entretags/blog

The article Urbanhermes: Social Signaling with Electronic Fashion (Lui and Donath, 2006) brings sthe theme of fashion signs used to indicate access to information and to identify themselves within a social group

“If one has access to information — going to the right places, communicating with the right people, keeping up with the ongoing cultural dialogue — one may disclose this “fashionable” quality in variably recognizable ways. Examples include wearing a designer’s new collection, eating at a particularly trendy restaurant, or listening to underground music” (…) “trendsetters must develop a new form of the fashion signal to distinguish themselves from the mass population. Fashion cycles are prompted by the continual renewal of the signal form”.

Although the article doesn’t deal with the theme directly, I came again with the “being trackable” subject. The point is that one reason why people would like to show where they have been is also the same reason why they die the hair with unusual colors or wear second hand clothes: that is to show others they are trendy, or to show they belong to a specific group. After that I made this animation to illustrate a location based record that would interfere in social contacts.

Flash animation >>

Links
http://trail.motionbased.com
http://www.navizon.com/
http://www.dodgeball.com/

Thinking about the diary system my main question was if people would like to be permanently tracked, having their steps recorded and made public for others. My personal answer was “no, they wouldn’t”. Since all technique is used to control something, I thought it would be a kind of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” approach, as I have told last Monday.

By researching location based community systems I realized I might be wrong.

In the paper Usage patterns of FriendZone: mobile location-based community services (Burak and Sharon) issued in 2004, the use a Mobile Location-based Community Service, the FriendZone, was analyzed through a 21 month usage survey of more than 47,000 users. The results showed, for example, that:

1) privacy management tools were hardly used
2) the usage of such tools (as blocking unknown people) decreases over the time
3) an Anonymous Instant Messaging was the most popular and used service of this system

“The majority simply did not see a reason to block their location information, saying, ‘I don’t feel any need to hide myself’, ‘I am not ashamed in my whereabouts’ or ‘Hiding? On the contrary – find me, communicate with me; meet me!’”

After long time thinking how I could bridge this project with my master thesis, I finally came up with the theme DIARY. The idea is to make possible the register of everyday facts and the sharing of this information on-the-go.

Here is a list of some points raised in the meeting yesterday:
How do we use to keep our memories? (blogs, to-do-lists, pictures, emails, bookmarks)
If we shared our registers with others, would we like to make everything public?
Would we like to remember everything we have done?

How could we use other senses to gather information?

Feelspace

The Feelspace belt has vibrators attached, which are governed by heading information from an electronic compass: the one vibrator pointing north is active. Thereby, the belt user is constantly provided with tactile heading information relative to the earth’s magnetic field. If, for instance, the user is directed to west, the vibrator on his right hip vibrates.

König et al. | University of Osnabrück | 2005
http://feelspace.cogsci.uos.de/en/index.html

The interesting in these projects is the way objects come together to bring or build new information.

Tablet Whacking

The Tablet Whacking is a way to link wireless mobile devices by bumping them together. It is not just a way to expand small screens but also to share information among devices.

have a look in Tablet Wacking video >>
Ken Hinckley | Microsoft Research | 2006
http://research.microsoft.com/users/kenh/

Block Jam

Blocks of sound information come together to build a music. A block of bass sound here. A block of drum sound there. And a block of piano sound next to it. What do you get when you put them together? Your original creation. What do you get when your friends join in to mix things up?
A collaborative and interactive digital music experience.

Sony | 2006
http://www.sony.net/Fun/SonyDesign/2003/BlockJam/index.html

Nowadays we use to access and manage data manly through displays, but how rich can other approaches be!

Tactophone

This mobile telephone prototype uses an active 3D surface to animate and display shapes. The phone interface allows for interaction with location based information “on the go” and “In the pocket”.

Oren Horev | IDII | 2006
http://people.interaction-ivrea.it/o.horev/morph

Flash bag

The size of this memory stick changes depending on the amount of data it holds. When the device is about to blow up you will see an error message on your screen: “There is not enough free space”. When switched off the flashbag remains pumped up, so you can estimate how much data can be transferred into it.

by Dima Komissarov | ArtLebedev | 2006
http://www.plusminus.ru/flashbag.html