New idea of the day

On train to meeting had an itreasing thought about how to compute more about position of amibent displays.

Then had good idea about using the big screen. Basically put something up on the big screen and project something on the floor and measure how often people 'see' it. Do floor and wall displays work equally attractive. Big advantage of this kind of experiment is don't have to get the motion detection stuff working to make it an experiment.

The other idea is to run the does an ambient display make a difference by visualising the cookies which are used by people to track you. See if visualising this changes peoples security behaviours. Might be another persuasive type paper. Must do it quick before big display gets used.

Experiment from hell well..

This morning the expierment ended and I sent out the questionnaire. Paul made some last minuet adjustments which took me an hour to produce. Sent out the invite email and then got on the train to have a meeting at the DANA centre.

Talking with Y said I would be OK with min 15 responses and could write a paper with 20. In fact I had 15 partial with 19 full responses. I'm quite impressed people remembered words from a month ago to! Inital reponses look to be the reverse of what I was expecting but I have to chase up people in computer science to take part.

Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow gave quite an impassioned talk about the struggle to contorl ownership of information in the digital age.

He mentioned his website http://craphound.com/ he has put up some work. Might be nice to see what's going on inn sci-fi land. I wonder if I could pass of my research as science fiction?

With him was someone more interesting but less opinionated/articulate from Google. I wasn't introduced but she sounded interesting must ask Mike R for email for her.

I did as Doctorow about if digital copying is killing movie business then why don't Hollywood just go Analog? They still film in an analogue way and still distribute film for cinemas in analogue why not replace digital DVDs with analogue ones, after all they call the shots as far as new distribution media come. If Hollywood don't support a format it doesn't happen.
Corys intelligent answer was that Hollywood fall for the mistake that they think that technology will help them and no one else.

Cory did mention a project to show the fallacy of the lottery + wanted a device to show all the personal information leaving your computer as you browse. He also mentioned giving money to his kid for spotting CCTV cams. Which Is inspiration I like.

C and Google woman got into minor debate about the info Google collect to run the targets adds vs the kinds of things a repressive government might get up to. I asked what would happen if Google let you see/edit the data is collects about you so you could get better adverts. I mentioned the RCA stuff about getting things you owned to advertise them selves back to you.

I do like the idea of a squid/cache that put useful adds into your browser ( you have a meeting in 10 mins).
http://escapepod.org/ cool

Tangible interaction idea of the day

Just finished reading the Tangible and embedded interaction proceedings ( including Simon's low hanging fruit paper gurrr). Did have one idea inspired by the original answering machine interface.

What would an email interface look like? Small ball to represent each email - could you colour code them to indicate aspects of the message ( urgent, from this group, contains X in the subject line... ) Could you build it for a group of people ( the secretaries for example) mix the RFID tag in the ball with a tracker that would display/project the subject line.

Transparent computing

A voice emanating from the stairs. I once did a program for Lucy Kimble that took her speaking digits and had it counting down from 1000000 in a station. If you heard voices in the stairs perhaps you might turn to investigate?

I once wanted to use speech synthesis and recognition to make verbal bandwidth, one computer would talk to another, sending bytes by speaking them and the other listening converting back to binary. The idea was to have a very slow network connection between to networks were you could hear the flow of information, so you could listen to the internet. Might be able to get reasonable bandwidth by having a number of speaking tubes.

Another perfect visualisation method

http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/marbles/machine1.html

check out the video.

I like the image that every time someone walked up the stairs you get this ball running down a track all the way from the 2nd floor to the bottom. If you take the lift you get another ball to another bin. Perhaps you would get a physical balance at the bottom just to reinforce the point.

I could see a really big tube/sculpture (?) hanging suspended from wires in a spiral in the atrium - make a really big statement grab lots of attention. The noise would be attractive to.

Preparing for Brighton science festival

From Fun in the attrium

From Fun in the attrium

Some demos

Did demo to Y. she liked the look of the curved interface. I'm not sure she followed the quatum superposition interface - a good name would help here - might have been one of those things for later. Talked about some kind of interlocking game. I've got ideas on that front perhaps a grid. 

Good conversation with Jeff I I'm going to do the test interface for IPod touch. 

Got rejected on the asking Alan about alternative spaces to display front the digital space people didn't think they had any clients. Bit crushing as was seeing what Simon had presented for TEI. Need to look up email from Y about sheep review. 

