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January 09 2012
A Fake Sun for Your 25/7 Life
The earth operates on a 24 hour cycle, and so do humans. For most of history, we didn’t have much choice in the matter. However, in the absence of visual cues light sunlight, some research indicates that humans naturally stick to a 25 hour schedule. So why rely on the earth’s rotation to order our lives?
I-Weather is a website and app that cycles through blue and orange light for a period of 25 hours, 40 minutes and 7 seconds. The blue ‘day’ suppresses the hormone melatonin and promotes wakefulness. The orange ‘night’ has no impact on melatonin or other hormones, allowing users to work or to drift off as they please. I-Weather acts like an online sun,”creating the world’s first artificial climate to satisfy the metabolic and physiological requirements of a human being in an environment partially or completely removed from earthly influences.” It’s good for travelers, insomniacs, and anyone with a grudge against sunlight.
For a more practical way to regulate your circadian rhythms, check out F.lux.
January 06 2012
Rule #4: Complex Products Tend to Be Anthropomorphized
Part 4 of the 11 part series Golden Rules of Anthropomorphism and Design. See part 1, part 2, and part 3.
Think about a spoon. Now think about a spoon with a face. What do you think it is? Most likely, you think it’s a spoon with a face. Now think about a computer, which doesn’t have a face. Are you more likely to swear at the spoon or the computer? Humans have a natural tendency to anthropomorphize things they can’t explain. In the past, mysterious phenomena such as the weather, the sun or the moon were anthropomorphized in the form of gods.
Nowadays, technological products have advanced to such a degree that most people don’t understand them. They try to explain a device by ascribing human emotions and motives to its behavior. The more complex, capable and autonomous a product is, the more likely it’s going to be anthropomorphized. Designers of technologically advanced products should anticipate how users will anthropomorphize their product, and design it accordingly.
Photo via Top Design Mag.
December 21 2011
Rule #2: Different People Anthropomorphize Differently
Part 2 in the 11 part series Golden Rules of Anthropomorphism and Product Design. All text is excerpted from the Next Nature book.
What people experience as anthropomorphic is highly personal. Tests have shown that when given a selection of products with anthropomorphic characteristics, people differ greatly in how human-like they perceive the objects to be. Even if an anthropomorphic product fits the cultural, social and ethical norms of a society, it’s still possible some people just won’t like it because they experience it differently.
A computer with a glowing round button is a fairly generic design. But to those who’ve seen Stanley Kubricks’ 2001: A Space Odyssey there’s an unavoidable association with murderous hardware. Would you trust the unblinking blue eye of a Lacie hard drive?
December 12 2011
Crickets Inspire New Sensitive Sensor
Inspired by crickets, researchers of the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology of the University of Twente in the Netherlands have build a biomimetic sensor that can measure changes in airflow and pressure. It resembles the same sensory system of ‘filiform hairs’ that crickets use to perceive their predators.
The tiny artificial hairs, made of polymer SU8, are broader at the base and thinner near the top. The base of each hair rests on a flexible surface that, when moved, changes its electrical capacity, thus providing a means to meassure movement. By alternating the voltage, the hairs can be made more or less stiff, changing the sensitivity to movement. If the hairs are limper, they can measure smaller movements in airflow and pressure, up to ten times as much compared to a stiff hair.
Via University of Twente.
December 01 2011
Robot Guide Dog
Click here to view the embedded video.
Possibly the answer for blind people with cynophobia, the fear of dogs. This robot guide dog is stil a bit slow compared to the old nature version, but as technology advances it will surely compete with the old, trusted, yet expensive guide dogs.
Via diginfo.tv
October 04 2011
Resizing Daddy
A little girl gets angry at her father, and uses her index finger and thumb to make a pinching motion. No, she’s not trying to hurt him. She’s using iPad sign language to say, “I want you to be smaller.”
PCs and cell phones required restricted motions, mostly clicking and typing. In contrast, the recent slew of computers, tablets, and smart phones utilize more expressive motions: swiping, flicking, squeezing. These gestures may enter the vernacular of common signs, like waving and shoulder shrugging, just as internet terms like ‘lol’ and ‘brb’ entered everyday language.
All great apes stick out their hands to beg for food, but only humans pinch if their friend won’t share.
Image via Gawker
September 01 2011
I am not a Robot. I am a Unicorn.
Click here to view the embedded video.
At Cornell Creative Machines Lab they were curious to see how two “chatbots” would make conversation. Powered by Cleverbot, created by AI researcher Rollo Carpenter, the robots were fooled into recognizing each other as humans. On YouTube someone comments: “If ever these two got married, it wouldn’t last a week.” But the contrary could be true if their somewhat intelligent chitchat helps them pass the Turing test. Till the switch do them part.
