Mobile phone lockers

After buying drinks from a vending machine and paying parking meters with your mobile phone, here's the latest app reported in the Asahi Shimbun:

Cellphones turn the tumblers of keyless coin lockers. A timely call has opened many a door, but who would have thought coin lockers, too? Keyless coin lockers, operated by an ordinary cellphone, are answering the call at two train stations in the Tokyo metropolitan area. That's good news for those more apt to lose their keys than their cellphones. And, as an added plus, the rates are cheaper than key-operated lockers, starting at 100 yen for three to six hours.
The keyless lockers were developed by the Tokyo-based space-rental firm X-Cube Co., in collaboration with the NTT group. So far there are about 50 such lockers in use at three locations in Tokyo and Shinjuku stations.

Terms of use for IMBlog

In anticipation of opening the IM BLOG, there's a very useful set of templates developed at Harvard Law that we should review and possibly implement. Please check it out.

From Scripting News:

Last semester, Diane Cabell, a director at Berkman, and a group of law school students, drafted a terms of use and privacy policy for weblog hosting at Harvard Law. It was our intention to create a template that other universities, schools and libraries could use, and a user-friendly agreement that non-technical people (like me!) could understand. Here's a place for comments and questions.

Game research

"The more we talk, the smarter we get: the conversation between game designers and researchers" - useful editorial by Janet Murray for Digital Games Research Association.

Location-Based IM

From a recent Special Report on "The Social Web" on BusinessWeek Online:

On June 10, startup Trepia in Fremont, Calif., released its latest version of something called location-based instant messaging. The software uses a PC's IP address to identify the person's location -- as long as they're connected via technologies such as Wi-FI. Then, it uploads a list of people on the Trepia network onto the computer's buddy list, starting with those located nearby. College students would first see those among the 15,000 Trepia users who live in their dorm, then those living on campus, then those located in the same city, and so on.

The software could be used for striking up a conversation or helping a business traveler find other people attending the same conference, says Jawed Karim, Trepia's CEO. The startup plans to offer the service for free and charge for advanced functions such as searching through the buddy list, Karim says. Whether this marginal improvement will gain enough traction for Trepia to prosper is a long shot, however.

Wireless sensor webs

Good article in Technology Review on wireless sensor webs and recent research on how they might be used. But no mention of entertainment or education apps - any ideas?

Indeed, wireless sensor networks are one of the first real-world examples of “pervasive” computing, the notion that small, smart, and cheap sensing and computing devices will eventually permeate the environment. That notion has been percolating in information technology circles for more than a decade. But now, after several years of research investments by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Science Foundation, and a handful of high-tech giants like Intel, the hardware and software fundamental to pervasive computing are emerging.

Honda ad

Check out this amazing Honda ad inspired by Fischli and Weiss' 1987 film, "The Way Things Go".

PDPal: mobile art project

From Peggy:
PDPal is a public art project for the Palm™ PDA and the web. It is a mapping application that transforms your everyday activities and urban experiences into a dynamic city that you write. PDPal engages the user through a visual transformation that is meant to highlight the way technologies that locate and orient are often static and without reference to the lively nature of urban cultural environments

Scott Paterson is an artist/arch in NY who I met through the Crossover residence. This was commissioned by Walker Art Center -- he's done a lot of interesting work... "explores architecture as an interface protocol between the activity of our daily lives and the space of digital networks."

Camera phones

picturephoning.com - interesting site focusing on photoblogs and camera phones.

ReplayCam

A company in NJ is making a line of wearable cameras - set up with a 30sec. buffer for instant replay. Their tagline is" capturing priceless moments"...

WSJ summary:
The device, expected to hit stores before September and sell for $349, can record up to 48 clips of 30 seconds each, and its rechargeable battery will run for eight hours, according to Mr. Fortier. It stores the video on a removable 64-megabyte Flash memory card, which can be upgraded to larger-capacity chips. The camera part weighs less than two ounces and is less than an inch on each side; the hip pack measures about four inches by five inches and weighs less than a pound

T"o"ripspace from Tama

T"o"ripspace - very cool location based image software for mobile blogging from Tama University in Tokyo.

