The interesting bit is that this is the first appliance (that I can buy in a shop) that does things when touched with a mobile phone:

The NFC interaction is demonstrated first-hand with the newly announced NFC-enabled Nokia N9 in this Engadget video.

Nokia has been pushing NFC since 2004, but mainly towards ticketing, payment and ‘smart posters’. We’ve been pushing for more constrained, local and ad-hoc applications of NFC and it’ll be interesting to see if approach fares any better in the mass-market.

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The article is called Depth of field: discursive design research through film written by Timo Arnall and Einar Sneve Martinussen. It is about the role of film in interaction and product design research, and the use of film in exploring and explaining emerging technologies.

In the last decade, interaction design has found itself in a rather unique position. As an interdisciplinary field, drawing upon many domains such as Human Computer Interaction (HCI), product and graphic design, informatics, art, engineering and critical practice, it has grown the potential to situate itself in a critical position between emerging technologies and culture. In particular, there are emerging modes of doing exploratory design research that result from the newfound relations between product, interaction and communications design.
In this article we discuss our design research activities that use film as a material for exploring, conceptualising and communicating with emerging technology. We analyse this through existing framings of audiovisual media in HCI, technology, and interaction design research. The central research question we address is how does audiovisual media enable new kinds of practice-based design research with emerging technology?

The relations between scientific advance and cinema are extremely close. Kirby proposes that film establishes achievability of scientific and technical discourses, and ‘cinematic depictions of future technologies demonstrate to large public audiences a technology’s need, viability and benevolence’. Historically, film has been a central part of the communication of new technology with interfaces mediated through film or video demonstrators. From televised events showing off household robotics at the 1939 New York World Fair to the invention of modern computing paradigms such as the mouse – in Engelbart’s ‘Mother of all demos’. Products too are often initially experienced through cinematic forms, from lifestyle commercials for Sony televisions, to explanatory ‘how to’ informercials for the Apple iPhone, to user-generated ‘unboxing’ videos on YouTube. The commercial film for the Polaroid SX-70 camera, directed by Charles and Ray Eames in 1972 is a fine example from design practice of new technology explained to the masses through a product commercial, conveying technology and experience combined into one sequence.

In this research we have used graphical, audiovisual, and time-based media as a tool, a material and a communicative artefact that enables us to approach complex, obscure and often invisible emerging technologies such as RFID. We give an account of how film has played an intricate role in the design research practice, from revealing the materiality of invisible wireless technology, to exploring prototypes in real-world settings, to communicating to a wide public audience.

In the article we propose that this kind of research with technology constitutes what we could call a ‘discursive design’ approach. The films below demonstrate design research approaches to RFID where film reveals and articulates complex subjects, through multiple genres, and for multiple audiences. By approaching design research in this way we may be able to explore emerging technologies through play, invention, imitation and parody in ways that are able to reveal and translate across many socio-cultural contexts.

Exploring materiality

The first films show a research approach that explores the materiality of RFID in experimental and highly aestheticised ways. These films emerged out of probing at the technology with the visual tools of photography and animation.

RFID is a largely immaterial technology, it is literally ‘black boxed’ into packaged components, and the qualities of its invisible radio fields are badly understood. The spatial and material aspects of RFID are important for design, in order to be able to create interactions and products that take advantage of the spatial and gestural properties of the technology.

In this film we use long-exposure photographs, light painting, layering and animation. These techniques support particularly expressive modes of explanation, the visualisations occupy a ‘real’ space and are sequenced in a way that provides an immediately graspable view into the spatial qualities of RFID. The use of documentary film form allows for the visual evidence to be laid out in sequences that contextualise, reveal and explain, the film is a highly communicative package for the methods and results.

This was originally written up here and here

In this related film, we show that the readable volume of an RFID tag can be shaped by actually manipulating the size and shape of the physical antenna. This demonstrates that the fundamental technology is not static and constant, and can be shaped through design. When taken together, these films are intended to build material knowledge of RFID, but also through their form, show how designers might begin to take some control over the technical materials, for aesthetic, interactional or functional purposes.

