Participation / Second Life

Its 23.55pm, Sunday
Last Monday, I the group and Simon started talking about participation and web 2.0 applications. After the discussion I stumbled on something quite unique and sure will interest any one reading this blog enter.

The focus for this theory is Second Life.
Description by wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life)
Second Life (SL) is a privately-owned, partly subscription-based 3-D virtual world, made publicly available in 2003 by San Francisco-based Linden Lab,[2] and founded by former RealNetworks CTO Philip Rosedale. The Second Life "world" resides in a large array of servers that are owned and maintained by Linden Lab, known collectively as "the grid". The Second Life client program provides its users (referred to as Residents) with tools to view and modify the SL world and participate in its virtual economy. Which concurrently has begun to operate as a "real" market. At precisely 8:05:45 AM PDT, October 18th 2006, the population of Second Life hit 1 million Residents.
Audiences make participation that fuel web 2.0 applications. (youtube, myspace e.t.c) Second Life can be classed as a web 2.0 application. Second Life is increasingly growing and gaining interest world wide (http://secondlife.com/). Second life is 100% driven by participation within its 3D virtual environment. From over viewing the web description I’m to believe second life is being geared towards an economy of some kind. Ok, the really interesting piece of text I read.

“Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 1,179,846 people from around the globe.”

The above text gives me the reason to believe second life will grow to be distributed over various other platforms in the near future, resulting in a wider consumer audience.

I’m going to re-draw the diagram I created while sitting in the studio last Monday:



Explanation of diagram
First, we are looking at second life as a platform for distributing content. The platform expands using existing technologies such as game consoles mobile and non mobile devices. Game consoles are usually used for computer games opening a direct audience of potential consumers. This is where advertising comes in, as the game industry is at large and holds a strong future.
Being the medium of second life it’s a perfect platform to deploy advertisements to this specific audience. This could start a new form of broadcasting advertisement media. Under a new platform opening new possibilities that wouldn’t be possible under the real world, or even within existing standard static web page.
Interactive design would be the obvious choice of profession, to help design and develop the content that would be delivered via this new broadcasting platform. Second Life would allow commercial entities needing to adopt 3d interactive technology that consists of an existing audience or specific audience.

So what’s my theory?
Second Life or a similar interactive platform will grow to allow engaging advertisement media to be deployed via the internet. This new form of medium will not be housed with the constraints of the real world environment, resulting in a new way of directing the content to the targeted consumer’s.

Related links: http://jiad.org/vol6/no1/nicovich/

http://idmashup.org/conference-news/virtual-participation-on-second-life

Sustainability?

A very interesting subject to look at, but sounds a little strange when thinking how could sustainability be used within Interactive Media.

What is sustainability?

Sustainability seeks to provide the best outcomes for the human and natural environments, both now and into the indefinite future. It is a systemic concept, relating to the continuity of economic, social, institutional and environmental aspects of human society, as well as the non-human environment. It is intended to be a means of configuring civilization and human activity so that society. Its members and its economies are able to meet their needs and express their greatest potential in the present, while preserving biodiversity and natural ecosystems. Planning and acting for the ability to maintain these ideals in a very long term. Sustainability affects every level of organization, from the local neighbourhood to the entire planet.
Full article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability

When going over this in my head, I seemed to be referring back to my personal project. My project is based on the idea of producing a process to re-produce interactive media on the fly. Within my project I’m looking at sustainability as a means of continuously improving a design process, resulting in a more efficient way of using natural resources. Such as electric, physical media (pens, paper, e.t.c), water, gas. Also providing a less complicated way of producing rich media, that impacts on the individuals work load resulting in a more efficient & comfortable environment to work in. When looking at sustainability in this way, it seems hard to see how the above could actually make a difference to the environment. This is where the time factor comes into play, if this system was put in place in 2007 and run for 8 years it would save a large quantity of natural resources and provide a very advanced environment designed to deliver one form of product that has been continually developed for a long period of time.