Ambient Devices

Ambient Devices - recent startup to commercialize work from Media Lab's Tangible Media Group.

"Ambient's VISION is to embed information representation in everyday objects: lights, pens, watches, walls, and wearables. With Ambient, the physical environment becomes an interface to digital information rendered as subtle changes in form, movement, sound, color, or light. "

E-911

Trying to get an update on GPS phones in the US - maybe this is the reason there aren't any:

Update on position sensitive phones:

Mobile phone companies are under orders from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to incorporate some kind of location-reporting technology into cellular phones. Dubbed E-911, or enhanced 911 (see "Wireless 911 service slowly sppears," link below), the communication initiative is meant to give law enforcement and emergency services personnel a way to find people calling 911 from mobile phones when callers don't know where they are or are unable to say.

No carrier was able to make an October deadline to fully implement E-911. The FCC issued waivers permitting carriers to add location-detection services to new phones over time, so that 95 percent of all mobile phones are compliant with E-911 rules by 2005.

Mobile glyph readers on docomo phones

So, new phones from Docomo will be able to access websites by pointing the camera at these new barcode-like glyphs.

From Kokoro Blog:

Natsuno, the head of i-mode business at DoCoMo, told about DoCoMo's 3G phone strategy. It has two main points, QR code and rich movie function "iMotion".

At second, about iMotion Natsuno did not say specifically. Anyway current iMotion cannot enhance demand of FOMA thus he has recognized it.

More on QR code

slashdot roundup

scott asked me to put up some of the recent articles from slashdot. i know many of you read it, but here are some of the relevant articles from the last few days.
Games Tax To Fund Obesity Prevention?
Concern Over Dropping Japanese Console Sales
Swimming Cockroach Robot Developed
Get Hitched In Phantasy Star Online
Profile of a Hard-Core Gamer
Life At Full Sail - The Gamer School
Racing Games Too Fast, Furious For U.S.?
Different Country, Different Game Content
One-Thumb Keyboard

LifeLog

LifeLog is interested in three major data categories: physical data, transactional data, and context or media data. “Anywhere/anytime” capture of physical data might be provided by hardware worn by the LifeLog user. Visual, aural, and possibly even haptic sensors capture what the user sees, hears, and feels. GPS, digital compass, and inertial sensors capture the user’s orientation and movements. Biomedical sensors capture the user’s physical state. LifeLog also captures the user’s computer-based interactions and transactions throughout the day from email, calendar, instant messaging, web-based transactions, as well as other common computer applications, and stores the data (or, in some cases, pointers to the data) in appropriate formats. Voice transactions can be captured through recording of telephone calls and voice mail, with the called and calling numbers as metadata. FAX and hardcopy written material (such as postal mail) can be scanned. Finally, LifeLog also captures (or at least captures pointers to) the tremendous amounts of context data the user is exposed to every day from diverse media sources, including broadcast television and radio, hardcopy newspapers, magazines, books and other documents, and softcopy electronic books, web sites, and database access.

LifeLog can be used as a stand-alone system to serve as a powerful automated multimedia diary and scrapbook. By using a search engine interface, the user can easily retrieve a specific thread of past transactions, or recall an experience from a few seconds ago or from many years earlier in as much detail as is desired, including imagery, audio, or video replay of the event. In addition to operating in this stand-alone mode, LifeLog can also serve as a subsystem to support a wide variety of other applications, including personal, medical, financial, and other types of assistants, and various teaching and training tools. As increasing numbers of people acquire LifeLogs, collaborative tasks could be facilitated by the interaction of LifeLogs, and properly anonymized access to LifeLog data might support medical research and the early detection of an emerging epidemic. Application of the LifeLog abstraction structure in a synthesizing mode will eventually allow synthetic game characters and humanoid robots to lead more "realistic" lives. However, the initial LifeLog development is tightly focused on the stand-alone system capabilities, and does not include the broader class of assistive, training, and other applications that may ultimately be supported.

