Category: Links

A thread on the IxDA list about movement analysis and interaction design for gestural interfaces.

One Rebooter pointed out this video after my talk – (virtually) all footage is taped by CCTV cameras.

Snapshot launches. I love the way thumbnails motion blur when dragging the slider in the bottom and stuff on the map live updates. It’s just *fun* to play with.

“The PCG Wiki is a central knowledge-base for everything related to the Procedural Content Generation, as well as a detailed directory of games using Procedural Content Generation.”

“Spore has created an unexpected set of design problems: the reverse of virtually any other game. There is literally too much content for any gamer to experience; and the tools to manage and select […] from this content don’t yet appear to be in place.”

“Chocolate Castle is a tricky sliding block puzzle game. The object of each puzzle is to arrange blocks of chocolate into large connected regions so that they can then be consumed by a team of hungry animals.”

Sent to me by Alexander: A very low key parkour video which makes it all the more powerful. No music, and including mistakes.

Powazek’s new project with HP sounds great. Now to figure out what to publish…

A collection of work by MA RCA Design Interactions students on the future of money. Some nice bits here (and well presented).

A FabLab opening in Utrecht… Will have to check it out once I get back. Have a few ideas for toys I’d like to see fabbed.

A write-up of a Will Wright talk that is quite different from what he has been speaking about in the past.

James links to an almost animal-like BMW prototype car that has a flexible, adaptive skin. The wink at the end is downright creepy.

“Using a billion points of GPS and WiFi positioning data from the last few years – plus real-time feeds – Citysense sees S.F. from above and puts the top live hotspots in your hand.”

Played with this at FBTB and really liked it—four speakers with telephone receivers attached for “subtle interference etudes, to collaborative chanting and big, bad rhythm orgies”.

A new IxD course in NYC. Seems to be focussed on screen based interactions.

Interview with the author of a new book on Steve Jobs. Some more evidence in support of Bill Buxton’s claim that Apple is one of the few companies where *real* design is happening: a huge amount of elaboration and exploration up front.

Anonymous reviews of and salary reports on companies. Interesting concept (and content).

Huzzah! Interaction 09 has been announced and looks to be bigger and better. Had to miss the 1st edition, will make sure I won’t have to this time.

A look at implementations of social interaction patterns in ARGs. “in ARGs where patterns such as ‘individual rewards’ and ‘social statuses’ have been invoked by developers, there has been player-created events that thwart, ignore or reverse them”

I quite enjoyed this video of Joshua Klein explaining how he ‘hacks’ crows.

This pamphlet by Adam Greenfield and Mark Shepard provides a good overview of urban computing and asks some much needed questions about where things are headed and how that may be influenced.

“Within about 10 clicks, the system makes a guess at the user’s cognitive style and morphs to fit. “If we determine that you like lots of graphs, you’re going to start seeing lots of graphs,” he says.“

I like this short but sweet talk by Johnson about the fight against cholera in Victorian London.