Anirudh Sharma

Project Ambhibia

2019-06-20T03:25:00.003+05:30

Project Amphibia.

Keywords: Carbon linings, electronics, deep water, cell‐laden hydrogels, directly printed wearable systems

Leaving a set of these images here as an inspiration, and diary entry for adaptive and embodied interfaces. Most of this research in Organic User interfaces have been around tattooing on the skin which is still in its infancy, due to physical limitations of electronic components. Using carbon layering under special materials we can possibly fabricate electro-actuated geometries that can have various sensorial and conductive properties.

Possible trials: Stretchable micro-tectonic sensors fused with Ambhibia, with a full use-case.

What if phones were made like shuttlecocks!

2018-09-14T12:43:00.001+05:30

Now evolution is a slow process, and as humans and smartphone users this evolution to 'not drop things' is going to only happen in a million years. It's easier to redesign bodies/smartphones.

I shattered two phones in the last two years, two screens I got replaced were expensive and quite a hit on the pocket. Humans drop things.

What I don't understand is that the screen is the most sensitive part of the phone yet it shatters easier than feather. The phone has other parts too- an incomprehensibly well made PCB, modem, battery, and the casing.

Observing a smartphone physically:

Now the parts above with respect to screen are packed in this fashion primarily for three reasons: packing, protection and function. The case's job is to protect, the electronics are for function, and fasteners/glues for packing.

It's pretty clear that current design of smartphone fails pretty badly at protection: one of the most expensive parts, the screen(aluminosilicate glass) is just a part that's yet to evolve as a hardened material, or oriented badly so that the most adept human gesture of grasping objects with a small false negative that's called dropping.

I also don't like phone cases.

What if phones were designed as shuttlecocks

Understanding the beauty of fall

Not that we've played a lot of badminton. At 108 in Baba's room there's been a shuttlecock hanging on the window. The most beautiful thing to be as an observer in a shuttlecock is the orientation it falls in.

No matter how you drop it >90 percent of impact will be dampened in the first hit on the ground.

Framewise dissociation of shuttlecock's fall motion

This primarily happens because of how shuttlecock is made.

If we were to design a shuttlecock where the flexible parts are stiff, it'd still fall as a regular shuttlecock, (considering we use a lightweight material).

Clearly, weight and density distribution is everything here. e.g.

e.g. This configuration preserves the shape and dimensions, but has density distributed on the side. Photo: MIT

Task to prototype!

Let's assume there's a hard block of plastic ABS that we were to 3D print in a way that it's weight distribution(COG) falls through one of the edges- i.e. graded density.

We've to design electronics, and fuse the above components in a way that the phone's weight distribution(COG) falls through one of the edges. That's the only place where you put a bit of padding- instead of carrying a bulky phone case.

Thoughts?

to write poems or to study poetry?

2014-10-09T03:31:00.002+05:30

It was almost the same time 3 years ago when I headed to Boston to pursue research at Fluid Interfaces Group at the MIT Media Lab. Time flied, too fast to perceive it went by..

The life before that was that of running around, seeking each resource actively, hanging onto IRC channels, attending FOSS events, to learn and to meet people in the virtual world of infinite internet. My undergrad college was in the middle of nowhere, with a sorry state education system, and marred by favoritism based on caste and regions. The only escape for the bunch of us was the infinite world of internet and some awesome friends we met during the hostel days back in Bikaner/Rajasthan. We had lost hope to the point that we decided to stop giving a damn about my GPA- to the point that we would travel during our semester exams as we saw no point in taking them (even if we did, we knew the result)- at best IT jobs. It was hard to explain to parents.

I was lucky to have really good mentors from childhood- physicsmonk, niyam. who actually reaffirmed that love for science isn't a bad thing. I also faced a lot of issues dealing with local lecturers who would think of me being arrogant 'Delhi' boy.

The college made me deal with the worst, which now I think was the best life lesson. I met the likes of amazing room-mates like Saurav, Rahul, JD, Baba, BK, Tetar.. All were really humble but wicked in their own ways..Some came from small-towns, some were talented with woodwork, rogue electronics, and others crazy enough to bet their college fee on commodity exchange market ( and losing all of it, twice)- he even organized a fundraising campaign to raise the semester fee he had lost betting. My job was to pitch to friends, assuring their money would come back.

The nights were busy coding, and hanging out on IRC, designing layouts and scripts. Days were busy dealing with college politics, issues of room-mates etc. I think that was the best of the education I could ever imagine, making us feel like we could deal with anything, backlogs, bankruptcy, excessive hangovers, breakups(++) and Bikaner summers (45-48 degrees).

After college (fortunately, with my academics, and India being a country where college brand could mean more than what you actually are) I got a chance to work with Imagin Group at HP Labs in bangalore which was like the best place in India to do computer vision/stereoscopy research with SriG. I was good at building interactive surfaces, and picked up a lot of knowhow from Rahul, Divesh, Adithya, and NUIGroup opensource community.

