variable environment /
mobility, interaction city and crossovers

The "AR" Boss!

Private post for the ones who know him: even our boss (ECAL's Director Pierre Keller) likes to live in our annoying room!
There was no naked-eye visible AR in those pictures until yet, but we could possibly now say "yes there is!" while Pierre Keller stands in the middle of that space.

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Posted by patrick keller at 12:09

Server took a pause...

Our blog server decided to take also a "short break" while nearly everybody was on vacation at ECAL (University of Art & Design Lausanne). It is now up and running again, so is our blog *Variable_environment/*...
The project (year #1) will start again in november for its last three months.

Posted by patrick keller at 14:54

Sustainable design & consumption

I've read in the last "Doors of Perception Report" by John Tackara a annoucement about SCORE conference. SCORE will be a new network of institutions that deal with sustainable design and sustainable consumption questions. It is supported by the European Community.
We mentioned early in this ra&d project that one of the main related question with the "mobility", "mobile" or "variable environment" context was the question of energy consumption. As this question is not our main focus during this project but as we also clearly recognized it as an important issue, we will therefore follow the work of SCORE with interests.
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"SCORE IN WUPPERTAL
Mobility, agro-food, and energy use contribute 70% of the life cycle impacts of household consumption. But just telling people to go green is futile. Multiple actors need to work together at a system level for sustainable consumption and production to be realized. Welcome, then, SCORE! (Sustainable Consumption Research Exchanges) - an EU-funded network (28 institutions, and a few hundred professionals) an interchange for cases of radical sustainable consumption. SCORE!'s launch conference is 23 to 25 November in Wuppertal, Germany.
http://www.score-network.org"
(J. Thackara in Doors of Perception Report, September 2006)

Posted by patrick keller at 10:48

La Suisse, Portrait urbain

A recent publication (La Suisse, Portrait urbain, with contributions by Roger Diener, Jacques Herzog, Marcel Meili, Pierre de Meuron, Christian Schmid) by the ETH Studio Basel, Institute for Contemporary City, treats about the evolution of switzerland and its different regions.
New maps of switzerland are drawn that include wide regions. In particular "Metropolitan regions" that show on a map the concept of regional, urban & peri-urban physical mobility... defining new trans-national territories.
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It can be compared to a recent publication by Avenir Suisse, Le feu au Lac, that treats about the same question but centered around Geneva and Lausanne.
An older publication of Avenir Suisse, Urbanscape Switzerland, treated as well about kind of the same questions but with a different and more fictional angle. The book includes pictures by Joël Tettamanti and a prospective project by MVRDV.

Posted by patrick keller at 15:21

Eating on the move

Pour quelques jours encore au Museum für Gestaltung de Zürich, l'expo: Take away, design for eating on the move.
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Posted by patrick keller at 15:41

F. Roche - Rapid PRototyping

Pas de lien avec le projet *Variable environment/*, mais un livre publié à l'occasion de l'exposition de l'architecte français François Roche aux Couvent des Cordeliers (Paris).
Quelques formes d'architecture générées et rapidement PRototypées!
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Posted by patrick keller at 14:04

phone - shopping

Une petite info relative à une autre forme de "réalité mixte" en devenir: du contenu "live" lié à des objets et consultable n'importe où grâce à l'utilisation du code-barre de l'objet en tant que signe ou signalétique et de l'écran de téléphone portable (voir également les sema-codes dans nos Project links & Ressources).
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Wednesday, February 15, 2006

A SHOPPING PHONE
Toshiba mobile-phone software will offer online reviews of products by using bar codes.

By Associated Press

TOKYO (AP) -- Checking out the Internet buzz about a DVD, book or candy while on the go will become as easy as taking a snapshot of the bar code on the product.
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Toshiba Corp., a Japanese electronics company that makes DVD players, laptops and nuclear power plants, has developed mobile-phone technology that searches for product reviews on up to 100 Web journals, or blogs, in 10 seconds.
Just use the phone's digital camera to snap a photo of the bar code of a product you're thinking about buying.
The technology can decipher if the blog chatter is positive or negative and tallies the count to show if a product is getting rave reviews or being trashed by consumers. That's useful if you're in a store about to buy an item.
Some of the more frequently visited blogs will also show up on the screen.
The bar-code information is sent wirelessly to a Toshiba server, which gathers data on blogs from the Internet and analyzes them, and then sends a reply back to the cell phone.
Toshiba expects to have information on thousands of products covering just about anything you might buy at a store -- from toys to electronic gadgets to food.
Toshiba plans to test the software at Japanese stores next month and hopes to offer it as a service on cell phones before April 2007, although details aren't decided.
Blog searches and bar codes that link to Web pages are already available on personal computers and portable devices, but Toshiba officials say their technology is convenient for shopping because it's for cell phones and carries out real-time blog searches from bar-codes.

