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November 20, 2005
November 17, 2005
Processing Blobs Code
Here's the source code for the Processing exercise we tediously typed in last week. I encourage you to experiment with the various parameters, try to break things, change colors, etc. One good thing to try might be to create a "tail" of some sort to the Blobs. You'll want to think about drawing additional shapes "behind" the main blob, perhaps with a different transparency level. (Check the reference manual for ways of manipulating the alpha level of the stroke.)
You'll need both these files — just add them each to your Processing project, so there'll be two tabs in the IDE.
Interactive Panoramas Submissions
I'm not entirely sure what's interactive here, but the idea is cool. Submit your panoramic images to be loaded onto the screens at a close-out party in Amsterdam. Panoramas will be projected onto 12 (pfftt) screens surrounding the party space.
Make sure to include your location, name, logo in some way. Submit a JPG to submit[at]flux[dot]to
November 16, 2005
Intel Urban Atmospheres Internship
We invite applications for our Spring 2006 Intern Position at Urban
Atmospheres
Deadline: 1 Dec 2005
http://berkeley.intel-research.net/paulos/lab/intern2006/index.htm
We are expanding the urban research focus at the Intel Research lab in
Berkeley and have an open Intern position here at the Berkeley Lab for
Spring 2006. Details below on the position. Also please visit the Urban
Atmospheres pages for a complete overview of the research project.
The position starts in early 2006. We will be making decisions by mid-Dec.
Intel Research Berkeley has an open Intern position for the Spring 2006 to
explore and research several themes of Urban Computing. Interns should be
adept at rapidly exploring and deconstructing typical urban landscapes,
experienced in design sketching and prototyping, possess creative brain and
body storming skills, proficiency with computer programming, and manifest an
unbridled passion for urban computing based research.
Responsibilities of this position:
* Programming J2ME code for several mobile phone applications (please
include examples of your experience programming J2ME in you application)
* Programming server code to handle mobile phone interactions over
socket connections
* Assisting with ISEA Interactive City planning and coordination
* Conducting field interviews and studies of several mobile phone
applications
We are looking for talented, qualified candidates pursing research in the
areas of HCI, user-centered design, interaction design, art practice,
design, and/or evaluation techniques and ethnography. Applicants with
experience building physical systems, including fabricating prototypes,
workshop experience, and familiarity with sensor and actuator integration
with microcontrollers are strongly encouraged. The following skills are a
huge plus:
Java/JSP
MIDP 2.0
J2ME particularly on mobile phones a huge plus
XML, Javascript, etc.
Mobile Phone Interface development
Web Interface development
Interaction Design experience
Solidworks and workshop prototyping experience a bonus
Similarly, we are seeking individuals with experience conducting both
qualitative and quantitative user studies, including analysis of the
resulting data. Most importantly, we are seeking open minded, creative
individuals passionate about designing novel physical artifacts and
evaluating them in their natural setting.
All applicants must be currently enrolled in a graduate degree program.
Talented, creative applicants are requested to apply. Please see web site
for application details.
November 15, 2005
Graveyard Games Comes to Hollywood Forever Cemetery!
Jane McGonigal will be concluding her epic touring Graveyard Games ("You're never too dead to play..") with a finale in Los Angeles.
On Saturday November 19, 2005, Graveyard Games will be in Los Angeles so you can meet the living and play with the dead.You're invited to sunny Hollywood Forever Cemetery, “resting place of Hollywood’s immortals”, to get to know your local dearly departed, pay your respects, and learn Tombstone Hold 'Em — the secret poker game you can only play in a cemetery.
Instructions and backstory are on Jane's blog.
reBlog
I'm going to be at the switches for a spell, reblogging over at Eyebeam's reBlog err..blog.
Stop by and see what I recycle!
November 14, 2005
Smart Bomb
In celebration of Mario's 20th birthday, the kinda great NPR show "Talk of the Nation" had a piece on video games titled, 'Smart Bomb': Inside the Video Game Industry, featuring a pair of journalist who just released a book that has one of those annoyingly specific, business self-help titles that business-type books seem to have 'Smart Bomb': The Quest for Art, Entertainment and Big Bucks in the Video Game Industry.
Audio is available, as well as a chapter excerpt from the book.
