Some of my favorite sites — like Instructables, xkcd and Boing Boing — and others I use all the time — like YouTube and Wikipedia — are a product of and are only possible in an open internet that promotes the free exchange of knowledge.
Even a tiny site like mine is only possible in a world where I’m not in legal jeopardy if I link to a site anywhere online that has any links to copyright infringement (how could I possibly police that?).
Legislation currently pending in the US congress — H.R.3261 “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) and S.968 “PROTECT IP” (PIPA) — threaten, at a minimum, to significantly undermine our (that’s all of us on the web, people) ability to communicate with each other and encourage collaborative learning through linking to and direct sharing of resources and ideas. At worst, some of our favorite websites could disappear from the web without warning, and without due process of law.
So PLEASE take just a minute to contact your representatives in congress. For more information about what these bills could mean for the internet, there are more resources over at the EFF.
Bend over, come closer… is there a cool breeze whistling down your butt crack? Is the world jingling its pockets for change to stick in your coin slot? Then I have the Instructable for you: the coin slot detector.
Multimedia artist Amy Khoshbin has combined a Lilypad Arduino, vibrating motor and photoresistor to solve the (hopefully not sticky) problem of plumbercrackitis. The photoresistor measures the amount of light beaming down your foul line. If there’s light, we’ve got visual contact and the vibrating motor is triggered. Time to pull it up, baby!
Unnecessary you say? Just plain silly? The waste of a perfectly good microcontroller which ought better expend its cleverness to flash a cheerful sorority of bright whites?
Oh, I beg to disagree, my friends, lest you find a photo of your broad smile Flickring for all to see.
No, this is not yet another review of the vaunted iPad. Yes, I did swing by the local Apple store on Saturday to check it out: it looked/worked like my iPod Touch ballooned a few times larger, with lots more fingerprints. Enough said. (If you want an iPad review, you can read a ridiculous number of iPad stories from Wired.com or just go and play with an iPad yourself.)
Soon there will be more and more tablets to choose from, just as there are now a plenitude of netbooks on the market. So the question is: Which is the future — tablet or netbook? Or neither?
Both tablets and netbooks are taking two user issues into consideration: size and functionality. Ideally, we users would like all the functionality of our desktop or laptop computers in a smaller (more portable) form factor. Or, we want at least the functionality of our smart phones in a larger form factor. The netbook partially solves the first issue and the tablet partially solves the second. There’s also the creator vs. consumer issue. The netbook makes it easier to be a creator with a built-in keyboard and access to productivity software. The tablet makes it easier to be a consumer with a simple touch interface and ready access to entertainment and social networking.
Of the two, the tablet has captured the imagination in a more concrete way. According to Wired, the tablet “will change the world.” (A mini-entertainment center is a lot more fun than a mini-workhorse.)
But in fact we kind of want it all, don’t we? We want small size (phone size) and high functionality (desktop functionality). We want to be able to create at times and consume at times. But how many devices do we want to purchase and carry around and have to sync? Instead of more devices, what about one small device and many surfaces?
This is where something like Skinput comes in. It projects an graphical user interface (GUI) on your arm, then reads the vibration when you tap your arm. The example they show in the video of controlling another device strapped to your arm is where you can see its utility. It wouldn’t work for typing, for example, because you’d be one-handed. But imagine being able to project a GUI or a keyboard wherever you want — like the Virtual Laser Keyboard (VKB), only smaller, more accurate, more graphically extensible.
Now imagine a tiny device in your pocket that transmits to a tiny projector that you can use for input and output, or to a “screening” surface that you can fold up and stick in your pocket. Now that’s the future. The tablet is merely the right now.
So I went to the TEI Conference last week and had a fantastic time — learning, meeting people, having braingasmic fun. This conference concerns itself with the interlinking of the digital and physical worlds through tangible interfaces, whole-body interaction and interactive surfaces.
There were about 230 attendees from around the world and everyone was brilliant, accomplished and collaborative. Although English was the lingua franca, people were gabbing in German, Japanese, Portuguese, Swedish, Chinese (just to name a few) — a refreshing breeze through my Brocas since I live in very white Vermont.
Of course, right off the bat, I went to the wrong building. Somehow I didn’t know that MIT has built a brand new Media Lab building, a cross between an Apple store and Kubrick’s 2001 — very white with lots of glass, a floor-to-ceiling central atrium with wrap-around labs and walkways criss-crossing from one side to the other. Apparently I have no sense of direction at all whatsoever, because the second I was off the conference floor I was lost. (Though quite happily so.)
I had planned to tweet during the papers, but I couldn’t get past the rudeness of having a computer in my lap while someone’s presenting. I know from first-hand experience that it’s awful to look out at an audience and not find anyone looking back at you. And I didn’t tweet from the hotel because you had to pay for wifi, which I refused to do (yes, I’m cheap).
However, I did shoot a few videos, and this week’s Geek includes a couple that describe the breadth of the work shown at the conference.
The Soft and the Hard
We all use interfaces every day — our phones, microwaves, light switches, cars. We push a button, click a mouse, swipe a finger. We expect them to be where they always are which is, in fact, considered to be good design.
However, what if an interface is temporary, ephemeral? Do we really need to know where it is all the time if we know what it is? And what if the interface requires great care in its handling? Does this make it more precious or the work it accomplishes more dear? These are just a few of the questions that come to mind with the work of Tanja Doring, an integration of art and technology:
With Soumitra Bhat, however, we have a lovely synthesis of music, technology and social impact. He has created TouchTone, an electronic musical instrument for children with cerebral palsy. It’s a clever way of giving these children access to the joy and therapeutic benefits of making music. Normally, their limited physical abilities make it impossible for them to play a musical instrument.
These two innovations describe the breadth of work presented at the conference — from concrete applications of interaction design to more abstract ideas of how we might use the various properties of physical objects in combination with either current or projected computational and/or electronic capabilities.
Stay tuned for more next week — workshops (and kits). The video at the top is just a tease of how cool they were.
Technology can be too literal and so can I. But words are as devilish and beguiling as the magic that makes the web tangle, so what's a girl to do? Write, of course, and build and...
Some of my favorite sites — like Instructables, xkcd and Boing Boing — and others I use all the time — like YouTube and Wikipedia — are a product of and only possible in an open internet that promotes the free exchange of knowledge. Even a tiny site like mine is only possible in a world where [...]