Posted by patrick keller at 10:35

the "BIT" agent hommage / TRON (1982)

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Disconnecté de notre projet général, mais mentionnons cette petite application AR potentielle qui pourrait (presque) donner vie à "Bit", l'agent pas très intelligent qui conversait uniquement par des "oui" et des "non" avec Kevin Flynn/Clu dans l'univers de jeu du film TRON (1982, Disney).
Une "montre" ici dotée d'un signe AR permet de voir "Bit" lorsqu'on la regarde via une caméra sur un écran. Dotée d'un micro et d'une connection bluetooth, cette "montre" pourrait permettre d'intéragir vocalement avec "Bit" et d'en faire un agent qui va collecter de l'information sur le réseau pour son "User"...

Posted by patrick keller at 15:44

Faces - Flux

Le dernier numéro du magazine d'architecture Faces traite de la problématique des flux (flux de données, de personnes, etc.)
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Posted by patrick keller at 18:39

Ars electronica 2005 - transpublic

The Ars electronica festival of this year (september 2005) makes also a focus on the relation between space and technology through an exhibition.
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Check out the 2005 festival's program as well.

Posted by patrick keller at 13:46

ISEA 2006 - San José CA

ISEA2006 Symposium
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The 2006 edition of the internationally renowned ISEA Symposium will be held August 5-13, 2006, in San Jose, California.
The Inter-Society for Electronic Arts (ISEA) is an international non-profit organization fostering interdisciplinary academic discourse and exchange among culturally diverse organizations and individuals working with art, science and emerging technologies.
Every two years, currently, cities bid to host ISEA's International Symmposium on Electronic Art. Prior host cities include Helsinki, Paris, Sydney, Montreal, Chicago, Manchester and Nagoya. For 2006, the ISEA Board accepted San Jose's proposal to host the Symposium from August 5-13.
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ZeroOne San Jose: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge
ZeroOne San Jose is a milestone festival to be held biennially that makes accessible the work of the most innovative contemporary artists in the world. In 2006 it will be held in conjunction with the ISEA2006 Symposium.
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Themes
There are four major themes that run throughout the Symposium and Festival:
• Interactive City
• Community Domain
• Pacific Rim
• Transvergence
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San Jose
The Symposium and Festival will be located primarily in San Jose’s downtown core. The main exhibition with over 100 artists along with the Symposium lectures and panels will take place at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center and the Martin Luther King Jr. Library. The Tech Museum of Innovation will host an exhibition of sponsored residency projects. The San Jose Museum of Art will present a mid-career retrospective of Jennifer Steinkamp and convert its café into an interactive café with extended hours for the duration of the Festival. San Jose State University will host a pre-conference Pacific Rim New Media Summit and provide low-cost artist housing during the Festival. Plaza de Cesar E. Chavez will be a central site for open-air installations and performances, including a "container culture" exhibition and a nomadic architecture camp. In addition, there will be projects throughout the city of San Jose as part of the Interactive City and Community Domain themes.
We are planning for 3,000 people from around the world to attend the ISEA 2006 Symposium and up to 100,000 to attend a lecture, exhibition, performance, concert or otherwise participate in ZeroOne San Jose.
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Organizers
ZeroOne: The Art and Technology Network is organizing the Festival and ISEA2006 Symposium with a consortium of six other leading San Jose-based institutions—the .
• San Jose State University and the CADRE Laboratory for New Media
• San Jose Museum of Art
• The Tech Museum of Innovation
• Cultural Initiatives Silicon Valley
• City of San Jose Office of Economic Development
• San Jose Convention & Visitors Bureau
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In addition, more than 35 local and regional institutions from Davis to Santa Cruz, California, will participate in presenting programming during the Festival and Symposium.
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The directors of each of the San Jose 7 organizations form the for the Symposium and Festival.
• Steve Dietz is the Symposium and Festival Director.
• Joel Slayton, Director of CADRE Laboratory for New Media, is the Chair of the Symposium.
• Beau Takahara, founding director of ZeroOne, is the Symposium and Festival Coordinator.
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Link to the festival website: here and in particular to the Interactive city call

Posted by patrick keller at 11:38

Urban Screens 05

23/24 SEPTEMBER 2005, AMSTERDAM
TWO DAY INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

URBAN SCREENS 2005
DISCOVERING THE POTENTIAL OF OUTDOOR SCREENS FOR URBAN SOCIETY
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URBAN SCREENS 2005 is an international conference ranging from critical theory to project experiences by researchers and practitioners in the field of Art, Architecture, Urban Studies and Digital Culture. It addresses the growing infrastructure of large digital moving displays, that increasingly influence the visual sphere of our public spaces. It will investigate how the currently dominating commercial use of these screens can be broadened and culturally curated. Can these screens become a tool to contribute to a lively urban society, involving its audience interactively?

