Entries from Orange Cone tagged with 'smart objects'
"Smart Things" references
"Smart Things," my book on ubiquitous computing user experience design is approaching completion. The final draft is done, we're working on the interior design and cover and it's available for pre-order from Amazon now. If everything goes well, it will...
ThingM launches MaxM!
Woohoo! ThingM's second product, BlinkM MaxM, has hit the store shelves (first at Sparkfun, soon at FunGizmos). It's (to quote myself), "BlinkMs bigger, crazy sibling. It's an intensely-bright smart LED for prototyping that comes as a package of two...
eProvenance, a wine information shadow service
Luxist reports on a new service to help track the provenance of wine. When Tod and I were at NextFest we spoke to some folks at Hitachi who had contemplated using their RFID technology to do the same thing,...
Information Shadows in children's experiences
There are two projects I've become aware of recently that represent the explicit linking of physical objects to their information shadows, both in children's products. This kind of thing has existed before, but its prevalence seems to be on the...
Tom beat me to it
This is what I get for writing a blog, but not reading any. I've been talking about merging the physical and digital worlds and I knew I wasn't the only one doing it, but it's kind of embarrassing when I...
Whirlpool centralpark, Cozi and "domestic groupware"
Here here's your latest computer fridge news: Whirlpool has partnered with a domestic groupware software company called Cozi. Right now, it's just a branding partnership with Cozi's calendar/to-do list/grocery list etc. software for families, but it's clear where this is...
BlinkMs for sale
ThingM's first product, BlinkM is now for sale from Sparkfun. BlinkM is a smart LED. What's a smart LED? Well, on the one hand, it's the atomic unit of ubiquitous computing: an RGB LED and a CPU. Input, processing,...
Digital rings, Disney and New Urbanism
The title implies more mean than this blog post will have in it, but in my research on digital rings, I discovered an amusing factoid: the first people to have worn digital jewelry on a regular basis are the children...
Magic ring prototypes
Hideaki Matsui's ring-based concept made the blog rounds this week, and it's only the latest of a trend of ring-shaped ubicomp devices (as helpfully cataloged by Yanko Design): Right now they replicate simple functions that may be done better by...
Evolution of the Fridge Computer
Doing some research for my upcoming CHIFOO presentation, I realized that there have been a number of attempts at merging computers and refrigerators. Here's a timeline: 1998: The V-sync "Internet Refrigerator" "With a speedy Pentium II microprocessor and huge hard...
ThingM makes a smart object
Yesterday I had the pleasure and honor of speaking at the Information Architecture Institute's IDEA Conference in New York. I got to share the stage with David Rose, CEO of Ambient Devices, probably the most pioneering consumer ubicomp company. The...
Wine as an informational object
[I wrote this for the ThingM newsletter that went out yesterday, but thought it may be of broader interest] #flickr_badge_source_txt {padding:0; font: 11px Arial, Helvetica, Sans serif; color:#666666;} #flickr_badge_icon {display:block !important; margin:0 !important; border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0) !important;}...
Ubicomp and kitchens: "When a knife talks to a toaster, what do they say?"
I had the great privilege of speaking at the Taste3 conference on wine, food and art in Napa today. This is a terrific conference that's run as a kind of "TED for food" by many of the folks who...
WineM, a ThingM technology sketch
I've talked about video scenarios and sketching before. Well, now that ThingM is up and rolling, i figured it was time to practice what I was preaching. Today we put the first of our Technology Sketches, which are video scenarios...
Smart Furniture + IKEA
A group in Switzerland has been doing some interesting experiments with technology embedded in everyday objects that helps people use those objects. Two of their papers were mentioned on Engadget and I enjoyed what they had to say. One paper,...
REXplorer: Magic as historical explanation metaphor
Researchers and designers at Aachen University and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have a magical user experience design project called REXplorer. As described in their paper entitled REXplorer: A Pervasive Spell-Casting Game for Tourists as Social Software, REXplorer...
National's Smart Bed
It looks like National (aka Matsushita/Panasonic) is launching a smart bed. It's a combination of a bed with a pressure-sensitive pad (roughly serving a similar duty to the sensors in Stanford's Sleepsmart project [120K PDF]) and an ambient environment that's...
Smart Furniture in Fiction
A short story about the animist perils of ubicomp.
Smart Furniture Manifesto v2
Version 2 of the Smart Furniture Manifesto, as published in the June 2004 issue of Metropolis Magazine
"Remote Furniture" at SIGGRAPH
Noriyuki Fujimura's "Remote Furniture" piece is a nice smart furniture piece with two rocking chairs that create a conversation.
Adam on Smart Furniture
Adam Greenfield challenges my Smart Furniture Manifesto.
Smart Furniture Side Show, Part 3
I conclude my 2ad Smart Furniture Side Show talk by talking about cars and concluding by noting that all of these are just examples of the kinds of questions that we can start asking about how technology can be included into every objects.
Smart Furniture Side Show, Part 2
I continue my 2ad talk transcript by talking about beds and office cubicles.
Smart Furniture Side Show, Part 1
I argue that smart furniture is the augmentation of a class of everyday objects so that people have to learn less and yet whole new classes of questions can be asked of the objects in our environment.
Money for Smart Objects
Two companies, MagInk and Symphonix, who are interested in creating smart everyday objects, get money (one as venture, one as a buyout).
Two Furniture Fairs (part 3)
I look back at the smart objects I saw at the Milan and New York furniture fairs. I only find one thing that really seems like genuinely useful smart furniture, but finding one thing is still incredibly exciting.
Smart Furniture Side Show
I'm at the the Appliance Design Conference in Bristol, doing the Smart Furniture Side Show.
Drift Table and Critical Design
I find the Drift Table, which is cool, but reminds me of the fact that I don't think that RCA's Critical Design philosophy should be called design. It's confusing how something is made and what it's made of with its meaning.
Smart Furniture: Beds
I started thinking of smart beds. Beds seem like a pretty logical platform for incorporating intelligence into furniture. Beds are large, stationary, near electrical outlets and used every day, pretty much at the same time. So I brainstormed on what kinds of smart bed technologies there could be.
Smart Furniture: what's been done?
I look for extant smart furniture and only find two things: Maribeth Back and Jonathan Cohen's Listen Reader and Trinity College's Smart Couch.
Smart Furniture Manifesto Comments
I answer people's responses to my Smart Furniture Manifesto.
The Smart Furniture Manifesto
Furniture will be smart!
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