Uggggggggg, I really really really hope this does not happen!
467 items (446 unread) in 9 feeds
Uggggggggg, I really really really hope this does not happen!

Really cool infoviz project the duo at hint.fm put together about colors seen on Boston Common throughout the year. I’m seeing this one a bit late cos it was originally published in Boston Magazine, maybe I should actually start checking that publication out!
Anyway, Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg have tons of really interesting projects. Check out Seer also if you have the time.
Interesting article from New York Times
The Age of Undoing

Facebook, for instance, allows you to register approval for a posted message in a very concrete way, by clicking a thumbs-up like button. Toggling off the button results in unliking your previously liked item. Note that this is different from disliking something, since unliking simply returns you to a neutral state. This kind of instant reversibility is now an inescapable facet of our digitized life — like it or un-.

Working through Screens: 100 Ideas for Envisioning Powerful, Engaging, and Productive User Experiences in Knowledge Work
Working through Screens is a reference for product teams creating new or iteratively improved applications for thinking work. Written for use during early, formative conversations, it provides teams with a broad range of considerations for setting the overall direction and priorities for their onscreen tools. With hundreds of envisioning questions and fictional examples from clinical research, financial trading, and architecture, this volume can help definers and designers to explore innovative new directions for their products.
While working on deep ocean graphics for a client, I inadvertently created something more cloud-like.
The N. Building in Japan is one huge QR code that becomes a living website thanks to augmented reality on the iPhone.
Here are two cool new ways to track who is consuming your content, and which pieces users find most interesting. First up:
Depending on the site, up to 6% of page loads results in a user copying content. While this may not sound like much, think of it this way: on a site that has 20 million page views per month, content is copied over one million times during any given month. That’s a lot. How do we know this? Tynt’s patent pending Insight technology is currently running on hundreds of thousands of web sites and monitors billions of page loads per month.
This is a potentially very cool idea, however, it’s a bit annoying that they auto-include a link back to the source content. I’d prefer a more ’silent’ solution. According to Tynt, they are: “currently working on providing users an option to opt out of Tynt Insight. If you’d like to disable Tynt Insight immediately, you can use an ad or script blocking tool to disable Tynt Insight.”
Second is:
[speakertext.com]
SpeakerText is an easy-to-use tool that lets you find, read and share what people are saying inside of videos. This is another powerful tool, that’s still in beta. I don’t know if it’s technically possible, but it would be great to see this technology drop Flash as its presentation layer. It could be much easier to spread content like this. For example, you would be able to combine the previous Tynt service to do some pretty wild things! Check out Nieman Labs for more.
So, I’ll probably never actually use this stuff now that I’m done with school, but just thought I’d share these links if anyone is interested:
[www.amarino-toolkit.net]
Cell phones are great for communication in a virtual manner, but lack expressiveness in personal surroundings. Many people try to give their phones a personal touch by customizing them. ‘android meets arduino’ is a toolkit to connect Android-driven mobile devices with Arduino microcontrollers via Bluetooth. The toolkit provides easy access to internal phone events which can be further processed on the Arduino open-source prototyping platform. This toolkit seeks to empower people to externalize their phone events to creatively demonstrate them on wearables, living spaces, or other tangibles.
[android.processing.org]
Pre-release downloads of Processing with built-in support for Android. Note that this code is incomplete and contains many bugs. It is not ready for widespread use. It should be considered “nightly build” quality. Do not use this code while operating heavy equipment. Do not rely on this code for thesis or diploma work, as you will not graduate. Do not use this code if you’re prone to whining about incomplete software that you download for free.
Here’s a few links I’ve found to test yer sites on. This is really more for me to use so I can remember this stuff in a few months when I need it again, and have forgotten it by that time.
[https:]
An easier, faster solution for cross-browser testing
[browsershots.org]
Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different browsers. It is a free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl. When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server here.
It’s up! Check out the home page, now re-envisioned as an interactive portfolio of recent projects. Let me know what you think via the new “contact” link.
Look at that exponential curve! Android is really taking off. The iPhone is of course still on top, but it will be interesting to see how Apple’s business strategy will adapt in the face of some real competition.

