Inventing Interactive

Space Fence

January 17, 2011 - In Future, Present

Space Fence is a $60-million future US space surveillance network — claimed to be able to detect objects as small as 10 cm (four inches) at heights up to 30,000 km (15,000 nautical miles). One of the key contractors, Lockeed Martin, recently posted a video (also on their How website) showing a vision of how the program will revamp the way the U.S. Air Force identifies and tracks objects in space. The film is a…

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Very Recent History: 14-Jan-11

January 14, 2011 - In Present

Very Recent History – some of things I’ve been reading recently. The Death of Bohemia Mel Exon, at BBH Labs, wrote a great post about how, as the creative world moves faster and faster, “we need a little time to digest; work out what’s a fad versus what’s really interesting.” He used a quote from William Gibson, which I thought was quite nice — and cautionary: “Bohemias. Alternative subcultures. They were a crucial aspect of industrial…

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Distance Lab

January 13, 2011 - In Present

Distance Lab was a Scottish creative research organization, created with the goal of “bringing together digital media technology, design and the arts to redefine and overcome the disadvantages of distance in learning, health care, relationships, culture and other domains.” Unfortunately, the BBC reports that they have recently closed down. Two of their most publicized projects were Mutsugoto, first shown in 2007, and Remote Impact, first shown in 2008. Mutsugoto was a surprisingly intimate project, intended…

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StarFire

January 10, 2011 - In Past

Last week Microsoft demoed Surface 2, the new version of their Surface table. It has some pretty cool features, particularly a technology they call PixelSense, which lets the table visually recognize and scan almost any object placed on it without using cameras. Interactive Things pointed out the similarity to Starfire — a fascinating project I’d never heard of before. StarFire was a future vision film, done in 1992 by Bruce Tognazzini at Sun. It shows…

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Quick Post: Looking at UI Details via Game Design Walkthroughs

January 5, 2011 - In Quick

Wolfire Games has some detailed, and loving, walkthroughs of several games on their YouTube channel and blog. They’re full of interesting observations that could be applied to all sorts of interaction design projects. (Link via Small Surfaces.)

Quick Post: Andrew Sorensen Livecoding a Christmas Theme

January 4, 2011 - In Quick

These examples of livecoding musical performances by Andrew Sorensen, using his Impromptu programming language/environment are impressive, if hardcore! Lots more on his Vimeo page. Link via Creative Applications Network.

Quick Post: Jakob Nielsen on Kinetic’s Gestural UI

December 29, 2010 - In Quick

Interesting discussion of UI issues with Kinetic interfaces. Kinect Gestural UI: First Impressions

ImageFlow: Streaming 3D Image Search

December 21, 2010 - In Future, Present

ImageFlow is a recently published project from Microsoft Research which aims to re-think the nature of image search. Rather than displaying search results in a grid or flat page-like layout, ImageFlow uses a 3D space in which the searcher can explore the content. The project is built upon some fascinating prior research. Specifically, that user intent can be quite different when they’re searching for images rather than text. For example, image search… Can be ‘exploratory’…

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Quick Post: Strange Rain – subtle storytelling for iPad/iPhone

December 20, 2010 - In Quick

Strange Rain is a new iPhone/iPad app from Opertoon and Erik Loyer (who I previously interviewed about some of his earlier works). Looks nice!

Quick Post: NYTimes – The 10th Annual Year in Ideas

December 19, 2010 - In Quick

The New York Times looks at the top ideas over the past year. With stories that expand in-place, it’s got a pretty engaging interactive layout. How about something like this on the iPad? You can see the full site here: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/12/19/magazine/ideas2010.html Link via: @darthjulian