My work "Electromagnetic Field Detector Bracelet" has been accepted as a video. The video will be presented at Ubicomp in Seoul South Korea during the one minute madness Monday 22nd and during the video reception 17:15 - 19:00!
Abstract of the work
We present the design of a cost-effective wearable sensor to detect and indicate the strength and other characteristics of the electric field emanating from a laptop display. Our bracelet can provide an immediate awareness of electric fields radiated from an object used frequently. Our technology thus supports awareness of ambient background emanation beyond human perception. We discuss how detection of such radiation might help to “fingerprint” devices and aid in applications that require determination of indoor location.
Come see me to talk about this work! If you cannot make it, here is the video:
A bit of motivation for this work
Today, many people fear electromagnetic fields. They believe that ambient fields can negatively influence their health. Perhaps, by visualizing the presence of common electromagnetic (EM) fields, users might feel in control of difficult-to-perceive information and transcend their fear, beginning the process of recognizing and moving beyond fear. An analogy might be found in the cheap RF power meters that are sold to enable people to gauge radiation leakage from their microwave ovens. Conversely, providing users with blind data could increase their paranoia when low-level field leakage from common appliances is visualized. Clearly, people need to be educated in how to properly interpret this data. Regardless of one’s belief on the health impact of background EM fields, visualizing the unseen in this way always leads to fascinating and playful exploration. All devices emit background signals (electrostatically, magnetically, acoustically, and optically) that are characteristic of particular devices and also sometimes indicate that device’s mode of operation. Indeed, government contracts mandate that computers and displays used in highly classified work be kept in shielded rooms (SCIFs) to thwart espionage that monitors such background leakage fields.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Low cost wearable sensor for detecting Electromagnetic fields
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Graphic design competition -> A new logo for C'N'C Plug Generation!
C'N'C plug generation asked me to spread the word about the C'N'C Plug Generation Contest, a new graphic design competition for talented graphic designers! Interpret in your own way the slogan C'N'C Plug Generation with a photo, a composite, mural, stickers, video clip or sculpture and send it in!
The best creations will be used as graphics for a series of T-shirts and accessories to be showcased during Milan Fashion Week in February. You’ve got till 30 January 2009 to focus your ideas, create them and send them in! The jury will select three original and unpublished concepts (such as pictures, composites, wall-paintings, stickers, graphics, banner, sculpture) representing in a young and creative way the logo "C'N'C PLUG GENERATION".
Prizes
1st - 1000€
2nd - an iPhone
3rd - an iPhone
+ your winning T-shirts and accessories logo will be presented during Milan Fashion Week this February 2009!
Rules
Read the rules ->here<- Participant must create a concept with any artistic technique, including free-hand drawing and digital art, photography and sculpture. The concept must be sent online to CND in JPG, TIFF, GIF, PDF or PNG format, file of a maximum of 5 MB. The directions on how to upload your creation can be found ->here<-
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Jabberstamp awarded by I.D. magazine!
-> The I.D. review <-
A child playing with Jabberstamp and me in the background blurred by the magical photoshop touch!
Monday, August 25, 2008
Robots need hugs too.
Thank you Adrien!
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Blog Jouons 
Iced Chest
I had designed a system to cool down the body for mental health support. It is always nice to see how such system can be used in another context such as the Nike Lab that designs innovative garments for athletes. One of the product, that I found in the Print edition of Fast Company Magazine, is a jacket that cools down the body. Discovering that performance falls off drastically when core body temperature hits 103 degrees, the Nike lab designed a vest that slows the rise of core body temperature. It is simply filled in with water, then frozen overnight. The vest is meant to be wear an hour prior to competition.
Screenshot from the Nike designer story
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Ghost of a Victorian christening dress
This is the photogram of a Victorian christening dress by Adam Fuss. Gelatin silver print photogram. Discovered in ARTnews, is this the ghost of a child or the ghost of a dress? is it instinct of culture that makes us automatically assume that transparency and translucency are properties of the spirit? This work makes us feel as if a spirit had brushed the hem of its garments across a photographic plate.
"Subject and technique conspire to let us participate vicariously in the experience of those early photographic pioneers, high on darkroom chemicals and on the possibilities of their new toy --Francine Prose for ARTnews"
Healthy sculptures
Grassland designed by Bernd Oette turns real dried grass into an element of the living room. The grass seeds grow not on soil but on various materials-using water and light only- and are dried subsequently. What is special about them is that the grass changes from lush green to straw-colour. Bernd Oette developed growing and drying techniques for the roots to adhere to the stainless steel mountings.
Grassland is the result of many years of experimentation to grow grass and to let it dry under controlled conditions. The special appeal of the objects is to make visible the concept of change and the transitory nature of things, turning them into real “memento mori”. To experience every moment of change makes these objects fascinating and vests them with a life of their own in the living room.
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Thursday, July 17, 2008
This silent language ...
In his book The Silent Language
As I focused on the chapter "how space communicates", I find intriguing the way Hall compares cultures and their reading of non verbal communication cues. He particularly states that the distance between individuals differs and can drastically affect the dynamics of space interaction. For instance, an American needs to take between 20 inches to 36 inches in a neutral conversation for a personal subject matter. Apparently in Latin America the interaction distance is much less. This claim was also proposed in his other book, The Hidden Dimension
I was wandering, as we are becoming nomads, or neo-nomads --term created and analyzed by Dr. Yasmine Abbas, now that we travel constantly, I wander how these distances of interaction and non verbal communication cues have evolved. Is it possible that we absorb most of these social interactions in our everyday routines, and that after each travel, each interaction, we come back "socially transformed"? Would these non verbal communication cues become more obvious to us?
