J . M A I L

Art Interactivity

I have been thinking about an exhibit lately focusing on touch interactivity, audio prompts, and visual reveals.

The idea is pretty simple, a show case of different interaction metaphors which each reveal a visual piece of art or info-graphic. Leveraging iPads as the interaction canvases different interaction methods would reveal related work.

For example…

A pair of headphones is attached to one of the screen mounted on the gallery wall. When a person places the head phones on they hear the beating of a human heart. At first all that would be seen on the display would be the icon of a heart and a red circle. When a person taps inside the circle in time to the heard beat on the audio track the circle would slowly turn green indicating progress of the interaction (red - green traffic light progression). After a set number of correct taps in the right rhythm an info-graphic would be revealed above the interaction space of the canvas.

This sort of piece would invite the audience to play with the piece, discover the interaction naturally through visual feed back and transition an audio cue, to a touch interaction, and ultimately to visual reveal/reward. Such a piece would also invite other on lookers to observe the participant using the piece and study the interaction required to “unlock” the work.

Other such interactions could include having one hand of the participant move one touch point up and down and one touch point left to right using the other hand of the participant to reveal the work.

E.G.

I envision maybe 5 - 6 different interaction metaphors making up the exhibit, each interaction inviting trial and error, playfulness, observation, and discovery.

Let me know what you guys/girls think of this and if you might like to be involved. If you think this is just crazy let me know that to. :)

Tablets, Netbooks, Nooks, Galore

I am trying to decide if I should pick up a new laptop or tablet. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Here is some internal dialogue:

1. Do I need a new tablet, netbook, or ereader

Answer: No.

2. Should I get an ereader for reading papers?

Answer: No, I can’t annotate them with any kind of stylus. I also like physical paper and books.

3: Should I get a tablet?

Answer: For what I do, word, firefox, and digsby ~ maybe.

4. Should I get an iPad?

Answer: Not when things like this are coming out.

5. What about a laptop?

I am thinking about this one:

Thin, light (3 pounds), 8 + hours of battery, i3 culv processor and then I would add an 80 gig intel ssd hd (specs/link)

Price would come out to about $850 cad

…

To be honest I shouldn’t really buy any of these but that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about all the new toys out there. My current laptop is fine cpu wise, the only thing that might be nice is better battery and an ssd drive.

I could buy an ssd drive and add it to the current laptop to see how I like it.

Another thought I have had is that if I am gonna upgrade then maybe I should get a 13” model but feel that 11.6” might be the perfect size.

Now the things about the toys is that none of them would break the bank. If I didn’t already have an 11.6” laptop I would get either a table or new laptop for sure. The question is whether to upgrade to a whole new machine when I don’t really need to, wait and then upgrade, get a new ssd drive and stick with the current machine, or buy nothing and save the cash.

What do you think blog-o-sphere?

iPad - Please Don’t Hate

I was excited to watch the apple release of their new tablet yesterday. This has apparently been a pet project of Steve Job’s for years now and you could tell he was really excited to show it off. The reaction from most other people has been poor and I want to address this a bitty.

1. This is first gen product and those that do buy it will suffer an early adopters tax much like the first ipod/iphone/zune/eeepc ect. but unlike a lot of other first gen releases this one is built upon a much stronger foundation of the existing iPod line and iPhone OS. I expect this to be the most polished launch product apple has had in years.

2. People complain about the lack of media card reader, camera, stylus (I really wanted this one), but that is missing the point. This product is being let down because the expectations placed upon it are far too great by far too many.

Apple is not know for making new revolutionary things (despite what they say) but are know for making existing things better than the competition.

IE. Mp3 players had been around for a long time but the iPod line was just better in a lot of ways than anything else in the market.

Smart phones have been around for years but Apple was the first to really hit the sweet spot and combine technologies for the North American market.

So then what is apple making better this time around? the ebook reader!

If you want this product to replace your laptop you will be disappointed, if you want it to replace your phone you will be disappointed, but if you want to compare it to a Kindle ebook reader you will be amazed.

For $10 dollars more than the top of line Kindle you get a WHOLE lot more, colour screen, better build quality, internet access, iBook store, overall prettier product ect.

3. Yes, the next gen of iPad will have the features people wanted this one to have but for the price of $500 us (way below expectations) can you really complain? If it had everything included in this version and had cost $1000 people would have complained about the price?

4. For novice computer users this will be a great product. For some people file management and folders are confusing, multitasking is confusing, the internet and email are a mystery. For the novice users, the iPad and a wireless router will let them do almost anything they can imagine. They won’t know any better about the quality of the virtual keyboard compared to a physical keyboard. This device will just work for them.

5. This device, I hope, will do for books what the first ipods did for digital music, make a bigger and better industry with easier access for consumers.

Will I be buying the first gen iPod? I will probably pass for now as I am very happy with an iPod touch and my 11.6” windows netbook.