The days spent in Bikaner doing jugaad to build our Sparsh Multitouch setups paid off. I could sail through my work at HP Labs designing stereoscopic CAD interfaces with Pluribus, Sketchup and CMUSphinx. Most people in the lab came through elite colleges unlike me, I made friends, I used to hangout with them, but I had my own stuff to deal with- try new stuff, break this, try this, try that etc. And then Lechal happened, which made me quit my job and 5 month long search for a business partner. Lechal went a long way from a here to here in last 3 years, and we employ ~53 people today in Hyderabad. A lot of credit goes to Krispian, my business partner and everyone who helped during the initial days of trying to find that 2000$ investment in Bangalore. It was all good fun.

I decided to move on from a product to continue the journey of tinkering and went to the MIT Media Lab. Going to MIT was this sudden inflow of awesomeness. It was like this 1 km radius where every soul you'd walk into would be driven with uber geekiness, overflowing with best of the gadgets, 5 spare iPads where one is required. Everywhere, every building you'd walk into would be full of ideas, papers that will become a part of technology, design and our lives 3-4 years from now. It reminded me of those days of amar chitra katha in what you want is there, is there!

Being at Media Lab was like being a kid in the candy shop not knowing what all to devour. You could mostly get what you need(also free booze on 99fridays, thanks novy). First two months was just absorbing ideas, people, cultures and such. I was taking a computer vision course at CSAIL, and in evening studying tangible interfaces by Ishii. Too much awesomeness like too much sugar can be harmful. Soon I realized I was a little lost with my research, the original reason I went there for.. There were just too many exciting things happening around in this little radius. After a while awesomness settled and I could for the next 18 months could focus on my research, and build some prototypes. Media Lab's glass architecture is very interesting, its transparent to promote conversations, and collaboration. There were times when you need to focus you need to look straight like a horse and not be distracted while the passer-by sponsors peep at you every moment.

I visited a variety of research labs, design studios during my studies but most that I went to were nowhere similar to MIT Media Lab. Either there were tech schools doing too much tech, or there were design schools researching too much design, some labs followed similar ideologies, but either they didn't have the MIT brandname and advantage of being in Boston, or adequate funding to experiment was crazy ideas without worrying about ROI. MIT Media Lab was like mashing up practitioners, engineers, artists, filmmakers, fashionists, biologists, scientists together into one greenhouse glass camp with no resource crunch. It was just too perfect, and it all felt like a dream. There were frustrations as well, actually those let me decide my career route.

Two directions after the Media Lab were left to choose, either academia/PhD or a job. PhD didn't make sense in application kind of work as tech trends have evolved so fast, in the last 10 years. I saw multitouch surfaces, large displays being the big hype and die as a fad within 4 years. Computer vision being commercialized by Kinect changing the way everything is tracked, so was most research done to track gestures/hands by simple RGB cameras rendered useless? I guess yes! The tech evolved too fast. I guess there were tonnes of PhD theses involved in studying RGB camera based pattern recognition. No harm, you do learn your math and writing papers but when it comes to getting stuff into the real world, you deal with realities, delays, funding, moore's law and unpredictability and chaos of the real world.

I didn't look for jobs and straightaway decided to contribute to the MIT Media Lab India Initiatives, which is doing some amazing stuff in India for the last 4 years. The initiative was born as an experiment by Andrea and Mihir, and now its gone places and creating impact. I am sleepy now, more on India Initiatives soon in the next post. Kthxbai

discordant yet musical whistles

2014-10-09T02:49:00.002+05:30

My house in Delhi has a guard that walks around and whistles all night to keep the thieves away. I am still amused by the fact how the entire street comes together and contributes and hires the guard, instead of complaining and waiting for the Govt. to solve their issues, which is slow as heck.

Its like a citizen contributed and distributed parallel police with evolving protocol, when the systems don't work well. Atleast it keeps the societal interaction intact and neighbors talk, which i believe is a good thing- communities being vocal about their issues.

writing this at 3AM while everyone sleeps and guard is awake.

Word of the day- pokayoke

2014-05-26T09:38:00.001+05:30

pokayoke!

Poka-yoke (ポカヨケ?) [poka yoke] is a Japanese term that means "mistake-proofing". A poka-yoke is any mechanism in a lean manufacturing process that helps an equipment operator avoid (yokeru) mistakes (poka). Its purpose is to eliminate product defects by preventing, correcting, or drawing attention to human errors as they occur.The concept was formalised, and the term adopted, by Shigeo Shingo as part of the Toyota Production System.It was originally described as baka-yoke, but as this means "fool-proofing" (or "idiot-proofing") the name was changed to the milder poka-yoke.

dead or alive? dead after all

2014-03-11T19:53:00.000+05:30

the missing airplane shows that whatever futuristic things we might develop, its important to be in the present(+3 seconds to avoid maybe a dangerous cat to attack you).

we propose technologies that 'would touch lives' 50 years ahead, and forget to live in/for the present. either we're too much altruistic or just too busy the rat race of inventing a future that we don't know what will be good for. after all these inventions and industries, has world become a happier place? Not sure. Yes, we definitely have gotten many superhuman powers now, but the fact everyone has those powers keeps us pushing for inventing even more.