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Link to the conference website: here

Note that there is a blog about the different condition of the screen on the same page

Posted by patrick keller at 11:29

CALL FOR ATTENDANCE: MOBILE HCI 2005, September 19-22 2005, Salzburg

The 7th International Conference on
Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services

*** Early Registration Deadline: August 5 2005 ***

Conference Chair:
Manfred Tscheligi, ICT&S, University of Salzburg

Organisational Committee:
Regina Bernhaupt, ICT&S, University of Salzburg Kristijan Mihalic, University of Salzburg

www.mobilehci.org

MobileHCI 05 is the 7th conference in the MobileHCI series and will be held at the University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria.

The 7th conference in the MobileHCI Series provides a forum for academics and Practitioners to discuss the challenges, potential solutions and innovations towards effective interaction with mobile systems and services. It covers the analysis, design, evaluation and application of human-computer interaction techniques and approaches for all mobile computing devices and services.

Keynote: Marco Susani, Director Advanced Concepts Design Group, Motorola
(US)

The main conference sessions are on:
* Social Communication, Privacy Management, Trust
* Designing Mobile Interaction
* Mulmodal and Multidevice Issues
* Input Techniques and Visualization Approaches
* Various Aspects of Context
* Mobile Guides and Mobile Navigation
* Aspects of Social Mobility
* Finding Facts of Mobile Interaction
* Optimising Mobile Navigation
* Capturing Context
* Evaluating Mobile Content

Together with the following workshops and tutorials:
* AIMS 2005: Artificial Intelligence in Mobile Systems
* Context in mobile HCI
* Enabling and improving the use of mobile e-services
* HCI in Mobile Guides
* MOBILE MAPS 2005: Interactivity and Usability of Map-based Mobile Services
* Designing with the Human Memory in Mind
* Development of Interactive Applications for Mobile Devices
* Handheld Usability: Design, Prototyping, & Usability Testing for Mobile Phones
* How to Set-up a Corporate User Experience Team: Key Success Factors, Strategic Positioning, and Sustainable Organisational Implementations
* Mobile Interaction Design Matt Jones, Gary Marsden
* Data Collection and Analysis Tools for Mobile HCI Studies

In addition the conference contains Posters, Demonstrations and Industrial Case Studies.

The full programme is available at www.mobilehci.org together with other information on the conference, Salzburg, as well as registration.

The conference is sponsored by Nokia and Microsoft Research and supported by ACM SIGCHI and ACM SIGMOBILE.

For further information contact:

Confereence Organizers and Contact:
Manfred Tscheligi (Conference Chair)
Regina Bernhaupt, Kristijan Mihalic (Organisational Committee)

Human-Computer & Usability Unit
ICT&S Center for Advanced Studies and Research in Information and Communication Technologies University of Salzburg Sigmund-Haffner-Gasse 18 5020 Salzburg, Austria
Phone: +43-662-8044-4813
Fax: +43-662-6389-4800
Email: mobilehci@icts.sbg.ac.at
Web: www.mobilehci.org

Posted by david.marimon at 10:45

Announcement: Public Release of ARToolKitPlus

Dear all AR developers,

due to many requests we release our (until now) internal version of ARToolKit, called ARToolKitPlus.

ARToolKitPlus is not a successor to the original ARToolKit, which is still further developed and supported. In fact we can assure that we will not have the capacity to provide a similar extensive support as is currently done for ARToolKit.

ARToolKitPlus could actually be called ARToolKitMinus, since we removed all support for reading cameras and rendering VRML.
What's left is an enhanced version of ARToolKit's vision core (those files that you can find in lib\SRC\AR in the ARToolKit distribution).

Main new features are:
- C++ class-based API (compile-time parametrization using templates)
- 512 id-based markers (no speed penalty due to large number of markers)
- New camera pixel-formats (RGB565, Gray)
- Variable marker border width
- Many speed-ups for low-end devices (fixed-point arithmetic, look-up tables, etc.)
- Tools: pattern-file to TGA converter, pattern-file mirroring, off-line camera callibration, id-marker generator

ARToolKitPlus is known to compile for VS.NET 2003, VC 6.0, eVC 4.0.

The project's webpage can be found at
http://studierstube.org/handheld_ar/artoolkitplus.php where you can find a more detailed overview about the changes, the API documentation, some short code samples and a download link.

PLEASE NOTE: This version of ARToolKit is only targeted to experienced
C++ programmers. It does not read camera images or render geometry of
any kind (especially no VRML support) nor is it an out-of-the box solution. In contrast to the original ARToolKit, this library is not meant for starters in developing AR software. No binary executables (execept for some tools) are provided.

If you have any questions, suggestions or comments please send them to me or the artoolkit mailing list.

bye,
Daniel Wagner
______________________
aqppeared in ARFORUM on the 13th May 05

Posted by david.marimon at 14:36

Symposium sur la recherche en design

Le projet *Variable Environment* a été présenté le 24 juin 2005 lors du Symposium sur la recherche en design, organisé par le Swiss Design Network à la HGKZ.

Slides de la présentation: variable_environment_ecal_epfl.pdf [5 Mb]
Flyer du symposium: programm.pdf

Pour plus d'information, contactez christophe.guignard@ecal.ch

Posted by christophe at 18:23