The Web in the World
A slide show presentation by Timo Arnall which has many great examples of physical interfaces, networked objects, etc…
Also by Timo Arnall is Touch, a website and research project about Near Field Communication (NFC) which enables connections between mobile phones and physical objects. An ongoing archive of interesting applications and technologies.
Written by Julian Bleeker, this paper looks at what it means when objects, animals and other things start to contribute to the social web and the value that holds. More notes from Julian here: Networked Objects and the Internet of Things.
Eilidh and I have paired up for the current project. Here is our first statement-of-intent which we will continue to develop in the next few weeks. Keep an eye on Eilidh’s blog for more notes and pictures.
Given a world in which everyday objects are networked through an Internet of Things and ubiquitous computing helps augment our lives, how can this technology help us gain insights about the actions that make up our daily routines? How can these insights be delivered in an emotional way that encourage us to reflect on the way we lead our lives and the affect it has on the rest of society?
One of the greatest values of this new technology is the ease in which it can provide information about specific products and help us gain new perspective on our daily actions. If household items, personal belongings and new devices could be used to motivate people to take make small changes to their lifestyle, the effect could be positive for the entire society.
Essentially, we want to pursue the notion of Internet of Things and Personal Informatics and how these can provide people with meaningful and relevant data to help make more sustainable and socially responsible decisions.
“What we are contemplating here is the extension of information-sensing, -processing, and -networking capabilities to entire classes of things we have never before thought of as ‘technology’… artifacts such as clothing, furniture, walls and doorways.” Adam Greenfield in Everyware: The Dawnging Age of Ubiquitous Computing
Networking the Everyday is the theme for our current course on Tangible User Interfaces (TUI). Led by Heather Martin (with visits from Durrell Bishop, Christopher Scales and David Cuartielles), our class is exploring how the tactile and physical interactions we use everyday can help give new form to digital information and computer interfaces. We are paying special attention to the role these interactions will play in ubiquitous computing, networked objects and a world “beyond the desktop”.
The bulk of this course will be spent working on a single project. Here’s the brief:
We would like you to design a pair (or series) of networked objects that illustrate digital information (bits) in a physical form. Your objects must be manipuable by your specified user group (i.e. they should not just be ambient physical objects that only reflect and display digital data) but must enable people to interact directly with data through your objects. Your concepts can be of any scale (i.e. jewelry-like, hand-held devices, interactive lighting, interactive furniture, interactive environments etc.) but your final concept must be physically interactive, contain no display or screen (LCD) and be produced as fully working electronic prototypes by the end of the course. You also need to consider what physical interactions, affordances, attributes and metaphors are appropriate for your user group - and be able to rationalize why these are relevant.
We are looking for solutions that show appropriate use of technology but that are also beautiful and well-crafted objects which are useful, pragmatic and make sense to your users - whilst being simple, delightful to use – but not a mere gimmick.