--- pause---

for a moment, lets be in the moment, and thank nature at times for it has conspired till this very moment-that we are.

I can't even begin to count the number of sensors/technologies, that plane had one in all, so many lives, so many stories. All have become one with the nature now. In split second.

At times have you wondered, that outside that .5 feet plastic wall is pure destruction- juxtaposed to our belief/realisation- as the beautiful airhostness asks us which wine we'd fancy and we're complaining how low resolution the LCDs are.

Right beyond that half a feet of platic/metal lies a dance of death, that'll freeze your blood, in 5 seconds. Realize?

I dont want to scare you, or myself, so I'll stop. I'll drink some green-tea now and leave for my lab. I have those inventions to do.

RIP all victims of Flight 370.

Bumblebee

2014-01-07T22:45:00.002+05:30

According to the accredited mechanical flying rules
the bumble-bee can't fly,
because of its shape and its weight
compared with its wing surface.
But the bumble-bee doesn't know about that
and does fly nonetheless.
[Rolf Schneider]

Magic

2013-12-23T04:46:00.000+05:30

Magic is inspiring. For it can light up the eyes of the sad, make the logical person believe in things he wouldn't otherwise. Any piece of art, music, work that inspires others to me seems like magic. For its so simple yet none of us could make it, other than the creator. Like Naqvi

Ink harvester progress 1

2013-07-14T09:49:00.000+05:30

That's the version 0.1 of the ink-harvester box design. I ended up designing my own enclosure, instead of using Altoids box, though they're the same size.

-The suction exhaust pulls the air containing soot particles from the surroundings.
-A syringe with 1 way valve is being used as the pump which will push the ink into the cartridge.

Next phase,

- Design the carbon separator using capacitive plates. The air comes in with a lot of dust most of which dust and other particles. The powdery black soot separated from rest is what we're interested in.
This principle is used in Chimneys to reduce the carbon particles injected into the atmosphere.

- Interfacing a small sachet that mixes Isopropyl Alcohol and Gum arabic to the powder. I am going to use this DIY pump design for the constant flow of powder to the system

Harvester setup in a box with syringe pump

DIY Pump Design

Links: http://aonomus.wordpress.com/2010/04/02/diy-syringe-pump-version-3/

About smudges, ink, Altoids box and love.

2013-06-26T21:45:00.004+05:30

This is not an attempt to win over the pollution. Just a minor itch that led me to build something cool from observations arising from Nostalgia of the days back in India :)

Nostalgia 0 - Just after you're born. ( Suggested by Kunal)

If you're born in India chances are that your grandma will take some steps to protect you from wicked spirits by smudging kajal onto your eyes. The technique to make kajal is old. Its carbon deposited from burning a low fidelity oil.(mustard etc.)

Nostalgia 1- Getting around

I was once day dreaming about the awesome days we spent back in Bikaner, a small city in the west of Rajasthan. It reminded me of the heat, travelling in sweat inducing autorickshaws while we used to do our experiments with building our Multi-touch table with low tech techniques(ref. Rahul, Sudhanshu and Vivek). The month of June there was full of sweat, with unburnt smoke rising from unending tur-tur-ing of autorickshaws blackening our skin.

Kote gate

Nostalgia 2

I used to spend some of my summers in a village 30 kms from Mathura where I would wait for my grandmother to cook some delicious MaalPua (pancakes in syrup) on her earthen chulha fueled by wooden twigs.

Desi Chulha

The evenings were spent under a lamp preparing for exams that I'll have to write after the holidays at my school back in Delhi. The beautiful lamps were placed exactly at the same spot daily, and the soot from them would slowly go up and blacken the walls, creating artsy designs.

Nostalgia 3

I'd come home after travelling in DTC/BlueLine buses in Delhi. The pollution setting on the skin mixed with summer sweat would make my mother put my white shirts to wash everyday.

----

The above reminisces of memories - the pollution from the bus, the soot from the lamps, and the autorickshaws that run on diesel - have one thing in common. Black marks.

I was discussing the idea with Amna, Harshit, Pragun, Rahul and Nathan, what if we could harvest the unburnt carbon from the surroundings and re-purpose it to a low tech ink.

The project is on. We're working on a layer that allows particles 2.5um-8um in size which would let soot or smoke to be captured inside a tiny harvester. All of it sits within an Altoids mints box.

Some schematics. Not to scale. If you've got any ideas please let me know. All contributors will be properly credited.

Augmented Reality. Really?

2013-06-23T21:23:00.002+05:30

'Our goal here is to complement rather than replace.'

Recently I came across an article on augmented reality. The term these days is used like a fad. Like in 1970s cell-phone was the hot term, those what it represents today is more than just a cellular phone, its a hell lot of technology in packed in a soapbar.

20 years from now, there would be no difference in real and virtual. We could live what we hallucinate today. Those who fantasize climbing Himalayas, or walking through streets of Varanasi would just be able to 'buy' the experience, and feel it on their cornea embedded Augmented Reality/AR system. So the meaning of hallucination will evolve as well, which I think I can't imagine right now (book 'hallucinations of the next decade'?).

