Here is one of my favorite videos on Vimeo right now. Interesting character and beautifully shot. This is how I want to present user research and personas. (Thanks Camille for posting how to post Vimeo videos. Look here if you want to see an “on the spot view” of the Obama rally when Obama was elected you can check out the rather shaky and bad quality video I shot that night.)
You can use this link structure to embed videos in posts:
Result:
By the way, you can also use youtube videos in a similar fashion.
g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.
Oblong Industries is the developer of the g-speak spatial operating environment.
The SOE’s combination of gestural i/o, recombinant networking, and real-world pixels brings the first major step in computer interface since 1984; starting today, g-speak will fundamentally change the way people use machines at work, in the living room, in conference rooms, in vehicles. The g-speak platform is a complete application development and execution environment that redresses the dire constriction of human intent imposed by traditional GUIs. Its idiom of spatial immediacy and information responsive to real-world geometry enables a necessary new kind of work: data-intensive, embodied, real-time, predicated on universal human expertise.
If you ever need to use the phidget accelerometer, Ru and me figured out how to use it in processing.
Here is the sketch.
import com.phidgets.*;
import com.phidgets.event.*;
AccelerometerPhidget am = null;
PFont font;
// function to open and read the accelerometer
void setupAccelerometer()
{
try
{
am = new AccelerometerPhidget();
am.addAccelerationChangeListener(new AccelerationChangeListener() {
public void accelerationChanged(AccelerationChangeEvent ae) {
}
}
);
// connect to Accelerometer
am.openAny();
println("Waiting for Accelerometer");
am.waitForAttachment();
println("OK ready to go");
}
catch(Exception e) {
println("ERROR");
System.out.println(e);
}
}
void setup()
{
size(400,140);
background(50);
font = loadFont("ArialMT-24.vlw"); //remember to create the font
// setup Accelerometer
setupAccelerometer();
}
void draw()
{
background(50);
try
{
float ax = (float)am.getAcceleration(0); //accelerometer values are doubles
float ay = (float)am.getAcceleration(1); //convert first to float
float az = (float)am.getAcceleration(2);
float mAx = map(ax, -1, 1, 0, 255); //map them to something reasonable
float mAy = map(ay, -1, 1, 0, 255);
float mAz = map(az, -1, 1, 0, 255);
int imAx = int(mAx); //then convert the values to int
int imAy = int(mAy);
int imAz = int(mAz);
if(imAx < 0){ //the mapping does not work all the time
imAx = 0; //this gets rid of the negative values
}
if(imAy < 0){
imAy = 0;
}
if(imAz 255){ //and this gets rid of the values over the limit
imAx = 255;
}
if(imAy > 255){
imAy = 255;
}
if(imAz > 255){
imAz = 255;
}
fill(imAx);
rect(30, 40, 55, 55);
textFont(font);
text(imAx, 30, 120);
fill(imAy);
rect(100, 40, 55, 55);
textFont(font);
text(imAy, 100, 120);
fill(imAz);
rect(170, 40, 55, 55);
textFont(font);
text(imAz, 170, 120);
fill(0);
rect(240, 40, 55, 55);
rect(310, 40, 55, 55);
//print("x axis = ");
//println(am.getAcceleration(0)); // Index 0 is the x-axis
//print("y axis = ");
//println(am.getAcceleration(1)); // 1 is the y-axis
//print("z axis = ");
//println(am.getAcceleration(2)); // 2 is the z-axis
//you can use am.getAccelerationMax or Min get the max and min values
//println(am.getAxisCount()); //getAxisCount returns the number of axis the
//the accelerometer has
}
catch(Exception e) {
println("ERROR");
System.out.println(e);
}
}
Dan Saffer’s Gestural Interfaces will be out very soon. Looks promising – check out the table of contents and grab the first chapter (in PDF) here:
Links from all over the internets.
Japan:
This side of the globe:
Studies on package design in their natural habitat from R.Bird
Another blog with nice packaging
Intro to Package Design from Design Council
These monsters are result of my effort to learn Processing and encourage others
to do so by showing the source code. Also, at the end, my plan is to do a short music reactive video
using these monsters. So if you feel like you can make one too and be part of it, rules are simple:
Strictly black and white + mouse reactive.
Once your Monster is ready, send your PDE file(s) to me to lukas.vojir -at- gmail.com and I put it on this link. Obviously I will credit everyone who contributes.
Ebook Creation Simplified lt=”” width=”300″ height=”208″ />
Chumby takes your favorite parts of the Internet and delivers
them to you in a friendly, always-on, always-fresh format. It’s a
window into your Internet life that lives outside your desktop, so
content like weather, news, celebrity gossip, podcasts, music, and
more has a place to play away from your world of documents
and spreadsheets. Just plug in your chumby, connect to your
wireless network, and use your computer to create a lineup of
favorites from over 1,000 widgets in more than 30 categories, with
new ones arriving all the time. Then let your chumby do its thingâ€â€
streaming everything you like, from sports scores to stock tips,
from video clips to interactive games, from photos to trivia.
Pretty neat stuff from the SLOrk-ish folks at Stanford.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmszXmks2EI]
I think that some people at MIT did a similar thing a few years back, but the “musicians” “played” diverse command lines on a UNIX terminal. Couldn’t find the video though.
Some other videos here.
 Found via the Apple Hot News RSS feed.
Want to know how it felt like to be in Soviet Union. Well, now you can. In Lithuania a theme park is made in to a old Soviet bunker, where you can experience Soviet Union in 1984, complete with real Soviet guards with barking German shepards.
More on EnvironmentalGraffiti
Video report on Channel Five – UK
Input gestures and commands using your fingernails.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E8vsQB4pug]
Nothing muchâ€â€read at allâ€â€to do with interaction design, but this is quite wrong/disturbing/outrageously funny, I think.
http://www.flavorleague.com/company/flavor-pug
Found via my girlfriend’s ongoing textile research…
The new Pomegranate NS08 Phone is the ultimate all-in-one device, including a HD projector, global voice translator, coffee brewer, harmonica and electric razor:
http://www.pomegranatephone.com/
Make sure you explored fully the website and it’s Canadian-flavored ending!
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P.U.L.S.E - pinkfloyd album package released in 1995. The first thing that came to my mind thinking about interactive packaging.