Super Diary Worries Privacy Activists

DARPA RFP

Waste: new p2p network sw

From Technology Review:

Waste is basically a program for setting up relatively small, private, encrypted networks, where chatting is the main method of communication. Although Waste's interface and initial applications are straightforward, the program’s promise has many coders excited. Currently, all major chat programs, such as Yahoo Messenger, AOL’s AIM, and Microsoft’s MSN Messenger, are centralized. Using these companies’ products means you understand and accept that all your instant messaging is running through a central server and can be monitored if need be. Waste, on the other hand, is completely decentralized. This architecture, coupled with its use of encryption, means users can feel completely confident that what they’re chatting about won’t be monitored by the likes of AOL or Microsoft. “That freedom is addictive,” says Lucas Gonze, a programmer who runs a Waste mirror site. “You wouldn’t accept someone in your living room checking out your conversation with your wife, and there’s no reason you should have to accept that with IM.”

Mobile MPEG-4 Resistance in Asia

MacRumors has this post about the problems that high licensing costs are causing to the acceptance of MPEG-4 as the standard for mobile video content delivery.

"CNet Asia reports that Japanese firms are unhappy with MPEG-4's terms:

Japan's mobile video content providers are threatening to snub the MPEG-4 compression format--touted as crucial technology for delivering video to mobile handsets--unless the cost of using it comes down.

Similar objections emerged with the announcement of the MPEG4 standard -- with specific reservations from Apple regarding licensing fees for content providers. The solution provided a total cap as well as a minimum subscriber threshold below which no fees are required.

Alternative solutions mentioned in this particular article include H.264 and MPEG-1. H.264 is an up and coming standard which has not yet been finalized, but has been described as threatening MPEG-4's adoption. H.264, however, appears to be an extension of the MPEG-4 and is also known as MPEG-4 Part 10. It appears that licensing for this new standard will also be handled by the MPEG LA -- the same organization who set the licensing requirements for MPEG-4."

Virtual presence app..

The killer app is going to be that tool that keeps us around even after we're dead. It won't need to be AI, and it won't even need to be us. All it'll have to be is a semantic database of all of our information. I will be able to continue telling you stories even after I'm dead. It won't be me of course, because I'm not longer present on this earth (hypothetically speaking), but that is no longer a problem (for you). More than being able to tell stories, we're this close to being able to ask and answer questions even though neither of us is present. I can have a script go out each hour and ask a bunch of questions... if there were another script somewhere that was able to interpret those questions and answer them for my script, then it makes absolutely no difference who's online or even who's alive. Information is travelling in this data-centric world and it has shed itself of its mortal vehicle, us.
From Eric Benson's Blog
(Thanks Leonard!)

Ars Electronica Interactive Art Awards 2003

Golden Nica:
Blast Theory (United Kingdom): "Can You See Me Now?"
"Can you see me now?" by the British artists collective Blast Theory plays with the omnipresence of humans on the basis of various portable electronic devices such as mobile phones, GPS, wireless LANs, digital cameras, etc., as well as with overlaying real and virtual spaces. In that respect, "Can You See Me Now?" is part of a series of works that investigate digital mobility from a cultural point of view.

Awards of Distinction(2):Ltd. (Japan):
Maywa Denki / Yoshimoto Kogyo Co., Ltd. (Japan): "Tsukuba Series"
Maywa Denki is a Japanese artists' collective and simultaneously an electronic gesamtkunstwerk in its own right. Engineering skills, wit, a wealth of ideas and musicality combined with a unique performance style are the characteristics of Maywa Denki. The products from their workshop - a huge variety of custom created musical instruments - demonstrate both the group's playfulness and its know-how. With their performances, the Tosa Brothers have conquered the concert halls in Japan and abroad.