Seems a bit self-helpy, but I will probably go through it this week on the commute to work. He definitely got the big names out on this one.
Here are more than seventy big thinkers, each sharing an idea for you to think about as we head into the new year. From bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert to brilliant tech thinker Kevin Kelly, from publisher Tim O’Reilly to radio host Dave Ramsey, there are some important people riffing about important ideas here.
How would you feel if you had to share a phone amongst your family members, or if you could not afford to by a phone. This is the case for many millions of people living in Kenya at the Base of the Pyramid, living in poverty on an income of less than $2 a day; and yet many of these people understand how mobile phone technology can save them money in their day to day activities and increase their earning potential. This video explores how people living below the poverty line in Kenya use mobile phones.

A few excellent posters (+etc), created by Paul Gabor, a Hungarian designer during the 30’s to 50’s (or so).
Here is a powerful mode of communication with mobile technology. Made by the Mobile Art Lab in Japan.

LAIKA is a new, dynamic typeface, designed and constructed by Nicolas Kunz and Michael Flückiger. The genius here is that visual elements of the face (such as weight, serif prominence, and italic degree) are reframed as parameters, into which can be fed values from any source — either your own keyboard, or something more interesting like weight or distance sensors, so the visual typographic form can respond to physical factors in an installation environment. Try it out!
Tetris and Arduino together at last. I would definitely, definitely play this version of the game, even if I would not get a high score.
Tetris Mashup!
tetris meets Arduino from Luyza Pereira on Vimeo.

Remember when AOL leaked 650,000 of its users’ search queries? For the first time, we got to see what real people search for on the web.
Now, thanks to Search Suggestion technology by Google, Yahoo, and others, you don’t have to wait for a corporate screw-up to expose search queries — you can do it yourself! Just type a few letters, and watch the most popular searches appear on top.
Just found some interesting content about how media will be delivered in the future, and the future of the web. I guess Thursdays are a forward thinking day of the week.
Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, interviewed at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Orlando 2009 (06:10)
This is a valiant effort to redesign some of our most basic interactions with the computer. The multi-touch will definitely be included more and more in future interfaces… but, using all 10 fingers? I think many people already have enough trouble with just the mouse. Maybe this would be effective in some sort of specialized application…
Also, when I’m thinking about the hardware for this stuff… it pretty much just seems like a new MacBook to me…
[the Rationalizer concept is] an emotion sensing system targeted at serious home investors who trade online. It acts as an ‘emotion mirror’ in which the intensity of the user’s feelings is reflected. Research shows that home investors do not act purely rationally: their behavior is influenced by emotions, most notably fear and greed, which can compromise their ability to take an objective, factual stance. This insight led to the Rationalizer concept in which online traders are alerted when it may be wise to take a time-out, wind down and re-consider their actions.
Camille Utterback gave a talk at UC Berkeley on Monday. A digital artist, pioneer of interactive video art, and one of last month’s awardees of a 2009 MacArthur Fellowship (a.k.a. “genius grant”), Camille got her start in digital art at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. There, with Romy Achituv, she created her first interactive video installation, “Text Rain,” in 1999.
Utterback’s talk was titled “Luscious Complexity: Transcending the Doohickey.” I want to share some of her thoughts here, because many of them are right in line with my own recent thinking. The following items are highly paraphrased from my notes during the talk.
Utterback writes all of her own code, mostly in C++, but also uses Processing to sketch ideas.
In computational media, the rules are implicit and hidden. When the user has to deduce the rules, the interaction may be frustrating. When not frustrating, though, this quality can make for a beautiful process of discovery.
Always avoid “one liners.” Make sure your work has enough conceptual complexity to stand the test of time.
Consider how an installation affects your physical body — are you looking up? down? arching your back? bending toward the floor? Notice what emotions and behaviors we associate with those positions. (Eyes cast downward, for example, indicates shame. Looking straight ahead indicates engagement.) Don’t make the user uncomfortable, unless you are trying to make the user uncomfortable.
It is very important to do user testing. When coding, you are writing rules that define the accepted parameters of user behavior. Not everyone will behave as you do, so test to make sure your rules are flexible enough to work for others.
Using camera input automatically makes a piece social. People will move in front of the camera with others, interact with each other and the piece, and create their own meanings from the interaction.
People intuitively understand how to move and interact with mirrored video, by virtue of experience in the physical world (i.e. using mirrors). Think about how to translate other shared physical experiences into intuitive, digital interface mechanisms.
Utterback tries to bridge the gap between the “fleshy world” of the body and the rules-based world of the computer.
Her work in drawing systems (such as the piece Untitled #5) contains many hand-drawn elements, overlaid with digital manipulations. (Not all the forms are code-generated.)
This kind of work is fun, because people move in goofy ways, like kids.

