Can we get one for the Umeå IXD Workshop???

June 2 2010

From Singularity Hub :

“Francisco Paz (aka TheCorpora) has released new information about his open source robot Qbo. The diminutive wheeled bot stands only 456mm (18 inches) tall but is packed with sensors, including two high definition web cameras in its eyes. TheCorpora plans on using Qbo’s stereoscopic vision to let it react to people and objects in a realistic manner with face tracking, depth perception, and gesture detection. The robot will also be capable of speech recognition and synthesis. If all goes according to plan, the Qbo could serve as a versatile open source platform, allowing programmers to explore and perfect the ways in which humans and robots interact.

Qbo will come with some impressive hardware. Besides the high definition webcams there will be a MiniITX board with Intel Atom CPU and NVidia Ion graphics. The robot will be capable of Wifi and Bluetooth control and will have an associated API and web control panel. Its face will be expressive with a 20 LED mouth, a nose, and eyes that can move and be covered by eyelids. Ultrasound sensors will help the robot avoid obstacles as it wheels around.”

Read comments

PIXEL – A pixel art documentary

May 29 2010

If you can see this, then you might need a Flash Player upgrade or you need to install Flash Player if it’s missing. Get Flash Player from Adobe. This error may appear if the URL path to the embedded object is broken or you have connectivity issue to the embedded object. Powered BY XVE Various Embed.

From Simon Cottee [blog]

Read comments

Nice multitouch project

May 28 2010

There is a lot of hype around multitouch these days. A lot of it is just a shot at the uber coolness factor. Very few seem to fully exploit the qualities and subtleties of multitouch. Here is one that truly embrace and exploit multitouch in a nice way:

If you can see this, then you might need a Flash Player upgrade or you need to install Flash Player if it’s missing. Get Flash Player from Adobe. This error may appear if the URL path to the embedded object is broken or you have connectivity issue to the embedded object. Powered BY XVE Various Embed.

It comes from Roger Linn, the sampled-sound drum machine guru who is behind some of the most famous drum machines out there.

You can read all about the new musical instrument on his site: http://rogerlinndesign.com/products/linnstrument/index.html

Also, while at it, check his nice New High-Tech Musical Instruments page showcasing a lot of novel muscial instruments, and his list of drum machine projects. A clever man for sure!

Leave a comment

TechCrunch Disrupt NYC 2010

May 27 2010

During the last two days, TechCrunch Disrupt has been a meeting point for investors, designers and developers. Developers and designers showed their inventions with the intention to find an investor, and investors were giving feedback on how to plan their strategy or improve their products and services.

All the talks are available online at http://techcrunch.com/disrupt/. You have to select in the thumbnails below the video or it won’t start playing. In the middle of that section there are a few discussions that are really interesting. From how to plan your strategy, how to get funds and how to make of your idea a real service or product.

Have a look at it if you’re interested. If you’ve a cool idea you don’t always need the money to make it happen, there might be somebody out there interested in helping you out!

Leave a comment

Summer school with Massimo Banzi, Matt Cottam and Dennis Paul at CIID

May 23 2010

The guys at CIID will run a 3 weeks workshop starting in mid July with some familiar faces: Matt Cottam, Dennis Paul and Massimo Banzi.

The workshop is divided in three workshops of one week each. The people organizing each workshop are Matt Cottam, Dennis Paul and Massimo Banzi (one of the creators of our beloved Arduino).

Check it out, and if you’re interested, apply before the 2nd of July. It’s recommended to take part in the whole workshop but they will accept people applying for specific weeks too.

Week One – Exploring Interaction Design (July 12th-16th)
Faculty: Matt Cottam
The goal of this week is to introduce participants to the core concepts involved with interaction design through brief lectures, hands on exercises, film viewings and discussions. Computer hardware/software will not used in the exercises — it will be an analogue experience of digital interaction concepts. Topics include mental models, metaphors, affordances, usability, gestures, networks, sociality, and augmentation.

Week Two – Computational Design (July 19th-23rd)
Faculty: Dennis Paul
The course will begin with an introduction to computational design strategies. What is software? What are the processes? And systems? Participants will investigate the manifold potentials of software. Looking at software as a concept for describing processes, as a medium for describing interactivity, and as a tool for telling stories. Processing (http://processing.org/) will be the main tool of choice.

