Talk on Prototyping by Yaniv Steiner November 17, 2006
Posted by reto wettach in innovation process, prototyping tools.2 comments
My former colleague Yaniv Steiner, which whom I taught the wonderful course “Strangely Familar” in Ivrea, gave a talk on prototyping in interaction design. Here you can find a podcast and the slides.
He is also talking about the process, in which prototyping should be embedded:
I especially like Yaniv’s thought “keep it open”: prototyping should always stay a step within a process, never arrive at the goal!
(Regine from wemakemoneynotart went to Yaniv’s talk and wrote a nice blog entry)
Table Projection combined with handheld displays March 23, 2006
Posted by reto wettach in innovative interfaces, physical interaction design, prototyping tools.add a comment
At Cebit, I say this interesting interface, whereare tablet PCs would be used to augment a table projection. The scenario of this system is e.g. the planning of police actions in Berlin. On the table is a arial photo of the target area; the tablet PCs would give a high-resolution image or a different view of the location seen on the table. The system has been developed by Fraunhofer IITB.
I guess the technology behind this system could be quite interesting for us.
interesting RFID tags March 23, 2006
Posted by reto wettach in making the invisible visible, prototyping tools, rfid.add a comment
The RFID-tag-producer Avery Dennison designed quite interesting looking antennas, specialized for various applications. I talked to their application engineer during the Cebit and I think we should invite them to my university.
NADA – Another Physical Prototyping Environment March 15, 2006
Posted by reto wettach in prototyping tools.1 comment so far
As Interaction Design is going beyond the desktop, tools to prototype interactive ideas are becoming more and more important. Today I read about Nada, a Microcontroller by a company called “Sketch Tools – Technology is great, when it dissapears”. Their microcontroller costs 100$. They seem to be quite new, because there are no entries in “gallery” nor in “forum”. Technically they are close to Flash and Java and I don’t see any advantage to the system, I am using right now: Arduino.
Sun goes Physical March 8, 2006
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With SunSPOT (Small Programmable Object Technology) Sun is widening their JAVA-platform to the physical world. The Art Center in Pasadena and the media artist Sukumaran have been playing with this new prototyping device. Unfortunaltely the price of 499$ with development kit and 2 units is a little too much for experimenting…
Glowing Fabric February 27, 2006
Posted by reto wettach in light, prototyping tools.1 comment so far
Luminex is a new kind of fabric from Italy -a fabric that glows. A piece 35 X 50 cm costs in the online shop 50 Euro, not including the battery. They also sell glowing bras…
Scripting Tool for PC February 11, 2006
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AutoIt v3 is a freeware BASIC-like scripting language designed for automating the Windows GUI and general scripting. It uses a combination of simulated keystrokes, mouse movement and window/control manipulation in order to automate tasks in a way not possible or reliable with other languages
BioMetal’s elektrischer Muskeldraht January 12, 2006
Posted by reto wettach in gadgets, prototyping tools.add a comment
Ein weiteres Entdeckung auf meiner Japanreise machte ich in Akihabara (Electric Town): Dort fand ich Biometal der japanischen Firma TOKI , ein Shapememoryalloy. Wenn Strom an diesen Draht angelegt wird, zieht es sich zusammen – ähnlich wie ein Muskel und überraschenderweise völlig lautlos. Ivan Poupyrev hat dieses Material für sein Projekt LUMEN eingesetzt: LUMEN ist ein Display, bei dem die einzelnen Pixel in eine Richtung bewegt werden können. Wer Genaueres wissen will, kann hier nachschauen.
