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WP-M wishes you a Happy 4th of July!

Columns work.

Thin, quick,
easy to read,
back and forth,
left and right,
columns.

e-paper,
designed in a nice,
1/4 size newsprint form -
buttons on the back,
maybe sides,
heck maybe a dismissive
accelerometer-sensed shake.
Skimmed with a glance,
while standing
shoulder to shoulder
in a crowded subway.

Not a big kindle, but
a blast from the past .

Referencing: The Sixth Sense

The first thing to notice about the Sixth Sense is that it allows the wearer to use any surface around them to view information and edit media. In the replacing space article, Harrison says “the structure of the space around us moulds and guides our actions and interactions.” This is very true in regards to the Sixth Sense. While using the device, any surface can become part of the device: a wall, a newspaper or, if nothing else is available, even your own hand. Whatever you end up using for the display depends completely on where you are at any given time.

The Sixth Sense is also a great example of ubiquitous computing. With its ability to turn any real-world surface into an interactive space, the person wearing the device can view and edit photos or browse the web on whatever is in front of them.

The Sixth Sense requires a lot of “performance” by the wearer in order to use many of the functions. The most obvious is when the user is taking a picture. In order to take the photo, the user holds up their hands as if to create a “frame” around what they want to save an image of. It is very quick and easy, but passers-by who see this, don’t see someone with a camera, but rather someone who looks like they are pretending to take a picture. With these photos, the user can go up to any wall and use hand gestures to browse through their albums or edit them. The personal keywords that are displayed on the front of someone when you go up and talk to them, is also an example of performance. Thanks to the Sixth sense, these people are now wearing a dynamic costume that can change depending on who they are talking to or even information they have posted on their blog.

The ease of the picture function seems to be exactly what Matt Jones had in mind when he came up with the idea of "bionic noticing”. All someone needs to do is use their fingers to frame a picture and the Sixth Sense takes it. There is no other hardware required. This makes for an easy time of “obsessively recording curious things” around the user. Adding an upload function to the Sixth Sense seems very easy and logical. Every time someone uses their fingers to take a picture, it could be uploaded to a photo site such has Flickr as well as saved on the device to be viewed or edited later.

The Sixth Sense, in a way, makes everything connected to the internet. Any book you pick up, person you look at or item you buy at the store activates the device, which then uses the internet to find more information on them. I really love how looking at a person brings up keywords about them. It seems like a great idea for networking and a fun way to find out interesting and unusual things about people. While the future probably holds a world with every object having access to the internet, this is a nice stepping stone that is probably more cost effective.

PoolLoop
A Mobile Mixing Experience

PoolLoop is an iPhone app that uses material generated or captured by the user/users to create a unique experience of time, space, sound and visuals.

Context

This application is intended for on-the-go creativity and collaboration. Designed to be accessible to all users, it can be operated easily and quickly to channel creativity.

Design

PoolLoop enables an interactive/creative experience between one or more users. It can reshape a moment in time, alter the way of thinking about an audio/visual relationship, and create a virtual place as the user(s) select and manipulate material specific to their own cultural and social contexts.

The virtual musician(s) are given multiple sources of material to choose from. There is the option of uploading your own generated content from your computer. This can include any sound/visual relationship, as well as the freedom to encode an alpha channel. Also, users can sample their own sounds and images from their phone’s camera, or download them from online (ex. youtube), to manipulate into their creative compositions.

In game play between users, the images and sounds are mixed and fused together, generating a true harmony of the elements. When these elements are combined, the result is an artistic mold in time and space that would have otherwise never existed. This allows the users to truly collaborate and combine their ideas, creating a social labyrinth of audio and visual. The results serve to be a representation of merging virtual identities.

Play Experience

Each player has the ability to load two sets of content each (a video/graphic with audio attached). If one is composing alone, they can activate the content with the select screen and manipulate it using the tilt (up and down) of the phone and its rotation (door knob motion) while selecting the clip they want to manipulate.

Sources of content include recording it with your iPhone or downloading from an online site you are browsing. You can use the select screen to activate your clips and tilt and rotate the phone to manipulate the elements. Tilting up and down increases and decreases the speed of the clip while rotating displaces the pixels of video. For example, if you are using more than one video clip, they will be layered, with the most recently loaded image on top. When you rotate the phone, it will use the bottom layer of video to displace the top layer, creating a new video, which is a merging combination of the two visually.

