Finally a site that works as a ticket hub between buyers and sellers of concert tickets, sports tickets and theater tickets. How convenient to have the info gather into one site, especially when the platform invites seller and buyer of tickets to trade with one another. I have not tried to get some tickets there yet, but I wonder how hard it is to get some tickets for Wimbledon.
This online exchange is for Europe only, so this site can be especially useful for the ones of you who live in Europe, and I wonder if there is a similar service for the United States. I still find difficult in Boston to know what's going on and an online system to trade tickets for shows, concerts, art events is a fantastic approach.
The viagogo web site sponsors the following weekly UK events list:
Rock and Pop Concert Tickets:
· Celine Dion Tickets · Boyzone Tickets · Bruce Springsteen Tickets · Foo Fighters Tickets · Nickelback Tickets · Madonna Tickets · James Tickets · Queen tickets · Paul Rodgers Tickets · Van Halen Tickets · Oasis Tickets · Michael Jackson Tickets . Alternative and Indie Concert Tickets · Coldplay Tickets · Radiohead Tickets
Festival Tickets:
· T in the Park Tickets · Leeds Festival Tickets · O2 Wireless Festival Tickets
Sport Tickets: Wimbledon Tickets
Buy Concert Tickets and Tennis Tickets.
So lucky you UK ones, not only you have pretty cool events coming up, but you know how to get there. The platform goes beyond the sponsored list of events above and proposes comedy, opera, ballet and dance, flowers shows ... and even Avenue Q!!! Get back in time with West End musical Avenue Q. Experience the fun you had with Sesame Street as a child from a more grown up perspective today. All but three of the characters in the musical are puppets who parody the famous Muppets of Sesame Street. Princeton, a young graduate with a "useless" major in English, arrives in New York with big hopes and a very small bank account which leaves him no choice but to move into the not so fine but friendly Avenue Q. He soon discovers life and love in the Big Apple with his new neighbours.
Friday, May 09, 2008
Online platform to trade concert tickets!
Mini tech in fashion
The Masai dress!
Discovered via Stumbleupon, Studio 5050 makes really cool products: from a dress that generates musical patterns as the wearer moves, to the moi "a light to wear, a light to share!
Inspired by Masai wedding collars, this dress salutes both our global provenance and our desire to create our own soundtrack as we move in mysterious ways. With every step, strings of hand-formed silver beads that hung from the collar brush against conductive threads sewn into the dress, generating a series of sounds. A leisurely walk or a night at a cocktail party turns into an improvisational performance.
A long asymmetrical swoop in the back of the dress recalls Balenciaga’s famed wedding dress – an homage to a maestro that visually and aurally blends cultures, traditions and emotions. The dress comes in a luscious deep-sky blue silk jersey and white nourishing Sea-Tiva (75% cotton, 25% algae).
The company also design modules, a series of electronic building blocks for creating systems that sense and respond. The modules were originally created to help them rapidly develop new wearable applications but they now are available to the public to create any interaction design project!
Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
Thursday, May 08, 2008
International PhD Studentship in Tectonic Textiles!
An announcement for the good cause. I know how hard it is to find a great PhD in a field that you love! Here is a call for an international PhD studentship in tectonic textiles between the Centre for IT and Architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, and the Textiles Future Research Group, Central Saint Martins, College of Art and Design.
The position will be based in both research environments so as to make full use of the expertise and equipment available. The applicant will be expected to move between the institutions placed in Copenhagen and London, respectively. The position is offered as a 3-year contract under the regulations of the Danish Ministry of Finance and the Danish Federation of Professional Associations, AC.
This Ph.D. application will be administerd by CITA.
Click ->here<- for further information
The deadline for application is 23 May 2008. Material received by CITA after this time will not be taken into account.
A bit of research context for the studentship
The last decade has seen an extensive development in the textile industry. The invention of new high technology fibres and yarns as well as new fabrication techniques for weaving, knitting, pleating, welding or laminating of materials, is causing an increase in the use of textiles across multiple disciplines. From the miniature detailing of knitted arteries inserted into the body to the extreme scales of geotextiles, textiles are entering new fields of fabrication, hybridising existing technologies and inventing new ones. In architecture, the metaphor of textiles is increasingly informing design practice. Whereas textiles have always been used in tensile structures and within the interior, the idea of weaving, pleating or knitting a building is challenging traditional construction techniques. The idea of a curtain wall, an independent and self-supporting membrane of steel and glass that wraps around the building, is now being explored through the metaphor of fabric.
