L’arbre Atchoum / The sneezing tree

This is obviously the last post of 2005. It’s devoted to an interesting installation in Geneva called “L’arbre Atchoum” (The Atchoum Tree, atchoum is, in french, the sound of someone who has a flu). This project, as part of the Arbres & Lumières Festival in Geneva has been developed by Genevieve Favre and Antoine Petroff (electronics and performing). Here is how the artists describes this tree:

The tree on Place René Payot has a cold. Given a voice by astonishing, fabulous musician Daniel Bourquin, the tree neezes, sniffles, whines, complains. It’s trying to rest but the approaching pedestrians passing under its branches or near its trunk distrub the tree’s nap. Their presence can trigger an outburst of repetitite sneezes or even cause it to lose its temper! This lime tree, spending the winter naked, is inhabitated by scintillating lights which punctuate its moods and accompany the tone of its voice. Fifty discreet LED spotlights dot the tree’s branches and light up along with the random voice samples.

Some picture I took yesterday:

A video is available here. If you happen to be in Geneva, go there and watch people being disturbed by the tree’s screams (“Have a good meal”, “Go dancing!”, “Always wearing ties…”)

Gadgets of 2005, small improvements rules

The NYT has an interesting list of what they think are 2005 gadgets:

THE FOLDING MEMORY CARD / THE VOICE MAIL VCR / THE FRONT-SIDE TV CONNECTOR / THE BIGGER-THAN-TV MOVIE / TV A LA CARTE / THE OUTER-BUTTON FLIP PHONE / THE FREE DOMAIN NAME / THE MODULAR DVD SCREEN / THE FAMILY-PORTRAIT BURST MODE / THE HYBRID HIGH-DEFINITION TAPE

The list is very intruiging with some nice examples, the most interesting comment was certainly this:

And there you have it: some of the year’s best small, sweet improvements in our electronic lives

That’s it, we’re in a process of small improvements lately. Big things (mass usage of the Internet, web explosion, wireless communication…) happened few years back and now things are improving (web to web2.0…), user-centered applications are developed, etc.

Make your own electronic sewing kit.

Sewing Circuits is a project by some folks I met in Japan: Leah Buechley Nwanua Elumeze and Sue Hendrix (from University of Colorado), a construction kit and acompanying activities that will allow kids to learn about circuits through sewing.

Each kit contained a patch of fabric, a fabric switch, two LEDs, a needle, conductive thread, and a battery attached to snaps. The girls designed images that incorporated the lights and switch, drew their designs with fabric markers and then sewed the lights and switch to their patches, creating a simple series circuit

In order to make your own electronic sewing kit, go check this page.

Myths of multimodal interaction

In Ten myths of multimodal interaction (Communications of the ACM, Vol. 42 , No. 11, pp. 74 – 81, 1999), Sharon Oviatt describes common myths about multimodal interaction (i.e. interacting with a computer using more different input/outputs, like mouse/voice/keyboards or more recent technologies). The myths she is describing are quite relevant to lots of HCI research:

• Myth #1: If you build a multimodal system, users will interact multimodally.
• Myth#2: Speech and pointing is the dominant multimodal integration pattern.
• Myth #3: Multimodal input involves simultaneous signals.
• Myth #4: Speech is the primary input mode in any multimodal system that includes it.
• Myth #5: Multimodal language does not differ linguistically from unimodal language.
• Myth #6: Multimodal integration involves redundancy of content between modes.
• Myth #7: Individual error-prone recognition technologies combine multimodally to produce even greater unreliability.
• Myth #8: All users’ multimodal commands are integrated in a uniform way
• Myth #9: Different input modes are capable of transmitting comparable content.during periods of blank staring.
• Myth #10: Enhanced efficiency is the main advantage of multimodal systems

The article is full of interesting examples that explains how each of these myths can be deconsctructed.

Extreme tinkering: Microwave oven against missiles

One year ago I blogged about microwave oven hacks and yesterday I ran across this intriguing usage of microwave technology: NATO pilots during the war in Kosovo has been fooled by microwave ovens they bombed, believing it was Serbian tanks. Some more information here:

According to a British officer who spent six months in the region and offered his own assessment of bombing damage, the Serbs lured the NATO planes using household microwave ovens to simulate the emissions of armored transport systems.
(…)
A NATO officer who gave an anonymous interview to the British Herald stated that only three tanks were found. “The Serbs use a lot of tricks to elude NATO bombs. The use of microwave ovens from houses in Kosovo to thumb their noses at the alliance was only one of their ruses.” (…) it demanded nothing of them, since they used 100-dollar decoy devices (microwave ovens) which were available in every household. And the guided bombs cost around 30,000 dollars.

Yet another example of a lowtech jamming trick… Any this is a good example of how people hack existing technologies for other purposes.

Update: Spot on this topic, I just saw this on Boing Boing: a book about “extreme tinkering and radical self expression through technology” (which is obviously one of the topic I am fascinated of). It’s entitled “Adventures from the Technology Underground : Catapults, Pulsejets, Rail Guns, Flamethrowers, Tesla Coils, Air Cannons, and the Garage Warriors Who Love Them (Hardcover)” by William Gurstelle who also blogs here.