It’s done! This weekend’s creating coding workshop at GAFFTA went really well, despite Loveparade’s pounding revelry just outside. In case you missed it, you can experience all 10.5 hours of coding bliss in under two minutes — just watch the video below. Also, check out some of the great projects that the students made.
My souvenir Gray Area logo pin:

I’ve come across a couple of articles in the past few days that relate to synaesthesia in science – Both use water (sonar and sound respectively) as the means of bending our senses in entirely new ways.
Navies have used sonar for generations to detect objects underwater, but researchers at Cardiff University have developed a way to produce three dimensional images using sonar. It’s not entirely clear how they’re doing it, only that it has been done. I can only speculate that they’re using two or more sonar pings at a time, using some sort of motor to sweep the area back and forth or cleverly utilizing a moving boat’s GPS position relative to a single (or more) sonar to create the map.
Given the low cost of consumer-grade sonar, this could pave the way to mapping rooms on the cheap if I read into what little I know about the technology correctly.
The second article focuses (pardon the pun) on the use of lasers as a means to transfer sound. According to the BBC article: “The approach focuses laser light to produce bubbles of steam that pop and create tiny, localised explosions” which means that both the acoustic information and the rate in which the bubbles pop could have meaning to the receiver. In the first instance, sound could be potentially sent from the air into the water at different speeds/ rates/ etcetera, much like the way morse or modem code behaves. The second potential is for another form of acoustic imaging, although this seems less likely given it requires mirrors which don’t seem to behave well under water.
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I’m very excited to announce that I will be co-teaching a two-day introduction to Processing at the new Gray Area Foundation for the Arts here in San Francisco! The workshop is the first in a series on creative coding, and coincides with Gray Area’s grand opening celebrations and initial exhibition, featuring work by C.E.B. Reas, Camille Utterback, and Stamen Design.
The Gray Area folks have created an amazing space downtown, and this workshop is an exciting chance to learn a ton of great new skills, and even meet one of Processing’s co-initiators. (C.E.B. will be making an appearance.)
The workshop is scheduled for Saturday, October 3rd & Sunday, October 4th, 1:00 – 6:00pm both days.
See GAFFTA’s site for the complete schedule, details, and registration.
Personas demonstrates the computer’s uncanny insights and its inadvertent errors, such as the mischaracterizations caused by the inability to separate data from multiple owners of the same name. It is meant for the viewer to reflect on our current and future world, where digital histories are as important if not more important than oral histories, and computational methods of condensing our digital traces are opaque and socially ignorant.
Dang, this is some pretty interesting writing about online communities (wikipedia in particular), and where they are going. There is a whole mess of links at the bottom of the page I will click on later when I have time.
Sasquatch is using the same technology that powers the Reac-table and qr codes and stuff.
[www.youmightfindyourself.com]

