephology' incorporating insights from politics, sociology and computer science. Although the outcome of the contest is decided using a simple electoral system, its single parameter - the number of countries casting a vote - varies from year to year. Analytical identification of statistically significant trends in voting patterns over a period of several years is therefore mathematically complex. Simulation provides a method for reconstructing the contest's history using Monte Carlo methods. Comparison of simulated histories with the actual history of the contest allows the identification of statistically significant changes in patterns of voting behaviour, without requiring a full mathematical solution. In particular, the period since the mid-90s has seen the emergence of large geographical voting blocs from previously small voting partnerships, which initially appeared in the early 90s. On at least two occasions, the outcome of the contest has been crucially affected by voting blocs. The structure of these blocs implies that a handful of centrally placed countries have a higher probability of being future winners. (...) What implications does this have, if any, for pan-European political institutions? The answer to this depends on whether or not one takes the view that the contest is some kind of grand metaphor for European politics, as for instance The Economist (Unattributed 2005) and some of the academic authors have tentatively suggested. If one believes this, then the outlook for an expanded European Union is one grim inter-regional struggle. However, if one simply sees the contest as an expression of post-modern kitsch contempt for the established pop music industry (see Tan 2005 for a discussion of an Asian parallel), then no such concern is warranted. This paper shows that regionalism in the contest is a memetic epidemic, and not likely to reflect very profound fault lines in the current state of Europe.

"eurovisiopsephology": this name rocks! Why do I blog this? it's interesting to see how such research gives insights about memetic epidemic.

Combining paper maps and electronic information resources

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This one is for you Mauro:Derek Reilly, Malcolm Rodgers, Ritchie Argue, Mike Nunes, Kori Inkpen, (2006) Marked-up maps: combining paper maps and electronic information resources, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Volume 10, Number 4, pp.215 - 226

Abstract: Mobile devices have been used as tools for navigation and geographic information retrieval with some success. However, screen size, glare, and the cognitive demands of the interface are often cited as weaknesses when compared with traditional tools such as paper maps and guidebooks. In this paper, a simple mixed media approach is presented which tries to address some of these concerns by combining paper maps with electronic guide resources. Information about a landmark or region is accessed by waving a handheld computer equipped with an radio frequency identification (RFID) reader above the region of interest on a paper map. We discuss our prototyping efforts, including lessons learned about using RFID for mixed media interfaces. We then present and discuss evaluations conducted in the field and in a comparative, exploratory study. Results indicate that the method is promising for tourism and other activities requiring mobile, geographically-related information access.

Keywords: Mixed-media interfaces - Geographic maps - Mobile interaction devices

Welcome nabaztag

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I recently bought a Nabaztag, I find it quite nice with its glowing lights and very simple design. What I appreciated:

  • extra easy set-up (no pb with the wifi)
  • a very calm ambient display
  • the package is quite empy but the website is full of information with informative pdf files (like color meaning, usage situations...)
  • the API is available so that people can create their own services
  • there is already a lively community of users, tinkerers
  • at first I was disappointed that the nabaztag was more a recipient of messages (showed through light, sounds and ear movements) but it seems that it can perceive certain inputs (like if you move its ear, it can send a message to the server).

What I found less good:

  • even though it's their business model, I am reluctant to pay for messages services and subscriptions
  • to me, there should be more emphasis on the openness of the device (more than the API) and I miss a social software dimension on the Nabaztag website. Chris has already used Ning to create a Nabaztag social platform.
  • the pictures on the box and on the website are quite weird, a large majority of people do not have a so cold home with empty tables... (of course the targeted group may have this but...). For me, Nabaztag is in a more messy environment: my office at home:

mynabaztagWhy do I blog this? The object is interesting to me because it's not smart, it's a wireless-linked device that allows basic communication and interaction through light, sounds and ear movements. Currently, this guy can only interact with: my computer (through the company's server) and cell phones. That's a cool feature: you can send SMS to your and your friends' rabbits.What is good is that it's a first step in the world of communicating artifacts. I feel like being more interested by this sort of device than by the locomotion of an AIBO (even though I am very curious of the AIBO communication and interaction practices, especially the blog thing).