Week Three – Physical Computing (July 26th- 30th)
Faculty: Massimo Banzi
Aimed at students, artists, and designers or anyone else who wants to learn Arduino (http://arduino.cc/), simple electronics and how to build interactive projects – this five-day workshop will be led by one of the Arduino team and will act as a catalyst to enable participants to turn their ideas in to physical realities.

Deadline for application: Wednesday, June 2nd.

More info at IxDA and CIID

Leave a comment

Book Review: Design Expertise

May 23 2010

I recently read “Design Expertise” from Bryan Lawson & Kees Dorst and really appreciated it, especially from a design education standpoint. I could easily recognize many points in the book with my own experience studying and teaching at UmeÃ¥ Institute of Design (and in Montreal before). I wrote a small review and some interesting bits on my PhD blog:

A simple, interesting and informative book for design educators, design students and curiuous designers.

Design Expertise (publisher’s site)

Leave a comment

Protovis

May 23 2010

protovis

Since the site says it much better than I ever will, here goes:

Protovis composes custom views of data with simple marks such as bars and dots. Unlike low-level graphics libraries that quickly become tedious for visualization, Protovis defines marks through dynamic properties that encode data, allowing inheritance, scales and layouts to simplify construction.

Protovis is free and open-source, provided under the BSD License. It uses JavaScript and SVG for web-native visualizations; no plugin required (though you will need a modern web browser)! Although programming experience is helpful, Protovis is mostly declarative and designed to be learned by example.

This project is led by Mike Bostock and Jeff Heer of the Stanford Visualization Group.

An easier-to-learn competitor to Processing.js, perhaps?

Protovis website

Found via FlowingData.

Leave a comment

Open source video Blimp controlled by an iPad

May 18 2010

iPhones, iPads and iPod touch’s are pretty cool and quite easy to get them working with arduinos (google TouchOSC if you haven’t heard of it), this guys have built a cool toy and they explain it step by step.

So far, we’ve seen a car, a helicopter, and even a Dalek controlled by an Apple device, so here’s another form of transportation: a blimp, this time controlled by an iPad. Bonus points for making the video interesting and fun, too — we get a well-edited and shot video montage of how the iPad got hooked up via code to a blimp, equipped with a propeller, a camera, and even some lights. The blimp is actually a “Blimpduino,” a low-cost open source blimp design connected to an arduino controller. This blimp’s controller is connected to an iPad’s accelerometer, so tilting the iPad determines the blimp’s movement.

If you can see this, then you might need a Flash Player upgrade or you need to install Flash Player if it’s missing. Get Flash Player from Adobe. This error may appear if the URL path to the embedded object is broken or you have connectivity issue to the embedded object. Powered BY XVE Various Embed.

via TUAW & Blimpduino

Read comment

Archetypes and Their Use in Mobile UX

May 17 2010

Hello my fellow IxDoers!

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. :)

Read comment

Sketching Multimodal and Haptic Interfaces

May 17 2010

If you can see this, then you might need a Flash Player upgrade or you need to install Flash Player if it’s missing. Get Flash Player from Adobe. This error may appear if the URL path to the embedded object is broken or you have connectivity issue to the embedded object. Powered BY XVE Various Embed.

Our sensorial system is our interface to the world. It is trough and with our senses that we can perceive, reason and exchange with external systems, living or not. Our professional and personal activities are made of rich and complex sensorial experiences, spanning on different stimulus and modalities.

Up to now, the repertoire of input and output forms generally found in human-device interfaces have been usually centered on vision and to some extend audition. Despite decades of research and development, very few systems or devices today go beyond these two senses and truly offer rich multimodal interaction. Why is that so?

This presentation will explore the opportunities and challenges related to developing new multimodal interfaces specifically based on the touch sense. It will present various methods, techniques, tools and processes that interaction designers can use to assess, sketch, create and evaluate dynamic haptic and multimodal interfaces.

Read comments

Build a Self-Balancing Segway Skateboard

May 7 2010

Build a Self-Balancing Segway Skateboard

This low cost self-balancing skateboard project is a mix between the Segway-like scooter and Electric Segway Skateboard we’ve covered before. Add an Arduino microcontroller, a motor, and some sensors to a standard skateboard and you get a wheeled vehicle which does the balancing job on its own.

Link

Read comment

CHI 2010 highlights

April 27 2010

April is CHI season and this year the 2010 conference was held in Atlanta in the US. I haven’t attended the event but most people I talked to appreciated it. Here are some hightlights and interesting/funny bits for IxD.