These creative deconstructions of RFID through film techniques point towards what might call a discursive design approach. Drawing on methods from critical design that unpack and re-conceptualise the technological material, combined with narrative and communicative approaches, we may begin to challenge some of the expectations and dominant understandings of RFID.

Communicating products and prototypes

The following product-focused films show technology in context through experiential and explanatory sequences, such as the use of motion diagrams and narrative ‘vignettes’ which convey experiences of using technological products in specific contexts.

Skål (Norwegian for Bowl) explores RFID interactions in a domestic media context, where it broadens the activity of television-based media consumption towards playful, physical engagement. Here film is used to communicate a functioning product prototype, while at the same time highlighting playful and tangible perspectives on RFID in use.

In Sniff we see the potential for reframing RFID technology through explanation and experiential representation of use and activities, and not by focusing on the technology itself. Here the use of cinematic qualities such as short depth-of-field and other stylistic devices such as quick-cut montages enable jumps in time and action that strongly reinforce the playful, exploratory perspectives on the technology.

Films as discursive objects

In this last set of films we wanted to create culturally relevant objects that could communicate to a broad audience.

This iPhone RFID film was created to engage with a large online discussion around Apple’s relatively new iPhone. We wanted to question the largely screen-based modes of interaction that the iPhone encouraged, and to subtly reframe the discussion around RFID to include media, toys, play and direct manipulation of objects in the world. The film was a speculative object from which to see the possibilities for the rich, playful interaction between mobile devices and the world.

Nearness offers a particular view of RFID and proximity interaction that playfully resonates with a history of the chain reaction film genre. It is designed to reach beyond a research or design community in order to provoke discussion and to increase awareness of the technological implications. It does this by parodying an existing popular cultural form in a way that inherently embeds the quality of the technology into the narrative. Originally this film was described here and here.

The making of

These films constitute more than documentation of the design research in Touch, they were the medium in which invention and reflection occurred. Audio-visual media allowed for the creation of products, spaces, objects, gestures and environments that supported our internal and external discussion and development around RFID.

This film shows some of the experiments, processes and film techniques behind the creation of the other films in the article. It shows that these design processes work within the material of film, where the analysis and reflection emerged through the design activity of filmmaking. As well as being highly communicative, film sequences provide a space to gather and articulate a set of ideas, providing a relatively stable outcome and further motivation within the design activity.

Summary

This is a body of design research work that demonstrates the communicative qualities of film, that represent physical objects and their interactive, tangible behaviours over time. Time-based, audiovisual media can combine both explanatory and experiential and contextualising power, and this opens up for prototypes, products and processes being externalised within a practice-based design research activity. We see the potentials for a kind of practice where the emphasis of design research is on communication and participation in public discourse.

We have shown how practice-based design research has the ability to create representations and communicative artefacts, as opposed to technological development or mass production. A communicative approach to interaction design is central to this research. It embodies the idea that the communication of ideas, concepts and arguments through mediated design artefacts is essential to both creating effective interactive products, and to provoking discourse in and around technology-centric research. The form of film – that embodies both a highly reflective design activity and communicative qualities – is an ideal medium for interaction design research, where it can coalesce knowledge around practices and processes and project towards potential futures. Film allows for a degree of probing, explanation and reflexive understanding of emerging technologies, but through its communicative qualities, also opens up for participation in broad social and cultural discourses around technology.

We have shown some perspectives on the role that film can play in exploring, conceptualising and communicating about emerging technology. Film can be used for cinematic explorations and enactments that enable speculation in practice-based design research, but we have also pointed towards the use of online mediation to support public discourse around ubiquitous technologies and materials. 

Read the full article here (pdf) which is published as part of a Research by design issue which also includes articles about designing mobile social software and investigations of motion sketching from our colleagues at AHO.

