Flows and interaction

Reading about support for mobile social interaction or social icebreakers I was inspired to this idea of a projector based system which would project information in front of you. The user would be presented with three or more possible flows or directions to moving each of which would expose different types of information to the user.   if the user followed a particular branch that Branch might then split up again into more detailed information.
The idea would be that if two users were exhibiting interest in the same kind of subject than they might be directed to collide with each other and then over the subject might discover they have some interest in common.

File this under experiments to do when I had a near infinite number of projectors on hand

Transport Systems Catapult Vision ( and the Internet of Stuff )

In case you didn't know transportation Systems catapult vision is setting up in Milton Keynes and looking for collaborators.  I was watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MtlqZsEx0I&feature=youtu.be

And a few of things have occurred to me from a research perspective. 

• I’ve been reading a PhD thesis on cycling in Newcastle. And the thing that truly still offends me is that there is no good transportation model or modelling tool for cycling. On the one hand I feel confident that my experience from developing modelling tools for pedestrians I could produce something that would work for cyclists. The downside is that this is really transportation research and way outside the remit of HCI. That said my current research arc is looking at interaction and navigation in buildings so there is some leeway. 
• As I mentioned to you I could create a nice box for counting cyclists. I think a real-time picture of cycling in a city could be quite interesting. 
• I like the idea of taking a lean start-up approach to encouraging cycling in the city.
• From a more computer  point of view and with the transportation hub strongly in mind I would think that people like MatterNEt ( http://matternet.us )  would be a big concern for the transportation hub people. Check the TED talk.  http://matternet.us/ted/  Amazon have also reported delivering items via drones. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25180906 currently this is illegal in the US/UK which is why the matter let people are looking at the Third World as a prototyping area. Clearly there is some interesting research looking at what would happen if  a change in the law was made.
• I think there is a very interesting PHD looking at modelling drone deliveries ( drone logistics).  Four example
• If we had deliveries via this kind of drone air force how many machines are we considering having in the air?
• What kind of delivery system would we have to have to match up with what we get at the moment by courier services?
• I am sure that lot of people would like to know about the costing of such a system. 
• Would having drones delivering goods to your back garden or office be cheaper than delivering them by courier?
• This would be quite a complex question involving needing the modelling of multiple autonomous agents.
• Four example, it is cheaper to ship by rail but the flexibility for trucks to move more on demand makes shipping by road a preferred option. 
• It would also be interesting to look at the energy consumption of these kinds of devices.
• Four example many people have suggested that it would be impossible for the UK to switch to a largely electric transportation economy. The current vision is that petrol will still be largely the only viable transportation source.
• The drones are still mostly electric would this mean that shipping lots of goods via drones would reduce our overall energy dependencies?
• Finally and I think Santi probably has this wrapped up already, but do the transportation modelling people have a good visualisation tool to look at these new transport models they are making?
• There definitely seems some possibility there for research. 

On the subject of iWatch

Just checked out some iWatch design predictions 

Apple iWatch Design Predictions from divadwg

Like the talk - here are some thoughts. 

Acceleration 
We have been doing research into physical interfaces. One important possible interface element is that you get orientation/movement which you can use for a lot of  interface activity. Myo ( MYO - The Gesture Control Armband https://getmyo.com/?goback=%2Egde_753787_member_217567055) incorporates nerve   sensing technology to give finger/ hand shape position. With this your interface becomes more like Harry Potter hand waving. Imagine pointing to the TV palm out like a policeman to stop it. Finger flick to carry on.

Accelerometers means you could have a simple fitness app - if you could measure pulse then you could save about 80,000 US lives a year by detecting early signs of cardiac arrest. Sleep apps for phone are very popular this might be another early big market for iWatch apps. 

Our research work 

One of our experiments was helping to people learn to practice violin ( getting arm/body position is important). So the use of a vibrotactile element (vibrator)  is very important ( helps get your attention sent info back). You could program these things to help with learning drumming or ballet or other physical skills. Some people done good work with relearning to walk after strokes - a bit specialised but shows the potential for novel interaction with iWatch. So the iWatch could be the Wii Fit of the mobile gaming world.

As far as the you identifier - you could make it use body electricity to modulate a unique signal to each device you touch. Basically if your wearing your watch your system knows it's you the moment you touch it. No long in screens just touch. Same goes for the 3 card reading locked doors you have to pass in order to just go to the loo. Could be replace by pressing the flat plat as you push the door.  

