Category: Links

Stephen P. Anderson was kind enough to mention me in his presentation about getting UI inspiration from ‘the edge’.⊘

Shawn Allen of Stamen uses a visualization to debug a visualization.

Have seen these in several presentations now—wonderful interactive maps allowing you to look at travel times and other variables in London. Wouldn’t mind a personal version of this for my own use.

“Mail Trends lets you analyze and visualize your email”.

“[…] an augmented Oyster Card (the RFID-enabled Underground ticket) holder which displays, over time, the journeys a rider has taken […]”

“SenseWear WMS® enables automated monitoring of calories burned, dietary intake, duration of physical activity and sleep […] The SenseWear® platform is a marriage of three basic components – a wearable monitor, a personal feedback device and a website

“The EyeTap is a name for a device that is worn in front of the eye that […] Acts as a camera to record the scene available to the eye, and […] Acts as a display to superimpose a computer-generated imagery on the original scene available to the eye.”

“Sousveillance [is] the recording of an activity from the perspective of a participant in the activity, typically by way of small portable or wearable recording devices that often stream continuous live video to the Internet.”

“Find The Cameras is a social networking site at SUNY Purchase College to identify the locations of security cameras.”

An elaborate overview of sign-up patterns by Alexa of Adaptive Path.

Tom wraps up his examination of an interesting little story-line in GTA IV.

A report of a panel discussion at the Games for Health conference. Some very different approaches to applying games outside of entertainment. I enjoyed the exercise games example the most.

Where did this come from? Apparently the Reboot folks have dug up a bunch of recordings I did not know about – including one of my presentation last year. Oh dear.

“Have you wanted an LED that can fade from deep red to bright purple? Flash like a police light? Turn on with the subtle fade of an incandescent bulb? Flicker like a candle? That’s BlinkM.”

An upcoming book on urban informatics and the real-time city. Via Dan Hill.

This might be worth making the trip to fortress America for this year. Game design legend Chris Crawford is speaking.

A thorough review of several notebooks by someone who obviously takes this all very seriously.

Mr. Hinton got one of these. Do want too.

Saw this a few times in presentations over the past years: “Arukotch isn’t really a tamagotchi, it’s more of a pedometer. Not only does Arukotch count your steps, she will also meet new boys while you are walking.” (From Mr. Bleecker to Mr. Bogost to me.)

“I think in prototyping the most important I’ve learned is to choose the visual language that satisfies it, to capture the maturity of the idea. […] And that language should be apparent when you give it to people to look at.”

Just when I was planning to start playing with my WiiMote and Processing my friends at Tinker.it publish this tutorial (and a few others). Fun!

More DS goodness: “a FREE homebrew Cellular Automaton music sequencer for the Nintendo DS”. Via Tom (again).

Pretty video for the Radiohead song Weird Fishes made with Processing. Via Jacco.

My friend Annakaisa has published one of her game-like elicitation techniques: verbs, nouns and adjectives cards for rapid idea generation sessions (tailored to casual mobile games).

One designer takes a stab at what makes the WiiWare title lost winds so unique. “Changing the method of input can make a familiar genre feel like a unique experience”. I would say: of course it does! “It’s the interaction, silly.”

A short Dutch documentary film featuring Brian Sutton-Smith who makes some very interesting points about the *real* value of play. Also some footage of Fisher-Price’s play lab.

Another awesome G.R.L. project: laser controlled graffiti light display projected on the Renzo Piano KPN Telecom Building in Rotterdam (where I once had an animation running).

An ambitious new foundation that aims to give the Dutch games industry a real boost.

“Colors! is a simplistic digital painting application for Nintendo DS based on modern painting-techniques developed for drawing tablets in programs like Photoshop.” Via Tom.

Noone explains the virtues of casual gaming better than Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation fame.

Possibly the best presentation I’ve seen in a long time about the merging of social software and gaming. Hunicke explains things very clearly.

“Well then, explanations are now no longer causes but networks of mutual contingencies. We can look at explanations not as predictions, but as chords that have reached closure. Seeing an explanation, we can feel relief that the world is at one.”

Ton offers a topology of Twitter users based on their friends/followers ratio. And describes how he attempts to create conversational symmetry for himself.

I like this—an interactive light display controlled by dripping colored inks into glasses of water. Via Alexandra.

A digital version of Debord’s Kriegspiel, by RSG. Via Bernard.

“…letting ourselves explore the land of the senses is the only way to start to break the dominance of the greedy, visually-driven interfaces and deliver mobile experiences and interactions that – as Adam Greenfield says – dissolve into behavior.”

Slick ‘visual’ interface to the news. Spotted in James’ Flickr stream.