Margarete Jahrmann, Max Moswitzer (Austria): "nybble-engine-toolZ"
"nybble-engine-toolZ" is a peer-to-peer server network. The installation's software converts network processes into three-dimensional abstract movies and projects them in a cinema-like fashion onto a semicircular surround screen. Additionally, real-time generated surround sounds are played. This setup closes the loop of the installation: participants sit on a central "surfer sofa" as if they were in their own living-room. They use game-pads to enter a shooter game environment where "bullets" from data objects, action bots and other players whiz around. Every hit on an object triggers network processes; at every shot an anti-war mail is created and sent.

Honorable Mentions here:

AT&T Find Friends location service

From the WSJ:

A colleague and I tested the Find Friends location service offered by AT&T Wireless Services. Find Friends allows users to keep tabs on each other, based on the location of the nearest cellphone tower, and includes handy city-guide listings to help users find a place to meet.
The service is limited to those who have upgraded to the company's newest phones and its mMode service plans, which count usage in kilobytes of data transmitted, not minutes. These plans range from an extra $2.99 a month for minimal users of multimedia services to $19.99 for heavy users.

May 22, 2003 11:59 p.m. EDT

New Cellphone Services Help
Find Friends and Places to Go

By TIM HANRAHAN
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE

Wireless companies have been pushing data services to boost usage of their cellphones and drive up monthly bills, which are under constant pressure from price-cutting.

These wireless Web services let users get news, sports scores and other information on their phones. Among the most interesting new offerings are so-called location-based services.

Location-based services take into account where you're using your phone in the physical world. They can give you names of nearby restaurants or hotels in an unfamiliar city, for example, along with a description, phone number and directions. You can also interact with users of similar phones.

These services are in their infancy, and it shows. They are fun, but so far are a little impractical; and they have complicated, costly rate plans. Still, they give us a peek at what's to come.

A colleague and I tested the Find Friends location service offered by AT&T Wireless Services. Find Friends allows users to keep tabs on each other, based on the location of the nearest cellphone tower, and includes handy city-guide listings to help users find a place to meet.

The service is limited to those who have upgraded to the company's newest phones and its mMode service plans, which count usage in kilobytes of data transmitted, not minutes. These plans range from an extra $2.99 a month for minimal users of multimedia services to $19.99 for heavy users.

AT&T Wireless has taken steps to protect users' privacy. For Find Friends to work, each user has to give permission for the other person to track him or her. Once permission has been granted, a person can choose to be "invisible" to specific or all users through easy-to-use menus. Moreover, every time a person requests to find a friend, a text message alerts the person being sought.

These steps help prevent Find Friends from being used, say, by a jealous ex-boyfriend or an overzealous boss.

We tested Find Friends using a Panasonic GU 87, which I used, and a Motorola T720, which my colleague Katherine Meyer used. Both phones had built-in Web access and location services. The Panasonic also came with a built-in camera that can send photos to certain other high-end phones (but not to the T720) and to e-mail accounts.

Getting a cutting-edge phone doesn't mean more-reliable signals or fast Web access; we were constantly waiting for connections. The Motorola's screen is straightforward, with three main buttons: Exit, Main Menu and Select. There's a thumb pad for scrolling and for switching between screens. The Panasonic has the same number of buttons, but crucial functions frequently change meanings and places, which led me to accidentally delete text messages. On both phones, it often isn't clear how to return to the main menu. It's less irritating to turn off the phone and restart.

After getting comfortable with basic functions, we tested how well we could track each other. Katherine headed off to a location in Manhattan, then text messaged me when she got there. I pinged Katherine's phone via Find Friends and it told me she was "near Washington Street & Bethune Street near West Village in New York, NY."