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In the Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing the article Multi-field relations in designing for short-range RFID analyses some of the conceptual foundations for multi-field inputs with RFID enabled artifacts:

“Multi-field inputs are techniques driven by multiple short-range RFID-enabled artifacts like RFID-tags and RFID-tag readers. The technology is useful for designers so as to enable the construction of advanced interaction through the physical world. To take advantage of such opportunities, it is important to understand the technology in terms of what interactions it might offer designers. I address this issue by unwrapping and exposing elements that can be used to conceptualize multi-field interactions. This is done by way of a design driven inquiry in which design and research methods are used to investigate short-range RFID technology. My approach is informed by activity theory which I use to analyze RFID technology from a design perspective. The study presents multi-field relations as a conceptual framework that can be used to describe and generate multi-field inputs. Four types of multi-field relations are discussed: one-way, two-way, sequence and multiple relations. These are described and analyzed in context of a set of multi-field input examples. The multi-field relations expose elements that can be used to construct interactions. This is important for interaction designers, since new interactions presents designers with opportunities for making entirely new types of interfaces that can lead to interesting and surprising experiences.”

In the International Journal of Design the article Conceptual Designing and Technology: Short-Range RFID as Design Material unpacks RFID—or fields—as design material, and looks at designers motives around emerging technologies:

“Short-Range Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an emerging technology that interaction designers are currently embracing. There are, however, few systematic efforts to utilize the technology as a tool for the development of new design concepts. This article focuses on technology as a design material and its role in the formative process of conceptual design. My approach involves the use of activity theory and the concept of motives, used to analyze short-range RFID technology when considering the field of design. I employ practice-based research where qualitative design and research methods are used to scrutinize the use of this technology in design. A design material perspective frames the short-range RFID technology as a composite consisting of near-fields and the computational. This material is coined near-field material and is further described through six form-making qualities: Tap and Hold, Multi-Field Relations, Multi-Field Distribution, Field Shape, Context Sharing and Mediation Type. I propose that the near-field material and thus the six form-making qualities cited above, offer designers engaged in creating user-oriented experiences, a morphology of form types. I argue that by synthesizing and analyzing emerging technology in relation to designers’ motives for using them, we may further support research and practice by placing technology inside design discourse and culture.”

See more publications from Touch.

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We’ve compiled a short sequence of some of the design experiments and tests in audiovisual media in the Touch project. Here we show some of the ‘behind the scenes’ tests and processes where we used cinematic/video/filmmaking tools as a means to uncover potentials and constraints around an emerging technology.

In these experiments we designed and invented spaces, objects, movements and audiovisual techniques that map and visualise the interactive phenomena of RFID. Many of the visual/cinematic concepts for Nearness and Immaterials were invented by exploring and experimenting with film.

Rather than investing time in creating complex software and hardware prototypes, the interactive experience can be quickly explored inside film compositing applications. These experiments have shown us that there is great value in having tools that offer efficient prototyping of interactions at an experiential level, that don’t need to rely on complex electronics or physical design. There is also value in working within a medium that is not tied to a specific location or a unique demonstrator, and that is editable, reproducible and transmissible allowing it to be shared freely and widely amongst a research group and across the internet.

This is the subject of a forthcoming paper that we’ll flag up here as soon as it is published.

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These are some of his lovely experimental renderings of a three dimensional interpretation of the RFID symbol that we developed from the immaterials visualisations.

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This video shows Skål in action. A bowl sits on the living room table and a range of physical objects are used to trigger various kinds of media. For example a physical Moomin character like Little My will play a sequence from the Moomin cartoon where she is featured. Skål can control all kinds of digital media; movie-clips, Youtube channels, Flickr photo streams, home videos and online radio.

The product has been used as a probe to build our understanding of RFID technology in playful and domestic contexts and is the result of extensive enquiry into the area. It differs from other similar products like Touchatag and Mirror by focusing specifically on direct and immediate tangible interaction with rich digital media. In some ways it is similar to the iPhone RFID prototype, and here it reflects on the interchangeability of tags and readers in media interaction: RFID systems are symmetrical and interactions can be built through manipulating the reader (the iPhone) or the objects (Skål).

Visit the Skål website for more on the bowl and how it works and Flickr for more images.