I was thinking how these terms affect our thinking process. As the term says, why do you want to augment the reality? The reality itself is so complete, beautiful and strong, that its augmentation is not required. I think its digital overlaying of a live camera feed that they call AR lately. But then it should be called LCF/whatever and not AR.

Imagine what would happen to the beautiful guitar played by Jimi Hendrix, or tabla played by Zakir Hussain if augmented by projectors, sensors etc. I am against that sort of augmentation. There has to be governing committee that stops augmentation of certain things. I wouldn't go to concert if I knew that the tabla Zakir Hussain uses is digitally equipped. Biomechatronic exo-skeleton driving his hands? No-way. One primary reason go to concerts and art shows is that its an exhibit of human capabilities beyond our personal skills. The appreciation is for the relation between the artist and his instrument and not just the instrument alone.

Some spiritual monks/alikes are also known to 'experience' augmented reality through different measures completely through non-digital means. Few of which are induced via herbs, intoxication or just pure imagination.

Other times when I experienced AR was during childhood, were during the moments of imagination. Super-heros jumping across from a building to another, or seeing myself being served the best chocolates while going on a fastest Disneyland ride. Or dreaming at night where we can augment the reality by believing ourselves to fly, or to run in a gravity free space etc.

Or for those who dont dream much, might remember seeing those 'eye-floaters' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floater . which is body's own way to physically augmented the seen reality.

So I propose AR - should be called as DAR(digital AR, or LCF) so that those who love the reality-as is and don't get fooled. As a researcher on immersive systems I can see the line between real and virtual slowly getting fainter technically. But the linguists should take the effort to preserve the reality.

Ideas

2013-06-10T04:35:00.000+05:30

Multiple ideas I was thinking about that could be used to improve people's lives- make new experiences happen, and tap into the unknown

-- Sound Glasses.

The user wears the glass and looks at a painting. A large painting. And the system gives audio feedback on the parts highlighted based on an audio command 'Tell me more'.

Technology: Pre-calibrated system.

Easy

Or multiple paintings and it starts speaking about what you're looking at.

Audio annotations.

Leave specific audio snippets at places.

' User looks at certain objects 'drops' audio snippets' Later. Someone else could visit and listen to them.

e.g. 'please clean this wall' 'this is Fluid interfaces demo area, find a student to help you out'

'This is where Media Lab started its first group'

Audio post-its

Inkharvester- presented as a hack(goes to indie inventors)- discussed with Harshit.

http://penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/PDFs/31-1/Winter.pdf

phase one-> collect soot

phase two-> mixing chemicals

phase three-> interface with cartridge through syringe

Story- Fire is ubiquitous and Pollution is a byproduct. Its a sign of Unburnt carbon is the basis of inking impression. We take an Altoids box and fit an heat sink fan on top to collect carbon black from soot.

When enough soot is collected inside the box, its then supplied to the printer via a capillary that goes from the box to the original printer cartridge via a pump. The soot is mixed with ethanol inside the box, to make it permanent. alcohol spray before pumping.

Phase 2-> The ink from the box goes to Printer shield

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzTCDMRv8bY

krylon workable fixatiff post processing.

Travel plan tip: Unplanned ones are better

2012-12-06T19:46:00.002+05:30

I had forgotten what darkness looks like, what is it to walk under the quiet of the moon by the roar of the waterfalls.

Boston has been beautiful so far, so were the cities I lived in back in India. But the problem with cities is that they're cities-loud, fast, and always well lit- even when you don't want! I remember being a child looking at the nightsky and looking at stars more than I could count. This trip made me nostalgic. The sheer pleasure of looking at white blobs as they patterned stories in my empty head ;)

'Even at nights we've artificial light polluting the unforseen farthest of skies hiding what's celestial and what isn't.'

'Its hard to find darkness these days, we're all so well lit. Is darkness becoming extinct? Will I again be able to see the night sky as I used to being a kid?'

We didn't know what to do for Thanksgiving day-esp. when most Americans visit back to their families. Hyperloop still doesn't exist that I can afford going home back and forth.

Hence- Swati, Pragun and me were thinking of doing a trip for Thanksgiving weekend. The planning never worked out - as most people are obscenely busy during the weeks.

Thursday night we booked the car off Advanced Car Rentals that was supposed to be picked up from Boston's Logan International Airport 9AM in the morning.

Swati suggested we could go to Maine Huts and Rentals, 45 emails were exchanged in a day amongst all prospective hikers. Friday morning out of 12 people who were in the loop 7 were confirmed. We quickly rented a big seven seater.

The drive was 350 miles away from Boston. We were going to a trek a jungle with no cellphone signals, no city lights and no American with us. Icing on the cake- We didn't reserve our accommodation at the hut due to Thanksgiving holidays. However, since we'd rented the car there's no going back!

With Maine temperatures showing 0-1 Degrees, it was quite difficult to convince myself travelling without a sleeping bag. But the adrenaline rush made us take a chance and go for it!

