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IMD Forum for 10/22/08: Paul Yarin

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Speaker: Paul Yarin, Blackdust Design
Time: Wednesday, October 22, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Paul Yarin, founder of Blackdust Design, is a consultant in the fields of interactive media, product design, and technology research. Paul’s experience spans both research and industrial projects, many of which have been developed into real products. His focus is the rapid application of new technologies to challenging design problems. While a student in the MIT Media Lab’s Tangible Media Group, Paul developed embedded displays for visualizing patterns of use of physical objects and spaces. This effort made use of networked microcontrollers, radio-frequency identification, and rapid prototyping technologies. The research system, TouchCounters, was presented at the 1999 and 2000 CHI conferences. Before attending MIT, Paul earned a Master's in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.

Paul's ACM publications here.

BACKCHANNEL LOG: Download file

‹Dread› IMD Forum for 10/22/08: Paul Yarin
22/10/2008 18:14:21 ‹Dread› http://blackdust.com/
22/10/2008 18:17:12 * omgpdv changes nickname to omgpvd
22/10/2008 18:17:29 ‹Dread› http://web.media.mit.edu/~ishii/
22/10/2008 18:18:13 ‹Dread› http://tangible.media.mit.edu/projects/
22/10/2008 18:21:09 ‹Paul Yarin› Hello... feel free to ask questions or post comments on this as we move along.
22/10/2008 18:23:22 ‹Dread› Tower of winds in yokohama:
22/10/2008 18:23:23 ‹Dread› http://www.archidose.org/Apr01/040901a.html
22/10/2008 18:25:02 ‹Dread› origins of ambient media
22/10/2008 18:26:19 ‹ndef› http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/orb/orborder.html
22/10/2008 18:27:03 ‹Dread› usability testing for ambient media?
22/10/2008 18:27:51 ‹ndef› Usability testing seems like a particular challenge, since the point of ambient media is that it operates below a conscious level of awareness.
22/10/2008 18:28:35 ‹Dread› presence awareness vs ambient media?
22/10/2008 18:29:48 ‹ndef› Pros and cons to making things physical. (Physical icons, like the model hamster.)
22/10/2008 18:31:21 ‹Paul Yarin› One can imagine memory studies that measure retention of continuous data. Ambient media tends to be noticed most when it changes rapidly.
22/10/2008 18:32:28 ‹ndef› inTouch - Coupling the state of a physical object over distances.
22/10/2008 18:32:34 ‹s› an inTouch like object seems like a perfect addition to simple communication forms like Skype
22/10/2008 18:32:44 ‹Diab› It also seems that this media is only relevant if it facilitated a kind of dialog
22/10/2008 18:32:52 ‹s› already Skype has audio+video chat, but then you can add the inTouch feature to add tactile interaction to long distance conversations :]
22/10/2008 18:33:04 ‹Diab› the inTouch semmed only interesting when there was another person at the other end
22/10/2008 18:34:23 ‹nahil› there would need to be some kind of gestural language for it to be really meaningful in a conversation, spinning-roller morse code
22/10/2008 18:35:15 ‹Paul Yarin› I agree - after a few minutes you invent some gestures or start playing back-and-forth games
22/10/2008 18:37:03 ‹ndef› Triangles - Reconfigurable interface device.
22/10/2008 18:42:28 ‹s› The music device "the Reactable" is a great example of wireless moveable
22/10/2008 18:42:30 ‹s› objecs*
22/10/2008 18:42:55 ‹Dread› metaDESK
22/10/2008 18:43:49 ‹Dread› http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_year/1994/cp_car/
22/10/2008 18:43:50 ‹ndef› Devices that switch RFID identity by detuning the receptors with magnets... Not exactly sure what the killer application would be, but it seems like a really cool interaction scheme.
22/10/2008 18:45:53 ‹ndef› Resolving ambiguity in physical icons (and relative movement) by adding physical constraints.
22/10/2008 18:46:10 ‹Dread› http://tangible.media.mit.edu/projects/metadesk/
