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Nearness: RFID in the Flow

By Tom Saunter on September 23, 2009 // design, Technology

Just a quickie: here’s an implementation of RFID tags that I thought was cool:


Nearness from timo on Vimeo.

Not bad, eh? Oddly satisfying. I love the little ‘click’ noises too.

The filmmaker Timo Arnall has done some other really nice videos that feature RFID as part of everyday life, including Skål and Sniff, as well as other pieces of interest in the ‘craft meets technology’ space. You might like to see his portfolio.

In the video, an Oyster card triggers the sequence. I found one designer’s cool idea for personalised images that appear when you pass through a gate:

19 oyster web1 150x150 | Nearness: RFID in the Flow | Digital Cortex

1. Design an image

article 1043118 023BB8F600000578 554 233x2381 150x150 | Nearness: RFID in the Flow | Digital Cortex

2. Scan your card

19 smiley face1 150x150 | Nearness: RFID in the Flow | Digital Cortex

3. See your image

This idea came from Lee Washington, and I’m right behind you, Lee.
RFID has so much potential yet to be explored, this being one small example of how Near-Field Communication can add in some way to our lives.

I’m planning another piece on RFID tags and their future which will be ready soon, so look out for it!

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Sticky Light

By Tom Saunter on August 24, 2009 // Technology

Ready for some frickin’ laserbeams to kickstart the week? I know I am.

A team from the University of Tokyo have conceived of several new applications for lasers, some of which are interesting to say the least, others potentially groundbreaking. These applications arise from their Smart Laser Scanner (markerless laser tracking) technology:

Essentially, it is a smart rangefinder scanner that instead of continuously scanning over the full field of view, restricts its scanning area to a very narrow window precisely the size of the target (from the Ishikawa Komura Laboratory)

So what this means for us is we could pretty soon have a low-cost and low-apparatus method to interface with a wearable computer, in multitouch, and without the need for any markers.

tijera1 | Sticky Light | Digital Cortex | Sticky Light | Digital Cortex

Potential forms of laser input and output

The project website features videos for all of their experiments, including:

  • Simple 3D tracking
  • Air writing
  • Multiple point tracking
  • Alphanumeric feedback
  • Video editing
  • Map navigation
  • Multiple users

I urge you to read more on the project website right here, but before you go, I’d like to feature one of the coolest applications I found for the Smart Laser Scanner. It’s called Sticky Light, and it’s an experiment in light interaction:

The question I want to ask is, wouldn’t this be the ultimate executive toy if productized in time for Christmas? I know I want one.

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Five New Interfaces from SIGGRAPH 2009

By Tom Saunter on August 5, 2009 // Technology

Just saw these over at MIT’s Technology Review, and thought I’d share…

Touchable Holography:

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a display that lets users “touch” holograms. Virtual objects appear to float in mid-air thanks to an LCD and a concave mirror. The sensation of touching the objects is created using an ultrasound device positioned below the LCD and mirror, creating an area of condensed air.

Augmented Reality Toys:

One student of France’s L’École de Design has developed a way to ‘hack’ toys using AR. His Scope display automatically recognizes ordinary toys that have been mounted onto platforms covered with hexagonal patterns, as seen below. With AR, these hexagons become interactive buttons that are used to make virtual modifications to the toy.


Augmented Reality Toys.v2 (Work in progress) from Frantz Lasorne on Vimeo.

Hyper-Real Virtual Reality:

Another French project, this time from INRIA and Grenoble Universities, could revive the dying science of Virtual Reality. Their new VR system, Virtualization Gate, tracks users’ movements very accurately using multiple cameras, allowing them to interact with virtual objects with never-before-reached realism. This interface demonstrates true physics, as well as crispy graphics, so a cluster of PCs is needed to perform the necessary image capture and 3D modeling.

3D Teleconferencing:

Researchers at the University of Southern California will demo Headspin, a 3D teleconferencing system that maintains eye contact between a three-dimensional head and several participants on the other end of a connection.

To capture an image, a polarized beam-splitter “places” the camera virtually near the eyes of the speaker. The 3D display works by projecting high-speed video onto a rapidly spinning aluminum disk to generate an accurate image for each viewer.


HeadSPIN: A One-to-Many 3D Video Teleconferencing System from MxR on Vimeo.

Scratchable Input:

One researcher from Carnegie Mellon University will demonstrate his new scratch input technology. The system turns any surface into an instant input device by sensing the unique sound produced when a fingernail is dragged across it. The interface is small enough to fit into a mobile device (though I have concerns about calibration) and could thereby turn any surface the device is placed upon into an interface.

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AR Hype Cycle

By Tom Saunter on June 16, 2009 // Technology

A great bit of work from SPRX Mobile has come to my attention:

ar hype cycle001001 | AR Hype Cycle | Digital Cortex

Man, I’m looking forward to the Slope of Enlightenment!

However, I reckon we’re already at the Peak of Inflated Expectations, due a worldwide crash into the Trough of Dissillusionment within the next six months.

Thoughts?

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Where is freedimensional?

By Tom Saunter on June 3, 2009 // advertising, mobile

You’ve probably read about Google Latitude, and maybe even used it yourself. I’ve been using it mostly without meaning to, because I activated the service on my N95′s Google Maps and the bloody thing never turns off. Here’s where I am right now:

 

Locative technologies are a growing area of interest for me. I believe that GPS, cell-tower triangulation and even good old Bluetooth will play a large part in making cloud-computing extra-relevant to consumers.

I know that people get a bit funny with the blend of real locations and virtual space (see Google Street View debacle) but once we’re all using our next-gen pieces of UI, your networked device could begin to act as a portal to new layers of information useful to you about the city, street, or shop you are in.

I am talking about location-based advertising. An implementational nightmare, but it is foreseeable that Semantic technologies could serve geographically relevant messages, charging advertisers on a cost per impact basis. Google kind of do this with their local search results. It’s a bit shit at the moment though.

The nearest we have to the kind of next-gen solution I’m thinking of is lastminute.com’s free service NRU, available on the Android OS. It lets you scan around your environment with your phone acting as a viewfinder, where cinemas, restaurants and theatres are overlaid in a sonar-like interface. These services pay a small amount to lastminute.com on an affiliate basis, or are paid inclusions:

NRU for Android, from lastminute on the G1

There’s one locative service I’m disappointed never took off in the UK, despite being around for a while. BrightKite is a kind of location-based Twitter, and it had real promise until Google came stomping all over them with the release of Latitude.

If I were to ‘check in’ at The Queens Larder on Russell Square, BrightKite users would see my marker and message on a map of the area, as well as other people checked in nearby. The potential for social interaction is high, because through using the service one feels proximity with other users.

With all this in mind, I’d like my readers to ‘feel closer’ to me, so as well as in this post I’ll be placing my Latitude Location Badge on my Contact Page. If you’re in the vicinity, go ahead and either serve me an advert or say hello. I won’t mind which.

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