In Reality 

Personally I'm expecting the iWatch to be a small upgrade to the old IPod with multi-touch. little more than iPod mini + bluetooth and apps would be a huge achievement for Apple now. 

Intelligent furniture

Thought this wizard of Oz demo might make a good ubiquitous computing masters project. 

Ear temperature

I was talking to someone who wanted a ubicomp device which was able to measure the temperature in each ear. I asked if one would do.She told me that ear temperature was a good way to measure positive and negative feelings of enjoyment ( in all mammals apparently).  

No references but I am highly intrigued.

sheep

 

Idea of the day - wikipeida for structured knowledge

I was talking in a co-worker who is developing tools to permit people to edit semantic information. It reminded me of CYC an attempt to create a comprehensive ontology of common sense knowledge. 


Personally I've always been sceptical of these kinds of attempts to create formally verifiable structured knowledge. 


That aside I mentioned to the co-worker that perhaps what someone should do is to build a crowd source engine - like Wikipedia. The engine would have enough tools to permit people to enter information in the network of knowlege directly. I guess something like DBpedia ( but being explicitly written rather than extracted from wikipeida ). 


Perhaps its already in existence you see a lot of projects like this ( FreeBase, Open Cyc) - perhaps FreeBase is it( except that's commercially owned right?). 

ideal programming language thoughts

I think things like strong and weak references have to be brought into the programming language.

so in the definition
class Telephone 
{ 
  public: 
       
      Number phoneNumberDigit ; // normal 
      String weak name ;
      String  lazy phoneNumber ; // regenerable 
 } 


So when you assign elements you have

  thing.phoneNumberDigit = new Number( 230033) ; // normal 
 name <- "bob" ; // weak reference and don't forget it. 
 phoneNumber <- thing.phoneNumber.toString();// we can regenerate on demand 

   when you accesses them you get the same kind of thing.
  
    this->name.something(); 
   if( this->phoneNumber != null )  this->phoneNumber.something() ; // forced by compiler

naturally you would put the access to a lazy value in an accessor to make sure it was there when
you needed it.

Basically weak things say - if everyone else has stopped looking at this then its OK to loose the object. I don't own this I just know about it.
Lazy objects say - hay if your short of space its OK to loose this reference too I will check each time I need it.  Good for compact low memory environments.
  

trains and interfaces

From my face book page. 


Turns out that the super saver ticket the web site sold me will not let me travel on the train to Newcastle( even with the seat reservation) . Now have to wait. Until 7:00 to leave so all the rush to leave work early was for nothing. Current choice pay£101 or disappoint kids b not being back in time to read to them. I hate you trainline.co.UK website


Eva Hornecker I still prefer going to the trainstation to buy in person cause the websites don#t really explain which ticket options are valid - and sometimes do not list all the options!


 Well I ended up going to the website because last time I spoke to the ticket office I was far to flexible. The ticket guy was irritated with how flexible I was. Unfortunately I am now living in small village with no ticket office so web is only choice.


Now I have had time to calm down I've started to wonder how complicit my dyslexia was. I find these very texty websites hard to follow and have noticed that for many non text centric tasks I find the iPhone/IPad interface much more comprehensible. 




This inspires an interesting bit of research 


eye track both web and mobile conditions for common web/mobile apps and see if there is any substantive usability issues. 

Polipo and ZLIB

The subject of infinite bandwidth got me thinking to webcache technology.

I found polipo - a simple to use webcache. I'm big into cacheing why use bandwidth when you don't have to and like it. 


I was interested in something which might let me override some of the web adverts and let me instead reuse adverts for stuff I already have or to have useful information on the adverts (you have a meeting in 20 mins)

Calm/Slow email

One of the themes at the plenary was the notion of technology voids - going places without email/internet to create the sensation of calm and rest/contemplation. 


I was talking to paul about a mail server that would shut down for the evening from 6:00 to 6:00 in the morning which would sent an automatic email saying the mail server didn't deliver email outside office hours. I think it might also say this at weekends.  


I think the important part is the mail server would take the bullet for you not seeing the email. Perhaps it would suggest phoning with a number to release the email if it was very important. This would put the weight back on the sender to socially interrupt you making clear the other commitments you have. 


Perhaps with that you could create the calm spaces to recover rest and give rhythm to your life. 