Interactive Play: Two users can interactively create a composition by loading their own elements and using the app’s features to merge and distort their sound and video. In order for the two users to play, one must invite the other to a creative session, and then the two players must upload their content into each others libraries. Once each player has the resources from the other, play can be initiated.

At the end of each session the user has the option to save their composition and can also email it to themselves or post it on the internet. The result is an easy and fun creative venture into the virtual manipulation of a moment and experience.


Collaborators: Steve Day and Diana Reichenbach

PoolLoop PowerPoint

Check out the link to a realization of a dream! And it doesn't require the use of costly and dangerous nuclear weapons!!

http://www.intomobile.com/2007/09/28/palm-phone-jammer-fits-in-your-hand-annoys-everyone-around-you.html

Sorry this took so long... finally was able to access the lab and use the computer. Enjoy!

Bouncing Cranium

University of Southern California and Nokia Announce Extensive Research Collaboration Framework Agreement

First Project to Focus on Advancement of Augmented Reality

LOS ANGELES and Espoo, Finland (April 21, 2009) – The University of Southern California (USC) and Nokia Research Center (NRC) Hollywood today announced a research collaboration framework agreement that centers on advanced mobile user experiences. The umbrella framework agreement allows Nokia and USC to work together on multiple projects in a variety of areas and will streamline the process for commercializing USC inventions.

Speakers: IMD's Mobile and Environmental Media Lab (Fisher, Stein, Watson, Gotsis, Kratky, Preuss, Carter, Yasuda)
Time: Wednesday, April 15, 6-8pm
Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts (RZC),
Room 201 Zemeckis Media Lab (ZML)

Title: “Mobile Storytelling”
Abstract: The overall objective of our Mobile and Environmental Media research program is to design and prototype new capabilities for unique entertainment and out-of-classroom educational opportunities available to anyone, at anytime with the added benefit of being embedded in the rich context of specific “place”. The recent focus has been on content development for location-specific museum, game, and arts installations in which the ‘virtual’ contents are embedded on site and perceived through mobile display or viewing devices. This presentation will describe several of the group's projects ranging from crowd-sourced cinema and mobile advertising to " Ambient Storytelling".

Here is my idea for sketch #5:

Laundry Mat Attack

Laundry Mat Attack is an enacted narrative, where the theme and story of the game unfolds as the character moves through the space. It is designed for players who want to pass the time in the laundry mat specifically. As players are waiting for their loads to wash and dry in real life, they are virtually venting their frustrations through the game world while trying to develop the best strategy for quick and accurate laundry mat protocol.

During the unfolding of the game the player will encounter and overcome many obstacles which happen in real world laundry mats. These include:
-Navigating through overcrowded spaces
-A plan of attack for beating other visitors to open washers and dryers
-Obtaining money (credits) and changing them out for quarters
-Buying laundry detergent and bleach
-Dividing items into lights and darks
-Developing relationships with other users and the owners to help you speed up your laundry process.

Each of these obstacles will be addressed and overcome in a separate game which can be played through a battle of the wills or a physical confrontation. Once you are near another player or a machine you will be given the option of how to address the obstacle at hand, and follow through with a game.

For example, if you and another player reach an open machine at the same time you will be presented with options which you can choose from. 1. Physical confrontation 2. Activate a battle of the wills 3. Challenge them to play a game with you 4. Give up the machine

Another example is earning credits necessary to do laundry. You can do this while laundry is washing or drying, or you must do this before doing laundry at all if you have no credits to begin with. You can choose from a few options of occupations including but not limited to: soliciting for money, folding someone else’s laundry for a few extra tokens, selling newspapers for the stand across the street etc. These tasks bring on a new realm of personal interaction and obstacles that you must overcome when you are presented with them. Your game can be saved, if your real world laundry finishes before virtual world laundry does.

You can play the game with others at a laundry mat who have this application on their phone (and log into the network), or you can play against virtual players (the computer). You can also send instant messages to other players on the network about your observations or frustrations in your current laundry mat condition.

