Architectradure

A future for TV?

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:44:47 PDT

NeXtream offers a potentially interesting TV! "Functionally, television content delivery has remained largely unchanged since the introduction of television networks. NeXtream explores an experience where the role of the corporate network is replaced by a social network. User interests, communities, and peers are leveraged to determine television content, combining sequences of short videos to create a set of channels customized to each user. This project creates an interface to explore television socially, connecting a user with a community through content, with varying levels of interactivity: from passively consuming a series, to actively crafting one's own television and social experience."

This is a very interesting approach and project that not only challenges everything that makes TV lame, but also what makes watching content on a laptop based on friends' recommendations on social networks more integrated. TV becomes a new social activity, with tailored content. The only issue here is repetition that one might find in social networks. If your friends only watch gossipy content, you end up only hearing about that on your TV. On the bright side, it is also a channel to discover entirely new content by filtering and reviewing users "a la" stumbleupon. It was designed and built by ReeD Martin, Ana Luisa Santos, Mike Shafran, Henry Holtzman, and Marie-José Montpetit at the MIT Media Lab.

Prenatal genetic testing: a critical design discussion

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:04:31 PDT

Interventionist Healer: This object serves the family who views their genetic mutation within a fatalistic, predetermined narrative: They accept the experience of carrying the mutation as part of the family identity, but choose to be active.

This object is given as heirloom to the child who did not inherit the genetic mutation. While physically fortunate in avoiding the illness, in effect they are also excluded from a substantial part of the familyʼs narrative.

With the increased availability of genetic information, the view of our body and identity as a sequence of genes is becoming prevalent. This perception of ourselves has the power to reconstruct our familial relationships and challenge our conception of responsibility, risk and autonomy. Gold and silver, much like a number of genetic cancers, are traditionally passed down the generations as inheritance. The emerging use of precious metals in medicine and especially in cancer treatment draws parallels between material heirloom and genetic ancestry. This series of speculative heirloom objects is based on the medical applications of nanogold particles and responds to the new moral codes of genetic responsibility. Each object address a certain issue within this context; focusing on the emotional and psychological implications of genetic knowledge.How does the comprehension of genetic vulnerability change our behaviour? Can new materials have an effect on our morals and social structures?

Genetic Heirloom by designer Revital Cohen with Partner — The Wellcome Trust. Collaborators: Professor Richard Ashcroft, Professor of Bioethics, School of Law, Queen Mary University,London. Dr Ainsley Newson, The Centre for Ethics in Medicine, University of Bristol. Professor Andy Miah, Professor in Ethics & Emerging Technologies at the University of West of Scotland.Photography by Gary Hamill.

Hypnotic Audiovisual installation

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 16:23:40 PDT

Very compelling visual and sound work by Ryoichi Kurokawa, rheo: 5 horizons, 2010. Discovered on We Make Money Not Art.

Open source electronic modules that snap!

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:14:17 PDT

Little Bits

One of my favorite electronic kit of all time is the one I had found in a yard sale, the Lectron, magnetic electronic blocks to discover the magic of electronics in a minute! This was very cool to find at a yard sale, but I was always wandering why such kits did not exist today. Well... a friend of mine from the MIT Media Lab, Ayah Bdeir, did it beautifully with LittleBits: the magnetic blocks hands-on remain, there is less an "electronic understanding" per se and more of an an "experiment me first" attitude. The design is very well thought out too with the color coded modules and the easy snap-on pieces.Electronic components are classified: input, output, power and wire, are color coded (sooo cute) and easily snap-able. With 50 modules in hands, everything can happen! I can't wait to put my hand on the started kit and see how my little one (just turned 2!) will adjust to this new creative medium!

A very intimidating Synthesizer

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 22:57:45 PDT

The Paradiso Synthesizer!

Our See-Through 3D desktop finally public!

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:20:36 PST

My intern Jinha Lee and I crunched some fun ideas during his research internship at Microsoft!

See-Through 3D desktop done by Jinha Lee and Cati Boulanger in the Applied Sciences Group

I thought it deserved a spot on my blog too! So our See-Through 3D Desktop offers a behind-the-screen interaction with a transparent OLED with view-dependent, depth-corrected gaze.

Despite advances in 3D sensing and display technologies, our interactions with computer desktops have remained stagnant from the form that evolved under 2D I/O modalities. Our See Through 3D desktop is a 3D spatial operating environment that allows the user to directly interact with her virtual desktop. The user can reach into the projected 3D output space with his/her hands to directly manipulate the windows.

Users can casually open up the See-Through 3D Desktop and Type on the keyboard or use a trackpad as in traditional 2D operating environment. Windows or files are perceived to be placed in a 3D space between a screen and the input plane.

The user can lift up her hands to reach the displayed windows and arrange them in this 3D space.A unique combination of a transparent display and 3D gesture detection algorithm collocates input space and 3D rendering without tethering or encumbering users with wearable devices. See-through 3D desktop is a term for the entire ensemble of necessary software hardware and design technological components for realizing this volumetric operating environment.