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Sara developed a speech bubble approach to annotating physical objects, so that they look like they are ‘saying’ the audio and haptic feedback.

The representation of sound and vibration uses waveforms, showing amplitude over time. Although this is quite limited, it seems to be a useful shorthand for communicating a small range of tangible feedback.

On this note, I’m getting increasingly interested in the use of speech bubbles in popular media.

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RFID is becoming more common in mobile phones (under the term Near Field Communication or NFC) from manufacturers such as Nokia. By looking at Apple’s patents we know that the technology is being considered for the iPhone. With the iPhone SDK 3.0 external hardware accessories can be accessed by iPhone software, so third party RFID or NFC readers are also possible.

So what kinds of applications would emerge if an iPhone had an NFC reader? Here we have prototyped a simple media player, which triggers the playback of content on the touch of a tag, and created a set of augmented objects that have relationships to different kinds of audiovisual content.

A lens for media

Compared to other mobile handsets the iPhone is a particularly media-friendly device, with a large, bright screen and high quality audiovisual playback. What if this screen could act as a ‘lens’ to content that resides in the world?

In a screen-based interface content may be buried many levels deep inside an information architecture. But in a physical RFID-driven interface a simple gesture can offer quick and direct access to content. Physical objects afford tangible manipulation that screens cannot, and this is great for playful products. Our Bowl prototype showed a natural blending of media consumption and playful activitiy in children, where media viewing became less passive and a more active experience.

Durrell Bishop has discussed these ideas in a more general way, what if objects were augmented with new properties, that can be perceived through an iPhone lens?

Media objects

In this video demo, the objects have been chosen to physically or visually represent the content. There are some obvious relationships, such as the Moomin figure leading to a favourite episode of a Moomin animation. The less obvious relationships such as the wooden house leading to home videos were chosen because they just somehow felt right. In fact the exact relationship may be of secondary importance, as over time the behaviour of the physical and digital objects becomes known and transparent through exploration and repetition.

Some of the objects felt particularly satisfying. The Make Podcast object for instance—where touching the ‘geek’ plays the latest ‘Weekend project’— shows how an object can be used for exploring a dynamic stream of content.

Going further

This video prototype is basic and intended to open up for discussion and new exploration around the experience of media selection through physical objects. At the moment the interaction is a trigger, but what if the phone doesn’t just react as output but also as input to physical objects? How do we programme and manage our sets of media and applications in these objects?

Overall this points towards opportunities around the distribution of media through physical objects, it is an example of general ideas around an ‘internet of things’ or ‘spimes’ applied to the world of media. What opportunities would the distribution of RFID-embedded products open up in terms of media, gaming, services and marketing? What does this mean for the future of products?

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Tom recently used an updated version of this library in his RFID workshop at ETech 2009 and has written a series of thorough tutorials on his weblog. The tutorials covers the basics of the library and also shows how a SM130 can be used with an Arduino: Sonmicro RFID reader for Processing, Reading Mifare RFID tags, Writing to Mifare RFID tags, Arduino-based RFID reader and RFID to Web interface.

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Silje writes:

“Pling Plong is a media player for stories and sounds, placed inside a pillow. It is designed for the home environment and is meant to stimulate children’s imagination and interest for books. Its low-tech appearance in form, material and its simple functions makes the pillow seem magical. The fact that you can lay your head on it makes the toy very calming and it is meant for relaxing play alone.”

Pling Plong is a simple but carefully crafted product, where everything from the textures of the fabric, to the graspability of the audiobook tokens to the sound design and audio levels have been explored and refined.

A video shows Silje’s experiments with characterful faces for the pillow, showing some of the exploration of different metaphors for RFID that are important aspects of making contactless interaction understandable and playful.

Pling Plong has been receiving a lot of attention online recently, being picked up by Trendhunter, Coolgadgetconcept, Yankodesign, Crecebebe, Talk2myshirt, Techviva, Ubergizmo, Weirdgizmos and more.

