Some golden nuggets from the movie :

Man: “What do you mean? We (robots) cant dream!”

Woman: “Of course you can, you just make it up!”

—–

Man: “…This dream was easily the best dream in the history of all dreams”.

Check out some more screen-shots here.

[source unknown, shared from a colleague at work]

I’ve recently been blogging a bit on Johnny Holland and just wrote an article which I thought would be interesting to hear your thoughts on.
I’d been collecting data and thoughts on this for some time now and its time to hear whether it makes sense.

Excerpts:

Have you ever needed a user manual to sit on a good chair? Probably not. When we see a good chair, we almost always know exactly what to do, how to use it and what not to do with it. And yet, chairs are made by the thousands, and several challenge these base assumptions to become classics in their own right. The chair is one of the most universally recognized archetypes known to us. In light of recent events in the mobile realm, I believe that the stage is set to probe notions of archetypes in the mobile space.

Archetypes

Archetype: An archetype (pronounced /ˈɑrkɪtaɪp/) is an original model of a person, ideal example, or a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated; a symbol universally recognized by all. (wikipedia)

[Note: There is a deep philosophical definition of archetype as proposed by Carl Jung. This article is not based on that form of definition.]

The word archetype has its roots in architectural theory. It also deals with cognition at its most basic level. In a very generic way—points, lines and planes are archetypes in graphic design. Columns, walls, floors, roofs are archetypes in architecture.

When we see a flight of stairs, our cultural memory and experiences kick in. They teach us that stairs signify climbing, doors represents portals between zones and chairs are (usually) something you sit on. We seldom think much about them. Experience makes us learn, encode and remember these archetypes, making us react spontaneously to them. The degree to which archetypes are understood varies greatly between cultures. Interestingly, archetypes can always be deconstructed, challenged or probed since they merely act as starting points of reference. There are innumerable examples of archetypes that have been reintroduced to us in the most puzzling ways in order to question our own understanding of them; for example Escher’s illustration below, which turns the stair archetype on its head.

… archetypes can always be deconstructed, challenged or probed since they merely act as starting points of reference.

Read the rest here if you dare. :)

Henderson is a proprietary typeface who will never be made available to the general public.

I suspect slope of the italics is 11°.

[via Makezine]

Even less, if demand should increase.

Link via Newscientist.

Interview with Jack Schulze that unveils some of the process and thinking behind Nearness.

What inspired you to do this experiment, creating a sort of homage to Fischli and Weiss?

The Fischli and Weiss film is obviously one of the finest instances of the “chain reaction” form. I’m particularly fond of the bumpers in the Japanese kids show Pythagora Switch. RFID is a complex and fairly abstract technology to grasp—Timo describes it as a technology that found its way from the obscure to the mundane without any real fame or apex in the public eye.

We have to be careful in how we communicate with it. There are many leaps of imagination and understanding required to grasp it and hold a useful model of how it works and what is happening, let alone see how it maps usefully and elegantly into the world around us. The familiarity of the chain reaction form, means the audience quickly grasps that the normal kinetic transfer of force in the sequence is replaced by invisible forces that work very closely together. Like invisible digital breaths between objects. Because the form was familiar, our hope was the concept of nearness without touching would be clearly understood, and I think we succeeded.

Full article here (Creativity Online).

via @timoarnall

An interesting talk by Matt Webb.

By the way, Schulze & Webb is now BERG.

(found via Design Evidence)

This exhibit enables visitors to explore various forms of electricity, and to experience and reflect on energy consumption. Some of Sweden’s best known artists and designers have been brought together with engineers, technical know-how and environmental consideration in this ground breaking exhibition. You will see electricity as never seen before. By the Swedish Institute and the Interactive Institute

Energy AWARE Clock is an electricity meter that resembles an ordinary kitchen clock.

http://www.visualvoltage.se

multitouch-barcelona.com
Multitouch Barcelona is a recently born interaction design group that explores natural communication between people and technology. They design touch sensitive environments where real world interactions move to a digital context. Interfaces where people touch, play, move, feel…Where senses play their natural role, where everything just ‘happens” as it does in the real world.

Giving the commencement address in Philadelphia on Monday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told graduates to “turn off your computers,” urging the departing students to “discover all that is human around us.” He also tried to assuage students’ fears about the job hunt in the midst of an economic recession, advising them to use the financial turmoil as a source of inspiration and innovation. Those innovators at Google didn’t create a Web empire by trolling Facebook — they did it with their minds, which, incredibly, do not require Wi-Fi access to function.

Read the rest of the article here.

an interesting book I’ve stumbled upon in my browsing of maps and urban research.
here is the link to the website.
via critical spatial practice

one inspiring example of changing a situation even momentarily.

Video of many of those will be shared (soon-ish I imagine) so check this space for them.

Both IxD1 and 1xD2 banded together to help make the event run smoothly. As a thank you souvenir to the visiting speakers, we made some artifacts to help them remember their time here (if they get them past security on their flights home).

Mikko put some more photos on Picasa, here.

If you’re like me, well, you don’t understand much the technicalities of the current financial breakdown/recession/please-o-please-not-a-depression.

A student (Jonathan Jarvis) from the Arts Center came up with this video explaining the actual ‘merican crisis of credit.

http://www.crisisofcredit.com/

I found Ramia Mazé’s paper on the full Switch! project in the International Journal of Design with the final design interventions developed at the Interactive Institute.

Switch! Energy Ecologies in Everyday Life – PDF, HTML

IxD2: Maybe you’ll see (or imagine, at least) traces of our small contribution to the final results. Maybe!