Voilà!

iWood laptop

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 09:31:06 PST

Giving a whole new meaning to screen time! Perfect for all the toddlers I can think of around... via ReCraft

Quick... while autumn is still here!

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 09:09:59 PST

Leaf animals made with glycerin and love..
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The next step after Clocky, Catapy!

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:39:14 PST

Go Catapy, go!

Catapy from Yuichiro Katsumoto on Vimeo.

At UIST this Monday: Scopemate, a robotic microscope!

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 03:29:37 PDT

I am at UIST this Monday to present one of my project along with my mentor Paul Dietz since I joined Microsoft Applied Sciences Group. It is a very quick but efficient solution for the ones who like to solder small components!

Summary
Scopemate is a robotic microscope that tracks the user for inspection microscopy. In this video, we propose a new interaction mechanism for inspection microscopy. The novel input device combines an optically augmented web-cam with a head tracker. A head tracker controls the inspection angle of a webcam fitted with ap-propriate microscope optics. This allows an operator the full use of their hands while intuitively looking at the work area from different perspectives. This work was done by researchers Cati Boulanger and Paul Dietz in the Applied Sciences Group at Microsoft and will be presented at UIST 2011 this Monday as both a demo and a poster!

Video

The evolution of the architectural medium in engaging digital 3D

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:33:06 PDT

A pretty neat thesis from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, Greg Tran explains that the traditional mode of material production moves forward, but three new forms of design emerge. Digital 3d immersion is the first and is most similar to virtual reality (but has little to nothing to do with architecture.) It is a simulated environment which is entirely digital and relies on material/site specificity as little as possible. Digital 3d renovation is where existing facilities are retrofit with site specific D3d software and environment recognition, but the final condition is Digital 3d architecture. This bridges the design gap between the digital and the material.

The purpose of his thesis is not to design an architecture that works perfectly within this new medium, but rather to highlight the medium itself, research potentials, create kernel ideas and discover the implications that this type of reality would hold.

Video

More versions:

Final segment here (2.5 minutes) Mediating Mediums - The Digital 3d (Part 3)
Short version here (5.5 minutes) Mediating Mediums - The Digital 3d (Short Version)
Long version here (19minute version) - Mediating Mediums: The Digital 3d

The Printing Dress: You are what you tweet!

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 07:48:44 PDT

Asta Roseway and Sheridan Martin Small , researchers at Microsoft, designed the printing dress!

You are probably familiar with the old saying, “You are what you eat” but how about, “You are what you tweet?” What if this concept were incorporated into garments of the future? Would you censor yourself, knowing you would reveal your statements to the world around you? The “Printing Dress” is an artistic piece that explores the notion of wearable text and its potential impact on the future of fashion, as well as our social identity. Built almost entirely of paper, the dress enables the wearer to enter “thoughts” on to its fabric and wear them as public art. By selecting materials and technologies that draw on the past, present, and future of communication media, we encourage viewers to reflect on the path that has brought us to ubiquitous digital communication and to contemplate its forward evolution.

Draw your music!

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Tue, 10 May 2011 15:26:41 PDT

Designed by Jay Silver and Mitchel Resnick Drawdio lets you draw musical instruments on normal paper with any pencil (cheap circuit thumb-tacked on) and then play them with your finger. The Drawdio circuit-craft lets you MacGuyver your everyday objects into musical instruments: paintbrushes, macaroni, trees, grandpa, even the kitchen sink...

Video

The next step after Rock Band... a real electric guitar!

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Mon, 09 May 2011 11:52:01 PDT

Guitar Games - Revolutionizing How We Learn to Play Guitar

Aurelius Prochazka created a series of projects to help novice musicians to play the guitar. The brilliant idea here is that the more you train your ear to recognize what you hear, the more you will enjoy playing music. Because you'll understand what you're playing!

His most recent work, Guitar Games, allows you to plug in your standard 1/4" plug electric guitar, a Rock Band 3 guitar, or a MIDI guitar and play on your Mac, iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. Playing the guitar on small devices might not be the way to go, not to worry! If you own Rock Band, you owe it to yourself to take your guitar gaming to the next level and transfer all the experience you've amassed playing Rock Band into learning to play a real guitar!

Guitar Games teaches you how to play songs and how to hear better. Beyond that, it also helps you develop your own personal guitar playing style.

Video

You can try it out during Live Product Demo at Maker Faire on the San Mateo Fairgrounds May 21-22. If you're already a backer by then, come claim your free Guitar Games guitar pick!

Human interface loading...

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Sun, 08 May 2011 21:30:03 PDT

Our inspiration, always.

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 22:37:58 PDT

Max Mathews, the father of computer music.

Pulp-Based Computing: Building Computers Out of Paper

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 07:26:08 PDT

Marelo Coelho, Lyndl Hall and Joanna Berzowska have developed a series of techniques for building sensors, actuators and circuit boards that behave, look, and feel like paper.

By embedding electro-active inks, conductive threads and smart materials directly into paper during the papermaking process, they have created seamless composites that are capable of supporting new and unexpected application domains in ubiquitous and pervasive computing at affordable costs.

