Blackbeltjones/Work “The cosmos is a deeply dangerous thing to think about - into it, vacant minds expand” - Dr. Jonathan Miller

Desktop disaster
Originally uploaded by blackbeltjones.

For the last few days, my desktop has been a sad reminder of what’s been happening in South-East Asia.

I run OSX Planet, a small Mac app that shows the globe, with live satellite weather images, and seismic activity – showing stark data around Indonesia – a huddle of high Richter readings, with 9.0 in the middle.

Here is the google page of links for giving assistance.

Filed under: Uncategorized
No Comments

to paraphrase Satre…or their digital detritus, their links and pictures are heaven anyway.

Caterina kindly quoted something I said two years ago now (although it feels longer, now I am far from London, and not making web apps) about “social software”: that it’s software that is better when there are other people ‘there’, inhabiting it.

This is certainly the case with del.icio.us, and although useful as a personal linkdump and lightweight way to spool things to the web; I am really missing the other people there in my inbox.

I’d hoped it would reappear over Christmas, but Santa didn’t get my wishlist. Ah well. Hopefully Joshua had a good break and can find the time soon to fix it.

Heaven is other people, and great social software temporarily without them is purgatory.

Filed under: web 2.0
2 Comments

iheartyou
Originally uploaded by ebb.

Webb got the ‘airtexting’ snap-on active cover for his Nokia 3220.

I talked about the mass-market fun of embodied interaction in my Design-Engaged talk, and this photo sums it up nicely.

After ‘Mind Hacks’ perhaps he’ll write ‘Embodied Interaction Hacks’ with Paul Dourish and Tom Igoe…

Filed under: Uncategorized
2 Comments

Image(285).jpg
Originally uploaded by twhume.

Filed under: Uncategorized
No Comments

These are my imagined favourite projects from the ITP Winter Show based on the project descriptions.

Imagined, as I won’t be able to go, but you might.

If you do, tell me your favourites.

Filed under: Conferences and events
No Comments

A few quick mobile links to string together (aside: that would be a nice del.icio.us metaservice, “del.icio.us trails” being able to link together delicious posts into a narrative or a trail in the memex-ian sense)

Like Janne, I’ve finally entered the 3g future with the arrival of my Nokia 6630. I did a smidge of work for Hutchison 3g back before they launched as 3; and back then it was all about getting web or tv ‘multimedia’ into a walled garden for paid download.

No walled gardens in Finland to speak of, so a mobile version of >ahem< Loosemore’s Law has kicked in – I want to do the same basic stuff (send MMS’s to flickr, the odd emergency finding of an address using google) but quicker – and boy is it good.

Perhaps the dawn of 3g that lets you go outside of clunky operator portals will hasten some content innovation – let a thousand mobile flowers bloom outside the walled garden.

Russell Beattie has just written about his Mobdex experiment where: “What I did was import 600+ Public Domain eBooks from Project Gutenberg and I’m dynamically reformatting the plain text to be readable on the web and modern mobiles with WAP2 minibrowsers”.

Perhaps Mobdex is something that the BBC should really consider picking up where Russell has left off, because as Martin Belam notes: “The future of the BBC is mobile, according to ‘the kids’”

One beautiful marriage of an old medium with the dynamics of the new I discovered on BoingBoing, a site where an artist is painting a piece in oils once a day and posting it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have that arrive every morning on your phone?

At DesignEngaged, Pete B-W gave an enlightening talk on the potential of Flash on mobile devices, and Remon Tijssen (of Fluid Interactive) showed some of the interactive ‘toys’ that he had developed.

While never a great fan of Flash for the general purpose web, for mobile, where both connectivity and attention can be scarce, it could be a very powerful platform, especially for introduction more delight, flow and seduction into the everyday mobile user experience.

Finally, a lazyphone wish… I could think of nothing better as a mobile delight than to have the Flickr zeitgeist on my 6630, cycling through my friends photos as a screensaver…

Please excuse the dodgy prototyping!

Filed under: Mobile
3 Comments

light painting
Originally uploaded by tamaki.

...when your users pay homage so creatively.

Beautiful.

