net attack

a cool, pervasive mobile game

geodesic pencils

cool gallery of GPS pencil-art.

But why limit yourself to simple line drawings.

link via Smart Mobs

purposefully not writing a title

So I'm figuring out that I don't like trying to glue independently working code together into a uber-program. Essentially, there are 3 or 4 pieces of this puzzle, and I've solved all of them individually. Putting them all together is proving to be more difficult (unsurpisingly).

but it's getting done. I've got the compass talking to the map and the zones correctly, and interpolating between the angles so it's not totally abrupt to shift angles. So it's all synced up and integrating the GPS code should be relatively trivial -- I'd just rather be focusing on the less-tedious elements of this project right now, especially since I have to finish by this weekend sometime to test it out. I'm also still highly dubious that this entire process of integrating the compass data is going to help the experience at all. It's jumpy, which is solved a bit by the interpolation, but that process adds a pretty significant lag. Anyway, it'll get done, but I dread (wryly relish) the thought that I coded all this up for no (tangible) result.

Also this weekend: sound.

Came up with some pretty nice stuff, I think -- mostly based on simple DSP convolution, fourier transforms, and comb filters. I've found that simply piping through the recorded sounds 'as are' into the software creates a sort of auto-dynamics w/ the way I've set the filters up. Will master these tomorrow AM, and then that part should be good to go.

so no new images for now -- think audio.

from there to here

This was recorded on campus today using GPS and my laptop -- although soon the tablet will help throw some legitimacy upon my claims that this is a mobile platform. Basically, you are always in the center of the screen and the world moves around you as you walk. You aim for the nodes scattered throughout campus, and when you come within a certain radius of a node, it will start playing a sound linked to that location. The sound will begin with no volume when you first enter the radius, and will gradually fade up relative to your proximity to the center. This allows a nice cross fade to occur when you are within the radius of more than one node.

Eventually I'll implement some code I wrote that uses the compass on the GPS to rotate the map and the nodes based on what direction you are looking.

Click on the image above, or here to see how the display looks when a user (me, in this class) is walking about campus a bit, and then strolls off to Zemekis.

infection

click on an image to download a quicktime movie [3.8 - 4.0 MB]

city of memory

City of Memory is a narrative map of NYC that allows visitors to create a collective memory by submitting stories. Visitors link stories together by theme, creating new "neighborhoods" of narrative that can be explored by others. Stories can be recommended, giving new visitors a sense of the narrative created by the populace.

Link via Archinect via Reblog

ecto

am just trying out latest ecto client now. so far looks really nice - pretty easy way to manage multiple blogs.

2D/3D shape search @princeton

pretty nice model search engine from princeton's cs dept. "ball" worked well, but didn't try anything more involved...

link via Archinect

thesis proposal

oh right, I should post this.

thesis proposal [.doc]

thesis proposal [.pdf]

budget [.xls]

compass

source code

digital chocolate

trip hawkins has started a new mobile game company, digital chocolate. first impression: kinda a stupid name.

GameSpot: Thanks for talking with us today, Trip. Why the move toward mobile?

Trip Hawkins: Because in another four to five years, there will be two billion people carrying these little mobile computers around--and there's an incredibly diverse range of interesting things you can do with them.

thesis_r

Additions 4/11/04:

Soundwalks -- Guided Tours of New York from a hipster perspective.

Digital Soundscape -- Creation of a digital soundscape around the Anchor Park Station and Tram Museum. Distributed location specific sounds distributed to 30 speakers. "Brings Museum to Life."

Location-Based Playlist Switching -- This guy is doing cool things with switching music tracks based on where he is located..."as i run in areas that have steep hills i want hard rock, when i am running in the flat areas i tend to prefer hip hop." Nice, but very specific to an individual.

Study of Headphones in Social Context -- This work by Michael Bull studies how people perceive the environment differently when wearing headphones. "[Wearing Headphones] helps keep the world at bay and reclaim some space.

-- "Consumers can tailor the music stream by pressing a button on their phone to indicate they like or dislike a song. "It's self-learning. The channel will adapt over time," Ashcroft said, adding wireless carriers are expected to charge a monthly fee of between 10 to 15 euros for the service."

sound sticker -- "Transient Embedded Audio and the Rescoring of Social Space". Nice project at UCLA Design that is using ultra-portable MP3 players to allow people to layer a type of aural graffiti on a space.

output

so appropriate and relevent I can't handle it., esp. concerning the recent annenberg symposium and the collection of material for our submission of a Siggraph sketch. Taken from Micheal McDonough’s 10 Things They Never Taught You at Design School via archinect

9. It all comes down to output. No matter how cool your computer rendering is, no matter how brilliant your essay is, no matter how fabulous your whatever is, if you can’t output it, distribute it, and make it known, it basically doesn’t exist. Orient yourself to output. Schedule output. Output, output, output. Show Me The Output.

swamped

last 2 weeks have been annenberg symposium heck. but now that's <> over and I can focus again on my work. First things first.

void process()
{
// week of 4/5
// pick eight zones on campus
// define a radius for each spot (tweakable)
// record eight 15-minute snd pieces at those locations
// test reliability of compass data
// continue writing processing software to run this thing
// ----this would entail rotating the buffer based on user direction
// ----and panning sounds accordingly

// week of 4/12
// write processor for sounds in msp.
// improvise w/ software & pick the best for use
// test memory requirements in java & adjust samples appropriately

// week of 4/17
// finish writing the software to run this thing
// start testing code w/ actual GPS data as opposed to the keyboard
// come up with a nicer interface, visual look
// build the casing (thinking maybe pine)

// week of 4/24
// test and tweak. repeat.
// film, edit

// week of 5/1
// present film
// interactive demo of the keyboard version

}

mobile soap

pretty cool / weird stuff from the giant corp. news...er. corp.

Hotel Franklin is a soap-drama specifically made for mobile phones and has just been launched by media giant News Corporation.A spokeswoman for News corp, Lucy Hood said episodes last just one-minute because this "seems to us to be the natural length" for phone viewers.

Link via Smart Mobs

for tripp

posting this for tripp. wouldn't dare tell him about this now, as he would most likely get aggravated. It's an hp project dealing w/ constant recording of the user's life. Yeah, and it does this all from the user's perspective:

Link