On good new front. I have excuse to apply for Ipod kit. Have new Iwork/Ilife stuff.

Need to contact Richard Walker.

sheep

More on cursed research and a new direction.

The projector bulb arrived but I noticed that the building was empty - its half term and the building looks very quite. 

I've contacted someone to help with another building and will look at library again. 

chatting with Paul he felt there was a good research grant looking at how buildings and ambient displays interact and this could be a good line of research for a proposal. This would make a good research arc for me. Worth putting a proposal in ( need a couple of pilot papers first). 

Meanwhile had an interesting idea about measuring subtended angle - the more directly facing a display is the more likely you are to see it.. can we measure this does it say much. Could combine with complexity of interface. 

Also had idea on bus about mapping fits law on screens - what will this look like?

Images of atrium

To many images to include. 

Cool fabrication site

Found lovely website which does flat pack fabrication on demand. 

http://www.ponoko.com/

I wonder if we can make an open source table top - they do wood and 8mm acrylic... 

We are not alone

I was thinking of my own circular interface.

Looks like they have the same people to build tables for them too.!!!! 

This experiment is officially cursed!

I was setting up the projectors for the second run-through and ping one of the projector bulbs goes!

NO! 

Zoomable is back

http://www.zoomify.com/

http://gasi.ch/blog/flex-multiscaleimage-component/

And deep zoom a microsoft image file format. 

Prada mirror guy + flowers

Found David Kelly on TED talks. He claims to be the guy behind the prada mirrors in changing rooms. Also claims to be responsible for some of the useless exhibits in the science museum extension(boo his).

The bit of the talk I liked is the plastic flowers that wilt when you leave. I like the idea of a physical display that wilts flowers the more people who use the lifts. 

Fun ambient visualistion site link

http://infosthetics.com/archives/ambient/http://web.arch.usyd.edu.au/~andrew/publications/pervasive07_persuasive_display.pdf

ambient display idea 1

A change (bird cage) with what looks like a heart in it? Possibly something more neurtral - like a ball of fur. The more the stairs are used suggests the faster the heart beats or the faster the animal 'breaths'.

cursed research continues

Paul thought he had found a flaw in the experiment which I think does not exist. The big problem has been the weather. Snow has stopped people coming in the building again. We are going to re-run the experiment or just continue it for the next few days and end it next Wednesday. 

Today I'm at home but having a conversation with R.

Cursed and not so cursed research.

Had a skype meeting with Yvonne and Richie yesterday. Richie is in the US and is going to come over and prototype a physical visualisation of the movement experiment.  We are going to come up with ways to visualise the data. 

Richie is on for repeating the experiment in the US.

The cursed experiment is on hold for two days due to the snow. This won't effect the validity of the final experiment. 

I've been reading up about FLEX sounds intreasting I'm going to get it running on my mac. Perhaps I can do the zoomable interface idea again but this time in real time on mac and PC with minimal load time. I've been trying an other touchSimulator - not wildly impressed but I like the transparency stuff. 

Papers on interaction in buildings

Might be useful to check out for spaces paper

http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/931/1/penn-etal-1999-spaceinnovation.pdf

http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/3499/1/3499.pdf

good intro to syntax. 

http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/1678/1/hillier05-artofspace-english.pdf

Experiment disaster

Email I received on Friday. 

This is to confirm that we have discussed the placing of a tripod, computer and projector in the fire exit corridor adjacent to the JLB Server room and lab area, and that, as Fire Warden, I have told you that this area cannot be obstructed in this way and that the items must be removed immediately to create a clear path. This corridor is used by someone in a motorised wheelchair.

 

You are revising the placement of this item and you will remove it from its present location by 5:00pm this evening and you will not replace it there on Monday or thereafter.

 

This is to confirm that I have taken this action as JLB2 ground floor Fire Warden, and that if you wish to negotiate a waiver on the placing of this item in its present location, it can’t be discussed further with me – it must be taken up formally with the Senior H&S staff in the Occupational Health and Safety section of the HR Department to whom I am copying this note.

 

Separately I am concerned at the ‘dazzle’ effect experienced when someone goes through the door which has the projector shining full on it. I regard this as a prima facie breach of H&S – but again, I propose that if it is to remain, you must negotiate a waiver with the central H&S people.

David Clover