I think this idea of sustainability is relatively new, to the world never mind Interactive Media. But I think sustainability will play a crucial role in the future of design as every other industry. One area of industry I believe should be taking sustainability into account is the film industry.

Wireless Internet

I spent some time picking at the term wireless internet, only to uncover information relevant to the boom over wireless in 2004. When looking into the future of wireless technology I uncovered a massive source of information, covering a wide range of personal opinions and future technology research. One that caught my eye in particular was, A Wireless Future by S.Drakopoulou.

Posted by S.Drakopoulou at http://publication.nodel.org/

A new kind of social space is created out of the transmission and reception of data between mobile phone users. A private communicational space arising from the city's striated space, a social space born out of a new telecommunications technology. This virtual but real communicational space can be thought as a subversive space, a decentralised network where users generate and exchange their own data, take pictures, make phone calls and access the internet.
My research explores the creation and appropriation of this space by its users and investigates a broadcasting model where people will be able to send their text and other multi-media elements and display them onto designated local public screens.
Piccadilly Square in London, Times Square in New York and Shinjuku in Tokyo all have large public screens that are being used for commercial purposes. Imagine a futuristic setting where public interactive screens have developed into accepted forms of communication and expression between citizens: local broadcasting stations can become the norm. People will be able to use their portable high-speed data processor and interact with large public digital screens and display there own media content – text, pictures, sound and video.

By Sophia Drakopoulou

Read the full article at http://publication.nodel.org/A-Wireless-Future-Drakopoulou

Sophia Drakopoulou simply outlines the idea of using wireless technology to broadcast information (text, images, video and maybe sound) to a central source being displayed to a wide range of individuals. After reading this article I tend to think Sophia is aiming the concept towards providing individuals with useful information that can be used to gain an advantage on within the area being displayed.
I think it’s a good idea however it would cause problems if not censored. I can see this being a good way of mapping the environment, for example I’m looking for a snowboard in Piccadilly Square, and suddenly a set of simple directions from the current location pop up on a huge screen. I also find it Interesting to see the words broadcasting model used with in this article.

John Robinson (Design for Interactive)

The Adidas MID FX 38 digital watch

This watch is battery powered and uses a digital display to provide a 24 hour clock that provides the set time, day and lap time in a numeric combination. This watch is definitely aimed towards an individual with interest in sport activities, personally I could see a school gym teacher using this product to record lap times. The watch performs a number of tasks, the most obvious provide the time plus a chronograph, timer and alarm. Its general use is to provide the time on the move. There is no mention of water and shock resistance that would usually be stated on the product or in the manual. So I would say this product seems to be designed for common daily environments and not for any professional sport activity. The Adidas MID FX 38 uses relatively old technology and a combination of buttons to navigate and change the settings of the numeric state. I think this product has been visually designed with the audience in mind. It looks sporty with a split round bordered screen. Its made of rubber and plastic which complement each other. There are a number of buttons 5 in all, which also complement the design and give this watch quite an interesting visual appearance.

How ever when it comes down to using the buttons to interact with the settings, there is a sense that this product has been designed without being tested. The navigation to access the watches settings is somehow different from anything I have come across, and the provided instructions are hard to follow. Causing frustration when trying to perform a simple task, resulting in this product being very hard to use. The interface didn’t provide me with a familiar way of adjusting the time compared to a standard watch. Resulting in it being very hard to interactive with, this I believe is due to the mapping of the product itself. Even though the watches instructions are quite unclear they are very consistent in the way of being repeated through the use of one button that cycles through the watches functions.
This technique can bee seen a lot in interactive products, for example the I-POD’s functionality, physical and interface movement is built under the idea of cycling through a number of options to achieve the task.

The watches interface needs considerable redesign mainly on the idea of simplifying its existing state, to provide the user with a much more straight forward approach of adjusting the settings.
The users that would most likely find this product attractive to purchase being individuals interested or influenced by sports activities. The user should realistically be able to use this product with very little complication, as I could imagine an individual interested in sport wouldn’t be greatly interested in computers.
The system use of this product would be aimed towards a casual novice user, directly.

