Category: Links

Wish I could attend this unconference on games and play. Tickets go on sale today. Guess I’ll just keep an eye out for the online fallout.

Dan Hill on applying social software and infoviz to tackle sustainability in the home. I like this for the way it uses different sketching techniques to visualise the design. The gaming dimension could use some more attention w.r.t. player motivations.

“BUG is a collection of easy-to-use electronic modules that snap together to build any gadget you can imagine. Each BUGmodule represents a specific gadget function.”

Perhaps I should install one of these on my balcony when I move back to NL.

Very pretty and insightful poster on how much water is used up to produce all kinds of stuff.

I like the fact that the output of a retreat at which LA Times editors tried to figure out how to deal with the future of news is not just a written memo, but also a poster that was apparently sketched live by a ‘graphic facilitator’. Via the AP blog.

Bookmarking for reference w.r.t. my The Web and Beyond 2008 talk. Amusing and at the same time scary anecdote about mobile phone surveillance by German secret service (apparently this is going on at a large scale in NL too).

Mr. Rutter and Mr. Box share some of the clever tricks they’ve been using to create prototypes of websites. Saw this in action on a project I did with them and quite liked it.

Sweet – a service that tracks new album releases for artists you listen to (using Last.fm). Via Mr. Biddulph.

In his Interaction 08 keynote Alan Cooper calls for a bottom-up insurgency lead by interaction designers to create an engineering phase between design and production in which designers and programmers collaboratively figure out how to build products.

More Interaction 08 goodness. Buxton talks about the greater context designers are part of and what makes them unique. Some really good bits on sketching here.

At Interaction 08, Molly Wright Steenson proposes the creation of more systems that get bored with their users and “kick back”.

A keynote by Malcolm McCullough on pervasive media in urban space. Making the point that media have been present in the city practically from the beginning. Some good bits on psycho-geography here as well.

Hinton’s closing plenary for this year’s IA Summit. I thought he was the best speaker in ’07 and it seems he might have been again this year (had I been there). Very necessary roundup of what IA should be focussing on. Less milkshake, more Chunky Monkey!

Found via Tom Armitage. I agree the 1st three points are very applicable outside of game design: focus on people, on what they do, and describe this in terms of a language (nouns, verbs, adjectives…)

Notes of Buxton’s keynote for CHI 2008. I particularly like the bits on the long nose of innovation and ethics and design and everything really. Read it.

Helpful reminder to not be shy about sharing ideas: “The worst thing that will happen if you share your idea, is that someone (or a whole bunch of people) will criticize it. The good news about that concern: That’s when it truly gets exciting.”

Alexandra wonders wether ubicomp’s biggest stumbling block might be its obscurity. Won’t people want to be able to point to where computing is embedded? Perhaps—we used to be concerned about where electricity was embedded but this has eroded too.

Finally got around to watching Mr. Jones’s talk at the IxDA’s Interaction 08. A fun romp through many of the preoccupations he’s blogged about lately, including science fact and fiction, ‘agile’ design and development and (personal) informatics.

Editorial by Thomas Burg on Playyoo.

Archived for reference – Bleecker’s presentation at Reboot 9.0: “It is possible to create an adjunct form of computing that resonates truly human, playful, life-affirming sensibilities.”

“The project named Scottie researches the possibilities of using information and communication technology to create virtual immediacy between long-stay absentees and their primary social contact group.”

A mobile phone made only from “upcycled” materials—nothing new.

“roBlocks are 40mm plastic cubes with magnetic connectors, just pick them up and start building! Using just the blocks, you can create smart robots which sense, plan, and act.”

Packet Garden captures information about how you use the internet and uses this stored information to grow a private world you can later explore.

Alexandra reports on This happened 3. Would love to attend one of these some day.

3 toys designed to augment children’s senses and change their relationship to the environment. Via Alexandra.

“…a family of large scale, modular play elements that children can use separately or together in any combination, creating a dynamic, exciting playscape, where they can have fun, explore and learn.” Via Alexandra.