October 11, 2004
CatchBob
CatchBob! is an experimental platform in the form of a mobile game for running psychological experiments. It is designed to elicit collaborative behavior of people working together on a mobile activity.
Running on a mobile device (iPAQ, TabletPc), it's a collaborative hunt in which groups of three persons have to find and circle a virtual object on our campus.
Posted by richard ting at October 11, 2004, 05:29 PM
September 09, 2004
Location and Presence in Mobile Data Services
by Jonathan Grubb and Shawn Smith
“Mobile technology is expanding our design toolkit beyond the desktop, and those who embrace this technology to enhance the core functions of their products will offer their users a superior experience.”The emergence of a handful of popular mobile data services has changed the way we interact with our phones. Now, several technologies on the immediate horizon are about to change the way we (and our phones) interact with the world. Imagine…
- You’re about to call your friend, but when you highlight her name in your address book, you see that she’s driving in the city. Since it’s just a social call, you decide to leave her a voicemail instead.
- Your phone rings while you’re in a crowded movie theater. You automatically know the call is urgent; otherwise, your phone would have automatically silenced itself.
- You’re wandering through the Paul Klee exhibit at the MOMA, enjoying the audio tour—and enjoying the fact that you didn’t need to borrow a special audio player; a hidden transmitter next to each painting delivers the content to your phone.
- You’re out and about, and your phone beeps to tell you there’s an open house nearby that meets the requirements you specified through an online real estate service. You don’t have time to tour the house, but you do have time to drive by. You stop in front of the For Sale sign, which contains a transmitter that delivers detailed information about the house to your phone.
Posted by richard ting at September 09, 2004, 02:05 AM
November 25, 2003
Tag & Scan
TagandScan gives mobile users a ‘sixth sense’ of information about their environment through their GPRS Java-enabled mobile phones. The service is available on any of the UK’s major mobile networks: Vodafone, Orange, O2 and T-Mobile.
Subscribers have access to public ‘grids’ of information visible to all Tagandscan subscribers or an unlimited number of private grids that only the individual can see. Public grids enable users to see history,explanations, events, reviews and opinions of anything located in the physical world, which become available to users when they ‘scan’ for tags by proximity and keyword, then displaying the results on a map.
To leave their own mark on the virtual world , users ‘tag’ a location with their mobile phone, creating a digital record of the location, time, their thoughts and opinions, and even a picture – effectively leaving ‘digital Post-Its’ or ‘digital graffiti’ in the world around you. TagandScan users subsequently ‘scan’ to recall the information left by themselves or others at the touch of a button.
Posted by richard ting at November 25, 2003, 06:51 PM
November 19, 2003
GeoStickies
GeoStickies is an interactive public art project that enables us to make and access to collective of personal memory that could have been overlaid on to urban space. The project puts some "tags" of small events onto geographical fields so that the audience can feel correspondence between "Information space" and "Urban space" . The audience will find tiny electronic memorials for tiny events. But those are only visible or able to be experienced through mobile phones.
The role of mobile phones in this artwork is to make this information space accessible to the audience from anywhere . With the help of a location sensing system in the existing mobile phone network, the audience can walk through information space as if they were walking through urban space.
Posted by richard ting at November 19, 2003, 07:42 PM
GPS Drawings
Large-scale digital mark making using GPS satellite navigation technology.
In essence GPS Drawing is about recording lines using ones journey as a mark making medium. The GPS receiver automatically records your journey like a geodesic pencil.
A GPS receiver is a navigational aid that reads timed signals from a network of more than 24 swarming satellites to calculate a position on earth. They are accurate to within 15 meters on average and with four or more satellites in view, a receiver can determine the user's 3D position using latitude, longitude and altitude.
Posted by richard ting at November 19, 2003, 07:39 PM
uncleroyalallaroundyou
Uncle Roy All Around You sets online players alongside players on the streets of the city. Street Players search for Uncle Roy through the back streets, the tourist traps and the leafy boulevards with a handheld computer. Online Players cruise through a virtual model of the same area, searching for the Street Players and looking for leads that will help them find Uncle Roy. Using web cams, audio and text messages players must work together. They have 60 minutes and the clock is ticking...
Posted by richard ting at November 19, 2003, 07:25 PM
canyouseemenow?
For two days, players online were able to play against members of Blast Theory in a chase live on the streets of Sheffield.
Online, your player was dropped onto a map of Sheffield city centre. On the streets, tracked by satellites, Blast Theory runners used handheld scanners to track you down.
With up to 20 people playing online at a time, players could exchange tactics and send messages while an audio stream from Blast Theory's walkie talkies allowed you to eavesdrop on your pursuers: getting lost, cold and out of breathe on the streets of Sheffield.
Posted by richard ting at November 19, 2003, 07:20 PM
October 07, 2003
Talking Street
Get the map, choose a stop, call the number and listen — it's as easy to use as an audio guide in a museum. Anyone with a cell phone can enjoy the tour at any time. The tour is free, but your own cell phone charges still apply. The toll-free number is 1-800-644-3545.
There are 13 stops, and each lasts about two minutes. You can visit them in any order you want, at your own pace. After each stop, just hang up and then call back when you get to the next stop. On most cell phones, you can press "send" twice to redial the last phone number.
The whole tour will take about an hour and a half, including walking time.