Ok, now let's take some time to understand the API.

As a user experience researcher, I am very intrigued by possible user interactions with nabaztag; currently there are more outputs than inputs but using the ear could be a good way to interact with it (and consequently with other rabbits). Of course I would have be happy of having proximity-detections of objects and people in the vicinity but I guess it's a matter of time (next version of the rabbit).

More about it later.

A fax machine from 1912

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The "belinographe" (a.k.a. belino) is the ancestor of the fax machine. Designed by french inventor Edouard Belin in 1907-1912. It used to allow the transfer of pictures: a telephoto transmitter. According to adventures in cybersound:

His invention involved placing an image on a cylinder and scanning it with a powerful light beam that had a photoelectric cell which could convert light, or the absence of light, into transmittable electrical impulses. The Belinograph process used the basic principle upon which all subsequent facsimile transmission machines would be based.

(picture source) Why do I blog this? it's an interesting protozoic fax machine. I like to observe early representations of today's object (the fax is not a yesterday object yet).

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The Economist on Makers/Tinkerers

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A very relevant article in The Economist about the DIY/hack trend of the amateur revolution: "Technological tinkering, or hacking, is not limited to computers. Cars, cameras and vacuum-cleaners can be hacked too". Some excerpts I found interesting:

Today's technological tinkerers, however, have a far wider range of household gizmos to play with and modify, from cars to cameras. Getting them to do new things, and not merely what the manufacturer had in mind, is an increasingly popular pastime. (...) But in some cases, such hacks can undermine the manufacturer's business model. Consider games consoles, for example, which operate on a “razor and blades” principle. Consoles are often sold at a loss, but console-makers receive a licence fee of a few dollars for each game sold—so provided each customer buys enough games, the console-maker eventually makes money. When Microsoft launched its Xbox console in 2001, hackers raced to install Linux on it, which transformed it into a low-cost, high performance media-playback system. While this was a minority sport, anyone who did this without buying any games was, in effect, receiving a subsidy from Microsoft. Little wonder, then, that the new Xbox 360 console features significantly beefed-up security measures.

A second example is the low-cost “disposable” digital cameras sold by CVS, an American pharmacy chain. These cameras are designed to be used once and then returned to the shop, where, for a processing fee, the stored pictures or movies are returned to you on CD or DVD. The cameras are then reset and resold. Inevitably, however, hackers have figured out how to access and reuse the cameras themselves. (One even ended up being installed in the nose of a small rocket.) If enough people do this, the business model breaks down. Clever hacking by a few, in other words, could lead to higher prices for the many.

But some companies, at least, have chosen to embrace hackers. iRobot, the company behind the Roomba robot vacuum-cleaner, includes an external data connector in the device and has even documented how to use it. While most customers appreciate their Roombas for their autonomous cleaning skills, there is also a small minority of users who want to reprogram them. iRobot is one of the few firms to acknowledge and appreciate customers who like to tinker. After all, there are few manifestations of feedback as heartfelt as someone who is willing to spend their own time and effort to improve a product.

Why do I blog this? working on a short client project about the effects of dematerialization, this DIY/amateur trend is a very important change pattern lately. Some companies are not well-aware that it might modify their business model.

Using video-game controllers/devices for other purposes

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I recently came across this DTEC-BC-PRO (550$!):

The DTEC-BC-PRO is quite simply THE BEST boost controller ever made. It turns your Gameboy Advance SP into a powerful Electronic Boost Controller cabable of controlling boost pressures in excess of 60psi. The DTEC-BC-PRO allows everything from simple "one number" boost control that can be set up in minutes to the most advanced closed loop, gear dependant, RPM, and throttle position based programmable boost controller ever conceived. (...) The Gameboy Advance SP is not included. While it is required to set up the boost controller you do not have to leave it plugged into the DTEC-BC-Pro.