Why do I blog this? The topic is on point, and I found the journalist to be quite articulate on the topic. Some of the call-ins were good creampuff insights and questions, but made for a good discussion.
CTIN541 Mobile Module - Assignment Due Week 4, 10/21
For this week's homework, due next week, use Processing to create at least one of the following (all of which will automatically run on a J2ME phone), and more if you're feeling ambitious.
A) Bouncing ball in a box
B) Interactive Pong game
C) Snake-like creature
Please feel free to ask other students for advice if you must, but make sure to type the code yourself.
This might be tough going for some, but if you nail this you can write apps for mobile phones in an object-oriented environment. So..that's cool.
Mark and Julian are available for your questions through the usual means - AIM and email.
November 13, 2005
Challenges of Innovation
The New York Times brought to the fore a topic that's been on the mind of myself and far-flung colleagues — innovation. The article, titled Are U.S. Innovators Losing Their Competitive Edge? As the title suggests, the topic is framed as a US national crisis distilled down to two trends:
1. growing dominance from transnational intellectual property and patent "aggregators" eating the tail of the innovation curve
2. an increasingly astute, technically savvy, scientifically robust, well-educated workforce and scientific corp in countries such as China, Taiwan, India.
The article goes on to cite a recent study by the National Academy of Sciences report with a title worthy of a Hollywood disaster epic: "Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing And Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future" (Natl Academy Press). (The PDF download is free, or you can buy the normal, human book.)
I've blogged more notes on the topic over on the techkwondo research toaster.
Technorati Tags: collaboratory, creativity, innovation
November 12, 2005
Good Google Maps API Tutorial
Thanks to the Blackpool Community Church Javascript Team and Francois Bar's current fascination with using Google's Map API to visualize his microlocal LA research project, I'm adding another Google Maps API Tutorial/How To.
Probably the more interesting thing here is an example that shows how to consume an external XML data document and use that to draw polylines on a map. This is useful, particularly because it avoids the nasty tendency of hard coding your data within your algorithms. That's generally a no-no. You want to have your algorithms process arbitrary data, and have the data live within a separate "tier", as it's often described. Sometimes that data lives in a SQL database like MySQL, and sometimes it's just more convenient to put it in a structured, human-readable file like an XML document.
http://www.econym.demon.co.uk/googlemaps/
November 11, 2005
GPS-based mobile drawing game
Nicolas' wonderful research blog — the creme brulee of blogs, really — captured this neat little GPS project, reminiscent of Jeremy Wood and Hugh Pryor's GPS Drawing project.
GPS-based mobile drawing game:
Via the locative mailing.list: “N8Spel” a project by Just van den Broecke for the Waag Society. It’s actually a GPS-based mobile drawing game for the Amsterdam Museum Night.
Teams would go into the city where they compete on who would (geo)draw the most beautiful “8″ by walking with a GPS and a mobile phone. They could embellish their drawings with photo’s and video’s taken and submitted on the spot. The competitive element was creativity with both the drawing and the media. All submitted media were tagged to the geographic locations where they were taken. The player’s movements, tracks and media could be followed in real-time through a webbrowser
Here is a screenshot of the game
The technical description of the game is described here
thanks again, nicolas!
WHy do I blog this? Translating landscape into a canvas — for images, stories, visualizations — has a long history in the guise of what it sometimes called "landscape art." Pulling an instrument like GPS into the mix is exciting and conceptually challenging. In part, it's a re-appropriation of a military technology into a creative practice, which has all sorts of implications that make it a worthy exercise and topic of discussion.
Technorati Tags: art technology, cartography, locative media, mapping, military industrial light and magic complex
November 8, 2005
Forbes.com Inter..err..short quote..
I got a call from a reporter at Forbes.com who wanted my take on "networked art." So..I gave a take.
A little fluff, but it's a business journal with more important topics to cover for its audience.
But, despite that, it gave me a chance to think through and then articulate out loud over a telephone what the heck I'm doing.
November 7, 2005
Google + Local + Mobile
I blogged this over on my techkwondo research toaster
Google + Local + Mobile!Google spreads like warm jam over the application idiolects in which it's almost certain people want to know what they want to know..on the go..so they can flow..
Technorati Tags: cartography, Google, locative media, mapping, maps, mobile, MVNO
November 6, 2005
Google Maps Sightseeing
Stumbled across this Google Maps..thing. It's not quite collaborative mapping, but it has a draw.