Filed under: Uncategorized
No Comments

Very rough notes, concentrating on main ‘gists’ and questions as the proceeedings are online here.

There’s a flickr group pool for photos here (just me at the time of writing…)

Filed under: Conferences and events
1 Comment

4 – Projects Board
Originally uploaded by jazzmasterson.

This photoset on flickr (via Sippey) details one person’s fantastic index card and envelope organisational system.

Inspiring, for many reasons.

Filed under: Uncategorized
No Comments

^ Doug Church on “play”

I’ve been working on the subject of “play”, in its sense of a human universal drive, for the last few months at Nokia.

As part of this, during October, with the assistance of Ludicorp, we were able to gather a diverse, interesting group of ‘players’ together for a discussion on the subject – during which Justin Hall interviewed a number of them, resulting in this short film.

More play this week – I’m heading to the Other Players conference in Copenhagen, where the programme features Richard Bartle and TerraNova’s Nathan Combs amongst others.

If you’re there, I’ll be the guy with the iBook covered in Pete Fowler stickers…

Filed under: Games and play
No Comments

Observation/idea: I had to wait on a customer support line today for quite a while. I’m sure you’ve had to do this too at some point.

The company in question had selected some modern pop standards and AOR (Robbie Bloody Williams, Norah Bloody Jones, Dido Bloody Dido etc) to play while I waited, punctuated with cheery automated estimates of my wait time.

I’m sure they got sold a hold music package that was focus-grouped by some unfortunates and tailored to their brand image at quite a premium. It was nethertheless, obviously, supremely irritating. Not only to me, but because I work in a shared office, to my co-workers who caught the second-hand smog of musak through the speaker of my cellphone.

This lead me to think about designing musak.

I was trying to multitask during the dead-time of waiting on the line, which meant working at my computer keyboard while half-listening to the hold music  in case the customer-support person answered. Because they were playing pop music – it had to be held in focus to differentiate between the vocals of Williams et al, and the dulcet tones of the support guy. I had to listen all the time.

So first suggestion – use ambient music that makes for a clearer distinction between the wait mode, the announcements of how long you have to wait, and the voice of the person you’re waiting for – allowing me to multitask between the call on hold and my work that little bit more easily

Second suggestion – go further with this and create generative ambient music which would be unique and pleasant to listen to – and could also act as a preattentive aural information channel.

It could use rhythm and melody to keep you aware of you place in the queue, a recurring theme might build anticipation… an allegro con brio indicating you’re drawing near to the answer… a crescendo of attention building to the sweet moment your call gets answered.

Of course it’s an opportunity for sonic branding for the company also… getting their customers happily whistling their hold tune throughout the day…

Filed under: Nonsense
13 Comments

^ image from http://xroads.virginia.edu/

One of my favourite sites, Today in Alternate History has announced that they are to begin selling serialised novellas from their strands of twisting timelines, with the readership dictating which will make the leap from the site to the novellas:

"When I began this site, it was with the intention of using it to test out some ideas for other, for-profit projects. With your assistance, thanks to our poll, the first such project is now available for you to purchase. Beginning today, TIAH will be selling our novels in serial format – 1/3 of a book every month. At the end of the 3rd month, the serialized parts will be replaced with the complete novel for sale, and the next serialization will begin. By responding to our polls, you will determine which timelines produce novels and which remain curiosities only available here on TIAH. The price for the downloads will be very reasonable – each serialized part will be US$1.50, the complete download will be US$5.00, and the trade paperback version will be US$12.00."

There’s something about this puts me to mind of penny dreadfuls and Charles Dickens – microcontent that plays to the cheap seats in a marvellous way. 

Timelines and What-ifs are a form of fiction I have always enjoyed greatly (I loved David Mitchell’s "Cloud Atlas" and I’m currently reading Phillip K Dick’s "The Man in the High Castle"), so I think I will be trying a couple of the TIAH novellas.

Ok.

Noodle warning … just some stuff that’s been brewing since Amsterdam and catalysed by the above…

A half-formed digression on alternate histories and future histories: do you think our*   science-fiction and science fact vision of the future is getting wider, not deeper? 

(more…)

Filed under: Uncategorized
1 Comment