Why do I blog this? there are now numerous examples like this, what is interesting is to use the video games as a basis for:

  • taking advantage of people's habits to make them doing other activities with a game controller, like using a PS2 pad to control a missile
  • having certain affordances to trigger specific behavior
  • making device converging: more and more the portable consoles and cell phones get closer (even though the Nintendo Ds is not a cell phone yet, you can browse the web with it)

Learning through computer games modding

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In Computers in Entertainment, Volume 4, there is an article about games modding by Magy Seif El-Nasr, Brian K. Smith. Called "Learning through game modding", it's a very interesting account of how computer games mods can be a mean to learn computer science, mathematics, physics, and aesthetic principles (a "learning by design" perspective).

some evidence that encourages the use of game modding in classes to promote learning of several subjects and concepts. We discussed the concepts we believe students learned through the cases presented here. Our preliminary evaluations of learning were based on student performance and our observation and interactions with them through their assignments and class discussions. We believe that using game modding motivated students to learn and allowed them to apply and visualize the utility and application of the concepts. We also observed that different game engines implicitly stress the use and development of certain skills. This becomes an important issue when choosing engines for pedagogical purposes.

Why do I blog this? learning theories emphasize the importance of "problem solving" and "hands-on activities" to foster learning; the article describes an interesting example of this concept through the usage of game mods. A pertinent side-effect of the open-innovation model that led game designers to let their game being mod-enabled.

Mobile Radicals on Location-based services

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A very interesting blogpost about the fall and rise of location-based services on Mobile Radicals:

During the early days of WAP capable mobile phones, BT Cellnet in conjunction with the then un-deregulated 192 service and Yellow Pages would allow you to find such useful things as a curry house when out on the town after a few too many pints. The idea was great and full of promise, but alas didn’t really work. The public understandably were confused by the fact that if they were standing outside their favourite curry house and asked for the nearest, the service would often point them to one that was at best a few hundred yards away. The problem was that the service used the mobile network CellID to determine your location. (...) With 2G services these cells were on average quite large. Outside major cities (in particular London) a single cell could easily have a radius of a few kilometers. Early LBSs could not tell where within these cells you were standing. LBSs could only provide the location of the requested service that it had listed for that particular cell. (...) The few survivors of the dot-com bust in 2001 have tailored themselves towards a business service rather than a consumer service. Most CellID based location services are used for asset and employee tracking, therefore performing paradigm-180. (...) Whilst the early implementations of cell style location based services have died out, the idea itself has found new homes in a variety of areas.

The most well known of these areas is the search industry. Most ‘Yellow Pages’ style companies and big search engines allow you to search for shops and other service providers based off your geographic location. ‘Find the nearest’ has become a must-have feature for almost all search firms. Instead of using your current location based off a very fuzzy positioning system (like CellID), they use post (zip for our American readers) code to locate your position. (...) Satellite navigation firms are the latest to enter this area. Modern GPS-based navigation systems contain facilities to find the nearest fuel station, or other point of interest based on your current position and projected route. (...) GPS provides a much finer resolution for LBS to use. Consumer devices with accuracy to within 100 metres in most situations, and to within 15 metres in ideal conditions, are now available on the mass market. (...) Cells are shrinking with the roll-out of 3G base stations, and it is possible to use signal strength from multiple transmitters to triangulate the position to within a few hundred meters, so better LBSs are possible.

Why do I blog this? understanding lbs troubles and problems is interesting. I appreciate the kind of stories beginning with "The public understandably were confused by...", a very recurrent issue with technologies.

Nice laptop carrier

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Netto is a curious laptop carrier by german designer Tonia Welter:

The standard plastic bag in a new sense: on journeys and trips, inventive laptop owners wrap their best piece just into a plastic bag or nap film to create a kind of trash-look as an effective protection against thieves.

NETTO picks up this “art of improvisation” and transforms it into a product.

How it works: The double-walled bag has a valve, which makes it inflatable. The black inside of the bag works as camouflage for every black laptop. As the inner bag is shorter than the outer, the laptop is surrounded by an air bag from all sides including the bottom.

