[TheWorld] American R&D fund

just in case of…

1. SBIR & STTR
2. DARPA
3. SBIR & STTR in DARPA
4. IN-Q-TEL
5. NIST

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[Space and Place] Another strange city

This makes me think about an exhibit I visited in Lyon by Jordi Colomer:

I also really like how this artist reshaped Barcelona’s Torre Agbar:

[Research] Self-confrontation to the replay in our experiments

In our experiments, we are using a self-confrontation to the replay of the game. Players are shown the path they took and I ask them few questions ranging from very open at the beginning to more specific at the end. The point is to get information about they inferred the partners strategies. As you can see, our methodology is a kind of field experiment. The self confrontation here is not meant to rebuild all the activity as in an explicitation interview.

1. Open questions at the beginning
1. how was it? did you enjoy it?
2. how did you coordinate? what was your strategy?
3. did you understand what your partners wanted to do/where they wanted to go?
4. was there any conflictual moments? how was it solved? what was the outcome?
5. any moment where you were lost?
2. Replay (5-6 times)
1. what happened here?
2. ask A if he/she understood what B was doing at that time
3. ask B if what A said is right
3. Summary – synthesis
1. how did you knew the partner’s strategy?
2. how did you use the tool (drawings…)

[Research] Analysing behavior toward maps

Brown, B. and E. Laurier (2005) Designing electronic maps: an ethnographic approach (.pdf). To appear in: L. Meng, A. Zipf, T. Reichenbacher (Eds.), Map-based mobile services – Theories, Methods and Implementations. Springer Verlag

While ethnographic methods are an established tool for requirements analysis in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW), they have seldom been used for the design of electronic map systems. This chapter presents an ethnographic study of city tourists’ practices that draws out a number of implications for designing map technologies. We describe how tourists work together in groups, collaborate around maps and guidebooks, and both ‘pre-’ and ‘postvisit’ places. These findings have been used in the design of the ‘george square’ system which allows tourists to collaborate around an electronic map at a distance.

I particulary appreciate the definition of a map as a collaborative artifact. From an observatory poitn of view, it’s always fun to see people collaborate from the beginning (unfolding the map), the core of the task (finding something on the map) and the end (folding the map). Thsi ritual is fantastic!
Besides, this paper is useful since it analyses how people collaboratively make senses of maps. This then gives ideas about how designing locative applications based on maps.

[Locative Media] Map Hacks has a blog

For all the folks like me who are waiting the Mapping Hacks book by Jo Walsh and Eric Schuyler, there is a blog about it.

“GPS units are nearly everywhere, integrated into cars and even mobile phones. With this collection of mostly free techniques, you can create and share useful digital mapping services of your own. Find the best sources of public geographic data, collect your own data, and integrate that information into the maps you make. Learn to use maps in weblogs, photo galleries, interactive applications , and more.”

[Research] Mauro\'s project

There is now a webpage for Mauro’s project:

Communication has suffered from the clearing of spatial references since the invention of the telephone or the radio. Nevertheless, spatial informations are used all the time by the agents-in-relation to reconstitute the context of the messages exchange. The effect is an economy of the whole interchange process. The aim of this research is to understand by which mechanisms this happen. Particularly, the focus will be on the shared knowledge construction. Subsequently, and as a proof technique, a formalisation attempt will frame these possibly uncovered processes into an algorithm. The goal will be to replicate, to some extent, human reasoning and sustain communication exchange when applied to real time interaction.

An implementation of this algorithm will be applied, tested and refined in a geographical messaging system developed by an English firm called Proboscis.

[Research] 2005-2006 planning

Here is what we plan with my phd supervisor for the two next years I’ll be working here at EPFL.

[Weird] Student Internship about algorithm to find fake watch websites

Incredible internship proposal: The Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (“Fédération horlogère suisse”) needs some tools and methodologies to find web sites proposing fake watches. (It this link does not work, use the one in the google cache).

Project 5: Hunt fake watches
The Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (“Fédération horlogère suisse”) needs some tools and methodologies to find web sites proposing fake watches. Once these sites have been located, it is necessary to find all possible informations (isp, country, operating system of the server, registrar of the domain name, etc) that would help to bring an actions against the owner of the web site.

[Research] Thoughts about task design

Discussion with thomas about task design in experiment:

My question ALWAYS is: Can you abstract from the task? What are are the measures? What are external instruments that – for instance – measure personality, states, an traits, etc. In short: It depends how well the study is conducted. Next to that there are also some methodological issue. What measures, how do you measure, code, etc

[Research] A great research group

Just found this: Monkey Methods which appearrs to be of tremendous interest:

Monkey Methods Research Group is an experimental playground for cool technology that matters to people. Our latest project is a BitTorrent search engine, which we’re working on along with a couple other ideas. And what exactly is the method of a monkey?They play with things, like trying to use bananas as guns or phones. At least this is what we did in elementary school.
Our goal is to explore the emerging relationship between people and interactive media

Practically speaking, we are a small research group made up of folks from different backgrounds, working on fun projects that explore the way that technology is weaving itself into our daily lives. We call it “futuristic play.”

They also have a blog.