One of the key developments in this technological innovation has been the emergence of smart textiles, or intelligent textiles, that embed digital technology in woven, pleated or knitted surfaces. These materials enable wiring or circuitry to become a direct part of the material. Intelligent clothes, wearables and soft computing are research fields that have been receiving huge amounts of international interest during the last decade. The use of conductive threads and fabrics and the embroidery of standard electronic components as well as stand-alone microprocessors have allowed the imagining of a material that holds its own capacity for sensing and actuation. Here, state-changes: the intensification of colour, the emergence of light or the stirring of movement, allow the material itself to become a reactive surface that engages with its occupant or wearer. These materials have mostly had their application in the development of smart uniforms for the military, but have also lead to more experimental and probing explorations allowing for a new conditioning of technology as something soft, pliable, adaptive and mobile. Questioning the idea of a fixed user behind a standard terminal within a rigid office environment, these investigations propose a flexible technology that ultimately is ported and changed by its usage.
The International PhD Studentship will focus on the siting of these technologies within an architectural research context. Investigating the embedding of soft technology within the interior, the project will seek to define new means by which a dynamic and user-controlled architecture can be imagined. It is the intention that the candidate will work in a practice-based and experimental manner where direct experience and engagement with materials and technologies will create the foundation for innovative research.
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Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Fashionable Technology: The Intersection of Design, Fashion, Science, and Technology
July 2008 
I have authored a chapter in Fashionable Technology, book edited by Sabine Seymour!
I present my work on fashion garments designed in the context of technology -including the Touch Sensitive apparel developed with Yasmine Abbas. The book just came out and is available for pre-order on Amazon -> here<- 
Abstract: The interplay of electronic textiles and wearable technology, wearables for short, and fashion, design and science is a highly promising and topical subject. Offered here is a compact survey of the theory involved and an explanation of the role technology plays in a fabric or article of clothing. The practical application is explained in detail and numerous illustrations serve as clarification. Over 50 well-known designers, research institutes, companies and artists, among them Philips, Burton, MIT Media Lab, XS Labs, New York University, Hussein Chalayan, Cute Circuit or International Fashion Machines are introduced by means of their latest, often still unpublished, project, and a survey of their work to date. Given for the first time is a list of all the relevant information on research institutes, materials, publications etc. A must for all those wishing to know everything about fashionable technology.
->Buy the book<-
Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure.............................................................................................
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Keep in touch: a tactile-vision intimate interface
Keep in Touch designed by Nima Motamedi at Simon Fraser University, Canada, is a networked fabric touchscreen designed to support and maintain intimacy for couples in long distance relationships. To achieve this she created a novel sensorial interface by combining the visual and tactile senses together. Each partner is presented with a blurred digital projection of their lover. When they touch their partner's body, the image comes into focus revealing their features.
In the paper presented at TEI in 2007, the authors describe how this sensory mapping creates an expressive and emotional interface allowing couples to communicate through touch, gestures, and body language.
See also her paper: The aesthetics of touch in interaction design!
See also Mutsugoto by Tomoko Hayashi, Stefan Agamanolis and Matthew Karau.
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Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Design a multi touch pad in 15 min
I love this type of video tutorial. Here is a tutorial on how to make your own multi touch pad in 15 minutes using a web cam, cardboard box, a piece of glass and software. I think some regular ambient light is needed! Also the next step, not the least difficult, is to have the software running. The idea is when you place you fingers on the surface, you create shadows with your fingers. The webcam detects these shadows, sends the image to the tracking software to track the shadows as they move around.
Below are some basic info to start:
Materials
* Cardboard Box
* Piece of Clear Flat Sturdy Material (ie. Glass, acrylic, plexiglas)
* Paper (ie. printer paper, tracing paper, almost any paper)
* Webcam or Video Camera
* Computer
* Optional Picture Frame
Finger Tracking Software
* Touchlib Beta v2: - Written by David Wallen
* Download, unzip and copy the config.xml into your touchlib directory
More by AudioTouch - Via.
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Monday, May 05, 2008
Three days in Vancouver, Canada …
Granville Island
I was off for a few days to Vancouver city, the town that brings together the mountain, the ocean and the forest. I was here to give a talk at Simon Fraser University for the 25th Anniversary of the Faculty of Business Administration. The department will make a DVD of the talk (for education purposes only).
