A bit old (2004) but interesting Ted Talk by Chris Anderson, Wired Magazine’s editor-in-chief and author of the “Long Tail” book and concept – “How endless choice is creating unlimited demand”.
In this particular video, Chris presents the idea that each technology goes through four different key stages – “setting the right price, gaining market share, displacing an established technology and, finally, becoming ubiquitous” - and supports this with the analysis of a bunch of different technologies.
Often we’re asked to imagine futuristic scenarios for possible products and projects. Often the first ideas are stuck to already available technology. So I also often remember a great article on the Whole Earth Review 25th anniversary edition (1993).
The article in question was titled Unthinkable Futures. The authors, Kevin Kelly (Wired magazine editor) and Brian Eno (musician), show how to open our minds beyond what’s technologically predictable.
One of my favorite quotes:
News is understood to be a creation of our attention and interests (rather than “the truth”) and news shows are redesigned “thinktanks”, where four interesting minds from different disciplines are asked the question, “So what do YOU think happened today?”
It’s a game that uses a platform with 5 sensors (switches), each with a symbol. Sequences of symbols are displayed on the screen and the player has to step on them accordingly. The player can just step on these symbols or freestyle dance…
Guitar Hero uses the same concept applied to a guitar. The player holds a fake guitar with five colored buttons and it has to press the sequence displayed on screen.
One of the Portuguese artist’s famous robot “Swarm Paintings” is the cover image for the first 2008 issue of Artificial Life magazine (published by MIT Press). The Swarm Paintings by Leonel Moura are created by a computer running an ant algorithm that is connected to a robotic arm. More info about Leonel Moura here.
Campus Party Brazil 2008 opened last week expecting 30 thousand visitors. Yesterday, the event closed its doors accounting for an incredible figure of 50 thousand people throttling around YouTube, Flickr, Yahoo!, Intel, CAIXA - Caixa Econômica Federal, Telefónica, Limão, Windows Live, and many other exhibition stands.
Both interactive games were a huge success: the Poupançudos game (CAIXA) had nearly 7,000 players (including the minister of culture Gilberto Gil), and Intel’s game was played by 4,700 people. Our 3 Bluetooth men went around with the Bluetooth appliances in a backpack.
CAIXA - YBillboard and people waiting in line to play Poupançudos game
The iPhone put multi-touch screen displays in the spotlight, and with it a technological debate that is becoming cyclical even in YDreams’ own internal forums.
As Ivan recently reminded us, you should never leave home for a multi-touch debate without reading Bill Buxton’s excellent seminal paper on the topic. Bill Buxton, a Principal Researcher at Microsoft, basically presents a series of pros and cons about multi-touch, as well as contextualizing the history of its development (it goes as far back as 1982).
“Everything is best for something, but worst for something else“, is the recurring sentence on the document, and one that interface developers (like YDreams) work hard to always keep in mind.
Nonetheless, even if Bill Buxton’s paper allows you to throw off some misconceptions about the subject, there is also the “hype” dimension of multi-touch that has been recently witnessed and should not be written off easily. (continues)
The Wall Street Journal looks 10 years ahead and imagines how technology will change the way we shop, learn, entertain ourselves, get news, protect our privacy and connect with friends. The long article is structured in seven sections, each written by a different WSJ staff writer:
Just a reminder to all you art aficionados that ARCO 2008 is right around the corner. This year’s edition of the contemporary art fair, starring Brazil as the special guest nation, is underway in Madrid from February 13th - 18th. But take note, it only opens to the general public from the 15th onwards.
The place is huge and covers everything from historical vanguard art to modern masters, contemporary classics and high-tech art using the latest advances and techniques in painting, sculpting, installations, photography, video and new media.
In the past I’ve seen some pretty amazing stuff at ARCO. Last year I remember coming across a Fogscreen projection from the Finnish company that partnered up with us last May for ECSITE Lisbon 2007.
At ARCO, art and new media technologies come together in some really spectacular ways. Overall the ARCO puts on a good show for art and tech aficionados alike - an excellent suggestion for a weekend escapade, I’d say.
Looks like companies are catching onto the idea that people really enjoy interacting with on-screen content and information through simple hand gestures or natural body movements, minus the hassle of mice, keyboards or complicated controllers. It’s all the rage, and many companies are creating products that mimic the experience as recently witnessed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
We’ve been creating natural interfaces for computing and entertainment experiences that work with gesture-based controls for some time now, only we call it Reality Computing – user interfaces that are natural, intuitive and instinctive. We pretty much made it our guiding principal.
We won’t say we set the trend, but we definitely realized things were headed this way early on in the game.
Video: Reality Computing in action, VIVO Campaign at Cirque du Soleil in Brazil
“The west is the best, get here and we’ll do the rest”.
Jim Morrison, The Doors’ charismatic singer, referred to the American continent’s west… but this could also be applied to Europe’s west, and to Portugal more precisely.
