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.
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
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.
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.
This weekend I´m off to Chicago to attend . I will be presenting the paper “Bowl: token based media for children” as part of the “Niche Experiences”-panel. and I have written this paper based on a project developed for the by Timo, Jørn Knutsen and myself.
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!)
This is an preliminary prototype of a device that interrupts you while you move through the city. Its the first of a series of devices designed to studie “everyday life as urban infrastructure”. More on this later.
We ( , and I ) have just come home from in Amsterdam, where we participated on the . Together with we built a photobooth that uses RFID to access the Picnic database. The photobooth takes photos of the Picnic07 participants, when they touch their RFID-tags to a spot iside the booth. The photos get uploaded to and connections between the people being photographed are made within the . The photobooth managed to take 1346 photos during the conference!
Thanks to Anne and the RFID hacker camp crew!
Friday 14.09.07 I was one of the speakers at the first day of the . It was a quite interesting event and a good opportunity to present my diploma-thoughts to a diverse audience. I presented my views on urban computing and urban gaming, and gave a slight preview of my diploma. I got interesting feedback, and I think the event can help me focus my concept/project. It was also a great exercise in communicating my research-work and discussing it outside the school-context.
I´ve uploaded my presentation and notes here: “Urban Computing and the Temple of Doom”
And I´ve been asked to gather a link-list from the talk:
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I will be talking on the conference in Oslo the 14th of September. I will be talking about previous work with urban gaming (““) and about current work with my Master thesis (“Adventures in Urban Computing”).