These are probably the most interesting business cards I’ve seen. I love that they not only get across the business the owner is in, but they give the receiver a little taste of what it’s all about. Very cool
Really cool data visualization here. It seems a little too much like entertainment to me tho… I hope in the next version you can see if your representitives are keeping their promises. Then either send them a “good job” or a “boo to that” note.
Cool looking photography / video of bugs flying around a street light at night.
I know everyone already knows about this, I just always forget about it.
HCI Bibliography : Human-Computer Interaction Resources
A terrible looking, excellent reference.
This is the last TdF link, I swear! It’s a cool concept that just happens to involve bikes this time. It is a common tradition for cycling fans to write messages to their heros. This is no common letter, fans will camp out on mountain tops for days, spending time covering the roadside with chalkly words of encouragement. This is usually along the lines of “ALLEZ SCHLEK”, drawings of bicycles, or similar. The Chalkbot allows people to send it texts, and then it sprays that message on the ground.
Built in partnership with the Livestrong foundation, its main goal is to raise cancer awareness. I like this concept, as it allows people who’s lives are affected by cancer, to leave a message in this tradition, even if they are too far away, or too weak to do it themselves. I hope I get to see some of these messages sprayed on a stage soon!
Great article at Read Write Web about new facial recognition software. Can be used on mobile platforms or integrated on any website! Looks like flickr and facebook want this as well, to allow customers to auto tag their friends in uploaded photos.
I am taking Colin Owens “Sound for Dynamic Media” class this summer and started working on a project involving the visualization of sound. We saw several interesting examples from the design field that you can find on the class website. I thought this more scientific example was pretty cool and wanted to share.
This is an interesting idea, similar to the NikeFit concept. Cyclists can form teams, working with and compete against others from around the world. Then everyone gets to see how they stack up against the pros. I think this is a great idea to get people working together, and for getting them interested in your company/product.
For the first time ever, you can ride in the Tour de France. No, you won’t be the newest rider on Lance’s team, but you can race VIRTUALLY against Lance and all the other pros.
How does it work? Easy, just get out and RIDE YOUR BIKE. Starting on July 4th with the first stage of the Tour you can ride in one stage or every stage of the Le Tour Challenge.
Submit your ride to MapMyRide.com and we’ll do the rest. We’ll take your ride and put you VIRTUALLY in the Tour. Yep, that is right, we will tell you how you would have done had you ridden in that day’s stage.
I think my next trip will be to NYC to check this bad boy out. I’m pretty amazed with the amount of time it took to get this project together, keeping the idea close to the original inspiration the whole time. Diller + Scofidio never fail to amaze.
Designing Social Interfaces Wiki
The Designing Social Interfaces patterns wiki is a companion site to the book that Christian Crumlish and Erin Malone are currently writing for O’Reilly Media.
We decided to share the patterns as we write the patterns and the book to get community feedback. We think that hearing a variety of opinions about these topics will make the material stronger and more representative of what’s happening in social interfaces. As we complete sections of the book, we will be adding the patterns.
This is a cool project that came through the lab. It is many many things rolled into one, but the basic concept is a motorized wheel that can be quickly and easily attached to any bicycle.
As I was the only person in the lab who rides, I got to be the model for a few of the scenes!
Green Wheel – Smart Mobility & Ubiquitous Computing from MIT Mobile Experience Lab on Vimeo.
An amazing stop-motion video with sticky notes as pixels. Click “HQ” to watch it in high quality.
Thanks to TechCrunch for capturing some video of App Store visualization on display at Apple’s WWDC conference this week. A massive grid of iPhone application icons, arranged by color, pulsates as each app is purchased through the App Store.
Looked at my blog for the first time in a while today. To my surprise, the basketball visualization of NBA shot location that I worked on with my brother Matt last November has received some positive attention recently including a mention on Boing Boing Gadgets. Also got a mention onVisualization Blog in an article about visualization in sports. Always great to get feedback, especially when it is positive!
Questions & Answers is my latest project: an experiment in new, non-linear narrative forms, or what I’m calling data-as-narrative. But really it’s just a fun way to explore some of the crazy, interesting stuff people write online.