You can win by collecting points from your various tasks. You can continue to try to beat your last score, or the scores of others. You gain points by quickness and accuracy in laundry completion, by winning fights or battles of the wills, by cultivating positive relationships with the owners and other users, etc. For instance, you can sometimes gain more points by giving up a machine than fighting for it, depending on the character that you are up against (ex. Elderly person). However, ultimately the challenge and fun in the game is about the experiences you encounter in the process of doing laundry and how you overcome them.


Here is a quick chart of a tentative laundry mat:



and the .doc file of the game plan:
LaundryMatAttack.doc

Formatted PDF version: Download file

Backseat Driver
CTIN 405 - Context-specific mobile game

Backseat Driver is an iPhone game that uses Google Maps and challenges car passengers to find the fastest route to their real-world destination in a strategic racing game.

Context

The Backseat Driver app targets iPhone users who are stuck as passengers in a car. More specifically, it targets those passengers who think they know a better way to reach their destination.

Design

Backseat Driver’s gameplay consists of selecting routes for the player’s three cars in order to reach a particular destination as fast as possible. The player must then modify the routes in real-time as the cars run into traffic.

The player’s goal is to reach the destination using the virtual cars before he or she reaches the destination in real-life (determined by the iPhone’s GPS).

Beyond directing the routes of the cars, the player can use special “reckless driving” abilities to make real-time play more exciting. These abilities include “sidewalk driving” and “run a red light.” When a player uses an ability, he or she plays a short arcade mini-game in the vein of Frogger or other simple 2D retro game. The more an ability is used, the more difficult the games become. Failing to complete a mini-game results in a time penalty.

The primary challenge in developing this game is determining the traffic density and speed of surface streets. Google Maps only covers the general speed of freeways. The temporary solution to this problem to create general speeds for different surface streets on a city-by-city basis for the different times of day—morning-peak, morning off-hour, midday-peak, midday off-hour, afternoon-peak, afternoon off-hour, evening, early morning.

If enough users participate, the program could track the users and record their speed on a given street at a particular time. With enough data, the average speed of different routes could reflect this data. This information could even extend to Google Maps database similar to Google Image Labeler.

Play Experience

After the player enters the application, the destination is pulled from the Maps application. The player must confirm this destination. If the destination is denied or no destination is found, the player must enter a destination using the Maps app interface.

The player then enters a route using waypoints, similar to the route creation on the web version of Google Maps. Once the route is determined, players may alternate between the different cars.

The user sees the selected car’s location (a red icon) and speed. The other cars’ locations are marked by green icons.



The user may expand this window and select “Change Route” or one of three abilities: “Run red light,” “Sidewalk drive,” or “Illegal maneuver.”

If an ability is selected, a new view is opened with a top-down view mini-game. These mini-games can be decided at a later time. If the player loses, the car is slowed down and the player receives a message, such as “Stopped by a cop!” If the player succeeds, the car increases in speed. In either case, abilities for that car are given a 15 second cool down. Every time an ability is used, the associated mini-game becomes more difficult.

If a car reaches the destination before the user, the player receives a win-screen and score. If the player reaches the destination in the real-world first, the player loses and receives an end-game screen celebrating the talents of their driver.

LoveTAP

The scene:
Today is a beautiful day, and you have a few things you would like to finish up. You're feeling pretty good, and, if you do say so yourself, you're looking pretty awesome too. What better place to go do this work... and be seen than the local Starbucks or Coffee Bean? That way you can enjoy a beverage, bask in the sun (or the indoor air conditioning) and perhaps catch the eye of a stranger.

The problem:
Say you do in fact find a stranger who catches your eye... and you're too shy to simply march up to them and try to break the ice. This is where this iPhone application comes in. Whenever you are in a Starbucks or a Coffee Bean you are able to access this application. The location based mechanic allows you to view the "blue-print" like set up of the location, showing you the tables and locations in the store. You can tap on your phone where the location of this desirable stranger is, and thus the game begins. In a 20 questions style fashion, you invite the object of your momentary affection to look around the room and by asking yes or no questions, try to figure out who you are. While this application could be played simply as a game it also enables the players to break the ice between one another, and perhaps the end result will be a face to face exchange.