Some thoughts about technology forecast

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Q. Some technologies, like the Internet, seem to have changed almost everything.A. We were told in the 1960s that space travel changes everything. In the 1970s, we were told that nuclear power changes everything. Now, we are told that the Internet changes everything. If you look at the most important things that the Internet has given us—E-mail, E-commerce, easy research tools—they are amazing tools. But before E- mail, we had the phone. Before E-commerce, we had mail-order catalogs, which were very revolutionary. If you want a real innovation, the development of catalogs in the 1870s was a big deal. The most important inventions are not always new, and the new ones are not always that important.

Q. Any tips on dealing with new technologies?

  • Anticipate the hype, and keep things in perspective by knowing why you are buying.
  • Remember that most predictions are wrong and most new products fail.
  • Relax, especially older people who hear they need to have new things to keep up. They don't.
  • Take charge by getting involved in the debate. I'd like to see people speaking about new government technology policy. If your school decides to spend $1 million on new computers, what are they not spending $1 million on? Music or art classes?

Drawn from an interview of Bob Seidensticker about his new book "Future Hype", a history of technological advancements and how they change the way we live.

"Future Hype : The Myths of Technology Change" (Bob Seidensticker)

Since people like THINGS, the repository becomes a social tool

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I've been working lately on the social and cultural consequences of digitalization (for a client, not for my research). One of the side effect in the video game market is that boxed PC games decline as digital downloads rise according to marketing firm GfK:

But the way in which people get their games is getting a makeover as game makers experiment with online distribution as an alternative to boxed CD-ROMs. Some companies are even betting that PC gaming is on the cusp of a download revolution, much like its entertainment counterparts in music and video.

Meanwhile, Electronic Arts Inc.'s Pogo.com, Comcast Corp. and Yahoo Inc. are offering games-on-demand services in which computer users buy subscriptions to access and download PC games, ranging from "Scrabble" to "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell." As more households get high-speed Internet connections, downloads become more practical. Downloading computer games can take anywhere from just a few seconds to a few hours, depending on the file size.

Why do I blog this? I am wondering about how would the boxed game market will evolve. I tend to think that people like "things", meaning that with the explosion of digital music we've seen a total show off ipods and other mp3 players. It's as if the objects (which are now a repository for digital content) are even more important compared to past walkman/discman:

  • PERSONALIZATION: people tune/hack/mod them (see the Schulze and Webb personalization project)
  • SHOW OFF: people show them (the ipod nano, usb keys as necklaces)
  • SHARING: people share information locally with them (see Weilenmann, A., & Larsson, C. (2001): Local Use and Sharing of Mobile Phones. "“The sharing of mobile phones observed in this study raises questions about the notion of the mobile phone as a personal device, belonging to and being used by one individual")

Strata by Jody Elff

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Doing a presentation in Lyon (France) today, I encountered this interesting sound installation in a parking garage (the policy here is to put art installation in every underground parking garage, which is nice): Strata by Jody Elff

Commissioned by Lyon Parc Auto, Strata is a reactive sonic sculpture distributed throughout 6 levels of the new subterranean parking garage at the Cité Internationale complex in Lyon. The work is the result of 2 years of combined effort between Jody Elff, Lyon Parc Auto, and Art/Enterprise. Strata explores the relationships of levels, or strata of the structure itself

The work consists of 6 unique sonic “personalities,” one for each level of the facility. A computer controls the occurrence and distribution of the sounds throughout the facility. When an observer is on a particular level of the garage, they hear only the sound of that level. However, there is a global control process in place that guarantees that all six levels are harmonically and rhythmically coherent. In addition to the control of the sounds by the computer, the sounds of vehicles themselves will be transformed and integrated into the final presentation. The result is one of a spontaneously generated composition, comprised of the individual sonic events from each floor. This combined result can be heard in the main pedestrian entrance hall of the facility.

