Take comfort seriously!

Sometimes you want to blog, read a book, channel surf, eat popcorn or play World of Warcraft and it is chilly in your home. It is hard to lie on the couch or in bed and play video games without your shoulders and upper body exposed to the elements. Well I found the solution: the Slanket, a blanket that wraps you up and you end up snugged like a toasty burrito in the middle of winter!
NB: Works especially well for Boston area!

Object Artistically Modified

Stéphane Vigny, Mécanique Populaire. For this installation, an electric drill becomes a skipping rope.

I discovered the work of Stéphane Vigny at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Mixing minimalism to mainstream objects, he produces subversive pieces. I love his work that I find humorous as much as alarming.

Foux de fa fa

I love this series Flight of The Conchords given to me by Aurelius. I especially loved the Foux de fa fa episode on French impersonation. It is not meant to be an accurate reflection of French. It's a representation of the public school child's exposure to French culture via outdated textbooks, 1970's film reels and Serge Gainsbourg disco era.

Golden Disk

LaCie makes now golden hard drive!

And computer choppers proposes golden mac book pro!

Sketch furniture

Sketch furniture by Front allows sketching onto space to become an object.

Motion Capture translates motions into 3D-files and are used in this project to simply record the tip of a pen when people draw pieces of furniture in the air. Rapid Prototyping is a technique that materializes 3D-files. A laser beam builds the 3D-file layer by layer within a liquid plastic material. Every 0.1mm the liquid harden by a laser beam. After a few hours, the 3D-files come out as materialized pieces. The Sketch Furniture project in Japan is made in collaboration with Barry Friedman Ltd. Tokyo Wonder Site Aoyama and Crescent.

Lifestyle in 2057

2057 EP1 The Body featured on Discovery Channel offers mixed information between current research explorations and fictional scenarios of our lifestyle in 2057.

It is a nice effort in considering what is being done in HCI and medical research which converges into everyday scenarios. Under its over dramatic tone, the examples are sometimes tacky and stereotypical. The show could have incorporated other important issues such as affordable cutting edge technological solutions for the rest of world.

This video is fun and accessible. I loved the transplantation of a human heart, heart that can be 3d printed! Presenting a vision for a future lifestyle, this video reminds me of the American Look (1958): America lifestyle in the 50's with its *idealistic* sense for design.

Miniature motion controller

A Miniature One-Handed 3D Motion Controller by Kynan Eng that I saw at Interact 2007.

Abstract Users of three-dimensional computer-aided design (CAD) and
gaming applications need to manipulate virtual objects in up to six degrees of
rotational and translation freedom (DOF). To date, no 3D controller provides
one-handed 6DOF input with miniature size and low cost. This paper presents
a prototype of the first one-handed 6DOF motion controller suitable for use in
portable platforms such as laptop computers, mobile telephones and hand-held
game consoles. It is based on an optical sensor combined with novel planar
spring mechanics, and can be easily manufactured using low-cost materials and
processes.



Paper

A stretchy fabric controller

Created by Angela Chang, Zstretch is a fabric device that can capture the richness of active touch interactions for controlling music interactions. Much of the prior work on integrating electronics with textiles focused on rigid, exact places for touching the fabric, rather than supporting the many actions our hands and bodies can create. The project explores how to support the large range of forces that people apply when interacting with fabric.

Paper for Nime 2007

Camping sauvage

Camping Sauvage (projet), Tentes igloos, toile de spi, ballon météo, hélium, 100 x 200 x 200 cm chacune, 2006.

I love this art proposal from La Guardia. Because free camping is forbidden in France, La Guardia decided to create a new genre of tents, still attached to the ground using ropes tied to stakes, but the tent itself is floating in the air. This allows anyone to camp without law infraction as well as being suitable in any type of landscape environment.

Ambient clock for elders

At Interact 2007, I discovered the work of Yann Riche and Wendy Mackay.
He presented the MarkerClock, an ambient clock for elders.
Pdf of the paper.

Seniors support one another through routines and through shared awareness. The MarkerClock facilitates the sharing and awareness of routines among elders. Built upon seniors’ stories of their daily life, it invites for reciprocal care behaviors.



The clock appears as ambient and non intrusive by giving symbolic graphical information on the user's activity. For instance, if Beatrice goes to the market in the morning, this information is coordinated with the clock and displayed graphically as "absent". Because her friend knows she is at the market, it appears as normal.


Examples of a) users’ codes, b) user’s motion trace

During user observations, an elder explained that she sends a signal by ringing 3 times the phone of her friend so that her friend can assess that she is all right. Users originally invented strategies, such as this code, to be aware of each other's lives. The design rationale integrates these findings into the augmented clock. It embeds active and passive communication and do so by simply detecting the user's motions in front of it, directly measuring the senior's activity.