Sightseeing with Google Satellite Maps
I've added it to my Google Maps Mash-Up Bibliography. (I know, I know, other sites catalog Google Maps Map Things. I'm not playing the "been-here-first" game — I just want something that I can taxonomize and hierarchicize and annotate as befits my own brain.)
The Talmudic 'Why do I blog this' — the blog meat, as it were — are on my research blog.
Technorati Tags: collaborative cartography, Google Map Hack, pervasive media
November 5, 2005
Jane McGonigal
Found this interview with Jane McGonigal.
Why do I blog this? Jane's a clever game designer who I've had the opportunity to collaborate with, and I hope we get to again. I enjoy the aspects of play experience and game design she's taught me, in large part ways to put the squelch on the techno-fetishist in me.
Technorati Tags: play
ISEA2006 CfP: Edgy Products
EDGY PRODUCTS CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
[http://isea2006.sjsu.edu/edgyproducts/]
This is an invitation by the ISEA2006 Symposium and ZeroOne San Jose: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge to groups and individuals to submit proposals for exhibition of interactive art work and projects reflecting on the thematic of Edgy Products. This is the first and only call for artworks in this category.
Proposals Due: December 15th, 2005
Final Decisions: Feb 10, 2006
SUBMISSIONS
[http://isea2006.sjsu.edu/register/submission.php]
The consumer electronic device has become the standard currency of
technology in contemporary global culture. The light bulb and the
home sewing machine have bred and multiplied to fill every part of our homes, offices, pockets and purses. They have colonized industry after industry: publishing, photography, music, film, communications, and entertainment. Consumer electronics have gradually colonized publication and photography, music and film, communications and entertainment. With the constant promise of increased efficiency, these devices may be seen as improvements over previous techniques.
But for every measure of ease or efficiency there are secondary
effects, artifacts, and renegotiations. Far from being neutral,
consumer products are powerful arguments for norms and lifestyles,
suggesting and facilitating specific ways of acting and being in the world. Made by researchers and marketers working for corporations, they form a sort of culture industry. And as Theodor Adorno suggested, their products serve the interests of this industry as much as they serve their users.
Artists and designers have tried to refigure the product, with varied results: Modernist painters, for instance, often incorporated coffee grinders or industrial aesthetics; Warhol even ran a factory. Electronic artists, though, are in a unique position to develop functional alternatives. Dunne and Raby have theorized a darker, more complicated "design noir," comparing traditional products to the banality of Hollywood film. Others have moved towards turning Consumer Off The Shelf (COTS) tools into weapons for activism and non-violent political dissent. Such projects acknowledge the importance of products to shape our lives, and then use the idiom of an "edgy" product to offer alternatives, stage critiques, or subvert market interests.
Edgy Products is a call for work by artists and designers who are
manipulating, hacking, subverting, queering, hijacking, recombining, or reformulating the notion of product. We are looking for projects large and small, for gallery installation or public intervention, for showing, selling, or gifting.
Susan Joyce, Co-Chair
Chris Csikszentmihalyi, Co-Chair
EDGY PRODUCTS CALL COMMITTEE
Kelly Dobson
Anthony Dunne
Nathan Martin
Eddo Stern
CALL
[http://isea2006.sjsu.edu/edgyproducts/]
SUBMISSIONS
[http://isea2006.sjsu.edu/register/submission.php]
MAILING LIST
[http://cadre.sjsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/isea2006]
If you have questions contact edgyproducts at yproductions.com
Technorati Tags: ISEA2006
November 1, 2005
CTIN541 Helpful Links - vi, JavaScript, Google Maps
JavaScript Reference: http://docs.sun.com/source/816-6408-10/contents.htm
VI Editor: http://www.eng.hawaii.edu/Tutor/vi.html (has a PDF guide)
vi editor, PDF of basics: http://www.indiana.edu/~ucspubs/b104/b104.pdf
Basic vi commands: http://www.cs.colostate.edu/helpdocs/vi.html
More basic vi commands: http://www.cs.rit.edu/~cslab/vi.html
Google Maps API Documentation: http://www.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/
Google Maps API Help: http://www.google.com/apis/maps/faq.html
Google Maps API Discussion Group: http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Maps-API