If you can see this, then you might need a Flash Player upgrade or you need to install Flash Player if it’s missing. Get Flash Player from Adobe. This error may appear if the URL path to the embedded object is broken or you have connectivity issue to the embedded object. Powered BY XVE Various Embed.

If you can see this, then you might need a Flash Player upgrade or you need to install Flash Player if it’s missing. Get Flash Player from Adobe. This error may appear if the URL path to the embedded object is broken or you have connectivity issue to the embedded object. Powered BY XVE Various Embed.

If you can see this, then you might need a Flash Player upgrade or you need to install Flash Player if it’s missing. Get Flash Player from Adobe. This error may appear if the URL path to the embedded object is broken or you have connectivity issue to the embedded object. Powered BY XVE Various Embed.

If you can see this, then you might need a Flash Player upgrade or you need to install Flash Player if it’s missing. Get Flash Player from Adobe. This error may appear if the URL path to the embedded object is broken or you have connectivity issue to the embedded object. Powered BY XVE Various Embed.

If you can see this, then you might need a Flash Player upgrade or you need to install Flash Player if it’s missing. Get Flash Player from Adobe. This error may appear if the URL path to the embedded object is broken or you have connectivity issue to the embedded object. Powered BY XVE Various Embed.

If you can see this, then you might need a Flash Player upgrade or you need to install Flash Player if it’s missing. Get Flash Player from Adobe. This error may appear if the URL path to the embedded object is broken or you have connectivity issue to the embedded object. Powered BY XVE Various Embed.

There is more media coverage listed on the official site and the CHI2010 Madness Youtube page.

Read comments

IDEO looking for a great human-centered interaction designer

April 26 2010

Oyé Oyé! Some IxD elves from the other side of the Atlantic are letting us know that IDEO is actively looking a great human-centered interaction designer to fill out this position on the East coast of the USA. If you are a human + love humans + excel at visualizing IxD stuff, you are the (wo)man! Apply now and get ready for the next transatlantic cruise (Eyjafjallajokull permitting).

I feel there might be some illegal trafficking of IxD talent between UID and IDEO. I have not counted all the offenses, but I noted a high volume of export/import transactions showing up on the Battleship radar lately!

Read comment

Kaleido

April 22 2010

If you can see this, then you might need a Flash Player upgrade or you need to install Flash Player if it’s missing. Get Flash Player from Adobe. This error may appear if the URL path to the embedded object is broken or you have connectivity issue to the embedded object. Powered BY XVE Various Embed.

Kaleido is a tool that is designed to help visual-thinkers program. You can use Kaleido to create personally meaningful visuals for your code. Kaleido allows individuals to plan, organize, and navigate code in the idiosyncratic way we each think.

I haven’t had the time to download and try it out yet, but it seems like a nice tool for beginners at programming to better understand what it is they are doing. Kaleido is built on top of Processing.

Kaleido website.

Read comments

The Future of Multi-Touch

April 18 2010

Create Digital Music recently posted a nice article and interview with JazzMutant’s CEO Guillaume Largillier. If you don’t know JazzMutant and its Lemur interface, well go in the Interaction Workshop and have a look the device. It is the first multi-touch hardware interface that was offered commercially to this world.

It is always interesting to discover the history, process and ideas behind a product or service. It was nice to discover their early Lemur prototype back from 2003. The interview presents nothing really new or ground-breaking about the future of multi-touch. But throughout the article/interview, you realize that multi-touch is so much about all the hype and crap right now (rotating videos or ten-finger painting), it’s difficult to find and appreciate well-thought and truly meaningful multi-touch offerings. I personally have seen only a few (2-3) on the Microsoft’s Surface and the iPhone. Out of gazillions apps and developers out there, that is a pretty low success rate I would say. It’s not the norm but more the exception. Sure you can say that the “pinch to zoom” gesture is great and useful. But with only 2 touches, it kind of the low-end of multi-touch.

So it goes back to the whole ecology of multi-touch that Mr. Largillier talks about: getting all the pieces together is totally not trivial. The design approach (and understanding) has to match the hardware and software integration. And like always, details, details, details. The details matter very much: latency, robustness, accuracy and the likes.

Anyways, go and read the article:
The Future of Multi-Touch: Behind the Scenes with Stantum, JazzMutant Co-Founder

Leave a comment