August 21 2011
Dead Drops
Wikileaks gone physical? Aram Bartholl’s Dead Drops is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space. USB flash drives are embedded into walls, buildings and curbs accessible to anybody in public space. Plug your laptop to a wall, house or pole to share your favorite files and data.
May 10 2011
New steps to meld mind and machine
Until now we’ve seen the types of brain-computer interface where the human has to put on some sort of bulky hat full of wires to control a machine. It won’t be like that for long: the future of organic electronics may already be here. In 2009, a team of Swedish scientists created the first artificial nerve cell that communicates with nerves in their own language of neurotransmitter chemicals, rather than with electrical impulses. More recently, another team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison scratched the surface of a new kind of brain-machine interface by wiring computer chips with living nerve cells.
These technologies are radically shifting conventional brain-computer interfaces. Not only can they help people with diseases such as schizophrenia or Parkinson’s, but they also present exciting possibilities for neurotypical humans. For example, such devices could allow you to control the machines around you, and to communicate with them as well. Yes, creepy if it gets hacked. Or here’s another idea: what if you could communicate your thoughts to another person just by thinking? Then it wouldn’t be brain-machine interfaces anymore, but brain-machine-brain interfaces.
Photo: link
May 04 2011
Remote kissing device
Click here to view the embedded video.
Nobuhiru Takahashi, student at the Kajimoto Laboratory of the University of Electro-Communications in Chofu City, Tokyo, invented this Internet French kissing device. When a bended straw is touched with the tongue on one end, the motion-parameters will be transferred to a similar device on the other. This invention taps a new market; the storing and trading of famous-idol-kissing-data. Takahashi, notes that “the elements of a kiss include the sense of taste, the manner of breathing, and the moistness of the tongue”. With tongue movement down, these properties have his attention now (let’s hope for Takahashi he gets to do some actual research). The device could also palliate more fundamental issues: “love miles” for instance (the miles we must travel out to people we care about).
Though the technique is not as proficient as f.e. robotic surgery; remote kissing could herald a new compassion-through-internet era!
No harm done yet… Lady Gaga is the best coffee-stirrer I know.
April 25 2011
Humanthesizer
The human body as an instrument is a cool example of how culture and nature are merging. Calvin Harris used a giant human synthesizer to perform his single. The material used is Conductive Ink, a material technology that delivers a new platform for non-toxic flexible electronics. Bare is unique among conductive inks because it is non-toxic, flexible, water soluble, and cures at room temperature.
March 29 2011
Voodoo Phone
Japanese professor Hiroshi Ishiguro from Osaka University has quite a track record of threading the uncanny valley. Remember his Doppelgänger Robot and Geminoid Female? His current proposal brings new dimensions to mobile communications: Humanoid dimensions.
Although our human body language is one the most effective and natural channels for communication, it plays no role in mobile communication so far. Hence Hiroshi Ishiguro teamed up with NTT Docomo and Qualcomm to develop a humanoid shaped phone, called Elfoid, which adds an element of realism to long-distance communication by recreating the physical presence of a remote person.
The fleshy urethane skinned prototype has a deliberate genderless and ageless appearance, as this should allow for the projection of the personality of any caller. Equipped with a camera and motion-capture system, the Elfoid phone will be able to watch the user’s face and transmit motion data to another Elfoid phone, which should then reproduce the face and head movements in real-time.
The Elfoid phone immediately reminded us of the voodoo communication device for lovers, conceptualized by Yu Yu Chien some years ago. Although some of the negative connotations of voodoo are better avoided, projecting a remote person in a hand held doll, has proven to provide for a powerful psychological effect. Contrary to many of Ishiguro’s earlier humanoids the Elfoid phone combines human realism with a strong symbolic quality that could turn out to be a winning team.
The developers hope to have a fully operational Elfoid phone within five years, so now you can already anticipate what your iPhone 8 will look like.
March 20 2011
Voodoo Phone
Japanese professor Hiroshi Ishiguro from Osaka University has quite a track record of threading the uncanny valley. Remember his Doppelgänger Robot and Geminoid Female? His current proposal brings new dimensions to mobile communications: Humanoid dimensions.
Although our human body language is one the most effective and natural channels for communication, it plays no role in mobile communication so far. Hence Hiroshi Ishiguro teamed up with NTT Docomo and Qualcomm to develop a humanoid shaped phone, called Elfoid, which adds an element of realism to long-distance communication by recreating the physical presence of a remote person.
The fleshy urethane skinned prototype has a deliberate genderless and ageless appearance, as this should allow for the projection of the personality of any caller. Equipped with a camera and motion-capture system, the Elfoid phone will be able to watch the user’s face and transmit motion data to another Elfoid phone, which should then reproduce the face and head movements in real-time.