Friends were convinced, we picked up everyone and started our ride at 12noon sharp from Boston. With GPS we navigated our way to Maine Hills. Enroute we bought torches, gloves, food etc.

Shopping for stuff midway

The evening was getting colder. We had 150 miles still to go. Shivering, I thought of calling up Maine Huts again on a emergency contact number given on their website! The phone rang, noone responded. I recorded a voicemail, like a frightened kid calling for late night entry permit- we're so used to reservations. In two hours I got a call back from there, and the caretaker of the hut said we were welcome! I said to myself- even if we weren't there's no going back. I shared the news with two friends- who just smiled like 'WE GOT PLACE'.

We reached Maine Hills around 8PM in the evening. The highway was dark with density like two/three huts/buildings per mile. Got out of car, loaded torches with batteries, got the bagpacks, divided load amongst each other. We started walking, in a misbelief that the map we had is taking us into the right direction. 7 of us marched a mile on the highway looking for the entry point into the jungle!

' Devil' and 'god' can show at the most uncertain places. A beautiful girl on a gas station shop, named Niki(i hope i got her name right) told us that we're 8 miles off the right path. Lesson number one 'When in doubt, ask'. All of us waited at the secluded gas station, Swati and Patil ran to get the car, picked us up again, and there we went again!

We managed to park the car at seemingly the right spot at 10PM. It was pitch dark, with little bit of moon showing through the clouds.

First mile of the uphill climb was done using torches, led by Patil and his headmounted torch. Sergi and Maria suggested insisted we turn the lights off and navigate using natural moonlight. I remember how beautiful it was to hear the sound of waterfalls without being able to see them.

I wish I could capture the pictures in dark, but sadly our DSLRs dont see the dark or the nights. And flash is too disgusting.

Next 2.7 miles we walked without lights following the trail, without GPS or the map. Sometimes intuition, aka common sense came into play. Kshitij never let his walking stick go down!

Midnight- we started seeing a bulb lit on the top- between all that wilderness. Excited we ran, and found our destination- The Poplar hut! The first reaction on entering was like that of a sinner finding heaven after a tiring uphill walk with 5kg bagpacks behind! The indoors of the hut were amazingly warm and beautifully carved. The wonderful caretaker had left pancakes and a handwritten message about our sleeping areas. :-D

Realizing that we had a place to sleep, there was a sudden pump of adrenaline. Sergi took his pack of Spanish playing cards and we played Pyramid for the next two hours. Patil was high so were we!

Playing Pyramid

Realizing that we had a place to sleep, there was a sudden burst of energy. The feeling of insecurity was no more! In that excitement Sergi and I ran outside to find this bonfire-able pit. We tried to light it up but the snowgods didn't allow. Heart broken, dreams shattered. We walked back to our quiet wooden dorm.

Bonfire spot at Maine Hills

Yet again, Sergi took his pack of convinced we play Pyramid with his pack of Spanish playing cards. Patil was high, and so were we! Several games were played! lol

Genuine hike! Worth the risk. Highly recommended.

On the way back we had tea at the hut. And trekked back, trying to see all what we had missed at the night.

Signboards on our way back!

Waterfall at the Maine!

Silence of the night

2012-10-09T12:28:00.000+05:30

The silence of the night and emptiness within reminds me to complete 14 to-do past blogposts that I wrote in my diary ;)

Looks like am gonna find some OCR goodness.

Soon...

Adding images

2012-09-21T14:22:00.003+05:30

Three images varying in direction and intensity of light

Simple submission of three

HDR using LocalContrast method. Scroll this down to read more.

Installation inspired by nature.

2012-08-08T18:08:00.001+05:30

A beautiful idea! in form of an installation. Gives me goosebumps! :)

NZM-SEC Superfast express that took my '35 hours'

2012-06-18T02:52:00.003+05:30

I usually cover my long distance travels by air- for it saves time, and is less tiring (and was affordable in the past).

Call it naivety or my callous attitude, but I completely forgot the fact that its hard to fetch a cheap ticket when your travel plans are made just a day in advance.

Owing to recent price inflations and my last minute plans I decided to cover my return journey from Delhi to Hyderabad via train. The decision was taken a day before I wanted to return, i.e. 19th May, high time when there are summer holidays in India. The night before I stood in the train line, with my father and brother, to fetch tatkal tickets. The process is hard- the HTTP fetch request by IRCTC works like a lucky draw). Hence, my attempt ended up futile.

So I decided I'll jump on the train, painful decision-no tickets, no seats, just that.

The beginning.

I left my home at 7PM. Reached Kshitij's place. Had dinner there- met Surbhi, Sonia aunty and uncle there. Kshitij's mom had packed wonderful parathas/food enough to keep me going for two days. Hence, with my bagpack and food packet I walked out looking for a rick to drop me to Nizamuddin station. Rohini was deserted that Sunday night. No rickshaws. I knew if I wanted to reach station I have to start then, else I'd miss the train. It was 8:45PM and the train's scheduled departure time was 10PM.

Rohini and Nizamuddin are 31kilometers away, which feels like 100km in Delhi traffic- Having just an hour to cover that distance it was a do or die.

