All of Us

Some interesting works by an agency called All of Us reviewed at this weblog Playful:

These two X-Ray and Grid (images above) are focused on explaining / exploring art work in a gallery environment.

While this one, Plink Plonk (images above), is less site specific and more an exploration of novel audio-visual interfaces.

Intuitive, “interface-free,” touch-driven computer screen

Jeff Han is a research scientist for NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Here, he demonstrates—for the first time publicly—his intuitive, “interface-free,” touch-driven computer screen, which can be manipulated intuitively with the fingertips, and responds to varying levels of pressure. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 09:32)

Google Earth – Web 2.0 Application

Google earth, I think just about everyone should have heard of this application?! If not, go download it…

http://earth.google.com/

GE used to be an application you were unable to do anything with apart from check out various places around the globe, some places in fantastic hi-res detail, but it has changed recently with integration with wikipedia and a photo storage website (Panoramio) to allow users to contribute to the system.

http://www.panoramio.com/

By creating an account with Panoramio, you can upload your photos to the website and by using Google Maps you can select where this image was taken. These images (after a length of time) will be uploaded to the Google Earth application, until then you can get Panoramio to link your pictures to Google Earth so you can view them on a temporary basis. I’ve done this and uploaded a couple of pictures and with screen shots shown that it works well. Over the course of time Google Earth should become well populated with pictures from all over the world.

This screen shot is from inside the Google Earth application itself.

I have some thoughts about this application (and the web based Google Maps) and the future and wonder how far it could actually go. Could we one day see Sat Nav in vehicles using Google Earth that is always kept up to date with the ability to see information about that area from wikipedia with images?

Other web 2.0 applications that I have been looking at…

www.dpchallenge.com
Upload images for photo competitions, other users cast their votes and leave general feedback about an image, a winner for each competition is decided by the total votes.

http://live.xbox.com/
The Xbox website is linked directly to the Xbox Live online gaming system, if you have a Live account you can log into the website and compare your gamerscore to other Xbox gamers, see if your friends are currently playing online, or contribute to the forum. This system works very well, but with plenty of M$ money behind it it should do!

Web 2.0 Website – Memorandum

I took a look at this site – www.memorandum.com, not so much for the content, but more to see what delivery of content could be achieved through this service.

The Memorandum website monitors the activity in the “blogosphere “and appears to point out the most important posts of the day. The growth of the rivers of information we’re being subjected to in the modern world needs tools that effectively help us cope with it. Blog filters are just one key example of what the future holds for us. Not sure who is in control of the content or whether we should be concerned about that (what if Memorandum gets bought out by Murdoch? Aarrrgh!).

The content is focused on US Politics and technology, but sites using the same technology and approch could easily be used for other subject matter, music, art, digital media?

Fully Immersive Interactive Gaming Experience

As discussed in the comments of the Second Life topic, I found some videos I felt belonged here.

Will interactive games ever be so real that they could replace the real life experience? As mentioned – we have controllers that make racing sims more real, but here, the experience of a racing sim has become even more immersive with a full motion racing seat to simulate G-Forces like this: -

This one is awesome, it looks like you really need a seatbelt, especially at the end.

I gotta get me one of those!

Second Life

As you know, we were talking about Second Life yesterday.  I was watching Sky News this morning and they did quite a big segment on it… A comedian created a fat ugly character and will attempt to do a show in a virtual standup comedy club.

Dunno if anyone caught it, maybe it will be repeated throughout the day, I just thought the timing was weird how it came on the news the day after the lecture.

Nike +

I recently joined the ranks of the ‘i’ generation by puchasing an ipod nano, primarily because i like to listen to music on the go. As an MP3 player it connects perfectly with my mac, and as the saying goes ‘it just works’. The reason for this boastful outtake is that along with my recent purchase i also decided to go a little further and buy the ‘Nike +’ kit. I have to say, this is one of the most impressive innovations i have seen in a long time;

To those of you who aren’t familiar, the video above describes how the system works. Pretty clever in itself, however the technology goes one step further in taking the collated data and uploading to nike.com, to give full graphical representations and debriefings from a run. It then enables the information to be used to set goals for pace and distance over a time duration of the users choice. The information will keep the user updated on overall progress, as well as enabling other users within the Nike community to view your achievements. If you so wish Nike will then pair athletes with similar fitness levels and fitness routines to compete against each other to achieve specified goals. So i myself could train against a foreign counterpart whom i may never meet, but be in essence a training buddy.

This technology although recently creating a stir with its ’security issues’ really has come a long way in innovating not only the way we listen to music, but also the way people can integrate technology and indeed networks into everyday life.

City info in time

Interesting Kiosk for train stations. City info in time is:

a trainstation infosystem that gives you information about the citysights when you have limited time left. It gives you suggestions what you can do if you have 30, 60 ,90 and 120 minutes left.

Prototype Idea

I am going to design an interactive menu for a Wetherspoons pub. This will consist of a number of screens so that the customer can place there order after selecting a number of items from the menu on screen. At the end of each selection, a total will be generated at the bottom of the screen so that the customer knows how much they are spending. It is designed to help customers with there order, showing what is available and how much it will cost, without having to go to the bar. It also aids the bar staff, giving them more time to serve drinks to other customers, and not having to worry about making food orders.

The idea of this kiosk is that once the customer places the order, it gets sent to the kitchen. The staff read the order and take it to the table. The first screen on the menu is to select which table the customer is at, so that the staff are aware of this.

If the customer has any specific requests, for example, if they have any allergies, then at the final screen, they are asked to specify this, or make any comment they wish.

In terms of payment, the customer will have an option to pay by card or cash. This process would work using the same process of the self checkouts at a supermarket. If the customer chooses to pay by card, the process is simple, they use chip and pin. If they choose to pay by cash, they will either have a slip where they can enter a note, or coin slot for coins, or another option to pay by cash would be to have a slip be printed, after they have confirmed their order, with a bar code at the bottom which they take to the bar to pay their bill.

Here is a video of how the customer would pay by cash. This is in a supermarket in America, but would it work the same way. It’s not the best footage, but you can get the idea

Wetherspoons have a website, which includes their menu, so this is a great resource for me to use

www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk

I asked a couple of people how they would react to this in a pub, and many of them agreed that they would prefer to order that way. I also asked a member of staff and he agreed too, that it could work well.

I wanted to look for some different examples of interactive menus, but I have not yet been able to find anything of good value, but I will continue looking and when I have found something of good use, I will post it

Here is an Interactive menu, for car design, in case anyone’s interested

Fran Shine

idea – Sophie Dye

My idea for are prototype is of a digital map/information point connected to the tourist infomation office. It would hold information about pubs, shops, cafes, parks, leisure centres. They would be put around the main town centre and train staion for local people and tourists. It would also hold historical infomation and useful information for the public.