Flexible OLED Displays

Ultra Thin & Great Res - Need I say any more :)

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Apple Banner

Came across this banner..... well cool!

Force Field @ The ICA

I missed this at the ICA last night........ gutted :(

Force Field
21 Nov 2007
An exciting new performance installation from the internationally acclaimed sound artist Ray Lee. By interacting with the electromagnetic 'force field' that surrounds the theremin (the instrument you play without touching), Lee activates and controls a series of kinetic sound machines, creating music and movement from the ether. Somewhere between a Victorian illusion, a performance of electronic music and a scientific demonstration, Force Field is an exploration of invisible forces made tangible, audible and physical. This new work follows on from his highly successful installation performance Siren, which was recently featured at the British Council International Showcase in Edinburgh and at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz.

Running time 35 mins approx.

Unity - Nokia, Regents Street Xmas Lights 07

Christmas is upon us and the London shopping lights have been switched on and the frenzy has begun. This year Nokia as sponsored the Regents Street lights as part of a campaign to promote the opening of their new flagship store on the 14th December 2007.

Nokia have worked with their agency Wieden+Kennedy to bring to life this brilliant piece of Physical Space Interaction.

Unity [the Light Clusters] are designed by United Visual Artists, who have worked with the to create 14 of these 'bundles of light'.

What does it do?
well.... according to the PDF that I got from the W+K blog it:

•Interacts directly with you at the Nokia interactive window
•Changes with the ambient temperature
•Displays special performances throughout the day
•Reflects the strength and direction of the wind
•Responds to the level of crowd activity

Basically its bad-ass, and i'm so glad that big brands are becoming aware of digital campaigns beyond your desktop :) - I went to see it last night and its impressive reminded me of Usman Haque's - Sky Ear.

From the 14th December you will able to interact directly with the lights from the Nokia store's interactive window - watch this space. Their are special 'performances' on Christmas Eve - Evening, a different one for each of the twelve days, a boxing day one to mark the beginning of the sales, a count down to the start of the new year and a closing finale on the 6th January 2008.

Unity: Light Up Christmas Together
20 November 2007 - 06th January 2008
Regents Street, London, UK

UMPC - UltraMobile

Its the future.........


Products that are taking us towards this:
•Samsung's UMPC
•Asus R3 - Apparently Apple have been working with Asus on a tablet.

Smaller devices
•Nokia's N95 - With Its GPS feature (from what I have read its still a bit buggy though)

Other contenders if they GPS up:
•iPhone
•gPhone (soon to be released)
•Sony Ericsson P1i

This emerging attitude towards mobile computing has even got the guys at Nintendo thinking and has formed a part of a new business strategy focusing on more casual gamers and even non-gamers. Hinting at adding more features to the DS portable that would be useful in spots like "amusement parks" and "train stations" it even has a web browser on it.

There are many, many more devices out there that I have briefly touched upon the ones that came straight to my head. The role of these portable devices is important to the development of 'Physical Space Interaction'[Ubiquitous Computing "Ubi Comp"]. Before Physical Space Interaction fully kicks off there are a few things we need to solve/consider. It is probably worth creating another post on the subject of 'Privacy In a Ubi Comp World'.

I would love to here what you lot think about Physical Space Interaction / Ubiquitous Computing - any comment are welcome as this area is of great interest to me.

Nintendo Wii meets 'Minority Reports'

The release of the Nintendo Wii raised the HCI bar in relation to gaming. With such an innovative product, people have been captivated and have decided to hacked/mod the Wii remote. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Tracking fingers with the Wii:


and...

Wii Remote Controlled Robots:


Insights in to the creation of the Wii can be found here

Icebrkr - Mobile Dating

Say you’re sitting in a bar and see someone you fancy across the room. Ice Brkr is a new mobile dating service that lets you send them a friendly 'hello' using just your mobile phone. If they send back a friendly reply, you go over and chat. In effect, a real world friend request.

What this means is that unlike the regular online dating services, you can actually see the person and decide if there is any physical attraction before you meet/invite, and if you get to chat you can tell if any chemistry exists.

The great thing is that you do not need to download an application to your phone it works via WAP. Ice Brkr is still in its infancy however I do recommend that give you it a go, and leave your feedback.

We are beginning to see more services like this that merge our 'online' social habits with the 'physical' via our portable digital devices. Imagine that one day in the future a tool like this will tell me if the person behind me in the queue at the Starbucks is a also a [New Orleans Jazz lover].