I decided to wave my hands for a lift outside Pitampura road.

Never done that before in Delhi, the city I grew up in. In general perception if I were ever riding I wouldn't give a ride to stranger in Delhi-for its crime rate. Every stranger could be a thief. That's was we're taught. Two bikes waved by, didnt stop.

My heart throbbed. It was about 9:10PM. Checked on my Android phone, I was still 28 kilometers from the station. Dont' know but the feeling was the same as it was when I used to walk into exam hall with almost no preparation. I was like 'ab to lag gayi'.
Last two hours, I had two scotches, managed a lift, bribed the autorick wala, and jumped on a moving train- ticketless.

The kind of people you meet on unplanned travels can be really diverse! Though you may not appreciate that at times.

On my third attempt, a middle aged man on a scooter stopped, probably pitying at my geek face, and the backpack behind me. I requested him to drop me to nearby place where I could get an auto to Nizamuddin station. I felt relived as soon as I sat behind the scooter. My fallacies were shattered. People are nice, and helpful, if given a chance and stereotyping doesn't help. We talked on the ride, he owned a spectacles shop in Karol Bagh, and was going home after work. Curious and amused, I was speeding towards the rick stand. Managed to get a rick, we exchanged business cards and in good faith promised to meet when I go to Delhi.

The rickshaw went real fast. I promised to lend the driver a handful of 'almonds' to push him drive faster. and he did. ! We zipped across and I reached the station at 10:05PM, for the train that starts at 10PM. Dashed onto platform number 7. Kept running, saw platform number 7 and a train starting to move. Fuck! I was excited. Probably gave my fastest sprint and reached on platform and jumped on my already moving train. I was in the unreserved coach. Sweating to the month of May, I forgot all the worry, and was glad that I had finally made it to the train.

The experience

I moved around the coach, found no seat. Seats, floors, pathways everything were taken. Finally I spotted an empty area, near the train toilets a corner lied. Took courage, pulled a bedsheet out and sat there, the stink was unbearable. However, presence of other youngsters there was comforting. That time I thought of my room back in Bangalore and the comfort of my bed and wish I could crash in ASAP. There were two Army jawans on the general box. Ravi was from Chattisgarh and Rafiq was from Shimla. Both were in their 30s. As the train was moving ahead I was lured into playing Bluff (popular card game) with them.

Mingling

After two hours the train stopped at station, and I moved to a sleeper coach to try my luck for a seat. I was ranting in mind about population in India, the state of railways but ended up getting lucky again. This time, I got a better floor to sit- near a less stinky toilet. Soon two guys moved in, one had a book, and other had a steel luggage box with him. Looking at me, they also sat down, the student opened his book, and the other person asked if I had a ticket. I told no. Three of us laughed. None had a ticket. Vrutant Mathur was a sociology student at JNU, and Vicky was posted at Punjab-Pakistan border and was going to Indore for holidays. I also ended up meeting a newly posted doctor at AIIMS who was going to Indore again.

My phone battery was showing 10 percent. Saved it by putting on Airplane mode-No twitter, no email, no calls. Vrutant decided to use his Axe deo and neutralize the toilets' stink, however the mixture of the smells was incomprehensible. Vicky(the army guy) didnt speak much, and offered us a drink, looking at the condition and our tired bodies we had 90 ml of whiskey each. Vrutant- shared stories about his strikes and experiences at JNU- how JNU students can make an issue out of anything.

With 'Majorsaab' and Vrutant-behind the scenes

Vicky(we had named him majorsaab by then) showed pictures of his daughter, and ranted about the fights he had with his wife at home. He also told about his visit to Africa and EU on a peacekeeping mission.

Initially, it was a completely new experience to share stories/experiences/drinking with stangers but it wasn't so bad, for I had to bring home nothing of that, except memories.

I couldn't have done any of that with twitter/gmail/facebook pushing continuous updates on my phone. At that time I thought how technology gives a false sense of 'connectivity'.

I did not select these people - like I almost do now. I was with 'them', all the time, on the journey, while sitting, while hiding from the TC, now I find myself 'tweeting/typing tak tak tak' all the time with two tired thumbs, through my smartphone.

First night and beyond

I managed to fit myself on the floor between two sleeper births at 2AM. Owing to the spirit effect, I quickly got to sleep. I suddenly found somebody shaking me and asking to wake up. It was the Ticket Checker at 7AM. I had no tickets, TC was convinced that I was a student by the story Vrutant had just concocted . We managed to get a 'white slip' from him by paying 200 rupees each. Majorsaab didn't bother about TC.

The next day was spent looking at trees zipping by, standing on train's door, buying atleast 4-5 bottles of water, cooling them under 3rd AC's temp, as it was 45 degrees(i guess) which felt like 103.4 degrees due to heat hitting you straight in face from open windows. Even the train's fans blew fire!