In addition to the sonic sculpture, a visual component of the work was installed in the elevator cars. A series of patters drawn directly from the software used to create the sound sculpture was realized in a light filtering material. As your visual relationship to the elevator cars shifts, the materials change color, from amber to blue to translucent.

Why do I blog this? what I like in the parking company approach here is the idea that space is not a neutral domain. Their interest is to pay attention to the aesthetic considerations of their spaces.

Location-based games overview

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Rashid O., Mullins I., Coulton P., and Edwards R. “Extending Cyberspace: Location Based Games Using Cellular Phones,” ACM Computers in Entertainment, Vol 4, Issue 1, January, 2006 This article is a comprehensive overview of location-based games, describing enabling technologies as well as examples of what's out there (no mention of Catchbob! :( maybe it's because designing our game was not the ending goal but a way to study certain phenomenons ). As they describe, it seems that GPS and WiFi are the most used technologies and they describe how bluetooth and RFID might be a good contribution.

Interestingly, the article gives a good critique of existing gameplay:

All the location-based games discussed can be categorized into three genres: action/adventure, treasure hunt, and role-playing games. Finding other players in a shoot-em-up game can initially be exciting, but the gameplay can quickly become repetitive, and the games rely on high numbers of players with the same game in the same area. Treasure hunt games can quickly become boring when played alone, and those that create an event appear to receive greater publicity and recognition. Although some of the games being marketed are massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG), their inability to compensate for the short gameplay of cellular users may hamper the ability to immerse players in the games. Geo-fencing provides a new element to games, in that players can specify their own virtual territory based on their actual physical neighborhoods. The incorporation of community features such as mobile chat are effective because they take advantage of the social nature of the cellular phone, and are features likely to prove significant in the success of these games. (...) For now, location-based cellular gaming is a niche market, which often depends on players owning specific devices and subscribing to specific carriers. However, there is strong evidence that these games are capturing the imagination of a new audience, and if the games can mature to give a wider variety of gameplay and experience, they might yet achieve their potential as a major location-based service.

Why do I blog this? it's a good overview, it depicts the actual picture of location-based games and some of the challenges. I would maybe add that lbg should go beyond object collection/hunt (in the same way LBS should move forward buddy finder and place annotation) to be more successful, offering more interesting challenges. But hey that's not so easy. Maybe a good way to do so is to have more features based on these scenarios or to radically invent new approaches.

Also, see the expression "extending cyberspace", this concept is still around for some people Alex!

Prototyping in video games

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There is a great account of Maxis Senior Development Director Eric Todd's talk at the GDC on Gamasutra about pre-production through prototyping, which is a very important question in game design: what can game designers learn from prototypes? how early in the development of a game could they use them?

The talk was about pre-production. Some excerpts:

a prototype is used to convince others that your concept is "worth the risk of a full production".

Todd explained that the benefit of having a working mechanical model at hand is that, as far as communicating about design concepts is concerned, "words are fundementally a terrible way of communicating interactivity." (...) Demonstrating the concept, Todd showed a utility that allowed an amorphous worm creature to be prodded, deformed, and manipulated – he demonstrated how it felt to mess around with the utility, which seemed pretty tactile. As Todd said, having a tool like this "short-circuits" an inane conversation (...) prototypes should be as focused as possible upon just the few things you need to demonstrate to someone; (...) when someone finally threw together a prototype to show off the battle system and its animation style, he hot-wired the utility with PlayStation controllers and unveiled it during a staff meeting so as to delight the team and get them fired up about the project. Of course, there was no practical need for the Dual Shocks; there are no plans to place Spore on any console, and anyway users aren't really meant to interact with the game that way. That didn't matter; turning the battle system into a free-for-all brawl created energy. It led to people feeling more ownership over the project and to have more fun with it. The prototype also effectively educated the team what that game component was like, giving them a further impression for the way the game as a whole might come together.

An example of a prototype from the game Spore: Why do I blog this? these elements are very interesting and have a wider impact than just video game design. It made me think of the discussion we had at the Crystalpunk workshop about tools and architecture.