How it works:
You open up the application by tapping on the icon.
Up comes a layout of your current coffee location.
There is an "X" to mark your location, and then flashing icons wherever there are people who also have this application.
You tap on one of those individuals locations on the map, and it sends a "You've been tapped" buzz notification to them and then they accept and begin playing the game.
They ask questions which show up on your phone like text messages and you are allowed to select "yes" or "no" in response.
Eventually after enough of these questions have been exchanged the player who is guessing also can access the map of the store and click on the location where they think you are. If they guess correctly, they win, and if they don't manage to guess in 20 questions or they guess wrong, you win.
If at any time you wish to end the game, you simply select "Quit" and it is over on your phone, and the other player is notified that you have removed yourself from the game.
You can also block certain players from reaching you as a safety/comfort precaution.

Images:
Download file

An application to be used at a gas station. A time game where the user tries to stop the counter on a certain dollar value. Rate of time varies based on price per gallon of gas.

View image
View image

Congratulations to all the IMD teams that participated in last week's GDC: Kid the World Saver and The Unfinished Swan were IGF finalists. Ian also presented The Unfinished Swan at the Experimental Gameplay Workshop. And, of course, the Reflection team won the IGF Mobile Next Great Mobile Game contest!

Reflection began as an intermediate project and is now being developed further in the advanced projects class. Here's Peter checking out the latest build.

Chroma Chronicle

Chroma Chronicle is a mobile application which captures the memory of a location/experience through visuals and audio. The idea is similar to how one would use a camera. The user must acknowledge the space they are in and make a decision to capture this experience by sending a request to the chroma chronicle application.

The application takes the longitude and latitude of the user and maps the longitude coordinate to a visual (color) and the latitude to a tone. The user can then collect these results and playback as a visual/auditory record of a trip, etc. This can then be exported to one's email and be shared online with others.

The big part of the application is that the user is an active participant in creating an archive of their travels. It's a way to create an actual 'soundtrack for our lives' and a way to remember these experiences through a stimulus of our senses. The tones and colors are assigned randomly to the longitude and latitude coordinates.

Formatted PDF version: Download file

Two playtests of Wrangler’s first iteration were conducted with different rules and settings. Eight people organized into three teams participated both times.

The first 5-minute session took place at The Grove and required players to move strangers into circles. The second 10-minute session was played at an adjacent park and eliminated the circles with player’s able to take pictures of strangers in any location.

Results

Players noted that strangers were more receptive to participating at the park as they were not traveling to a particular destination. Players also mentioned that moving into the circle “freaked out” targeted strangers. In both locations, there was concern from strangers regarding their photograph being taken. In an instance of emergent gameplay, one team had concerned strangers cover their face with the flier while another team only took pictures below the neck.

Beyond these stranger-player dynamics, players commented that there were only one or two tactics in approaching strangers. There was no variation in their contact strategy. Furthermore, each team has the same bonuses (more strangers at once is better and raptors for double points). There is potential for different bonuses that could alter play strategies beyond canvassing crowds of strangers

While two of the teams were successful, the third team gave up early and got a fraction of the points of the other two. Afterwards, they mentioned a sense of shame in approaching strangers. This needs to be dealt with, as one of the points of this experience is to create a fun motivation for talking to strangers and remove that shyness. While variations in bonuses and tactics could help this, it is worth looking at one of the most minor rules of the game, but one of the most popular—the raptor pose.

Making strangers pose as raptors for extra points was an afterthought, but the two teams who saw the rule heartily endorsed it (in fact, the team that gave up early didn’t even know about that rule). Players suggested adding more poses as different bonuses, but this comment could be extrapolated to a more generalized mechanic: making playful requests of strangers that make them active participants in the game. The circles was a location-based way of doing that, but posing as a dinosaur is a lot more fun than walking into a circle on the ground (and a lot less foreboding).

Other points of note:
• Parties were interested in seeing their pictures online
• Players would point to other teams to look legitimate
• Strangers were more apt to hold on to the flier if they knew the game rules were on the back (a serendipitous printing mistake)

Planned Changes

The second iteration will replace the circles with new, more playful tasks like the raptor pose, which the strangers must do for the players. These different tasks will result in different point multipliers and unlock new tasks.