We moved from seat to seat looking at various families, kids, mothers of kids who would offer us a seat just like the scooterwaala dude! None did. Shamelessly we sat with a sikh family going to Indore to check on their crops. We asked them to 'adjust' us to sit, and they didnt mind. We had an hour of sitting. We decided to cool ourselves off by going and standing near 3rd AC compartment exit-door. Sleeper coach people weren't allowed inside. There we met a Baba. Not the kinds you see on TV, newspapers. A baba with a rockstar face and kickass attitude. He was definitely 'cool'. The kinds of babas you'll meet having fun in Pushkar!

Vrutant and me with Baba. He didn't pose for this one.

Without choice, I interacted with quite a lot of people at leisure. Most didn't have a clue about social media/twitter/facebook. As soon as I stepped out of my urban/geek comfort zone, I know that facebooking/tweeting/virtualworld is not a priority in life, or in most cases, not even a part of life.

The Second night and the end

Rest of the journey was covered relatively comfortably. We stood near exit, noted people who walk to the toilet, and then would grab their seats. And when they return, ask them to 'adjust' a bit. 'Adjust kariye bhaiya please' is the most widely used term in trains I felt the other day. I moved to around 8-9 seats during rest of the journey and slept the second night on midseat area of sikh family.

Reached Secunderabad at 5AM, took a rick moved to house, I smelt like stink. Ran to shower. Was happy I had this experience. I crashed into my same old 'connected' world and slept to get some rest.

LOL SMARTPHONES

This was a ~ 35 hour train ride which I was unwilling/scared to do in the beginning. Despite no seat, I had fun. Probably no-seat was the reason of fun. :) Yay!.

I guuess, all because I had my smartphone turned OFF. Nowadays, when mostly outdoors I find myself a part of a very physically inactive activity we'll ever do: staring at a smartphone as the earth circles the sun. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-tech revolution (duh), or even anti-smartphones (got one myself 3 months back).

Agreed, we have a world of knowledge in our pockets, which is VERY useful. I can now find out where to get the best pubs, malls, food within five miles. I can transfer/receive money, sync dropbox, watch videos, check PNR statuses, use Google Maps, read email, text, tweet, friend, unfriend, like, oh, and last but not the least make phone calls( :D ) – all from the comfort of my multi-core smartassphone, oh at times the most used 'tangible object' in the washrooms as well after the 'toiletpaper and soap'!

Today I just gave my smartphone to Kunal who works with me at Ducere on LeChal, and came back to using my old 20$ phone. Maybe that's the reason I could finish this blogpost which should have been posted a month back ;)

virtually social and socially null :)

2012-05-29T18:51:00.002+05:30

This is the first time I am writing a personal experience that's not design/tech/tinker related on my blog. So bear with it :)

I live alone in Hyderabad now unlike Bikaner and Bangalore where I had close to 10-15 friends around, anytime!

I've recently become a social media aficionado both, on Twitter and Facebook. A behavior change that I saw happened in me when I quit my fulltime job at HP Labs and started dedicating fulltime on lechal(period after March 2012). The lowest spikes are the time when I was busy with Mozart project. I am busy now as well, probably starting-up makes you more expressive? Not sure.

My interpretation- This is an in-house development stage and probably I am not meeting as many real people now as I used to. That's why I rant more, to the virtual world which is not real.

There is a fair relation between my work ethic and social media engagement and the relationship is mostly inversely proportional before Ducere Technologies started.

Taller spikes show higher tweet #. Each spike is a month. Taller spikes after January
when I had quit my regular job and did a venture

Le Chal: Haptic shoe for the visually impaired ;)

2011-11-03T03:54:00.003+05:30

Latest updates on development of Le-Chal shoe can be accessed here.

Touchable and holdable: Beauty of objects

2011-09-26T04:35:00.000+05:30

Here is an auto-rickshaw repair process I regularly notice during my visit to Kanakpura, Bangalore.

An image of the interaction while the repair process is on:

Image1

An image of the parts that are laid down during assembly and disassembly.

The multimodal interaction of the repairguy with the engine above is natural, rich and can't get better and we're trying to replicate this through gestures and modalities such as touch/haptics etc. This is the holy grail as I feel.

Image3

The interfaces around us are shifting hastily from CLI to more graphic and natural user interfaces. Where the graphic aspect helps bring the visual nature of the real world closer the the user's cognition, the NUI aspect makes the story fluid.

We're surrounded by objects that are means of day-to-day interaction in our lives. Image 3 (by Bret Victor )probably explains the importance of our interaction with them, and proves to be my inspiration for future work with touchable/holdable/fee-able/tangible interfaces.

Quoting Vitor below:

"Okay then, how do we manipulate things? As it turns out, our fingers have an incredibly rich and expressive repertoire, and we improvise from it constantly without the slightest thought. In each of these pictures, pay attention to the positions of all the fingers, what's applying pressure against what, and how the weight of the object is balanced"

Analysing an autorickshaw ride in Bangalore

2011-06-21T20:55:00.007+05:30

The bumpy ride on the Bangalore streets triggered a thought the other day, why not log the data and analyse it later(whackily purposeless initially).