A taxi dropped me off at the intersection, but Katherine was nowhere in sight, which we had expected. Cell towers can be many blocks apart -- or miles apart in a rural area. Find Friends simply identifies the closest tower, which the company made clear. After several text messages back and forth, I found her at a restaurant just a few blocks away.

What worked best were the service's suggestions on places to meet -- near you, near your friend, or in between. Once you answer, "Meet Where?" by choosing a restaurant, bar, library or museum, to name a few on the list, plus the distance you're willing to travel, the phone gives you some choices.

When you pick a time and place, Find Friends provides a phone number for the location. Several times, it lets you opt to just call your friend -- a smart touch -- to finalize plans the old-fashioned way. But if you press on with Find Friends, it offers to set up the meeting for you, sending your friend the name of the suggested spot and time, which he or she can then decline or accept.

The next step, getting directions, can be time consuming, as you have to type in your exact location using phone keys. The directions I tested were accurate, but they assumed I was in a car, meaning some slight detours for users on foot.

AT&T Wireless sells spinoff products as well. Match Mobile, a deal with dating service Match.com1, allows daters to use their cellphones to message each other for an extra $4.99 a month. AT&T also offers premium city guides from 10Best for $1.99 a month, or 49 cents for 24-hour access. These give reviews of restaurants and nightlife in your area, broken down by cuisine, ambiance and other categories.

Location services are engrossing, but at this early stage, if you want to meet a friend, it's better to make a call.

E-mail me at tim.hanrahan@wsj.com2. Walt Mossberg is on vacation.

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB105355745962282600,00.html

Hyperlinks in this Article:
(1) http://www.match.com
(2) mailto:tim.hanrahan@wsj.com

Updated May 22, 2003 11:59 p.m.

Copyright 2003 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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History of Computer Game Design Course

"The History of Computer Game Design" is part of "How They Got Game: The History and Culture of Interactive Simulations and Videogames," (at Stanford)

This course provides a historical and critical approach to the evolution of computer and video game design from its beginnings to the present. It brings together cultural, business, and technical perspectives. Students should come away from the course with an understanding of the history of this medium, as well as insights into design, production, marketing, and socio-cultural impacts of interactive entertainment and communication.

The course will offer reading, discussion, guest presentations and projects on the developing culture and technology of computer and video game design. Historical contexts include entertainment media, computing technology, applications of gaming technology and business history. Topics include: play in human culture; early computer games from Chess to Spacewar; the role of artificial intelligence research; history of computer graphics and sound technology; the evolution of techniques and genres of computer game design; business competition; games and the microcomputer revolution; networked gaming; gadgets and games as factors in the evolution of software and hardware; marketing; gendering of games and game play; virtual worlds; simulation; video and computer game industries; technology transfer (e.g., military simulations).

Reclaiming the public domain

From Larry Lessig's blog:

We have launched a petition to build support for the Public Domain Enhancement Act. That act would require American copyright holders to pay $1 fifty years after a work was published. If they pay the $1, the copyright continues. If they don’t, the work passes into the public domain. Historical estimates would suggest 98% of works would pass into the pubilc domain after 50 years. The Act would do a great deal to reclaim a public domain.

If you are an ally in at least this cause, please sign the petition. Please blog it, please email it, please spam it, please buy billboards about it — please do whatever you can. And most importantly, please help us explain its importance. There is a chance to do something significant here. But it will take a clearer, simpler voice than mine.

"eachday" moblogging

eachday lets you post text, images, video and sound via email or browser interface. Content can be navigated by keyword or time. And no mention of ‘moblogging’ on their site!

eachday is closer to online photo albums than to blogs — there are no permalinks and no comments, journals even seem to be password-protected. The essential social dimension of blogs is therefore missing, but as a personal space for collecting media and memories in a meaningful context, eachday looks great. Mobile media publishing is still a very young idea and it’s fascinating to see it grow so quickly, even if the current publishing formats don’t seem to get it quite right. I’m looking forward to see what moblogging services will look like in a few years. (thanks Andy!)

From basedonatruestory.com