When the iPad was released last year, there were several titles that had strong echos of earlier days of interactive CD-ROMs. Relaxing on a sofa and exploring a new world was much more enjoyable than sitting at the computer where the sense of wonder and adventure quickly transformed into frustration and an eagerness to relax elsewhere. So it’s great to see a title from “back in the day” get reissued and brought, sensitively, up-to-date for…
 
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Take a look at this cute project from the Japanese firm Mobile Art. From what I can get out of Google Translate, it’s what they call a “PhoneBook” and it’s titled “POPO and MOMO Ride! Ride!” (You can buy it from amazon.jp.) It’s a simple idea: place an iPhone inside a book-like container, then turn pages to reveal new content. A nice reminder of the easy power of mixing physical and digital. Link via Quipsologies.

The tangibility of tabletop/object interfaces can make them much more approachable and informal than screen-based applications. That, plus you’re focused on the experience — not distracted by all the other apps or toolbars fighting for your attention. So it was cool to discover these two recent explorations. The first, Augmented Shadow, is by Joon Moon, a grad student at Parsons. By moving an object designated as the light-source, the other objects’ shadows are updated. The…
 
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Uniqlo’s interactive stuff is always cool, and this little toy is no exception. The “Lucky Switch” widget was part of a 2009 end-of-year clearance campaign. The widget could be embedded into blogs and websites, and when pressed, transformed every image on any website into a Uniqlo Lucky Ticket. The widget was designed by the Japanese firm IMG SRC. You can see a description (in Japanese) of the project here.  I’m still searching for the actual embed…
 
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Once, back in the pre-web days, when I was in Japan, I spent a lot of my time grabbing as many interactive CD-ROMs as I could get my hands on. They were filled with strange and fun interactive candy — even if I couldn’t quite understand what was going on, or what I was supposed to do. I just stumbled upon Iain Tait’s blog Crackunit, and a cool post from last year: 9 Reasons Japanese…
 
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In 1996 I saw the Mediascape exhibition at the Guggenheim SoHo. A collection of digital art, some interactive, it was bold show from a major museum. It received mixed reviews — but one of the pieces there left a lasting impression on me. It was “Piano – As Media Image” by Toshio Iwai. From the exhibition’s catalog: [the piece] combines a real grand piano with virtual images. The player uses a trackball to place luminous…
 
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If you’ve never seen the work of Yugo Nakamura, known online as Yugop, go immediately to his website www.yugop.com and take a look around. And if you have seen his work, it’s probably worth looking at again. Based in Japan, Yugo’s been doing amazing interactive work since the late 90′s. His work, primarily Flash-based, has an intimate sketch-like experimental quality. His projects are beautiful explorations of dynamics and interaction. With their understated tranquility, they reflect…
 
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