Pulp-Based Computing: A Framework for Building Computers Out of Paper from Marcelo Coelho on Vimeo.

A nice 4$ (or less) touchpad!

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 19:15:02 PDT

Matthew Blackshaw created a nice 4$ (or less) touchpad with a copper-based matrix!

Video

Gestural manipulation of an actuated surface

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 19:09:46 PDT

Relief, created by Daniel Leithinger, Adam Kumpf and Hiroshi Ishii is an actuated tabletop display which is able to render and animate three-dimensional shapes with a malleable surface. A direct extension of this work, Recompose created by Matthew Blackshaw, Anthony DeVincenzi, Dávid Lakatos, Daniel Leithinger and Hiroshi Ishii, is the gesture control of such actuated surface.

By collectively utilizing the body as a tool for direct manipulation alongside gestural input for functional manipulation, we show how a user is afforded unprecedented control over an actuated surface. We describe a number of interaction techniques exploring the shared space of direct and gestural input, demonstrating how their combined use can greatly enhance creation and manipulation beyond unaided human capability.

Video

DIY combining random displays into a single, large virtual display.

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:42:14 PDT

The Junkyard Jumbotron lets you take a bunch of random displays and instantly stitch them together into a large, virtual display, simply by taking a photograph of them. It works with laptops, smartphones, tablets --- anything that runs a web browser. It also highlights a new way of connecting a large number of heterogenous devices to each other in the field, on an ad-hoc basis.

The Junkyard Jumbotron is designed by Rick Borovoy, Ph.D. and Brian Knep at MIT's Center for Future Civic Media.

Video

Get the code to install it on your displays, here.

CATRA: Cataract Maps with Snap-on Eyepiece for Mobile Phones

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 19:12:15 PDT

Can we create a device that makes people aware of their early cataract condition? Using a light-field display, the researchers' method projects time-dependent patterns onto the fovea. Interactive software measures the visibility and point spread function across subapertures of the crystallin lens. By repeating this procedure for several light-paths, the cataracts size, position, density, and scattering profile are estimated.

Created by the MIT Media Lab, Camera Culture's research group with Vitor Pamplona, Erick Passos, Jan Zizka, Manuel M. Oliveira, Everett Lawson, Esteban Clua and Ramesh Raskar, CATRA utilizes a forward scattering technique, which allows the user to respond to what they visually experience.

Their device scans the lens section by section. The user sees their projected patterns and presses a few buttons to map the light attenuation in each section of the eye. This information is collected by the device creating an attenuation map of the entire lens. This allows individuals to monitor the progression of the severity of the cataract.

The maps capture a full point spread function of the lens, allowing the researchers to simulate the visual perception of a cataract affected subject over time. Early cataract onset is difficult to diagnose. This device aims at measuring cataracts, which is highly portable and collects quantifiable data to help tackle a global health problem making it ideal for the developing world.
Video

BodyNotes: a mobile tool to enhance the interaction between patients and healthcare practitioners.

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 19:02:39 PDT

BodyNotes was created by the MIT Media Lab. It contributes to a series of projects that enhance the interaction between patients and healthcare practitioners. BodyNotes is a mobile tool that combines anatomical landmarks to physical objects as a mean for a patient to discuss body pain with her doctor.

Video

The video introduces Anna, an amputee who uses BodyNotes to track the pain and comfort she feels throughout the day when wearing her prosthetic limb. Anna can view visualizations and summaries of her reported pain by location, intensity, time, duration and activity.

This data is also accessible to Anna’s prosthetist. BodyNotes also allows remote, real-time collaboration.

During their session, Anna uses a photo to indicate the exact points where she feels pain. Since this screen is simultaneously seen by the prosthetist, and the interaction is synchronized, he can show what modifications Anna could do on her own.

BodyNotes enables advanced logging and telemedicine functionality on mainstream mobile phones. It has the potential to improve health care and communication, allowing patients and doctors to better spend their time by reducing the need for office visits.

Stevie B Microsoft Research demo!

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 11:42:57 PST

A bit of insight on what the research group I have recently joined at Microsoft, the Applied Sciences Group, is devoted to. Amazing display technologies coupled to novel interaction paradigms. Enjoy!

The secrets of a pop-up book!

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 22:14:16 PST

My current favorite pop up book for the iPad, the Three Little Pigs and the Secrets of a Pop-Up Book. Almost as interactive as a real pop up book! Thank you Sumit!

Of course, my favorite tech-pop up book for the iPad comes from les éditions volumiques!

You can find it -> here

Solar Music

noreply@blogger.com (Cati Boulanger) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:25:14 PST

Sculpture at Maudslay, Newburyport, MA September 2010 by Kevin Belli.

Sun Boxes by Craig Colorusso are an environment to enter and exit at will. It's comprised of twenty speakers operating independently, each powered by the sun via solar panels. There is a different loop set to play a guitar note in each box continuously. These guitar notes collectively make a Bb chord. Because the loops are different in length, once the piece begins they continually overlap and the piece slowly evolves over time.

Here is a video, Sun Boxes at the 12th annual Sculpture at Maudslay. Filmed by Kevin Belli on September 18, 2010.