Category: Links

Pleasant talk by the author of Understanding Comics with some amusing slide acrobatics.

I can’t believe I missed this post the first time around. Mr. Greenfield writes: “What I’m looking for from designers is tactful acceptance that I intend to use their product to serve my own (now ludic, now serious) ends, rather than a positive assertion that they’ve a priori understood what makes something fun.” The ensuing discussion (involving, a.o., Jane McGonigal, Raph Koster and Matt Jones) is pure gold. It’s about whether designers should aim to improve people’s lives, and what it means to design playful things in the first place.

I agree with Marrije – Verhulst’s book is possibly the best I read last year. It makes me wish I could magically make people read Dutch, because it would just not be the same translated in English.

“People who use mobile media often find themselves shifting between different modes of being in the city. Sometimes they use their technology to withdraw from their actual surroundings, to form a private bubble, to demarcate TheirSpace: at other times, they will use the same devices for more public acts. They will engage in the space around them, and participate in OurSpace.”

A profile piece if the prolific Dutch architecture firm MVRDV. They have an interesting perspective on where urbanism should go next, but I wonder – are equipped to adopt a decentralized mindset?

Greenfield fears the read/write city will not be comprehensible to its inhabitants: “the systems that structure and determine outcomes in this context – distributed armatures of minuscule embedded sensors, processors, and actuators – cannot be “read” in any ordinary sense. Individually, they’re the proverbial “black boxes,” and what’s worse, they achieve their effects by being connected in nonlinear, emergent process loops.” Perhaps these systems are impossible to make readable in the textual sense, but can be understood on a more intuitive level nonetheless, similar to how we ‘read’ the behaviour of crowds, flocks and swarms.

An article discussing the impact of mobile phones on the individual’s perception and use of the city, as well as its aggregate effects on the city as a whole. Some good points towards the end w.r.t. the need for urbanists to adopt a decentralized mindset.

An interesting critique of the current state of urban gaming. “What happens when fun and games become values you can’t question?”

“Foldit is a revolutionary new computer game enabling you to contribute to important scientific research.” Another entry into the growing collection of games seeking to employ human computation for useful ends (I guess kicked off by Luis von Ahn’s ESP Game. Via Hessel.

“The Lost Ring was a global, multi-lingual alternate reality game that united players in a quest to recover ancient Olympic secrets. It centered around Ariadne, a lost Olympic athlete from a parallel universe. Discreetly sponsored by McDonald’s, the experience engaged younger audiences who dislike overt marketing.” Something to dig into.

“Phillips designed the machine to demonstrate in a visual way the circular flow of money within the economy.” Playing with complexity? You bet. Via Alexandra.

Interesting social urban game: you play in teams, snap photos during an event that fit categories you are given beforehand, share them online.

Some interesting games in this end-of-the-year list. Shame most of them are Windows only.

It’s a shame I can’t find the maps discussed in this article. They would be interesting study material.

(Dutch) Ton en James hebben het ‘m geflikt; ze starten in het nieuwe jaar een project dat de eerste concrete stappen naar open overheidsdata zet. Als ik de kans krijg, stort ik me graag op wat eerste ‘speelse’ visualisaties van overheidsdata die dan als voorbeeld gebruikt kunnen worden.

“Imagine telling senators in 1992 that soon every 13 year old would have a porn machine on his/her desk.” Found this post via a reaction by Chris Fahey on AG’s blog.

A comic of Philip K. Dick’s VALIS experience, drawn by Robert Crumb.

The first official trailer for Swords and Soldiers by Utrecht-based Ronimo Games. Looks like this side scrolling RTS could become a lot of fun.

Bill Buxton corrects and adds to the history of touch screens as presented in Dan Saffer’s book. Some interesting bits on the iPhone’s precursor Simon here. We need more interaction design historians.

“…an obsession with the new and original, without a deep literacy and appreciation for the past, leads to a path of missed opportunities.” Buxton comparing the Vanity Kodak with the iPod Mini.

“Barcode Beats is a system that converts barcodes into music through an interpretation of the numbers on the barcodes.” Jonas Löwgren, — professor at K3 in Malmö — told me about this project. It was done as part of the master of interaction design. I really like the fact that this is a tool, it leaves meaning-making to the users. It is playful and encourages creative action.

Interesting post by Dan on foundational concepts for a multi-touch OS. I’m surprised there’s nothing related to collaborative work on one screen, which I would say is a prime opportunity for this type of system.

“RepRap is short for Replicating Rapid-prototyper. It is the practical self-copying 3D printer shown on the right – a self-replicating machine. This 3D printer builds the parts up in layers of plastic. This technology already exists, but the cheapest commercial machine would cost you about €30,000. And it isn’t even designed so that it can make itself. So what the RepRap team are doing is to develop and to give away the designs for a much cheaper machine with the novel capability of being able to self-copy (material costs are about €500).” Saw this at the fablab in Utrecht today. What a crazy idea, imagine how disruptive this will be once it hits the main stream?