The idea of mastering this product could take some time and I’m not sure the audience of this product would spend hours fiddling with a watch. Selecting information from this product is very difficult as the instruction and mapping is very unclear, causing the user to easily get confused by the small lettered words printed on the display.


The GUI of this product is very limited besides the split screen that divides the numeric format. It provides a very straight forward display and mainly distinguishes priority of visibility by scale, for example the time hour and minute digits are significantly larger than the seconds, date and lap time.
The products functionality is complicated and very difficult to master. I believe editing the settings of this watch would quickly be forgotten, providing the task of referring back to the user manual in the future.

Changing the set time with The Adidas MID FX 38 digital watch

The Task - To adjust the time with the packaged instruction manual

Hold the watch upright

Press and hold S4 for 3 seconds, the display will light up for 3 seconds and the second digits will start flashing.

Use S3 to switch between the time year and date options.

Use S1 and S2 to move up and down in values.

Press S4 to return to time and calendar display.

The result being the adjusted time that has been currently set

(I had a problem with the actual instructions basically they didn’t work. This was due to the instruction manual being mapped unclear to the actual product its self, so I had to adjust them, I also get the impression the instructions have been translated)

What I think

Ok, ranting on a bit back there.

This watch doesn’t appeal to me as a user, mainly the reason being I like solid metal watches. There are a few little things I like about this product first of:

Its design as I just mentioned I like metal watches, I reckon this would be pretty catchy if it was in metal with the over sized obvious button sticking out in orange chrome.
Apart from that the setting controls are way complicated when compared to other watches.

I personally use the pull out and twist pin that allows me to adjust the time and date with an easy twist scrolling action. Other than the over all interactive performance I did notice two ways of moving through the setting preferences. Which I’m happy to keep for the redesign, these are the one way cycling through options and flashing what is being selected for adjusting.

The UCI Cardiff

Recently visiting the UCI to observe interaction with the amusement arcade. I reckon the place did the job well, literally as soon as entering into what seemed a small maze of loud mixed sound, music and flashing lights. I found myself quickly distracted from what I was there to do. I found it difficult to focus on anything but the products that where being presented. I interacted (played) with three of the arcade machines and found one particularly interesting.



The Outrun 2 arcade game, caught my attention as I remembered what this game used to look like back when I was about 13.
OutRun 2 stays true to the format laid down by the 1986 original, in which the player drives a Ferrari sports car with a young lady in the passenger seat through 5 of 15 stages. As before, the player can choose their course, and the soundtrack to which they drive.
From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OutRun_2

When sitting in the seat of the arcade machine I was presented with a metaphorical cockpit of a car I’m presuming is based on a Ferrari considering the game is heavily based upon this product. The main object of control being the steering wheel which provides a means of controlling the car plus navigation through menus, Under the steering wheel there are 2 pedals one to accelerate the car and another to brake. These pedals also represent a means of accelerate moving forward (accepting) and brake moving backwards (rejecting). These are then used to accept or reject the selected option’s presented through the interactive menus before starting the game. There is another optional control that will allow the player to use gears shift up and down, wheels act the same as the accelerate and brake pedals within the menu navigation.



The navigation menus provide an interesting selection, the first menu presented an option of difficulty, the second option for automatic or gears the third track or stage. The forth a selection of car and fifth a selection of music (first time I have ever seen this in an arcade game). The game itself has evolved over time as technology has progressed but the rules still remain the same. Put your money in, select your options and race against time with some hot blond chick in the passenger seat, obviously in a Ferrari. When your time runs out before you reach a checkpoint you’re asked if you would like to continue by popping a quid back in, the continue will count down usually from 10 to 0, if there is no credit inserted the machine will usually give a very loud game over (looser) voice over.

I think these products work well with the audience and seem to keep users engaged and to pop money continually. But I’m sure back when I was a kid with only the SAGA Mega drive available, these machines where much more popular.

