Greg Tran’s recent thesis at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, entitled Mediating Mediums, is a fascinating study looking at the cross section between augmented reality and architecture. Specifically he’s interested in moving augmented reality from the digital to the material — so that the augmentation is, essentially, “real.” That’s probably way too much of a simplification, so I asked him to talk a bit about what he’s doing. Architecture has historically been a medium…
 
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I love thinking about ways to make recorded music more engaging — more interactive. And I’ve posted before about ways to make music interactive — including modern sites like 3 Dreams of Black, more fluid experiences which border on synaesthesia, playful conducting for kids, and old-school music cd-roms. So it was really cool to stumble across Motiv, Russ Maschmeyer’s recent thesis project at SVA. It looks full of potential to change how we experience music….
 
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I was in New York last week and got a chance to see MoMA’s Talk to Me exhibit. I’d been following the development and curation of the show on its blog, which bravely linked to works that were being considered for inclusion. The show, on the communication between people and objects, featured a lot of projects that should be familiar to readers of this blog. It’s a fantastic collection of some of the best work…
 
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Qualcomm recently announced the winners of their Augmented Reality Challenge. The challenge was part of a promotion of their AR SDK for iOS. And the winners are pretty cool: 3rd Place: “Danger Copter” by five grad students at USC. It’s a great idea (and my favorite of the winners) — you walk around a very large physical surface in order to explore areas in a virtual city. 2nd Place: “Inch High Stunt Guy” by Defiant…
 
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I’d never heard of Daito Manabee before reading this great overview of his work by Joshua Noble on a CreativeApplications.net. It’s all pretty amazing stuff — but I was especially fascinated by “electric stimulus to body + myoelectric sensor test1.” Using the body as both input and output, it may be a little unnerving, but it’s also hard to stop watching. (Link via Serial Consign.)  

What is it like to conduct an orchestra? The easiest way is find out is to just try it yourself. Which is what this cute project from Magnetic North lets kids do. Wave your arms around and see how the orchestra adapts. It looks like a lot of fun. My only question is if it’s too unstructured an experience. Could there be a layer that helps guide kids to learn? The project was part of…
 
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I love L.A. And when the game L.A. Noire was recently released I was first in line to get a copy. It’s a fantastic recreation of Los Angeles in the 1940′s. So I’m really happy that Simon Wood, who was the production designer for the game at Team Bondi, was able to talk about what’s involved in the design of such a title… Q: What is your background? It’s a journey… I was 8 yrs…
 
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A game that self-destructs — both visually and structurally — as you play it. And once it’s done, the executable file no longer works. GlitchHiker was created for Global Game Jam on the theme “Extinction.” People could play the game at the event, but eventually it self-destructed — never playable again. All that remains is a video of the gameplay. There is more info at Create Digital Motion and Vlambeer. As well as the game’s…
 
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It feels like this should be filed under future, or perhaps under alternate realities, but instead it’s the present – right now and available today… Oblong’s Mezzanine. For years Oblong has been a fascinating company– doing super-innovative research into gestural interfaces. From their movie UI work, to conceptual demos, and even their vaguely mysterious (perhaps secret?) custom solutions — thir g-speak framework has been the foundation for a whole new category of interactions. So it’s…
 
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Have I mentioned my love of the blog Gym Glass Magazine? It was there that I discovered Linefeed — Michael Bojkowski’s blog with amazing video reviews of current magazines. His reviews (or, maybe, surveys) are so cool — they’re just him, flipping through a stack of recent issues and commenting on them. I’d love to see someone do the same for websites, or interfaces. It’s a very personal way of reviewing work, and his tone…
 
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