22/10/2008 18:47:29 ‹Lark› MetaDesk...nice application for museum exhibits?
22/10/2008 18:47:39 ‹Diab› It's interesting to me how these tangibles can not scape narrative. They do tell a story by the mere relation to information
22/10/2008 18:47:52 ‹Diab› I meant to say escape :)
22/10/2008 18:49:15 ‹Paul Yarin› Yes, narrative is much of the project content and essential to the presentation
22/10/2008 18:52:04 ‹Dread› i/o bulb:
22/10/2008 18:52:06 ‹Dread› http://tangible.media.mit.edu/projects/luminousroom/
22/10/2008 18:54:53 ‹Paul Yarin› Take a look at John's "Illuminating Light" video for a better explanation of the Luminous Room/IO Bulb concept
22/10/2008 19:01:18 ‹Diab› we don't have interactive techniques for dealing with portable storage devices
22/10/2008 19:05:55 ‹nahil› data trail, footprints in the sand
22/10/2008 19:07:07 ‹ndef› I've heard Amazon call that phenomenon "read-wear", in the sense that something shows wear when it has been accessed a lot.
22/10/2008 19:07:19 ‹ndef› It was always a concept that resonated with me.
22/10/2008 19:08:31 ‹ndef› The idea of collecting data in such a transparent way and displaying it back over the system.
22/10/2008 19:12:12 ‹Dread› museums used to measure interest by how often they had to replace floor tiles in front of an exhibit.
22/10/2008 19:19:11 ‹ndef› The games industry is more accepting of innovation than the mainstream computing industry.
22/10/2008 19:20:22 ‹ndef› I just really like the name "hypersnail."
22/10/2008 19:22:29 ‹omgpvd› hyperanimals are great
22/10/2008 19:22:51 ‹omgpvd› I don't think that the game industry is MUCH more accepting than the mainstream computing industry though
22/10/2008 19:23:23 ‹lolson› i think there's more context in gaming for nontraditional peripherals
22/10/2008 19:23:35 ‹omgpvd› not in mainstream gaming
22/10/2008 19:23:44 ‹ndef› Yeah, I have to agree. "Accepting of innovation" is not the first term that springs to mind when I think about the games industry.
22/10/2008 19:24:20 ‹lolson› but i'm saying there's more justification for a new controller in a game than when doing word processing and surfing youtube
22/10/2008 19:24:38 ‹ndef› Console cycles really do permit a lot more iteration in interface design, though... you get things that you just can't organize in the larger PC-computing context.
22/10/2008 19:25:25 ‹ndef› I'm not convinced that there's that much more justification, but I think the frequency of hardware and software updates in the games space makes it more plausible.
22/10/2008 19:27:02 ‹omgpvd› I agree with that
22/10/2008 19:27:30 ‹omgpvd› but I think that the same economies of scale and requirements for a minimum number of sales to justify development apply to both the mainstream computing industry and the mainstream gaming industry
22/10/2008 19:27:48 ‹ndef› Yeah, that makes sense.
22/10/2008 19:27:57 ‹omgpvd› in order to introduce a new controller, nintendo re-released the gamecube
22/10/2008 19:28:54 ‹omgpvd› I think there's a ton of room for improvement in the interfaces our users are already familiar with - if developers just tailored our input/output devices to their programs we'd all be a whole lot better off already
22/10/2008 19:34:57 ‹Dread› http://nano.xerox.com/weiser/calmtech/calmtech.htm
22/10/2008 19:35:16 ‹Dread› "calm technology" from PARC
22/10/2008 19:44:42 ‹nahil› this looks like a fun game... Operation x10
22/10/2008 19:45:34 ‹Diab› it also partially lives in the realm of interactive art as well :)
22/10/2008 19:46:58 ‹Paul Yarin› Yes Mark Weiser's "Ubiquitous Computing" set the tone for a lot of interaction research. He was influenced by _The Tacit Dimension_ by Michael Polanyi - about tacit knowledge
22/10/2008 19:58:15 ‹Dread› http://architectradure.blogspot.com/2007/09/operation-for-adults.html
22/10/2008 19:59:03 ‹Dread› http://reactable.iua.upf.edu/musictables/MIT_Ishii_Musicbottles.png
22/10/2008 21:27:54 ‹Dread› END

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