My trip to Vancouver was delightful! My hosts: Dr. Judy Zaichkowsky (Research Director and Marketing Area Co-ordinator) and Dr. Olga Volkoff, professor MIS, were fantastic. From my stay in a lovely hotel (Four Seasons Hotel), walking, driving trips throughout Vancouver, boat tour to reach the Island where all you find is handmade craft work as well as houses floating on the water, to the most delicate restaurant: Le Crocodile, I never felt so empowered in giving a talk!!! The crowd was enthusiast and receptive: a combination of business & art & tech professors and students with business attendees. The research we do in our group was embraced and according to many comments and emails after the talk: inspiring. Nothing better than being inspiring!! So I go back home with wonderful souvenirs, great contacts, cute pictures (I had my iPhone so took a tone!!).
The Surrey Campus, Simon Fraser University.
I felt in love with the Simon Fraser University, the business department and ... the city!!! I recommend to any of you who have never been to Vancouver to immediately jump in the first flight/train. You might have to discover by yourself, but the city is so people friendly that I don't think you will have any difficulty exploring around.
I recommend (in any order)
. Granville Island : take a boat, that comes every 5 min, to go to the island. The prettiest collection of craft boutique and floating houses!
. The museum of archeology: outstanding collection of native Canadian art.
. Winners : great shopping for students, dixit Judy. I found a special edition of Addidas
. Holt Renfrew: great shopping to find designers and tailored clothing. I found a Burberry white trench coat (sold out anywhere else) and tailored trousers. I must admit that Canadians in Vancouver are particularly sweet, gentle, helpful and smiling!
. Le crocodile restaurant: a special recommendation, the French food there is excellent.
. Stanley Park
. Gastown
. Take the Skytrain to have an idea of the scope of the city!!
and dont forget to check out the inspiring talks and series at SFU!!!
A special thank to Pet Nilsson for his great comments and thoughtful blog!
Voilà!
More about inspiring research in interaction design SOON ...
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Blog Jouons
Sunday, May 04, 2008
The new Ars Electronica Centre, opening January 2009
The new Ars Electronica Centre, opening January 2009
*********** JOBS @ ARS ELECTRONICA ***********
Ars Electronica Futurelab is hiring artists and researchers
. artists /software engineers (openGL, C++)
. artists / hardware engineers (sensors and programming)
. artists / modelers (3D, real time graphics)
. technical planners (software and/or hardware and CAD)
. project managers (software, exhibition)
. designers / architects (exhibits and media in architecture)
Ars Electronica Futurelab, the R&D division of Ars Electronica founded in 1996, is an atelier/lab for media art, design, research, and production. Members of the Ars Electronica Futurelab represent a broad variety of different disciplines and nationalities, working in such areas as computer vision, sound analysis, mobile computing, generative graphics, computer controls, and computer networks.
Ars Electronica is embedded in the activities for Linz, Austria. As the European Capital of Culture in 2009, a continuously growing, vital cultural environment is guaranteed both in the city and as the working environment at the lab.
Ars Electronica Futurelab is hiring 12 to 20 new members to be part of the creation team of the new exhibits at the Ars Electronica Center as well as other projects. We are seeking both junior and senior level team members. Partially academic, partially production oriented, experts share their knowledge in workshops we call "LabAcademies," thus we are seeking both experienced teachers and avid students.
Interested persons should prepare to stay for a period of at least 12 months in Linz Austria. There is a possibility for some positions to stay even longer or become permanent. The languages spoken in the Lab are English or German.
Ars Electronica will assist foreigners to obtain work permits for Austria. Contracts may be either for employment ("freier Dienstvertrag", includes insurance packages) or as contractors ("Werkvertrag"). Annual wages vary according to experience but will generally be 23,000-30,000 E ($36,000-$50,000). Linz is a medium sized, picturesque city located on the Danube, with typical housing costs for a one-bedroom apartment of 400 E ($550) per month.
Please email your CV or resume and a short letter (including references) to: Horst Hortner
Email: futurelab [at] aec.at
More information ...
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Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Attachments to artifacts: Collect to connect to construct
I am thrilled! My proposal for book chapter titled Attachments to artifacts: Collect to connect to construct has been accepted! It will be part of the first Franco-English book that will tell you all you ever wanted to know about new technologies of the self, mobilities and (co-)constructions of identities.
In this book chapter, I explore the psychological trade-off between what we call virtual and tangible “attachments”: I focus on people’s attachments to things, and through things, their relations to people (virtual and digital). I address the digital object collection mechanism in relation to the way we gather artifacts in the physical world.
Edited by Fred Dervin, Senior Lecturer, Department of French Studies, University of Turku, Finland and partner in crime Yasmine Abbas, Doctor of Design, Harvard, USA, ReD Associates, Denmark. The book will be published in Autumn 2009.