Some comments:

“The “low-tech appearance” should be given some stormy applause, because toys nowadays have nothing to do with the idea of play and having a good time.”

“We had our share on interactive pillow coverage like illuminated pillows or sound pillows but the Pling Plong pillow created by Silje Softing sticks out by it’s playful use of ’soft’ low tech to give an twist to the story telling for small children.”

“I hope that this will soon make its way to market and finally to our homes. I don’t have any kids but I’ll surely love a pillow that can sing to me!”

“Hurry up Silje Softing and find someone to manufacture this already! It could be the next big thing this holiday season.”

Silje’s weblog documents some of the making process, there are more photos of Pling Plong and a gallery making pictures here.

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In this process we explore ways in which RFID objects can be designed to balance various physical and digital qualities. This approach has illuminated opportunities and constraints in designing augmented objects that enriches the vocabulary around RFID for industrial and interaction designers where physical and visual material are essential elements.

RFID is most commonly used by consumers for ticketing, payments and access control. The design challenges in these contexts has concentrated on infrastructures and systems as opposed to the design of physical tokens. The design of these objects is limited to simple, mostly flat enclosures; cards, key-fobs or stickers.

The bare RFID tag itself does not offer significant meaning beyond its technical appearance. In order to create meaningful relationships towards these objects, RFID tags must be embedded in an object or signified by shape or sign. The physical design of most current RFID objects are limited to the form factors of the protective encapsulation of the tag. It remains at the simple level of encapsulation and packaging that does not yet address the wide range of physical possibilities for objects in everyday contexts.

Product review

To understand the ways that RFID tags have been designed into consumer products, we conducted a product review that documents the physical aspects of RFID products from around the world. This has been a process of reflection on existing industrial and consumer products that includes a range of cards, keyfobs and tokens, the Mattel Hyperscan games console, Star Wars Commtech figures, Brio Network, Violet Ztamps and other RFID peripherals.

The product review shows many uses for RFID but limited exploration of design qualities such as materials, shape, size, construction, manufacture, build quality, affordance or metaphors. But the potential for RFID in consumer products is significant, given the inexpensive hardware of RFID systems and the opportunity to enable digital interactions with even the simplest of objects. The technical properties of RFID, such as the batteryless tags which allow for cheap and maintenance free operation are perhaps the most significant opportunity for playful products and toys.

Form experiments

The intention for this series of experiments was to gain a rich working knowledge of the kinds of design qualities that RFID objects may embody. We used an explorative design approach to the physical aspects of RFID and this involved a process of prototyping, where physical RFID objects were built and evaluated in the Bowl environment. Through a sketching process we developed an understanding of the relationships between physical forms and tags. Form-explorations were then used to visualise findings, to generate further models and to examine surface qualities.

This approach has illuminated opportunities and constraints in designing physical RFID objects that now need to be translated into patterns and models that are useful for interaction and industrial design. See the full paper below for more detail around the objects, sketches and models.

Literal associations

The interactions and gestures that have been learned over time for such objects as dolls, toys, chesspieces, microphones, shower heads, telephones, flashlights, magnifying glasses, spraycans, screwdrivers, hammers, kitchen utensils, stamps, and handles, with gestures like stirring, pointing, poking, drawing and shaking are useful starting points for imagining RFID objects and interactions.

Two very distinct kinds of gestures emerged from our workshops and experiments with the Bowl and Orooni Table interfaces. These gestures are pick and place (eg. moving a chess piece) and grab and point (eg. waving a wand).

A form vocabulary for RFID

Designing new gestures, taxonomies of form and affordances specifically for RFID will come only from designing a new set of objects, with their own elements and properties. Through the process of designing new RFID objects we uncovered properties such as direction, balance, similarity and geometry. Here we see some of the variations and abstractions around the elements of RFID form. This is the beginning of a form vocabulary for RFID including balance, similarity, direction and multi-direction.

Through introducing RFID as an element that influences the shape of physical products, we begin to design an inspirational or generative set of forms for RFID-enabled objects. They effectively communicate the physical aspects of the design findings and help us to evaluate and refine a vocabulary of forms.