The idear was you could still send but didn't get stuck on a treadmill of mail. I know so many people who drive them selves crazy answering email late at night.  I quite like the notion of periods of no interuption.  My wife now regularly gets documents at 10:00/11:00 in the evening which the students expect her to read them for their tutorials the next morning. For some reason instead of telling the student this is far too late, she will sit up till the early hours reading it for the next day. I feel this helps no one ( how can you work well when tired). So the idea is the technology becomes the facilitor creating their own technology void. 


I've been thinking of putting a timer on the wireless in the house which shuts off at 11:30 but you would have to have the facility to turn it on some how in an emergency.

Paul found macfreedom - it turns the internet off for periods but I wondered if a mail server as I described above

http://macfreedom.com/


Found link to BBC article about new book here. Good but the solutions are a bit weak. 

Giant orrery

Watching another wizzy computer graphic that explains little, science program on the solar system and I had the idea of building a giant robotic orrery. The robots would then be free to go round in circles around the sun ( big ball/light in the middle ). Each robot is a planet. With light from sun showing day/nights inclination giving seasons, moons giving solar ellipses.


Except everything is huge ( each planet is the size of someones body).


Build it in the middle of Middelton hall in the MK centre. Or run it outside.


I'm full of talk.

Guzumped

A couple of years ago ( really was it that long ?) I worked on trying to unpick the signals from Diamond touch and then spot both fingers. Well I wrote a simple version and got about 80% success rate from it - not bad. I wrote it up but the paper got rejected ( mostly due to poor success rate )

I've thought of a better mechanism one that would handle multiple fingers ( more than two ) but the implement is quite difficult and with the cloud and the table I've never had enough time to really sit down and spend the 5 days it would take to redo.

Well in the mean time someone had managed to do something and get it published! Impressive the paper reads really like the one I wrote but this one managed to get published and it had an 80% success rate.

I'm not that miffed - I had got distracted on other things. But I did feel it was more fundermental - makes implementing 2*1D tables very possible.

I'm more irritated with my self someone else managed to do a multiple mice paper - which was technically much easier but I never managed to think of the useage case ( again side tracked on the table + cloud).

Idea of the day

I was just putting the lambs to bed when I had an idea of something to do with a Wii controller. I found a way to hack into them but I wanted to think of some kind of creative thing you could do with them.

I wondered if it would be nice to get the wii controller to become a puppet interface. The position of the vertical controller controls the head and the position of the nun-chunk ( the other bit) becomes the controller of the arm - you end up with a muppet ( one controls the head and one arm ).

Using come body dynamics ( attach the body to the head and let it follow the head and arm ) via a physics simulation you could build a simple interface.

Perhaps this could be an interface which lets you record and play back so you can control many characters or perhaps you could have an interface where you are connecting to other people over the internet and you have a kind of strange Skype theatre.

Scratchy input

More seriously cool input - ideal for portable table.

Iphone idears Digital jitney

Having had the iphone for a few days now I have had a few more idears about what you could do with it.
The gps is they good and I realised that you could implement a great eco transport tool. To make it work you would need two iPhone apps and a web server.

App 1.

If you want to go from a to b you press the summon button on your specially down loaded iPhone app.
Your origin and destination are compared to a list of shared Taxis running in the city.
If some part of your route matches a near by taxi it is redirected to you. If not fresh one is dispatched.
Your phone gets a Ok response a time a price and expected journey time.
You enter your credit details on the iPhone app and effectively pay over the web.
The journey time is in a range the taxi your getting may or may not change route according to who calls it.
The taxi arrives - its larger than normal and can take 4-6 people.
You share the taxi for part of the route which means you share the cost.
The taxi driver has a Iphone/Tomtom app which is dynamically updated from the central server. It gives directions which it the driver uses to wave through the city to the next pickup./drop off (these can change dynamically).
Taxi drops you off at near your destination.

So what do you get for this.
1. You get taxi like service (origin/destination travel)
2. The taxi may take longer than a pure taxi. - It might stop for others.
3. You get 1/N (where N is the number of passengers ) cost.
So if you imagine that you manage to share the taxi with 4 other people you get 1/4 cost. So an £8 ride becomes a £2 ride - not bad.

The city gets something between a taxi service and a bus service. The taxi doesn't move until someone wants to go some where so you avoid empty bus syndrome. The taxi is fuller than a taxi or car so you get more efficent movement with out sacrificing safety or door to door movement.

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.

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.

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.