Click here to find out more

Respect!

levelHead

Designed by Julian Oliver 'levelHead' introduces a unique type of game play. This is what he says on his site:

levelHead is a spatial memory game by Julian Oliver. It uses a cube - with an image on each face - as its only interface.
It uses a single webcam (EyeToy) to capture the image and a screen to present the computed result

'Inside' the cube are six rooms, each of which are logically connected by a network of doors. By tilting the cube you lead
a character around the rooms.

Some doors lead nowhere and will send you back to the beginning. You have just 120 seconds to find the exit of each
cube and move to the next.

There are five cubes (levels) in total and just as you imagine, the traps become increasingly difficult to avoid..

and the clip....

Big Shadow [Xbox Game Promotion]

Can't believe I missed this one :( - Last year Microsoft released 'Blue Dragon' - no it's not a code name for a new OS but a game title for the XBox 360. The main jist of it is that the main character's shadow turns into a dragon when he goes into battle.As part of the promotion 'Big Shadow - Interactive Wall' was created by GT INC.,and NON-GRID. Projected on a wall users shadow are turned into creatures COOL!!!

Reminds me of another great piece done by Phil Worthington called Shadow Monster which he developed on his MA at the RCA.


To read more about the Big Shadow for Xbox 360 click here

Elle MacPherson Intimates

The Interactive Storefront


Baptism ;)

Visual Audio Interfaces

Came across this clip of the 'Tenori-On'.Born out of a couple of years collaboration between Yamaha and Toshio Iwai, the device has been released for sale. I would love to have a go - It looks soo intuitive and loads of fun:)

Air Joystick

Potentially the next phase of Wii type interactions.

This is what they gotta say: "This is Sensoring, an air joystick that analyzes your body's electric field to transform it into some kind of Wiimote. In this video, the user waves his hand in the air—without any kind of motion detection markers or cameras—to fly a 3D helicopter on the screen a la Luke Skywalker. The sensor measures the distance and angle of the hand's electric field, capturing the motion and sending it to the computer. Looks basic now but maybe we are looking at the germ of a future Nintendo, completely touch-less, device-less and almost Zeldabulously magical Wii-III."

See the video at Gizmodo

Interactive Surfaces

A great example of furniture woven with technology:
iBar

Bruce Lee BMW

Just stumbled across this ad by BMW using a clip from a Bruce Lee interview, to sell the X3 I think they missed the point! - Big time :)


Watch the full interview below - this man's a legend

Moving Brands-London Design Festival 07

Last night I went to an inspirational talk done by a company called Moving Brands. Based in London and Tokyo they've done some amazing work and have a really unique future focussed approach to branding. This is what they've gotta say about themselves:

"At Moving Brands our multi-sensorial approach to identity creation begins with the story - the Brand Narrative® - at the heart of any brand. From there we build consistent and powerful identities that thrive across Static, Moving, Sonic and Responsive media. That's why the brands we create are able to respond to the different contexts and shifting platforms across which they need to communicate in today's moving world."

On saturday they'll be 10 years old - Happy birthday from the-uMe, "keep exploring in the cracks :)"

Here's a sample of some of there work they did for The London College of Fashion:

John Maeda @ TED

Got this clip from TED if you have'nt come across this site before you really need to check it out."TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds." Amazing video streamed lectures.

The clip below is of John Maeda - Talking about simplicity

The MIT Media Lab's John Maeda lives at the intersection of technology and art -- a place that can get very complicated. Here, he talks about paring down to basics, and how he creates clean, elegant art, websites and web tools. In his book Laws of Simplicity, he offers 10 rules and 3 keys for simple living and working -- but in this talk, he boils it down to one simply delightful way to be.

I'm back

Back in London after returning from our honeymoon. I've got to get through 567 posts[rss], the regular sites, and an untold amount of e.mails - watch this space.

MK12 Typographic Motion Graphics

Couple of Animated Typo experiments by the guys at MK12

Song:Streetlight Manifesto from Point Counterpoint


Song: From The Hush Sound [Work in progress]

Softspace: Contemporary Interactive Environments

On Saturday 8 September 2007, 14.00–18.00 the Tate Modern is holding a talk/discussion around the area of Physical Space Interaction. The talk/discussion will be chaired by are Lucy Bullivant and the speakers will include Jane Burton, Jason Bruges, Usman Haque, Lev Manovich, Despina Papadopoulos,Daan Roosegaarde.