Conclusions

As the internet of things emerges as an increasingly important discourse within research and consumer products, the design of the RFID things themselves needs to be addressed. Our practice-driven approach involving products, models, objects and visualisations has resulted in a vision for an ‘internet of things’ that places designed things in the centre.

A hands-on approach has allowed a re-evaluation of RFID technology through the lens of design, and communication of this in design-focused language. Through a process of making, evaluation and communicating a number of artefacts and an emergent design vocabulary is being built, that talks to the needs and concerns of interaction and industrial designers.

These making, sketching and visualisation processes may also be important for the design of emerging technologies in general. With the increasing implementation of networked and interactive technology in consumer electronics, aspects of digital and physical design will increasingly need to be addressed by both industrial and interaction designers. Physical design is a critical part of the way in which tangible technologies are experienced, and by allowing design processes to guide product development we are able to approach emerging technology in a plausible and understandable way.

Full paper

‘Designing with RFID’ is being presented at Tangible & Embedded Interaction 2009 in Cambridge UK.

The paper contains a full account of the product review, the sketching, making and modelling, and conclusions around the design for RFID objects. The paper from the Tangible and Embedded Interaction conference will be available at the ACM digital library. You can also download the full PDF here.

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This video shows some of the student’s process, starting with a conceptual session where ideas were sketched on paper and enacted through props. A process of making followed in the wood, plastics and clay workshops where the products took shape. Finally the products are presented as experience prototypes.

Le Chef by Marius and Bilal. A product designed for the kitchen that ‘licks’ various ingredients and suggests recipes.

Poke a pig by Kjetil and Erik. A wooden pig that plays different sounds to different types of attention: a hand for petting, an apple for feeding, etc.

Star pillows by Elisa and Ane. Explored soft materials and audiovisual content for relaxing.

Musicology by Ingrid and Silje. Explored modular shapes and objects for playing playlists from last.fm.

Mood cup by Miray and Ruben. Personalised (or customisable) cups that play back different playlists from last.fm.

Musicframes by Astrid and Stine. A wall of photos each linked to a music file that has personal meaning connected to the photo.

The farm by Karin and Brynjar. An ‘Interactive storytelling space for children’ where animals crossing a river trigger sounds or audiobook content.

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Three recent Touch projects suggest different senses as metaphors for physical RFID interaction:

Silje Søftings Pling Plong project uses an eye as the ‘reader’ of audiobook tokens.

Bilal Chaudhry & Marius Johansen’s project Le Chef uses a huge tongue giving the appearance that the chef character is tasting the food tokens that are placed on it.

Sara Johansson’s Sniff project uses the nose of a toy dog as the reader, giving the impression that the dog is sniffing token objects.

Are these other human senses more successful than touch in creating the right kind of metaphors for RFID interaction? Can we use human senses as metaphors to create a richer design space for RFID, or does the inspiration have to come from somewhere else?

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Last week Interaction Design students at the Oslo School of Architecture & Design participated in a Touch workshop where the brief was to design a playful, exploratory or characterful RFID interface. The emphasis of this workshop was on exploring the relationship between digital interaction through RFID and the material properties of physical objects.

The brief

This week we will be working with a technology called Radio Frequency IDentification or RFID. RFID is exciting for industrial and interaction designers because it is a cheap and simple technology that allows us to build quite advanced gestural and tangible interfaces. When an RFID tag is in the range of an RFID reader (usually about 10cm) it communicates a tiny amount of information, a simple short code that lets the computer know that it is present. This is usually used to identify an object, person or animal, for instance to open a door, to find the owner of a lost pet, to pay for a ticket, or to know if a product that is passing out of a shop door has been paid for.

RFID tags are tiny, fairly cheap and don’t require a battery. They can be embedded inside all sorts of materials easily and without much effort. RFID readers are also small and flat, enabling them to be embedded easily below surfaces such as wood, concrete or plastics. The only physical limitations are metal and water, which absorb radio signals and stop RFID systems from working effectively.