In one of his other book, The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
How to design a reconfigurable artificial sensate skin?
For the technical area of my general exams lead by Dr. Joe Paradiso, I read Gerardo Barroeta Pérez's very inspiring thesis in which he presents S.N.A.K.E.: A dynamically reconfigurable artificial sensate skin as well as a series of related work.
The idea is to design a device that inherits the characteristics of human skin. Surveying prior work in materials, flexible electronics, sensing matrices and sensor networks, Gerardo presents a new type of artificial sensate skin: low power, scalable, mechanically flexible, and that extracts a rich set of multi modal sensor data. Also each node in SNAKE is capable of changing its behavior by changing its code. One can use SNAKE as a scalable smart material that covers interactive surfaces!
This Skin is composed of one or many Skin Patches which in turn are composed of one or many Skin Nodes. Each node is able to measure Strain, Pressure, Ambient Light, Pressure, Sound and Mechano-reception. Each Skin Patch can either work as a stand-alone device or as a data extraction device if this is attached to a Personal Computer through a different type of device referred to as Brains. Each Skin Node and therefore each Skin Patch: is Dynamically Adaptable meaning that they can adapt to external stimuli by either modifying their behavior or by completely changing their code. Construction of a sensate skin in such a modular fashion promises intrinsic scalability, where peer-to-peer connections between neighbors can reduce local data, which can then be sent to the brain by the high-speed common backbone.
Paradiso observed two general trends in sensor networks: Either the individual sensors are routed to a central processing unit or as completely decentralized sensor networks. So in SNAKE, data can be processed locally because each node is given processing power. Each node can also be connected to each other to create a skin like surface to react to the same kinds of stimuli that our skin encounters. The idea of a communication link between nodes is inspired by how our cells communicate with one another. When stimulated they generate an electrical pulse, informing our brain, while also releasing neurochemical transmitters received by neighboring cells.
Each skin patch in SNAKE is a sensor network composed by sensor nodes. Each node is made of a multi layer, flexible circuit substrate that sense six physical quantities: Stain/Bending by using two orthogonal custom made strain gages. Proximity/Activity by using a piezoelectric cantilever. Absolute pressure by using a quantum-tunneling effect material. Ambient light by adding an integrated sensor. Audio by adding a MEMS microphone. Temperature by using an integrated temperature sensor.
Related work in the field
Paintable Computer designed by William Butera for his PhD thesis at MIT. Paintable Computing is: "An agglomerate of numerous, finely dispersed, ultra miniaturized computing particles; each positioned randomly, running asynchronously and communicating locally -Butera".
Tribble designed by Josh Lifton is a tactile reactive interface built by linked elements assembled in a sphere made up of tiles. The advantage of this work is to be a completely decentralized network; each node is capable of processing its own generated data without the need of a centralized processing unit. The cons is probably its shape, fixed, preventing it of being a scalable smart surface. Also it is power hungry!
Tribble
Pushpin Computing
The project developed by Josh Lifton & Michael Broxton consists of a hundred of peer-to-peer wireless sensor nodes freely distributed over a table-top interface.
Pushpin
Recreating the sense of touch have been explored by many other researchers, but all of them rely on a centralized processing unit to process the data extracted from the sensors. For instance, Lumelsky's sensitive skin, a prototype of a skin patch with infrared lights and receivers used as proximity sensors. Hakozaki created a flexible robot skin to cover wide robot surfaces. Rekimoto presents a capacitive "smart skin" sensor for use in interactive surfaces.
Also prior work as shown artificial sensate skins not implemented as sensor networks but as sensor matrices: each sensor must be individually routed to a central processing unit. This is the case for instance for Takao Someya and his large flexible sensor matrix with organic field effect transistors or for M. Sergio's textile-based capacitive sensor array that can be used as sensitive skin.
Takao Someya' sensor matrix
An artificial sensate skin needs to be flexible. The innovative work of Stephanie Lacour is probably the most prominent example. She has created a new conducting material that can be stretched and still retain their electronic properties this by depositing thin gold layers on elastic rubber substrates. Also one can refer to the work done on the e-paper by Jacobson, micro capsules, filled with electronically loaded white parts that were dissolved in a dark colored oil.
-> Link <- to the .pdf of Pérez thesis.
Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Yard sale treasures
This summer is the perfect period for yard sales! I have a few secret collections that are building up! All of them related to my research of course. One of my recent find is this vintage electronic kit for children, "discover the magic and mystery of electronics in minutes". Working in a group that researches on a seamless and tangible relationship to digital information, I find this child's game particularly of interest.
Each block represents an electronic component. As the child assembles the blocks together, the child designs a circuit. All the pieces have a magnet underneath. They can be assembled on a metallic large plate, plate that works as the circuit ground. The game is about electronics, analog electronics, but the iteration process of electronics discovery is "tangible". The child can relate to the kit like a puzzle and by this is invited to experiment with each piece. Many authors have claimed that the understanding of electronics is hands-on. Making this process connected to the learning of electronic symbols + offering a puzzle based interaction to circuit design is very exciting! Now there is a consequence to the connection of the pieces, where the electronics knowledge starts and the children are empowered in the design, focusing essentially on their component and how they spatially fits. Later on they can move on to working directly with the components ...
I have a more recent version of an electronic kit that shows directly the components, not the symbols. The connection is made by inserting wires between each component. I much prefer the puzzle based approach that welcome easy improvisation and experimentation with circuit design.
Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
