In Receiver #14, James Katz wrote an interesting article entitled “The future of a futuristic device” where he describes why lots of people perceive the mobile phone to be a futurist tool, and what they might want in their phones. An interesting part of the paper deals with how early adopters say that having the most advanced mobile phone technology makes them feel like they are living in the future:
“This “living in the future” sense has both intrinsic and extrinsic attractions. In terms of intrinsic attraction, having futuristic devices suggests that the users have more insight and power than those left behind in the past. They are in several senses visitors who are experiencing today what others can only experience later. In terms
of extrinsic attraction, future-oriented users can avail themselves of distinctive pleasures and conveniences. If knowledge is power, then the users of futuristic devices appear to have the knowledge to command resources and deal with various contingencies. In essence, this bestows power: they know what other people’s future will be like.“
Why do I blog this? what the future is can definitely be seen as a social construct. Perhaps some good material here for some of a student I am working with on the role of imagination in design.
Une nouvelle maladie techno-psychologique?
A noter, pour contrebalancer en partie ce que dit Nicolas Nova: les "early adopters" sont aussi souvent ceux qui terminent le développement d'un produit (déboguent), etc. et servent de béta-testeurs payants pour celui-ci!
During the E3 2009 expo, which was held from the 2nd to the 5th of June, Microsoft presented Project Natal. The project brings human-computer interaction without an electronic input device to the masses. By capturing your full body movement and your voice (and being able of doing this for several people at the same time) it brings gameplay to an entirely new level.
Here is the video:
Interesting to see is that again activities within games which up till now didn’t seem fun enough for the player to be involved in, are suddenly becoming much more interesting simply because the type of interaction has changed (the video shows an example of changing the tires during a race). The same thing happened when the Nintendo Wii was introduced. By adding more physical engagement, the fun-factor of certain activities is increased.
Could this be a general rule within gaming and other activities which involve play? More physical engagement equals more fun? Off course it’s not applicable to every type of game, and the amount of fun or ’satisfaction’ one gets from playing a game isn’t only determined by the degree of physical engagement (think of puzzle or strategy games where this is achieved on a more reflective level), but it certainly proves to be quite a big factor.
This technology will soon find it’s way out of the gaming industry and into other industries, as Steven Spielberg already indicated at the E3. The question now is how big it’s impact will be.
This is a pivotal moment that will carry with it a wave of change, the ripples of which will reach far beyond video games - Steven Spielberg
Un pas plus loin que la Wii? Pas certain que ce principe d'interaction "sans rien" fonctionne avec tous les jeux ou tous les contenus, mais pour de l'"air guitar", ça ira très bien!
Prévoir un grand salon, des meubles solides et pas trop dommages en cas de casse (adieu le beau canapé, les vases de designers, tableaux, beaux tapis, luminaires, etc.), une pièce bien éclairée et certainement un sol ainsi que des murs clairs!
[Image: Mike Bouchet's Watershed being towed through Venice towards the Arsenale basin, against a backdrop of Italian palazzi].
Note: This is a guest post by Nicola Twilley.
The 2009 Venice Biennale opened this week with an unexpected and quite beautiful piece of performance art. Artist Mike Bouchet had built a one-to-one scale replica of a typical American surburban home that he planned to install on floating pontoons in the Venice Arsenale basin. He called the project Watershed.
David Birnbaum, the Biennale's curator, told camera crews filming the installation that he thought the project "sounded a bit megalomaniac," but the sight of the oversized house, clad in beige vinyl, flimsily bobbing up and down against a backdrop of palazzi and piazzi as it was towed through Venice's canals, was breathtaking. It was an architectural icon of the American Dream revealed in all its formulaic absurdity.
Amazingly, then, one of the pontoons capsized, and the entire house sank to the bottom of the canal—an unintentional yet utterly perfect coda to the house's own built-in commentary. Now, a fake generic American suburban home will add its ruins to the underwater archaeology of Venice.
[Image: Mike Bouchet's Watershed goes down].
A two-minute video of the house's journey, and eventual fate, can be seen in full on YouTube.
This blog is the survey website of fabric | ch - studio for architecture, interaction and research.
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