Back in 1992 Portugal was awarded with the organization of the 1998’s international exhibition. I remember hearing about it on the radio just before a meeting with Professor Câmara at the National Geographic Information Center (CNIG). “Have you heard the news? That’ll be a great opportunity to show what we can do.”, he said. And the following years have shown just that.
In 1993, the Environmental Systems Analysis Group assembled the first Virtual Reality laboratory in Portugal. Equipped with a head mounted display (HMD), Polhemus sensors, a Silicon Graphics Indy workstation and two Pentium PCs, the lab was able to produce a lot of innovative concepts of simulation, interaction and information visualization. By innovative I mean these were real breakthroughs. And the fact that we were not working with high-end supercomputers pushed creativity to a whole new level.
One of the areas with impressive results was the level of detail (LOD) management for large digital elevation models. That’s what made possible to have a project like Portugal Digital at the Territory Pavilion of the Expo98. It was a real time 3D simulator of continental Portugal, with 1m spatial resolution in Lisbon and Porto and 30m elsewhere… made from scratch in 4 months by a team of 6 members (including sound design), stable enough to run for 6 months and used by over 1 million visitors. It was impressive enough to get F-16 air force pilots playing like they were kids, and robust enough to withstand real kids flying like fighter pilots.
Few believed it was possible to achieve this result in such a short time frame and with so few resources.
Scott Berkun managed the development o Internet Explorer. I read his “Myths of Innovation” book this weekend. It is the first book I read that understands the messy reality of growing an innovative business after Peter Drucker’s “Innovation and Entrepreneurship”.
Paul Graham is the author of “Hackers and Painters” one of the most provocative books on technology. Check this post especially on the item 8. Colleges will Change. I totally agree with these paragraphs:
“The greatest value of universities is not the brand name or perhaps even the classes so much as the people you meet. If it becomes common to start a startup after college, students may start trying to maximize this. Instead of focusing on getting internships at companies they want to work for, they may start to focus on working with other students they want as cofounders.
What students do in their classes will change too. Instead of trying to get good grades to impress future employers, students will try to learn things. We’re talking about some pretty dramatic changes here.”
Luke W designed Yahoo and Ebay interfaces. He spoke at SHIFT in September 200 (see his talk at this link). His talk on designing for Web 2.0 is also excellent.
Our colleague Sérgio Estevão won the Forum Nokia November contribution award with his Blog “MIDP Adventures“. Sérgio is one of the most outstanding software engineers I’ve ever come across and also a good friend. He’s been working with YDreams since 2002 and was involved in almost all our games: Undercover, Undercover 2: Merc Wars, LexFerrum and spooks:mobile among many many other projects.
B–Membrane Computer: personally it reminds me of a kitchen appliance gone askew, but this oddly shaped contraption will dispense with monitors and beam images onto any surface via a built in projector. Cool, huh?
Timeflex Stick on Watch: at first glance wearable tattoo came to mind but no, apparently it’s a real bonafide watch you can stick anywhere on your skin. Kids are bound to love this one!
On the 28th of September, Eduardo gave a conference at Picnic’07 about Augmented Reality. The event had some considerable media exposure and apparently caught the eye of Ben Sutherland, a journalist from The Economist, who was preparing a piece about Augmented Reality. The reporter called up YDreams wanting to know more about our work in Augmented Reality. The Virtual Sightseeing caught their eye.
What ensued is a YDreams and the Pinhel’s mention in the Technology Quarterly edition of one of the most renowned newspapers in the world (yes, The Economist is a newspaper):
‘Augmented enjoyment’
“The technology also has less serious uses, however. YDreams, a marketing and digital-media firm in Lisbon, Portugal, has developed an AR sightseeing viewer called VSS. The first such machine, bolted atop a battlement on the 12th-century Pinhel Castle in north-eastern Portugal, delights tourists who tilt it up, down and around for an augmented view of the castle and its surroundings. Place names and explanatory text are superimposed over objects seen through the viewer’s screen, and animated graphics show how some structures were built or destroyed. The number of visitors has doubled since the viewer was installed in July 2006, says Isabel Almeida, who manages the castle.”
(excerpt, read the full article)
Next spring sensational OFFF is coming to Lisbon 8, 9 & 10 May. The event promises sensorial exercises in synesthesia, stage performances comprised of computer code and legendary participants from the fields of graphic design and visual communication.
I am personally looking forward to OFFF Lisbon 2008 and would love to see YDreams amongst the headlining participants because from the sounds of it, this one is right up our alley. Read more about OFFF.
“Imagine flying like a bird through a musical composition that surrounds you, immerses you and reacts to your presence.
Driftnet is a confluence of two ideas – bird-like flight, and a spatialised, navigable musical environment.
At one level, it experiments with intuitive methods for freely navigating 3D virtual space. Users are invited to ‘fly like a bird’ to navigate through a virtual space. Using NO worn equipment - just by flapping their arms/wings and tilting their arms and bodies – people can intuitively (and amusingly!) navigate freely in virtual space. The metaphor used harks back to childhood play, imitating birds and planes in the playground.”
YDreams Brazil has took part too, at Limão (
