Archive for the ‘ideas’ Category
I recently burned a copy of really fantastic documentary for a friend. But the problem with burning DVD’s is that they’re generally cold and impersonal. So, I decided to invest 15 minutes in making simple Disc Box Slider case for the the DVD.
I created a black and white sleeve as well as a manila colored sleeve.
If you don’t get to these in time feel free to email me at bernardrz [at] gmail. [dot] com.
Nick Cave has done something that I think is incredibly interesting. His new book The Death of Bunny Munro is being released in three formats, which you read about over on Wired.com. There’s also a fantastic video interview with Cave where he discusses the book, the audiobook, and the app (briefly).
What’s interesting to me is the app. At $25, its priced a little higher than the audiobook download ($21) and seems well worth the cost for one feature alone. From the Wired Article:
If you get tired of reading on the iPhone’s small screen, toggle over to the audio version to hear Nick Cave read from right where you left off.
If Audible and its parent company Amazon decided to put this into their audiobooks and Kindle e-reader it would be phenomenal. How great would it be if you could sync your position in an audiobook and have it sync itself over to your Kindle via Amazon’s Whispersync technology? Books featuring the technology could be priced at a premium as you would own both a print and audio version of the book.
Currently, the Apple’s App Store is best suited for this type of feature, as the iPhone and iPod touch are devices that make the distribution of the apps and the consumption of the content streamlined. But Amazon could have access to Apple’s device via its own Amazon app or even adding functionality to their recently aquired Stanza app.
There’s also no reason that something like this can only be done by Amazon or Audible. There’s enough stuff over at Project Gutenberg, and LibriVox to get an independently produced app into Apple’s App Store. It would certainly make it easier to get through Dickens’ Bleak House.
Touch has continually done some amazing things. One of the coolest things going right now is Nearness, a gorgeously shot experiment in interaction without touching.
From the site:
One of the essential properties of Near Field Communication is nearness, but this is set against one of the paradoxes of touch-based interaction where, in fact, nothing needs to touch.
I love this idea that touch based tech is a stepping stone to much more intuitive interaction, one that requires zero knowledge of gesture based interactions.
There’s tons of evil potential when an individual is no longer explicitly declaring interaction with a machine. Its a scary thought that a computer is going to do whatever its going to do based on me just being around.
For awhile now too much stock has been placed in RFID and its ability to create wireless interactions. Its dangers can be pretty scary, but that doesn’t mean that its an inherently evil technology or that there aren’t amazing things that can be done with it.
Check out Touch’s Sniff project.
This ability to create interaction between the child and the world is mindblowing. It’s Teddy Ruxpin taken to a whole new level. I’m a big fan of how the child is using the stuff dog as a tool for discovery, and while a relationship exists between the machine and the child its exists in the perceptions of the child.
[touch]
Don’t know too much about this, but the thing that peaks my interest is the ability to integrate googlemaps into the gameplay. It reminds me of something that Alice Taylor’s [wiki] discussions about learning experiences.
The theory being, if a first person shooter took place in a digital representation of the Tate Britain, a gamer could play the game for hours and hours (as most gamers do) and the layout of the museum would be seared into the players head. This could function as a way to promoter visitorship in museums as well as raise the experience of physical space to a heightened state.
This is a brilliant idea. One that takes full advantage of some of the empty cycles in gaming and can be applied to innovative forms via user interaction.
[via offworld]