Olinda is a prototype digital radio that has your social network built in, showing you the stations your friends are listening to. It’s customisable with modular hardware, and aims to provoke discussion on the future and design of radios for the home.
Social Networks in Physical Products
Six lights on Olinda show when a close friend is listening to the radio, using wifi and Radio Pop, the BBC’s website for sharing ‘now playing’ information. Each light is a button: you can tune in to listen along with them, discovering new stations via your social network.
Consumer Electronics learning from the web
On the Web, users are in charge of customising and adapting their experience … Olinda attempts to learn from this. Its hardware interface already joins the base unit with the friends module. By buying extra modules – or by making their own using the open interface – listeners can adapt their product over time, perhaps adding a remote control or recording
So bloody clever, yet so beautifully simple, and elegant. We’re increasingly seek greater integration of our offline lives with our online lives and social networks, and to be able to extend and customise our applications, services and products as we choose. So Jack & Matt have looked to embrace the online experience & marry this with a physical product.
It’s a cracking example of how everyday appliances could become fully networked, social appliances - with open APIs and modular design encouraging further modification and innovation. How long before this becomes the norm, and it’s an integral part of our standard repertoire of consumer electronics….perhaps where iPod become We-Pod?
Thanks to the lovely Bobbie, Dan & Rachel for helping to sort me out with a last-minute ticket, I was able to attend Gamecamp 2008 on saturday, which I hope will become a regular / annual occurrence.
Although the open plan nature of the venue (the pimptastic Sony 3Rooms) meant that sessions ended up spilling a bit over into one another, it was otherwise an absolutely perfect space for an unconference. And the fact that the event sponsors provided a shedload of consoles didn’t go amiss…I can confirm that Rockband totally ROCKS.
As is always the way, I couldn’t go to all the sessions I’d have liked, and inevitably some of the most valuable time was that spent hanging around chatting with people, swapping ideas and thoughts with friends old and new.
As well as learning a hell of a lot in a more general sense about the wider world of gaming (I’d not call myself an avid gamer, but would definitely express a fondness for ARGs and pervasive gaming), it was a brilliant exercise in getting to think more creatively, and ponder the application of play to communications.
Play is fantastic. Play gets us to have fun, think, and wholly engage with a given game or exercise. I’ve blogged about a couple of fantastic examples of using play/gaming to communicate a given proposition or product (Penguin’s We Tell Stories and Nine Inch Nail’s Year Zero) but the various sessions definitely reaffirmed more than ever that play can be such an effective means to communicate…..far more than simply advertising TO someone.
The simply amazing venue was another phenomenal example of branded communication - the branded space did more to communicate the Sony brand to me than any advertising ever could. The bright colours throughout the space and integration of Bravia screens throughout allowed me to experience the ‘Colour like no other’ proposition more richly than a TV ad, however stunning, could do. The sleek, modern, but playful design of the whole space let me experience the importance Sony places on aesthetics / form as well as function; allowing me to try Sony products let me ‘live the brand’ (to use a wanky marketing phrase) far better than an ad ever could.
Experience - whether it’s a branded space, event, game or whatever - is powerful; and I’d argue communicates far more richly than mere advertising ever can.
Like many (most?) music lovers, the artwork always used to be a core part of the album experience…which has largely fallen by the wayside as I listen to music pretty much exclusively digitally - with my CDs and 12″ sitting on the shelves, or boxed up out of the way. I indulge my love of album artwork from a distance, via Sleevage and the like.
My other half was showing me the design treatments for the new album, which prompted reflection that it was a shame that the finished design would end up either unseen - or only briefly glimpsed - by many; who either download their music digitally, or then rip the CD to mp3 and shelve the CD to gather dust (like me).
Although you can search iTunes using artwork, the small compressed imagery is clearly no comparison to the richness of a 12″ sleeve (and to a lesser extent the CD case). Despite fantastic efforts by artists like Beck to innovate in their use of the physical product (offering users stickers to design their own covers, and upload their own designs for the second pressing) Wired described album artwork as a “dying art form … [which] has been dying a slow death for decades”. So it’s thrilling to see a glimmer of hope that album artwork is beginning to be redefined for the digital age.
More and more designers have been exploring more varied digital techniques to bring the album artwork to life - such as DVD-style menus and liner-note fly-throughs (as on Gnarls Barkley’s latest release). Death Cab for Cutie’s latest release on iTunes in the US includes a $3 package of a digital booklet, bonus tracks, and “making of the album” videos. Nice start, but I’d hope that digital artwork & extras would be a standard inclusion - artwork used to come as part and parcel of the physical release, not a paid-for extra.
In Japan, Warner have been trialling their Wamo service, allowing mobile phone users to access a bundle including ringtones, videos and artist interviews as well as the album tracks. Better.
