April 16, 2008 at 2:12 am · Filed under Touch, building, physcomp, project, research
The Bowl/Skål project is exhibited at the Norwegian Centre for Design and Architecture (DogA) in Oslo for the next month. Bowl are part of the Unge Talenter 2008 (Young Talent 2008) exhibition that runs until 27 April 2008.
As part of my work on Touch I also made new electronic insides for Sara Johansson’s toydog Sniff. Of course the interactive exhibition prototype crashed a few hours before the opening:
We had to pull off his head to fix some connections and Sara had to re-stitch his neck. Sniff survived and all went well. More on both projects on the Touch weblog.
December 18, 2007 at 11:15 am · Filed under diploma, project, urbancomputing
Yesterday I delivered the diploma. I will do a writeup when I have regenerated my mana. Thanks to all how have been helping me.
December 6, 2007 at 4:55 am · Filed under building, diploma, physcomp, project, research, urbancomputing
I´ve just been out taking scenario-photos of the final Interruptor (camera) prototype. The battery-life is bad and its so shiny that its difficult to take pictures of. Apart from this its an ok experience prototype. Its main function in the diploma is as concept illustration.
November 30, 2007 at 5:56 am · Filed under building, diploma, physcomp, project
I´m building an “Interruptive camera” as a descriptive device. It´s just a dummy: a hacked phone inside a neat wooden shell. I hope it will help with describing some aspects of the concepts. It´s also a nice task to have lying around now that I have to write all day.
November 27, 2007 at 9:01 am · Filed under diploma, project, research, urbancomputing
I´m in the final phase of my diploma and had the last “mycity” drawing/mapping workshop today. We mapped out nodes, routes, zones, gems, shadows, dragons and rainbows… And located the photos and notes from the interruptive notebooks. Thanks to Una, Ingeborg and Jørn.
November 12, 2007 at 5:30 am · Filed under conference, physcomp, project, research, tangible interactions
I have just returned from DUX 2007 where I presented the paper “Bowl: token based media for children” written by Timo Arnall, Jørn Knutsen and myself. The DUX conference was an interesting context for presenting this project and I got nice feedback and had inspiring discussions. Here´s a short presentation of the project, the paper and the presentation from DUX:
Bowl is a simple media player that creates playful interactions with media that can be used by people of all ages, particularly young children. A simple bowl sits in front of the TV, and range of physical objects can be placed within it. When an object is placed in the bowl, related media is played back on the TV. For example a Moomin character like Little My will play a sequence from the Moomin cartoon where she is featured. Through this simple interface, Bowl encourages new, engaging and playful activities around the media experience.
Bowl is based on a long history of research into so-called ‘tangible interfaces’ for media. It takes this research and applies it to a very specific context and to a product that is ready for market, without any supporting infrastructure. Through the simple, physically-based interface, Bowl encourages a different approach to media-viewing.
There is great need for products that deal with the context of young children’s access to media. Currently there are very few products which allow access to media in a way that can be used by children aged 2-4. Existing media interfaces are overly complex, may allow access to unsuitable content, and encourage extended, unhealthy viewing habits. With traditional TV interfaces unhealthy extended viewing is encouraged through programming schedules, and unsuitable content may be accessed with only one press of a button. Bowl creates a space for physical and playful activities where screen-media is only a part of the experience.
Bowl provides a platform for users to create and adapt their own physical representations of media. It provides a way of simply linking physical objects to personal or social media like YouTube, Flickr or Facebook as well as home movies from vacations or family photos. This allows for social media to become more present and accessible in family life, instead of hidden in the PC.
Bowl has been developed through an extensive user-driven process where the product was tested and developed in-situ with young children. The interface has been refined and the content re-edited to suit the needs of the audience. The process of choosing the right kind of interactions and suitable content has resulted in a product with a seemingly simple and engaging user-experience.
Bowl has been designed as a durable product that fits within the home context. As a simple interface rather than a ‘gadget’, it doesn’t depend on changing media infrastructures, standards or platforms. We have designed it as a ‘front-end’ that can be adapted to any kind of home-media system, thus its requirements are likely to stay the same over the lifetime of it’s use, and even be adaptable to future technologies.
The paper can be downloaded here: bowl_token-based-media-for-children.pdf
The DUX presentation (with notes) can be downloaded here: bowl_martinussen_dux07_presentation.pdf
November 4, 2007 at 4:47 pm · Filed under diploma, physcomp, project, research, urbancomputing
With a little help from Jørn I managed to finish the first three working probes before I left for DUX. It´s three interruptive notebooks. You turn it on when you go outdoors, put it in your pocket and it will interrupt you at random intervals. When the notebooks calls for your attention (by vibrating) you have to answere one on the questions (tasks) in the book. The books have different themes (People, Rythm and Sense) and the questions have to be answered within these contexts. As a concept-test Una, Ingeborg and Jørn will be using the probes while I´m away and we will run a workshop as soon as I get back.
November 2, 2007 at 2:50 am · Filed under building, diploma, project
Spending a day in the wood workshop is always quite refreshing. The first batch of proper probes is almost done and will be in action while I´m at DUX.
October 31, 2007 at 10:26 am · Filed under conference, physcomp, project, research
This weekend I´m off to Chicago to attend DUX 2007. I will be presenting the paper “Bowl: token based media for children” as part of the “Niche Experiences”-panel. Timo Arnall and I have written this paper based on a project developed for the Touch project by Timo, Jørn Knutsen and myself.
October 18, 2007 at 6:43 am · Filed under diploma, project
The diploma-work is progressing. Most weeks consist of electronics, programming, building, a little layout, writing and sorting out what I’m actually doing. Today I’ve been working on a front-end mock-up of the webservice side of the project (and been wrestling with google-maps: which are ubiquitous but not very good!)
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