“The complex technologies the networked city relies upon to produce its effects remain distressingly opaque, even to those exposed to them on a daily basis.” – Adam Greenfield (2009) Immaterials: light painting WiFi film by Timo Arnall, Jørn Knutsen and Einar Sneve Martinussen. This project explores the invisible terrain of WiFi networks in urban spaces [...]
Tag Archives | ubicomp
Making radio tangible
Next week we’re launching some new work that explores the spatial aspects of RFID. So before we publish that, here is a quick summary of existing work on radio, sensors and space that I’ve been compiling for a while. The ‘Radiogenic’ Dunne & Raby introduce the idea of ‘Hertzian space’ in Design Noir and Hertzian [...]
Nearness
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. In a very short film made with BERG, we explore nearness in interactive technologies. Hat tip towards The way things go, that Honda commercial and [...]
From ubicomp to service design
Mike Kuniavsky presented at ETech 2009 on the Dotted-Line World on the links between ubiquitous computing and service design, where subscription-based services are based on everyday objects. (I’m a big fan of dotted or dashed lines, it’s a great visual trick for representing hidden things. Glad to see that Mike is taking up this language, [...]
More RFID-based products
A Dutch company, Swinxs is developing a physical RFID-based console with RFID wristbands for children. They claim to be encouraging physical activities and ‘stimulating imagination’. The console includes versions of Tag, multiple Quiz games, Hide and Seek and Charades. The base-station connects to the internet for uploading scores and downloading content. The movie on their [...]
Internet of Things booklet
Rob van Kranenburg is creating what looks like an interesting critique of ambient technology and the all-seeing network of RFID: “The Internet of Things is the second issue in the series of Network Notebooks. Rob van Kranenburg examines what impact RFID, and other systems, will have on our cities and our wider society.” Edit The [...]
RFID peripherals
Plug and play RFID-reading USB peripherals are all the rage, as indicated by a stream of recent product announcements. These readers plug into a PC and make various things happen when they are touched with an RFID tag. RFID readers are small and cheap, encapsulating them in packaging and offering a standard USB interface makes [...]
Lightweight, parasitic services
Touch and travel is a German pilot scheme (one of many) that is testing NFC for ticketing on public transport. One of the partners in the trial Giesecke and Devrient describe it: “With the new eTicketing System Touch&Travel from Deutsche Bahn (DB), the mobile phone serves as an electronic ticket on trains, buses, streetcars, subways, [...]