Techniquest Visit

The Harmonograph

A harmonograph is a mechanical device that employs pendulums to create a picture. The drawings created by the machines can be Lissajous curves or even more complex. The devices appeared in the 19th century and are attributed to Jules Antoine Lissajous.
A simple harmonograph uses two pendulums to control the movement of a pen relative to a drawing surface. One pendulum moves the pen back and forth along one axis and the other pendulum moves the drawing surface back and forth along a perpendicular axis. By varying the frequency of the pendulums relative to one another (and phase) different patterns are created, Even a simple harmonograph as described can create ellipses, spirals, figure eights and other Lissajous figures.
More complex harmonographs incorporated three or more pendulums or linked pendulums together

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonograph






The chosen device generates a visual image produced by the movement of a weighted pendulum and table that swings smoothly to produce a high volume of curved lines that creates an interesting high detailed pattern.

At first glance the device seems very peculiar as it contains a very large metal object holding a small pen. The pen is raised about 2 to 3 inches above a small table slightly larger than A4, with a large silver clip. The Harmonograph has instructions that allow the device to be easily used.

The displayed instructions are:

1 Draw your own pattern

2 Put a piece of paper on the square table

3 Swing the table and pendulum GENTLY!

4 Press the button to start drawing – press the button again when you want to stop



When using the Harmonograph I noticed I didn’t swing the small table, I seemed drawn to the large pendulum that seemed to be the focus of the device. Observing the children I noticed only one out of four actually moved the table and the pendulum. This stands out as an interesting focus of design. As the simplicity of color and scale can alter the way in which an interactive device can be used and misused producing the wrong affect. After having an group discussion with Sue Cavell (Head of Research and Evaluation at Techniquest) Sue stated very clearly that the target age group for the design of the devices shown at Techniquest is of 12 years old, Sue moved on to say the devises are produced to the height and reach of a child at the age of 12.
The device produces a very interesting pattern that is produced as hard copy (on paper) that can be taken away to reflect on at a later date. I wouldn’t look at the Harmonograph as entertaining but a more interesting device. Observing the children I noticed they where not very interested in the device as there where many others more astheticaly pleasing in the nearby surounding. But all the children that did visit the Harmonograph interacted with the device mainly moving the large metal pendulum, but seemed to quickly lose interest with the paper and metal clip.

Stars of CCTV

Bluetooth as broadcast

Last weeks talk with Simon Pope got me thinking, I suddenly realised Bluetooth could be one of the next extensions for broadcasting corporate information to the general public. It would make sense if you could walk into a high street shop such as Nike, and receive a request to your phone or PDA offering an advert to show of their new highlighted products or even a simple map of the stores layout. Maybe even (the big one) a complete interactive advertisement, containing all the information about the latest products this could then be viewed at a later date (on the train) and sent on to other people by people (word of mouth).

This could become a part of online advertising distribution, as the technology and display format would be similar. Looking at http://www.mobileinfo.com/ I noticed Bluetooth has a speed of 721 Kbps which is fast enough to send a 2mb file within 3 seconds. Content can be sent via Bluetooth to a number of devices in range of 100m radius which allows access to a wide variety of handsets, PDA’s and PC’s. The system allows a default level of security by allowing the individual to accept or decline the sent content. To find out how effective it really is, I would have to test it and see what results I could obtain from the technology at hand.

What’s the future for Bluetooth

Bluetooth has a good future ahead because it meets a basic need of connectivity in close proximity, is the result of initiatives of nine leading communications and computer industry vendors including companies like 3-COM, Ericsson, Lucent, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Nokia, Toshiba etc. Since the formation of the original group, more than 1800 manufacturers worldwide have joined the initiative worldwide. According to one market research report, Bluetooth technology is expected to be built into over 100 millions devices before the end of 2002. According to still another report from market research firm Cahners In-Stat Group, there will be over 670 million Bluetooth enabled devices worldwide by 2005.

From: http://www.mobileinfo.com/

I really think Bluetooth could help with promoting and providing individuals with useful content. After some heavy testing I could well be using Bluetooth to work as an extending arm of my final project.

Simon Pope // http://www.axisweb.org/ofSARF.aspx?SELECTIONID=16099

John Robinson // Design for Interactive