I generated this image from the genetic code of a California case of H1N1 (posted today by the CDC). I fed the data into my color tools project, and assigned one color for each base found in DNA: adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T). The colors were chosen by searching ColourLovers for each of those base names and using the top result, i.e. the “best” colors for A, C, G, and T, according to ColourLovers.

The outcome of a conversation with Mike and Jason during class: What would happen if you mapped red, green, and blue to x, y, and z?
http://ohhello.tv/index.php/work/view/microsoft_sustainability/
Check out this new concept of the future from Microsoft + friends. When I see something like this I always have two distinct reactions. The first is, wow! Damn, does that ever look amazing! Then I think, what In the future we will all jet around the globe and have million dollar homes in exclusive locations? It just doesn’t seem very sustainable to me.
It’s def worth watching, but I always wish someone would do this with a “grittier” feel. What will the taxis look like in the future? What about all that traffic? Show us some creative way with dealing with problems like these… Whatever, I would totally use that cellphone directional projection tho! When is that coming???
[www.sensenetworks.com]
[www.citysense.com]
[www.technologyreview.com]
Citysense is an innovative mobile application for real-time nightlife discovery and social navigation, answering the question, “Where is everybody going right now?”
Citysense shows the overall activity level of the city, top activity hotspots, and places with unexpectedly high activity, all in real-time. Then it links to Yelp and Google to show what venues are operating at those locations. Citysense is a free demonstration of the Macrosense platform that everyone can enjoy.
Unfortunately, it’s only available in San Francisco for now. Scott, are you on this?
This is a very cool concept by Israeli producer Kutiman. He’s spent months scowering youtube for interesting clips, and editing them all together into seven quite good songs. This could be compared to DJ Shadow’s album Entroducing… which was the first album entirely comprised of samples.
I found it very powerful how these “unknowns”, who are only doing it for the love of their music, are suddenly heard an appreciated by millions of youtube surfers.
Expect to see a lot more of this stuff in the near future. I don’t think the copycats will get to this level of quality anytime soon tho!
The aftermath of last Thursday’s pie fight at Powell and Market. Photo by Steve Rhodes.
This year’s annual Valentine’s Day pillow fight at Justin Herman Plaza. Photo by marymaddux.
The SF Chronicle reports that the city is absorbing huge cleanup costs thanks to messes left behind by recent flash mobs. Maybe mobbers should adopt a “leave no trace” philosophy, like that informally followed by the early mobs, when people would converge, act, and disappear, leaving only confusion in their wake. Leaving behind garbage, shaving cream, and feathers that clog the fountains and halt the cable cars is no fun for anyone.
Here’s an application that synthesizes typography and sound synthesis. The video output expresses the type as a sound.

This is an image from a project I am working on with Processing and live video. It uses the location of the brightest pixel on each video still to define the video stills position in space. Currently working on a version that maps RGB to XYZ for both translation and rotation. The goal would be for the red images to cluster and build in a separate space from say the green or blue. Subtle gradations in color would lead to subtle structural variations, quick jumps in color would produce gaping structures.
It is an fun project that is yielding some interesting images. I think it has potential as an interactive piece as it is fun to point the camera at different people/objects and see the frames coalesce into sculptural 3D forms. I also like the idea of sharing authorship between the programmer, the computer, the environment, the videographer the actors and complete chance.
Yes, you’ve seen the TED talks, here is another thing that has similar content that I did not know about.
FORA.tv helps intelligent, engaged audiences get smart. Our users find, enjoy, and share videos about the people, issues, and ideas changing the world.
We gather the web’s largest collection of unmediated video drawn from live events, lectures, and debates going on all the time at the world’s top universities, think tanks and conferences. We present this provocative, big-idea content for anyone to watch, interact with, and share –when, where, and how they want.
I’ve been thinking about how best to auralize data. I realize that’s not a real word (yet), but consider auralization to be visualization’s auditory sibling. The music video by Johannes Kreidler above, while hokey, is both innovative and entertaining.
A new project I worked on with Cici and Simon. More info on the project page.