An ebay of idea to answer to R&D outsourcing

Outsourcing research and development seems to be a new trend, as attested by this article in Der Spiegel. It’s about small businesses and major corporations which use the Internet to advertise monetary awards for inventions. They call this concept “innocentive“, the name is a fusion of the words innovation and incentive.

The business principle behind the company’s idea exchange is quite simple. A company has a problem it wants to
solve, but its own R&D department is unable to develop a solution on its own. So the company describes the problem it wants solved —
using a few sentences, formulas or graphics — posts it on Innocentive’s Web site and names a sum it’s willing to pay for the
invention.
(…)
Some 80,000 inventors have already tried their hand at solving the various problems posted on Innocentive. The rules are
straightforward: Whoever produces the best solution gets the money, while everyone else gets nothing. The Web site charges the companies a fee to post their questions. In return, they remain anonymous, in order to protect company secrets.

Still, there are some drawbacks:

“Some full-time researchers, apparently worried about losing their own jobs, are intentionally flooding online innovation marketplaces with unsolvable problems, in order to frustrate their competitors on the Internet.” Furthermore, the rigid contract policies are also the source of disgruntlement. Says freelance researcher Hügin: “It’s difficult to get accustomed to the idea of giving up all intellectual property rights to an anonymous company, as is often the case.”

Why do I blog this? I think freelance research is starting to be a new mode (judging on companies new way of managing innovation/R&D). Innocentive seems to be an interesting model (very web2.0).

Update: what is impressive is this banner (on the innoventive project page), about how to find your lab gear…

A ‘cultural hub’ in Dubai

I am not a great fan of Dubai architecture craze; however, there is this interesting new project called ‘DUBAI HUB one‘ designed by GEORGE KATODRYTIS / STUDIONOVA, via Bidoun Magazine (Arts and Culture from the Middle East).

The proposal is for a series of cultural hubs which will act as focal points and public foyers where cultural programs can be plugged-in: art galleries, museums, libraries, performance stages, poetry reading salons, music recital spaces, art auction facilities, etc. The main lobby of the buildings is to be as public and accessible as possible, like a typical Dubai shopping center, with escalators and ramps leading to the upper levels, and to special rooms for additional cultural events. All events and items will be consumable: The aim is to convert the culture of shopping into shopping for culture. The external skin structure and glazing is designed using algorithmic weaving scripts.

Phone masts disguised as trees

Preserved TreeScapes InternationalTM (PTI), a company specialised in replica trees. They now expanded their products to phone mast disguised as trees:

Most recently, PTI has turned its experience and talents toward concealment solutions for the wireless communications provider. The tremendous increase in demand for wireless towers has generated great opposition to the use of conventional, unconcealed structures. Both community and zoning requirements for high quality concealment are on the rise. Today, concealment issues may be the greatest obstacles to obtaining zoning approval. PTI’s botanically correct tree tower products will help speed the approval process. PTI has an ongoing commitment to develop future products and concealment opportunities through design, research and testing.

Why do I blog this? this kind of today’s artefacts would definitely appear to be weird for time-travellers coming from the past.

Intriguing Toys, an LBS for kids

Today I went in a toy shop to buy some presents and I stumbled across this very curious Spy Gear by Wild Planet Toy, among I others I noticed:

The Spy tracker system: “Set up three secret spy trackers, draw a map on your control panel showing where each one is, and you will know where and when intruders (e.g., little sisters or parents) have entered the secured zone (…) Track movement up to 75 feet away. Includes cool tracking headquarters case with light-up display, audible warning signals and 3 remote motion sensors. Works indoors and out. “. Better than the follow-your-kids-with-a-GPS, it’s a “be-tracked-by-your-kids”. Note the vocabulary deployed: “you will know where and when intruders (e.g., little sisters or parents) have entered the secured zone ” (well of course there is the spy rethoric). Now, things are reverse, there are location-based services for kids!

There are also an eavesdropping device in the form of a pair of glasses or of a little car or as a pod. Besides, the night vision goggles looks cool. My favorite is definitely the Eye-Link Communicators: a headset display and arm-mounted keypad to transmit silent messages to other “agents“.

Finally, while venturing around on the web to find these toys, I was amazed by the comments/reviews, see for instance: “The worst part is that the batteries are EXPENSIVE and kids NEVER remember to turn it off because the switch is so small and almost hidden. The batteries ran down after about an hour of play and about an hour of sitting in the room before he remembered to go turn them off“, “This is a frustrating toy because it looks cool, and might even be worth the price if it weren’t so easy to forget to turn off and had a bigger switch that is clearly marked “on” and “off.”“, “A Kid’s Review: I go this for my birthday. It works poorly, and i can barely hear any better than i can without it“… Of course some are less pertinent but funny: “I am a twenty-year-old professional secret agent, and was delighted to find this ultra-cool-looking piece of equipment at such an affordable price“…

Xmas post: MIT turned into a Mario Level

Just ran across this: a Mario-themed MIT hack that turned part of a building into a Nintendo/Mario level…