Inventing Interactive
I haven’t written to this blog, Inventing Interactive, for a while. This is because, in part, my work has shifted away from interactive and interaction design, and towards corporate user experience and innovation projects. But my frustration with the general state of the world, sometimes bordering on dispair, has also given me reason to pause. […]
On diversity, design methods, and shaping the future of A.I. The Reemergence of A.I. Every day we read about new developments in Artificial Intelligence (A.I.). Significant advances in machine learning, natural language processing, image recognition, and a myriad of other A.I. technologies are being used to solve previously insurmountable problems. And although these technologies are […]
We’ve heard plenty from pollsters, pundits and politicos on what people think about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but what does an AI (artificial intelligence) think of them? But some background first. Why am I doing this? AI is an emerging technology that’s on the verge of being deeply incorporated into much of our daily lives. […]
When I was an undergrad my favorite course was Introduction to AI, taught by Ira Pohl. When I graduated, I went to work in the AI department at BBN. I was working on, then state-or-the-art, projects involving machine learning, genetic algorithms, and expert systems. But that work, in the 80s, the end of a boom […]
Among my new years resolutions is to stop paying attention to UI and UX minutia conversations — things like “how should a hamburger menu work?” Instead I want to focus on the inspiring and future-looking ways that people are inventing new forms of interactivity. And with a handful of sites posting their best-of lists, it’s easy to look back and […]
Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) team recently shared a couple research projects that introduce some pretty amazing new methods of interacting with technology. Two of these projects, presented at Google I/O 2015 buy ATAP’s director Ivan Poupyrev (who I’ve posted about before), look at the relationship between screen size and the level of detail and control that a […]
Marvel’s just-released Avengers: Age of Ultron has some pretty cool looking UI design in it. David Sheldon-Hicks, creative director and founder of Territory, the firm that did all the UI work for the film, recently took the time to talk about their work in the film. He also shared a some early sketches, behind the […]
A supercut is “a fast-paced montage of short video clips that obsessively isolates a single element from its source, usually a word, phrase, or cliche from film and TV.” Last year, I was obsessed by Christian Marclay’s “The Clock” — a real-time 24-hour montage of time-related scenes in movies (clip). And, while not technically a […]
It seems like there’s a crazy amount of AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) stuff happening right now. I recently posted about my experience with VR and storytelling at Sundance. But there’s a lot of other technology out there — and over the past week or so my browser has, apparently, been overflowing with tabs of […]
The future of the automotive industry has been getting a lot of press lately. It’s starting to sound as if self-driving cars are (umm…) just around the corner. But the future of mobility is going to be a lot more than just autonomous vehicles. It’s about how new technologies and services can be used to solve […]
Last week I attended the Sundance Film Festival. It was my first time there and I was surprised and excited to see that they have an active New Frontier program exploring the future of storytelling. They hosted the New Frontier Exhibition — a really interesting collection of new media projects. The work shown this year features a lot […]
Ok. Step number one, watch this visualization of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring… Wow, right?! It was created by Stephen Malinowski, using his Music Animation Machine. Ok – it’s not interactive (the alleged theme of this blog) but it’s amazing. I could do a hundred posts on different way to visualize music. I just realized I haven’t yet posted about […]
“This is straight-up blogging, amateur prose written quickly and with neither guiding stricture nor sober editing.” via http://www.ftrain.com/rotary-dial.html Just discovered Ftrain.com and love the tone of it all. I’ve been struggling with what do to on this site — do I post here? tweet? medium? — and this post expressed so many of the thoughts I’ve had […]
A little while, when I started working on some new projects, I kept hearing the term MVP – or Minimum Viable Product. It was a term I was familiar with, but never really thought too much about. It made sense… get something built quickly and put it out in the world to test it. It’s […]
The new film Guardians of the Galaxy is full of crazy cool future digital interfaces and interactions. David Sheldon-Hicks, creative director of motion at Territory, the firm that did all the UI work for the film, recently took the time to talk about their work in the film — as well as share a ton […]
I’m super-excited to share a project of mine that’s just gone live…UCLA Extension is one of the nation’s oldest, largest, and most comprehensive continuing higher education providers. Since 1990, UCLA Extension has been inviting designers to create covers for their printed catalog — which is sent to hundreds of thousands of people in the Los […]
This past June the Cooper Hewitt museum announced their plans for the opening of the renovated and restored Carnegie Mansion and the exhibitions that will inaugurate the revamped and expanded gallery spaces. Some of the new exhibitions will use an interactive pen that visitors can use to “draw, design, and explore” the content. (See this Wired […]
Muriel Cooper (1925-1994) was my advisor when I was a graduate student at her Visible Language Workshop at the MIT Media Lab. It was an experience that profoundly influenced the way I work and approach the the world. It’s not easy to describe, so instead these these quotes of hers may start to give a sense […]
The past few days, post CES, I’ve been seeing a lot of posts about the challenges of the Internet of Things. BBH Labs points out that none of these new consumer products work together, and that the result is more burden: A lack of interoperability across devices and platforms will suck our time, not give […]
JavaScript is required to view the contents of this page. Click the animation above to step through the eight doodles. Thank you for a fantastic and memorable 2013. Wishing you an exciting 2014 with lots of new adventures. And stay tuned… I’m probably going to make some changes to Inventing Interactive in the coming […]