More info ->here<-
SYNOPSIS extraits/excerpts, in both French and English
L’hypermobilité physique comme virtuelle qui touche les individus contemporains conduit à multiplier les récits et discours sur les rencontres avec les autres, mais aussi avec soi-même. Qu’ils soient issus de migrants, membres de diasporas, réfugiés, personnes en mobilité à court ou long-terme, résidents virtuels, internautes, etc., ces témoignages sont transmis à travers différents média et espaces personnels et publics: du simple coup de téléphone au site internet et à l’e-mail, ou à travers des autobiographies, des témoignages écrits et oraux, des articles de presse, des documentaires, etc. L’avènement de nouveaux espaces relationnels tels que ceux proposés par les Webs 2.0 et 3.0 (weblogs, podcasts, vidéocasts, Facebook, Second Life, Youtube…) offre la possibilité à la fois de faire partager ses expériences de mobilité au quotidien et de construire son soi face à/avec des millions d’interlocuteurs potentiels et ce, de manière multimodale. La présence de ces témoignages de mobilité, qui s’apparentent à des actes de confession, donne accès à des données intéressantes et inédites dans plusieurs langues et cela, de façon illimitée…
The new interpersonal spaces created by web 2.0 and 3.0 technologies seem to correspond to the technologies of the self that Michel Foucault (1988) has addressed in his lectures at the Collège de France at the beginning of the 1980s. These new technologies enable the individual’s self to emerge publicly and to be worked upon with its “disciples”: be they companions in Second Life, readers (for example on a blog) or listeners (Podcasts). With high speed Internet access and increasingly generous capacities of storage (mp3, USB keys, iPhone, portable computers…), the opportunities for staging the self have become unlimited…
MEDIA TREATED blogs, forum, Life Forms, MMS, moblogging, mondes virtuels, photo et vidéo, photos et vidéos mobiles, robots de compagnie, sites Internet, téléphones portables. | Craigslist, digital artifacts, Del.ici.ous, World of Warcrafts, Facebook, Gaming, Geolocalisation, MMORPG, retail surveillance devices, SilkRoad online, Social Networking, YouTube, WWOOF, Second Life.
THEMES Photographies en mobilité, espaces relationnels, hétérogénéité culturelle, industries culturelles, identités migratoires, identité hmong, diaspora, NOTICs (Nouveaux Objets issus des Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication), infoguerre, mouvement en danse, personnage virtuel, avatars, Autre imaginaire, voyage réel et virtuel | Attachment, backpacking, collection, collective identity, participatory culture, politics, rhythm, second self, tourism, tribalism, virtual nomadism. Attachment, backpacking, collection, collective identity, participatory culture, politics, rhythm, second self, tourism, tribalism, virtual nomadism.
I could not help but join this picture sent to us by Edith Ackermann, also selected by Yasmine Abbas, because it directly refers to the ideal of mobility and its beautiful sacrifice. Edith says:" i am in Switzerland moving out from my apartment: a sweet dump i had rented since i am a student, filled with paintings from my grand father, mom’s carpets, and leather coated books. i never had to let go of so many evocative objects at once. a bit overwhelming really, but i guess i will feel lighter once i am done. good i have my “final home” coat, a gift from my japanese friend noboyuki…. objects come, objects go! and so do people :) " Edith tells us all about it ->here<-
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Blog Jouons
New interaction technique for timeline control in video scenes
Dragon is a research project by Thorsten Karrer, Malte Weiss, and others at the Media Computing Group, RWTH Aachen University in Germany.
Objects on video scenes are used to control their trajectories in time, basically any object that appears in the video becomes a slider that can control the video timeline. The project is meant to be a "more" frame-accurate in-scene video navigation than usual systems and during studies users found more natural the use of this video navigation "slider" than traditional timeline sliders. It seems to me a great WYSIWYG for video!
->Video <-
Abstract
We present DRAGON, a direct manipulation interaction technique for frame-accurate navigation in video scenes.
This technique benefits tasks such as professional and amateur video editing, review of sports footage, and forensic analysis of video scenes.
By directly dragging objects in the scene along their movement trajectory, DRAGON enables users to quickly and precisely navigate to a specific point in the video timeline where an object of interest is in a desired location. Examples include the specific frame where a sprinter crosses the finish line, or where a car passes a traffic light.
Through a user study, we show that DRAGON significantly reduces task completion time for in-scene navigation tasks by an average of 19–42% compared to a standard timeline slider.
Qualitative feedback from users is also positive, with multiple users indicating that the DRAGON interaction felt more natural than the traditional slider for in-scene navigation.
Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure.............................................................................................
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