Check out this crazy augmented reality scenario by Keiichi Matsuda. Done as part of his masters in architecture, he describes the film: The latter half of the 20th century saw the built environment merged with media space, and architecture taking on new roles related to branding, image and consumerism. Augmented reality may recontextualise the functions of consumerism and architecture, and change in the way in which we operate within it. It feels pretty retro —…
 
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The recent SyFy series Battlestar Galactica series was incredible. A captivating vision of our pre-history. I’ve tried watching the follow-on series Caprica, which takes place sixty years earlier, but haven’t yet been drawn in. The show, however, has an interesting technology… When a character in Caprica wants to “go online” (or whatever it’s called in their era) or exchange information, they do so through what, at first, looks like a piece of paper. The paper…
 
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Watching this video demo of Wired magazine’s prototype tablet app, I was struck by how ordinary it felt. Yes, it was nice to see multiple pages from the magazine, to move fluidly among them, and for those pages to have some embedded interactivity. But overall it felt like a traditional solution. Are publishers ready to innovate? I certainly wouldn’t be the first to argue that publishers need to seriously re-think how they communicate. Are there…
 
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One of my very favorite early interactive projects was Lovedisk. I first saw it on a CD-ROM of winners from (I think) the 1997 Communication Arts Interactive Design Annual. Every semester, for a couple years after that, I’d show it to my students who would shrug. I think they thought it wasn’t up to Art Center design standards. They wanted to work on projects that were more serious and portfolio-worthy. I think they were wrong….
 
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The announcement this week of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Series has been getting a lot of attention. And, the reviews have been generally positive. It’s funny how, as designers, we’re so often skeptical about Microsoft. My friend Eric Brown saw the announcement and emailed me, asking, “Am I crazy for liking this?” I feel the same way. It’s not often that we say something positive about Microsoft. But this new phone OS is a refreshing…
 
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Take a look at this “reactive wall” in Montreal in front of La Vitrine. It was created by Moment Factory and Photonic Dreams. Created in August 2009 it was originally intended to be a temporary installation, it’s since been made a permanent part of the club’s facade. Sensors (it looks like they’re in an overhang above) track where people are, and in what direction they’re moving. Graphics react to their movements. I particularly like it…
 
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This morning, looking at the Flickr blog, I read this cool post about Flickr Everywhere. — a collection of new ways Flickr is being integrated into offerings from Apple, Google and Microsoft. The item that really caught my attention was the way that Microsoft is integrating Flickr content into Bing Maps. A type of spatial-search, it’s a very cool-looking mashup of their Photosynth technology with Flickr content. Check out, below, the video of it’s design…
 
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With TED happening this week, it’s been interesting to follow the buzz of activity around it. Watching Jamie Oliver’s powerful talk, an “all-out assault” on the need to change how we teach children about food, got me thinking… What role can we play, as interactive media designers, to make change and support responsible behavior in the world? Activism The first time I was introduced to the idea that my work had social impact was shortly…
 
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In a short but interesting piece in the Harvard Business Review, John Maeda & Becky Bermont provoke with Why Business Leaders Should Act More like Artists. Their three big “ahas” around breaking stereotypes and working like artists are 1) artists constantly collaborate, 2) artists are talented communicators, and 3) artists learn how to learn together. All good stuff. But I found their notion of artist as leader (related to my previous post mentioning the designer…
 
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When I first saw Peter Greenaway’s film “Prospero’s Books” I was drawn to the innovative use of layering and multiple images to visualize the 24 books that made up the film’s arc. I was inspired. I wanted to explore ways to create interactive books with the richness and complexity as the books in the film… Books that felt handmade — full of magical, detailed, mysterious content. So what about some examples of interesting digital books?…
 
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