The physically permanent identity of architecture has helped to define society for centuries. Now some practitioners have disengaged from tectonics as we traditionally understand it and are taking their discipline into the realms of ‘softspace’, a more fluid, ephemeral form of digitally-enabled design based on personalised experiences and responses. Softspace deploys new spatial systems including wearable computing, wifi, RFID and custom-designed digital software incorporating light, heat, sound and electromagnetic fields. These not only rely on people’s individual ways of interacting with them, but are enriched by narratives people contribute, creating new metaphors of use. Responsive environmental strategies of this kind have increasingly colonised museums and galleries like Tate, the Science Museum and the V&A.

While the notion of a fantasy world made possible ‘on demand’ by new technologies is the theme of films like Minority Report and ExistenZ, contemporary softspace projects play a more subtle and open-ended influence on contemporary socio-spatial dynamics and our sensing abilities. Architects Usman Haque, Jason Bruges and Daan Roosegaarde and designer Despina Papadopoulos discuss the cultural implications of their work with Tate Modern curator Jane Burton and curator, author and critic Lucy Bullivant, guest editor of 4dsocial: Interactive Design Environments (AD/Wiley, 2007). Lev Manovich, the ground-breaking new media art theorist, is a keynote speaker.

If you want to read some more or book tickets click here.

gPhone - Google's phone launching soon

Apparently its only two weeks away from launch!!
Click here to read more

World longest visual website

The "longest visual website in the world" on which visitors are asked to submit a 300x700px image to contribute to a continuous vertical banner, now approximately 18665.64cm long. Great for those times when your needing a bit of visual inspiration.

CLICK HERE to be inspired

Virtual Me

Real time 3D rendered avatar face over your own via a web cam - looks like fun :)

see more clips here

All hooked up

Intel's UMPC [Ultra-Mobile PC] vision
,

New Coca-Cola Happiness Factory

A great second release of the 'New Coca-Cola Happiness Factory' TV ad, created by Wieden + Kennedy and animated by Psyop

The agency actually premiered it in Second Life last week at a “glitzy event attended by nearly 100 glamourous avatars dressed in red carpet fashions, including reporters from all around the world”

Below I have also posted the “mockumentary” based on 'life inside the Happiness Factory' - for those who have not come across it yet.

Philips - Digi Graf Wall

Lil kid drawing on a digital wall.My parents would have loved to have one of these in the house when I was a kid growing up - would have saved LOADS of re-decorating:)

Mastodon Linoleum Knife-Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie Intro

You gotta watch this! It was shown before the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie it features Mastodon as the voices behind the junk food band.Couple of my favorite lines from the animation:

"If I see you recording this movie,Satan will rain down your throat with hot acid and dissolve you testicles and turn your guts into snakes"

"This is a copyrighted movie for Time Warner.If I find it on Ebay, Iwill break into your house and tear your wife in half!"

Soundball [Physical+Virtual Toys]

Cool football created by Aleksei R. Stevens that connects to a computer via bluetooth and plays sound whist being played with. Here's the clip:


I love toys/object merging the boundaries between the virtual and the physical, the Nabaztag is a great example of this.
I've Gotta get me one of those 'wabbits' - Might have to put it on my wedding list :)

Nicolas Nova:Mixed digital & Physical environments [Turin 2007]

Long but interesting talk given by Nicolas Nova on Mixed digital and Physical environments. He talks about current and emerging technologies within the Ubiquitous computing arena as well as projects that he is currently working on. I especially like the 'blogject' (Blog-Object) project where objects such as Sony's Aibo could potentially automatically post to its own blog when having interactions with the environment and people. Worth while having a look if you have an hour or so free.

Diesel: HD 3D Holographic Fashion Show

Absolutely amazing!.I've watched this clip over and over again and every time I think 'shit the bed :).Diesels Spring/Summer 08 catwalk show is a great mix between physical space and technology.HD 3D animations were weaved with models walking down the cat walk at the Pitti Immagine Uomo fair in Florence. Based on an aquatic theme 'Liquid Space', the Hologram were viewable from both sides of the stage.The team that worked on it aswell as Diesel's creative team (overseen by Wilbert Das) were barcelona based Dvein who created the visual effects which were combined with the 'badass' technology provided by Vizoo based in Copenhagen.Ok you wanna see the clip,it 's a bit log at 17mins but worth a look :)

Wanna know how it's done?
On the crblog they asked Diesel and this was the response:

“The visuals are projected through a series of ‘foils’ into mid air, so you see the images in mid-air. The models can then interact with them and walk through them. We used plastic foils placed at 45 degree angles so that the projected light from the ceiling goes onto a foil, is reflected on to another and then into the air.