The desire to log is esp. a fallout of my recent stint with user studies dealing with data cleaning/analysis and deriving statistical results from it: formally two-way ANOVA tests, T-tests etc. and who doesn't love clean graphs telling a story :-)

Without giving much thought, I tied my Macbook Pro equipped with SuddenMotionSensor(SMS) to the auto-rickshaw seat and used http://www.shiffman.net/p5/sms/ to log the X/Y/Z axis data in CSV format. I manually kept a record through a stopwatch about the potholes/pit occurrence during the 25 minute rick-ride. It was interesting to the see the outliers due to the sudden relative motion triggered jerks.

Ankit and I plotted a few qualitative graphs out of the sampled CSV data(6731 datalogs). I matched the spikes with the manually recorded pothole/sudden-jerk data to see the obvious but visually pleasing results :)

Red color shows the X, Orange shows the Y and Blue shows the Z displacements.

I dont know the exact use of this approach. Just that cheap accelerometers could be a good way to present the logged data as analytics to the user. Next time I'll commute the same route through a citybus and share my analysis within the same blogpost. :-) If anyone's interested in the raw manual+automatically recorded data, let me know!

Scratch Mini Bootcamp

2011-06-17T13:10:00.000+05:30

So the scratch bootcamp turned out to be fun during my 14 day break from regular research. We traveled 3 cities, 4 schools, and introduced Scratch Programming environment to 8-12 year old kids. Most kids were first time introduced to programming. The novel drag and drop based looping and the fact that other kids from around the world could re-mix, check out their projects, excited them into coming up with their own ideas, and build them into something usable. The projects involved animations, adding interactivity, and using sprites. Tapan Sharma(student of class 3rd) volunteered and shared some of the projects online.

I am highly confident of Scratch as a learning tool, and its induction in our education system, due to its learning-by-doing approach.

Basically, its negative thinking

2011-04-20T01:34:00.002+05:30

Thoughts after watching Final Destination series!

The G1 and the interface blues

2011-01-01T01:52:00.007+05:30

New year!

HTC Dev Phone1, first time Android experience!

The device felt loose, just like it would fall apart if I shake it. Why would I? Of-course the accelerometer exists, but then 500 $ should make it tough?

Although its late, in Jan 2011, I got an Android phone hands-on to try out for some prototyping. Being a iPhone user since the first gen, i found many contrasts, mostly being on the design and interface side. I had my brief stint of Android with Shreekant on his Galaxy, the interaction felt wonderful and intuitive.

I got the device last week, it was an Android Dev Phone 1 (HTC G1) with Android 1.6 pre-installed. First experience was sloppy, slow, fragmented and far from slick. After a day of usage without Googling I found myself unable to change the pre-set Google ID (the phone was being used by someone else earlier). The interface locks you down into a loop undiscovered, just as if maybe the singularity had arrived.

Then I actually figured out that the phone actually had a real QWERTY keyboard, the device was emotionless, the keys are closely spaced and won't provide as much tactile feedback as they would with the old good Nokia communicator or a HTC Touch Pro. I had to roll down my thumb for some keys to make it actually work, but then the on-screen keyboard on the iPhone was much better. Those false positives weren't expected from HTC, cheap show!

Though I am yet to upgrade to the lastest Android release. So the above post is anachronic, if you weren't interested in my first experiences :-)

I am prototyping, Take Me There, App for Blinds. More updates soon. The hopes with Android are much more than just the interface. I know the 2.3 is much sweeter! and hail NotionInk Adam.

Plans for the Mozilla Firefox Multitouch UX

2010-06-06T04:55:00.002+05:30

I am quite interested in exploring the Multitouch scenario on Mozilla Firefox for my project under Felipe's and Gerv's mentorship. Working with Mozilla Team design team members( Alexander Limi) and mentors is turning out to be a great experience so far. I am learning a lot of new things. Browsing the web is a very distributed activity with a lot of interactions possible- my aim would be to design a minimalist interface, that is slick, fast, and non-obtrusive. Hence devoted past couple of weeks researching on the topic-and doing some user study with Natural User Interface Group members.

Browsing through guidelines and advice by Dan Saffer in his book "Designing Gestural Interfaces"
was an eye opener. I'll be using the book as a ready reference before writing code portions.

- Setup Mercurial(hg) repo at Google-Code at a mirror at BitBucket
- Wrote the extension skeleton: Sidebars etc.
- Recompiled Fx on Ubuntu and Win
- Checked out Fennec's and iPad Safari interactions using simulators
- User study with NUIGroup members
- Planning UI in context with three primary tasks: Tabs Placement and behaviour, Natural Gestures library for common tasks etc.

The overall discussion with community proved fruitful deriving to a conclusion- most applications/tools that are designed for Horizontal table-top systems might not be a perfect fit on vertical Multitouch systems. Since the tablets' era is coming: iPad, HP Slate, NotionInk Adam etc. we've to keep a couple of other things at the back of our mind while designing applications- Imprecise positioning, possible problems with eye parallaxis (with pen, too), the finger may be too large for accurate pointing with small objects. Hand movements (if used with keyboard). etc. etc.
In next update I'll be sharing some diagrams and code samples, right here.