However Radiohead, once again, have really attempted to embrace the digital medium, with the widget which accompanied the now-infamous In Rainbows (which also featured several pots of gold)
I say attempted, because as pointed out at Sleevelessness, it’s a bit clunky. But the spirit is there, and it’s a good first step in trying to realise the digital potential for artwork to complete the full album experience.
[photo courtesy of Flickr, since I can’t find my camera USB cable for love nor money, so looks like I’ll need to buy a bloody new one….and in any case my lists and notes aren’t nearly that neat!]
Which got me thinking that as much as I love, adore and embrace new technology, there’s nothing like pen and paper.
I don’t feel like my thoughts and tasks are organised until they’re written down…and yes I’m a typical wanky planner toting around a Moleskine. I’ve tried experimenting with using Outlook Tasks, using umpteen rules and categories to adhere strictly to GTD (and yes, I know GTD can work perfectly well with pen and paper), online tools like Remember the Milk or Ta-Da….but ultimately I always come back to a good old-fashioned, no-frills pen-and-paper to-do list.
There’s something wonderfully tangible about committing something to paper. Even the phrase ‘commit to paper’ has a definite sense of being concrete. Now, that’s not to say that paper = firm and digital = ephemeral, but I think there’s something in it….
All the while we voraciously adopt hi-tech, digital applications and technology, we’re also continuing to embrace the low-tech, traditional and classic methods of doing things as we’ve always done them. It’s not that we can simply divide ourselves into technophiles and luddites - frequently you’ll find the most technosavvy digital native firmly embracing the lofi approach as well.
Speaking to a mate who recently attended Etech, as always it sounds like they had some amazing speakers and sessions - one of the many I’d have loved to have attended was Eric Rodenbeck’s talk on Information Visualisation is a Medium
Eric is the founder & CD of Stamen Design, who’ve been responsible for the likes of Swarm and Stack for Digg, as well as the awesome Cabspotting
The focus of the talk was on the aggregation and visualisation of data & information; and how the concept works both for Stamen and in a wider cultural context - with the central point that they consider information visualisation to be a medium in and of itself, not just a technique.
They highlighted their work for Trulia - a property search, information and aggregation site - which I think is a powerful example of their point in practice.
In this case their Trulia Hindsight project merges historical property data with a “heat map” indicating the hottest properties, with all manner of extra features enabling users to explore how areas have become developed over the years, compare city to city and more. Ultimately the point is that the visualisation of the information enables users to explore and interact, rather than merely search the data in a very linear process. Equally, neither is it just a pretty aggregation of data - visually stunning, but little more. Simply put, it frames the information in such a way as to be interesting and useful.
Visualisation isn’t thus a means to an end, I think it’s a fascinating - and growing - medium in its own right…. or as Jose Luis de Vicente puts it:
“Data visualisation is a cross-discipline which uses the vast communicative power of images to offer a comprehensible explanation of the relationship among meaning, cause, and dependence that can be found among large abstract masses of information generated by scientific and social processes….[combining] strategies and techniques from statistics, graphic design and interaction and computer analysis to create a new communication model more suitable for clarification in the emerging Age of Complexity…..The analysis of the relationship between data and their visual representation has transcended its scientific origin and can be seen as a language with great potential in a context where data bases are fast becoming…an influential cultural form”
Communications are so often based on the premise of taking selected nuggets of info or data as a hook to engage people, since that the data itself is frequently considered of little interest or use to the consumer. Yet when the data or information itself serves as interesting and useful communication in its own right, which invites active participation, isn’t that ultimately more powerful and rewarding?
Being a huge kid and a massive devotee of retro toys, robots, collectibles and the like, I was instantly entranced by this amazingly colourful window display at Liberty’s. However on closer inspection, it’s not just a showcase of kitsch playthings - it’s actually part of an installation by Michael Wolf, called The Real Toy Story, promoting the China Design Now exhibition at the V&A.
Over 75% of the world’s cheap mass-produced plastic toys are produced in China: the installation showcases 20,000 of these alongside photos of the factory workers who produce them.
The project was conceived when the artist bought a huge sack of c. 600 second hand toys from his local charity shop as a surprise for his son - and discovered that every single one was made in China. His son was not only amazed by the fabulous array of toys, but surprised to learn that toys weren’t in fact made by Santa and his helpers!
It’s been doing the rounds over the last couple of days - delivering that most delicious combination of social media with the charm of the mixtape. Simple, beautiful, lots of fun.
So, since there’s nothing like hopping on board, for your listening pleasure - and to get a glimpse into my, er, somewhat eclectic (others may say highly dodgy!) musical taste - check out my contribution
Hi. I'm Katy Lindemann and kitschbitch is a home for things that interest me, which I hope may also interest you - bits 'n' pieces from on and off the interweb and my own thoughts about planning, communications, media, music, art, geeky stuff and so on ...more
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