Sandy Pentland, a researcher at MIT whose work has received funding from Nokia, is working on processing more than 350,000 hours of data collected from peoples’ cell phones. More than just who calls who, Pentland is also studying proximity, location and activity data using information like interactions recorded between Bluetooth devices.

  MIT Researcher Collecting Passive Social Graph Data From Cellphone Activity, Bluetooth

Well almost…Following our last workshop which was held at the offices of Robert and Wakoopa, we decided that it was time to start developing “in the wild”, in more real world situations. We are looking for partners with locations who are open to experimentation and willing to work together. What we can offer is a team of eager developers and a evolving presence-based server technology which can be rolled into different use-cases. We will listen to your needs, explore possibilities together and do what most web-developers already do or should be doing, which is listening to users and iterating new improved designs. User-driven design methodology sounds quite wordy, but it cuts through a lot of assumptions that might often lead nowhere fast and take a long time to change course.

Space 1:
We are looking for a quieter location, where you might find people reading, talking without needing to shout.

Space 2:
The other location is a more nightlife-like space. Perhaps a bar with music. The sound level has to be high enough to not be able to hear other people talk (intermittantly) thus providing design limitations which the team will need to work around. We hope to eventually explore clubs, but baby steps first.

We are working from amsterdam. If you feel left out of this research, drop us a line, if you are willing to set up yourselves than we can start experimenting in other cities too. Software update for roomware server is soon to follow.

With a new server, and Trac running to coordinate work on the code base, we aim to take this project to the next level.

We do want to invite design students on board to earn credit for collaboration. You will get the opportunity to explore open-source practises, and bring your creative juices into contact with real situations rather than the white box of the lab and classroom.

(picture of Roomware Server running FlickrPickr at ApacheCon 2007)

“A proposal for an upcoming Canadian Museum for Human Rights suggests a wide range of advanced interactive technologies, including “a gesture-responsive wall full of factual information that will work in a fashion SIMILAR TO NINTENDO WII technology,” according to a report in the Edmonton Journal. “With a simple swipe of the hand in the air, visitors will be able to turn virtual pages.” You won’t even have to remember what you saw: “Visitors will be given a ‘human rights key’ that will provide a digital recollection of their experiences that they can later take home.” The museum is scheduled to open in four years in Winnipeg.”

via the raw feed

Originally uploaded by tizzle.

My Amazon order just arrived. This is required reading for Roomwarians b.t.w.

For a semi live stream of the conference check out my Flickr photo’s…

At some point in our work we realised that the way creative people get to know about technology and how to use it was very “casual”, there was no company (that we knew of) that was completely dedicated to this.

We have been doing this for years but in a very “casual” way ourselves. Now, please welcome Tinker.it!

Tinker.it! makes products and platforms to help designers and artists make the best use of digital technologies. We cover the whole design and artistic process by providing early consultancy during the concept phase down to the implementation stage. Being part of the Arduino project means we are on the forefront of this business.

We work on three main areas of expertise:

Disseminating knowledge by teaching workshops and classes in various institutions and companies around the world.
“Experiences” are the new materials for designers and artists. We transform raw technologies into materials for creative people throught our interactive prototyping toolkit. We provide a catalogue of “experiences” that a designer or and artist can use in their projects.
Consulting designers, artists and architect on how to use digital technologies in their projects. We start at the beginning of the creative process by helping you brainstorm and continue down to the production of small series, all with Italian quality.
One area I’m particuarly fond of is this concept that for the modern designer using technology , especially sensor technology, is becoming part their everyday life. This technologies are always presented in a very “nerdy” way that has nothing to do with the “experience” they provide to whoever uses them.

Starting from this point we have been building a toolkit and a “library” that allows creative people to experience these technologies and make the “experience” the material not the chip or the piece of technology.

At the moment there is very little out there about it.. we are testing it with our “beta” users and will start revealing more and more in the next few weeks…

Next stop the tinker.it! party in milan in march… See you there.

Massimo

http://www.tinker.it/

Mike Resnick introduces an interesting language called scratch if you fast forward to about 20 minutes. You can see him building programs using a easy to use language that even children can use. He discusses this language in the context of education and children. It would be a super handy language for developing roomware apps too!

you can download a beta of this software on the scratch site or go to a toy company that sells kits of interactive toys and offers the software free.

Besides that, Mike Renwick gives a really interesting lecture on learning and technology