Disney has presented a project that tries to open up animatronics to a wider audience. (Especially if you have a laser cutter) AÂ quote from the Disney website says almost everything.
“We developed an interactive design system that allows non-expert users to create animated mechanical characters.”
Whether or not you are a beginner or already know a lot about mechanics and how to create a certain movements, I think this could be a valuable tool for learning more on the subject. In any case, it’s pretty neat.
Read more at the Disney website.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeO2q8FzcnM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVeSYyYzjhY
Telemetry data as recordings of man-machine interaction, seen from this perspective it makes total sense. A really nice project using sound and light to recreate Ayrton Senna’s record lap time at Suzuka racetrack in Japan.
[via wired]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugDR63wUxuA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joNTpIzfFJY
I attended a SIGGRAPH session on Perceptual Computing yesterday, and learnt a few things Intel is doing to get people excited about it. First, they gave away a few Creative Senz3D depth/gesture cameras, and I was lucky to get one! Second they are running a competition tiled Perceptual Computing Challenge with a $1 million prize pool, and they commissioned seven developers to give their best shot at building new groundbreaking app/demo/prototype embracing Percpetual Computing technologies. Third, the SDK is supported (or working nicely) with quite a number of frameworks: Unity, Processing, OpenFrameworks, Cinder, and many others (github page).
Personally, I feel it’s great to see such a massive push, but it seems totally technology driven, with not much emphasis on the quality of the resulting experiences. But hey, it’s Intel and they make silicon chips, so it’s not really a surprise. Tracking seems shaky/jittery still, and used as building blocks to evolve interfaces and interactions, the results are generally not quite reliable or stable, with tons of broken (virtual) limps and other inconsistencies or difficult boundary conditions. So I’m not sure we are exactly there yet!
Their Human Interface Guidelines document is worth reading, even if you don’t plan building apps yourself.
More info: http://software.intel.com/en-us/vcsource/tools/perceptual-computing-sdk
Aireal is a device that can create interactive tactile experiences in free air. It is developed by Disney Research and will be presented at this year’s SIGGRAPH conference.
They have made a demo in which the device creates the sensation of touch “caused” by a projected butterfly landing on the hand. In another part of the example they show how objects in the environment can be part of the experience. Sweet!
More on the Disney Research website.
I like the approach of ‘make it to understand it’, but many of proposals showcased in the Walkthrough video do not really appeal to me. I have no problem walking to the switch on the wall to turn on and off my lights. Gesturing and voice command to do the same it doesn’t seem rational and efficient, both from a human perspective or a technology/machine/resources perspective. Anyways, it’s nice from frog to share such endeavour with the general public.
Read all about Room-E here.
And while at it, check their Industrial Design in the Modern World movie, just below:
Konashi, a new physical computing toolkit tailored for (iOS) smartphones and tablets. It consists of small board leveraging a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) module and a corresponding iOS SDK. Most of the work-in-progress documentation is currently in English, although a certain level of japanese might be required to totally understand some content. It looks pretty sweet, especially the event driven model and the javascript level access.
[via Shigeru Kobayashi, Sketching in Hardware mailing list]
The upcoming Interaction conference has a very enticing title: Languages of Interaction Design.
We see language in several contexts. There is spoken language, body language and written language. There is an interface language between user and system. Other languages include the jargon we use to discuss our work and the tools that we use to do our work.
By enhancing the “Languages of Interaction Design†we create new ways to view interactions between people and things. Of particular interest is extending the context from urban to mobile screens and from immersive to sensor based environments.
The call for participation is open until September 1st. http://interaction14.ixda.org/participate
More info: http://interaction14.ixda.org
A great video series titled The Makers of Things. Inspiring!
Mentioned earlier on this blog, the book Prototyping Interfaces – Interactive Sketches with VVVV is out!
In short (from Vimeo):
The book “Prototyping Interfaces – Interactive Sketches with VVVV” covers within 280 pages the applied handling of interactive sketches with the visual programming language VVVV. It is divided into two main chapters, a theoretical and a practical part. The theoretical part concerns the definition and the meaning of the term “prototype” in the designprocess. The practical part of the book branches the basics of the visual programming language VVVV and how to control different electronic components with Arduino and VVVV. Beginning from the use of different sensors and actuators to modern tracking technologies like the xBox Kinect, different examples are explained within a wide range of tutorials.
Unfortunately the book itself is with  €75,- a bit pricey ( Rickard, perhaps we could get a copy for the workshop?), but all the example patches can be downloaded for free from the site.  The software itself, VVVV, is free as well and can be downloaded here (windows only). You can sneak preview a few pages of the book on the VVVV blog.
During my current internship I had the pleasure to work with the 2 guys who started VVVV. They used the software to program our installation for this year’s design week in Milan. The setup was quite complicated, as it consisted of 6 kinects, sound,  and 8 lasers that were custom built for this project. It was super inspiring to see them at work, and I was deeply impressed by what the software is capable of. They also run a small studio, and most of their projects (if not all) are also built using VVVV.
The guys behind the flying bike project almost took over the world. They almost did. Because: why starting a kickstarter project about a flying bicycle that is “ready for manufacturing” without having a pledge that actually gets you the bike? Maybe that would also have pushed people to back more, right now the funding isn’t going very well. I really hope they make it, though. And that I’ll have enough money some day to buy one.
I think the car is really well designed, I’m wondering if such mechanics allow for upscaling to a full-size car?
Processing 2 is now available, out of its pre-release status. Lots of changes and improvements, in functionality and in the UI (notice the new font for the ‘P’). Here is an excerpt from the website:
The Processing 2.0 release focuses on faster graphics, new infrastructure for working with data, and enhanced video playback and capture. It also expands the potential of the programming environment. The new Modes feature allows other programming systems, such as JavaScript and Android, to be easily used from within the development environment. The new Contributions Manager makes it simple to distribute and install extensions developed by the community. The P2D and P3D renderers are now built using modern OpenGL, and programs can now utilize custom GLSL shaders.
The presentations and keynote videos are now available on the UID’13 website! Pop by in case you missed out!
Congratulations to all you guys with a job well done!!!
Here are this years IxD degree projects:
Alexis Morin – lin’guage: Self-Directed Language Learning
Carol Tang – LIME: A toolkit for us to create the future library together.
Harry Clayton Cook -TACTILE SEMANTICS Browsing the internet blind
Jessica Myra – Legacy: Transcend Time & Generations
Kilian Kreiser – SPAN: A platform to monitor bird protection areas
Lynn Bui – The 10/60 Movement
Marlene Kettner – Interactive Histories
Maryia Ziankevich- Local ROOTS
Miha FeuÅ¡ – The Haptic Drive
Sharon Williams -Digital Identity: Connecting atoms and bits in youth’s search of self identity.
Shivanjali Tomar – Prologue
Vivian Lo – Pausitive
I’ve recently transfered from the Chicago office to the London office and now we are looking for interns.
IDEO London is looking for 3 talented interns for 6 month assignments; a design researcher, a visual interaction designer and a creative coder. We are looking for candidates who will want to use their expertise to contribute towards client work, research projects, studio inspiration, anything and everything, essentially to be an integral part of the team.
Being a designer at IDEO means you do a lot of listening, observing, brainstorming and iterating with a group of people who may have backgrounds and skills very different than your own. This diversity of thought and approach results in breakthrough ideas that lead to innovative outcomes. The successful candidates will be working with world class multidisciplinary designers and strategists to help solve big challenges. For the specifics of each role please visit out careers page:
Visual Interaction Design Internship
All applications has to happen though the website.