We worked it so it had a real catwalk feel and so that you could view it from both sides: you can see the models, the holograms and the public from both sides. It’s never been used this way before as the technology has just been used in the corporate world before, for sales presentations, and the visuals have always just been viewed from one side. So we set up two rigs instead.

The animations were done with standard CGI animation software but were made for a 15m by 2.5m screen. It’s all rendered in HD, too, so was quite demanding as it’s 30 frames per second. We worked on the whole thing, from storyboard through to the final render in just two and a half months. Bringing together Dvein and Vizoo gave us this unique, truly holographic, 3D motion graphic experience.”

If anyone has more in depth info i would love to know.

Chanel’s Mobile Exhibition Showroom

Zaha Hadid has designed this a mobile exhibition show room. It can fit loads of people in and adjust its internal climate whilst showing off the products. This type of traveling exhibition rings true with what I have read at trendwatching.com regarding pop up retail.

Best leave the description to Zaha:

The size of the Pavilion will be 29m x 45m, a total of 700sqm. The overall height is 6m, with the floor raised 1.00m above the existing ground surface. In light of the extensive shipping between cities, each structural segment will be a maximum of 2,25m wide.

The 65sqm central courtyard has large transparent openings to the sky above and is designed to host events as well as provide an area for reflection after visiting the exhibition. The courtyard serves as an intermediate space between the exhibition and a public area of the Pavilion. A 25sqm cloakroom is also provided.

You can read more indepth about it on her blog here

It's coming! Apple iPhone

"The first iPhone kiosk has gone up in Seattle. The display is looping a video of the UI, docks to charge your iPod while you drool over the video and “alarm sticker things.”

Prometeus - The Media Revolution

"Prometeus - The Media Revolution is popular future-forcasting clip buzzing round the web suggests that the internet revolution at the end of the last century will kill all old media as we know it by 2015 and by 2022 all of our 5 senses will be connected to virtual worlds and we'll be busy experiencing each others' memories."

Check it out!

Microsoft Surface

Microsoft have announced the launch of a new computer with table-top style touch-screen that recognizes objects placed on the surface and skips the traditional keyboard and mouse in favor of fingers on the screen.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

VISIT THE OFFICIAL SITE

SEE WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

See how bad usability & aggressive advertising can hurt brands

In this presentation, Jared Spool will discuss how User Interface Engineering's recent usability research has uncovered some fascinating truths about how people perceive brands on the internet.

Interactive Bus Stop

This exhibit, a concept station – the result

of two-year collaboration between MIT

and RATP on Smart mobility – explores their

emerging potential: the bus stop a

self-organizing landmark

tell me more !

Creative Time - The Book

I just put an order in on amazon for this book - Can't wait to get my hands on it ! This is what they gotta say about the book on thier mini site for the book:

"CREATIVE TIME: THE BOOK exposes how this visionary cultural provocateur completely changed the notion of art in the public realm and made it possible for more than 1300 artists to create over 300 awe-inspiring works that enlivened and transformed the city over the past three decades. The book, published by Princeton Architectural Press, features 325-pages of photos and text by a wide range of acclaimed scholars and artists exploring the issues, ideals, and values that have defined the organization, as well as NYC’s history. From legendary projects such as Art on the Beach, Art in the Anchorage, Tribute in Light, and cloud writing to small and timely interventions that gave artists a voice – all gave us moments of surprise, often inspiration, and enabled us to experience the city in new ways."

Each cover is unique in that it represents a moment in NYC time which has been captured by the "The Urban Visual Recording Machine (UVRM) was a set of equipment housed in a truck reminiscent of a “pope mobile” with its large Plexiglas windows. The machines were programmed to record the colors, volume of sound and voices, and weather (wind speed and direction, temperature, and humidity) of each individual location for that moment in time. The data was instantly transcribed into an abstract visual representation of the environment, with graphic shapes and patterns created by the designers and Show & Tell Productions, and printed out on site with the time and date. Every 30 seconds, for 5 days from September 6-10, 2006, the truck traveled to locations of signature Creative Time projects: Times Square, Chelsea, the East Village, Coney Island, The Art Parade in Soho, and Lower Manhattan. 5,000 book covers, each capturing a moment in NYC, were instantaneously printed on site for Creative Time: The Book, bringing together new technology with artistic vision"



On the mini site you can also find more video showing the design process that the designers Hjalti Karlsson and Jan Wilker of karlssonwilker inc went through.