The Elfoid phone immediately reminded us of the voodoo communication device for lovers, conceptualized by Yu Yu Chien some years ago. Although some of the negative connotations of voodoo are better avoided, projecting a remote person in a hand held doll, has proven to provide for a powerful psychological effect. Contrary to many of Ishiguro’s earlier humanoids the Elfoid phone combines human realism with a strong symbolic quality that could turn out to be a winning team.
The developers hope to have a fully operational Elfoid phone within five years, so now you can already anticipate what your iPhone 8 will look like.
Via PinkTentacle, IEEE Spectrum.
March 14 2011
Robo-teacher
Say hello to teacher Engkey!
The city of Daegu — South Korea, introduced 29 robot teachers in 19 elementary schools as part of a large scale project to robotize teaching. The ambitious effort envisioned robots in all 8,400 kindergartens in Korea by 2013. Source: Tim Hornyak for news.cnet.com
Click here to view the embedded video.
Kids at Hakjung Elementary School seemed thrilled to interact with robots like the globular Engkey. It’s about 3.2 feet tall and rolls around the classroom on wheels, asking questions in English and dancing to music.
Developed by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) at a cost of some $1.39 million, Engkey is a telepresence bot, controlled by teachers in the Philippines. It has two-way video and audio for interaction with students, and can move its arms around to make a point. The LED shows the teacher’s face or an animated CG face.
The machines will mostly be used in after-school programs as they can only handle about eight kids at a time. Last month, however, TIME magazine suggested the machines may threaten the jobs of some of the 20,000 to 30,000 foreign English teachers in Korea.
“We will continue to study to improve its teaching ability until it’s very close to that of real human teachers,” Kim Mun-sang of KIST was quoted as saying by the Korea JoongAng Daily.
February 27 2011
Augmented Ecologies
Click here to view the embedded video.
It might take a while before this goes mainstream, if ever, but there is a certain luster in being a plant VJ.
Augmented Ecologies is an installation by Guido Maciocci, who rigged up plants with sensors to create a kinesthetic user experience with movement, touch, sound and light. When the user touches the plants or pressure sensitive moss they create different types of musical notes.
Augmented Ecologies
Click here to view the embedded video.
It might take a while before this goes mainstream, if ever, but there is a certain luster in being a plant VJ.
Augmented Ecologies is an installation by Guido Maciocci, who rigged up plants with sensors to create a kinesthetic user experience with movement, touch, sound and light. When the user touches the plants or pressure sensitive moss they create different types of musical notes.
February 23 2011
The Neighborhood’s DNA
I’ve noticed DNA spray notices springing up around Amsterdam. I assumed it was a fairly standard anti-theft device: A crime is committed, a little nozzle is activated by the offended shop owner, and the criminal is coated in a long-lasting UV-dye. So far, a more advanced update of the standard ‘exploding ink in a wad of money’ trick, but nothing unusual. The DNA angle seemed like a marketing ploy to make a banal technology sound bio-futuristic.
It turns out that the dye actually does contain synthetic DNA unique to each location. The company is a bit cagey is to the exact composition of their ‘DNA solution,’ assuring customers only that it contains all relevant information and is 100% non-toxic. The genome may be synthetic, but if it is composed of a double-helix polymer made of nucleotides, then it is certainly not fake.
Here, the DNA does not code for a living organism. It codes for an event (the crime), and it codes for a location. We often talk of neighborhoods having a personality, or of cities having a character. DNA spray pushes the urban environment one step towards actual personhood. Particularly enterprising thieves will mix the genetic material, bumblebee-like, and encode for as-yet-built locations. Future crime-prevention tech may create bespoke infections that produce flamboyant symptoms, or custom parasites that make crooks fond of truth-telling and police stations.
The Neighborhood’s DNA
I’ve noticed DNA spray notices springing up around Amsterdam. I assumed it was a fairly standard anti-theft device: A crime is committed, a little nozzle is activated by the offended shop owner, and the criminal is coated in a long-lasting UV-dye. So far, a more advanced update of the standard ‘exploding ink in a wad of money’ trick, but nothing unusual. The DNA angle seemed like a marketing ploy to make a banal technology sound bio-futuristic.
It turns out that the dye actually does contain synthetic DNA unique to each location. The company is a bit cagey is to the exact composition of their ‘DNA solution,’ assuring customers only that it contains all relevant information and is 100% non-toxic. The genome may be synthetic, but if it is composed of a double-helix polymer made of nucleotides, then it is certainly not fake.
Here, the DNA does not code for a living organism. It codes for an event (the crime), and it codes for a location. We often talk of neighborhoods having a personality, or of cities having a character. DNA spray pushes the urban environment one step towards actual personhood. Particularly enterprising thieves will mix the genetic material, bumblebee-like, and encode for as-yet-built locations. Future crime-prevention tech may create bespoke infections that produce flamboyant symptoms, or custom parasites that make crooks fond of truth-telling and police stations.
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