Potential tasks include new animal-based poses, action shots (e.g. the strangers must be photographed in mid air), or convincing strangers to take pictures together with the players. The original core mechanic—taking pictures of as many strangers at once as possible—will be downgraded to be one of these tasks. These tasks make the game similar to a photographic scavenger hunt in which players must interact with their subjects.

By focusing on creating a more playful dynamic between strangers and players, the game will deemphasize shameful soliciting and highlight the players’ duty to bring strangers into the magic circle.

Minor changes:
• Intentionally printing rules on back of fliers
• Shorter game time – approx. 5 minutes
• Locations must focus on recreational areas such as parks

I started with two objectives:
1. Force players to draw strangers into the game and directly interact with them
2. Make it a promotional game for a website/movie

It became a game about wrangling strangers and photographing them with promotional materials for a friend's website, 5secondfilms.com.

PDF of the real-world game prototype, "Wranglers": Download file

Document text without the nice formatting:

Wranglers

Wranglers is a location-based promotional game in which teams of players move, or “wrangle,” strangers into pre-defined areas and take pictures of them holding promotional materials for points.

This promotion will be for the comedy website, 5secondfilms.com.

Goal

Earn the most points by taking photos of strangers holding your team’s 5secondfilm cards in your team’s designated area.

The more strangers you photograph at once, the more points. Players earn additional points by convincing the strangers to pose like a raptor.

Setup

At least six players are needed.

The players divide into three color-coded teams—red, blue, and white. Players are given colored armbands corresponding to their team.

The game should take place in a heavily trafficked area such as an outdoor mall or shopping center. Three circles—one for each team—are drawn in chalk 10 feet apart in an open space.



The players are given two items:
1. Two identical instruction cards
2. One-hundred identical color-coded promotional cards per team to be used in the photos with strangers for points

Instruction card text:
1. Get strangers into your team’s colored circle - the more, the better.
2. Take pictures of the strangers holding your team’s promotional cards.
a. Each stranger is worth 1 point times the total number of strangers in the picture → if you take a picture of 2 strangers at the same time, they’re each worth 2 points.
b. Make them pose like raptors for double points!
3. Team with the most points in 15 minutes wins.

Tips:
1. Keep one teammate near the circle ready to take pictures
2. Spread-out to grab passer-by’s as well as groups farther away
3. Try to convince strangers to stay in the circle until you’ve got a bigger group to photograph (3 people in one photo is worth 9 people in 9 different photos)

To win more prizes after the game:
1. Friend “5secondfilms [team color]” on Facebook
2. Post the photos on Facebook and tag them with your new friend, “fivesecondfilms [team color]” the same week you’ve played the game
3. The team with most points on Facebook wins [insert prize]

Promotional card description:
Cards are color-coded by team and contain a graphic and web address for 5secondfilms.

Tallying Points

The moderator who drew the circles and passed out game materials does an initial point tally. Moderator takes back leftover materials and erases circles. After one week, moderator logs on to the three Facebook accounts 5SecondFilms Red, White, and Blue and tallies points again for the official score.

One photo’s points = (number of strangers in photo) per stranger. Strangers posing as raptors are worth two times the numbers of strangers.

Potential Directions

Facebook friends of players will be exposed to photos from the promotional game and have an opportunity to click through to the 5secondfilm profiles. The use of Web 2.0 extends the game beyond initial participants to the social network of each individual.

The promotion can be made even more effective by adding a broader game in which the recruited strangers can participate. The promotional cards the stranger holds in the photos could include unique codes that can redeemed online for a chance to win prizes or to sign up and participate in a meta-game. By taking a photo and receiving a promo card, strangers can join afterwards online and follow the larger progress of their team as the location-based game occurs multiple times in different locations.

I had trouble with the file that Will posted, so I just went through the first stages of the BIT-101 tutorial. I replaced the ball's constant motion with random x and y values. When the user touches the screen the ball's random location is reduced to a 20x20 area around the touched area.

Here is a .zip of the project: Download file

I initially tried to grab values from an XML file, but it just wasn't panning out. If anybody has any good tutorials/resources, it would be much appreciated.

After hours of working on my computer and this app...

Download file


A simple image swap...

I'm really not skilled with this... so I managed (much to my surprise) to change the images in the ball bounce app...

Download file

Download file

i tried to let it bounce longer before it become a loop bouncing between top to bottom.