Love Sport

A Great set of 10 animations devised by Grant Orchard & produced by Studio AKA for QOOBtv I have posted two of my favourites below, you can view the rest here.

Paint Balling:

Rival armies, guns ready to fire, camouflage vests, helicopters. Then explosions, ambushes, splatters everywhere. The most colourful game in the world goes awol.

The Dogs:

What’s so funny in watching some greyhounds running in circle behind a mechnical rabbit? Well, maybe this is why it’s so damn funny! Watch if you dare.

Satoshi Kon Interviews

Interview 1: [27.04.07]
In the interview, Kon talks about the other writers who have indirectly influenced his work, such as Kurt Vonnegut and Philip K. Dick, and mentions that he is already writing the script for his next film. He expects this work, which he calls "a future folklore story," to be completed in about two or two and a half years. After he has completed several more feature films, Kon would also like to again direct a television series.
read the Tokyopop interview

Interview 2: [07.05.07]
Interview with Paprika director Satoshi Kon in Portuguese and in retranslated English. The interview covers his personal interests as well as his film and television work. Kon also reveals that his next work, previously described as a children's folk tale set in the far future, will have music playing a crucial role.
read the Papo de Budega blog interview

Apollo Apps so far....

Everyone is talking about Apollo, the platform from Adobe that puts rich web apps on your desktop. Here are the coolest, slickest and bestest apps so far.
read more | digg story

Wearable Technologies

Recent breakthroughs in “Wearable Technology” have certainly made us imbibe the wonders of the magic of the world of technology in the real sense…check out how!
read more | digg story

Music By Textile Experience

The XY position of the performer's hand contact moving onto the surface of the fabric is transmited to a computeur via a 12 Bytes resolution Midi card. This allows 4000 by 4000 points resolution. Two conductive fabrics are fixed on a frame, each one weaved with conductive threads in a different direction. When the performer presses any point of the textile instrument, the upper layer connects with the fabric underneath and the current eletrical value is sent to the computer.
Click here to visit the site

MR.T [Snickers ad]

Quit your Jibba Jabba!

MAEDA:MySPACE

Ever since reading 'Meada @ Media', John Maeda has been a great source of creative inspiration for me aesthetically aswell as conceptually. The book opened my eyes up to Aesthetics and Computation and the ACG at the MIT where John is the director. So many amazing people have been part of ACG such as Golan Levin,Ben Fry and Casey Reas just to name a few. [ Ben Fry and Casey Reas are reponsible for the amazing open source software Processing. ]

This exhibition follows on from John Maeda's most recent book 'The Laws of Simplicity' (MIT Press, 2006). This truly inspiring exhibition at the Riflemaker Gallery called MAEDA: MySPACE exhibits include some of his new work aswell as some works that he has made over the last five years. This exhibition is a must see for anyone interested in interaction design and seeing how creativity & technology can work in perfect harmony.

A Brief description from the Riflemaker Gallery Wesite:
"Now, in his first exhibition in the UK - Maeda:MySpace - John Maeda questions his own creation. Within a living MySpace page, Maeda will renounce the tech-dense, often passive, digital landscape he created, using only a matchstick and a scratchpad to guide him. Riflemaker will host this round-the-clock 'surround', with Maeda firstly live, then beaming in from his control center in Massachusetts, while he explores and explodes ideas about repetition and 'reduction' - personal downsizing - discussed in his recent book The Laws of Simplicity (MIT Press, 2006)"

The exhibition comes down at the end of May 2007
Click here to See Map

Also John Maeda is talking at the Design Museum on Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - get your tickets before they sell out!

Paprika - Anime

This is the next master piece by Satoshi Kon. Absolutly stunning can't wait to see it on the big screen!

BIP_Building Interactive Playgrounds 2006

Finally after years of nagging from my peers. I've found time to set up my blog, now the problem of maintaining it and keeping it fresh begins:) I'll start as I mean to go on enjoy - BIP is an international competition for interaction design projects for public events.