Designing playful RFID

You will design a physical interface that involves a reader, a few tags and a Tikitag application.

Industrial and interaction designer’s haven’t been working with RFID for very long. So RFID systems are usually dull and lifeless, with ordinary plastic or paper tags and flat plastic readers. There needs to be more experimentation with the physical aspects of RFID interfaces in applications such as toys, appliances and domestic interfaces. There may be great playful applications of the technology that have not yet been explored.

You must design the physical relationship between the tag, the reader and the resulting action. Your objects must be finished with quality and material choices that match the intended use and context of the application (such as waterproof plastics for the bathroom or turned wood for the coffeetable).

Methods

You will each choose a different application from our list of Tikitag applications. Sketch out ten ways in which the tags and the reader in that application should look, feel and behave. What kind of approach is most suitable? Should it be characterful, understated, loud? What other kinds of objects should it reference? List out the kind of materials that would be suitable for such an application.

Design one set of tags and a reader for your application. Think about size, shape, durability, surface texture, and the relationship between the reader and the tag. How do the objects relate to each other? How do the objects and the reader fit together? What metaphors and associations can you draw upon, are they like keys, do they encourage swiping, caressing, tickling? How will a user manipulate the objects? Will they have to place them in certain positions or sequences to achieve different results?

References

Bowl: Token based media for children

Designing with RFID

RFID peripherals

RFID and unique physical form

Images of touch interfaces

Previous ‘Touch’ student prototypes

Qubi – Tangible colour game

Hairfid

Storytelling pillow

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A Poken is a connected business card, when you meet people you want to connect to, you touch their ‘poken’ and get added to their Open Social network.

Just tap your poken to theirs, activating Poken’s wireless technology. The poken “high-four” lets you share your online social network profile(s) instantly. At any computer with web access the poken hand pulls out of the body, revealing a USB connector. Insert the poken USB connector into the computer’s USB port to upload your new contacts to the Poken web database.

They have a few interactions that are intended to deal with different social situations, I wonder how they came up with these ‘modes’:

“If you simply touch your poken to another poken without having pressed the palm button, your “Normal” identity is shared. ‘Discreet’ mode requires a double- click of the poken palm. This mode allows you to poken without actually sharing your profile, if you have selected the ‘Ghost’ option or to share a limited profile of your choosing. To be as discreet as possible there is no visible lighting effect. You can, however, check for a little green light that will afterwards flash inside the poken by removing the poken body from the hand. A lengthy press (more than two seconds) of the palm button of your poken will make the hand glow different colors for ten (10) seconds.”

So they are attempting to create culture around the product, of ‘high fours’, ‘light shows’ and discreet ‘ghosting’. But behaviours in social life are so sensitive and context dependent—particularly around the exchange of contact information—it’s hard to see how they will be able to influence them through software or hardware. On the other hand, these limited behaviours might just take off like Tamagotchi or Lighter.

While it’s good that they are taking an open approach to managing contacts (using Open Social and an API), where they can plug into almost any other social network platform, the physical interface presents much harder problems. There is an enormous effort to reach the critical point at which cluster effects can take place, and many users will feel the full brunt of the ‘first fax machine’ problem.

We are currently spoilt by abundant network connectivity, compressing time and space. But the traditional limitations of the physical world such as scarcity and distance affect all physically situated interfaces, and design approaches that deal with these limitations will increasingly be needed.

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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 home page demonstrates some of the simple game mechanics.

It seems that many of the games are about measurement, tracking and timing of otherwise person-to-person negotiated activities. In this way the product becomes more about tagging people and measuring their activity, particuarly when combined with the wristband attached to the body rather than tagged objects.

This might sound insignificant, but the difference between tagged objects and tagged people is quite pertinent, particularly as this is intended as a playful, learning environment for children. The kinds of learnings that are achieved through a digital system that tracks you rather than the objects you manipulate could be very different.

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RFID readers are small and cheap, encapsulating them in packaging and offering a standard USB interface makes for a versatile product. What we need to see now is some applications and platforms that make these products useful and desirable.

Mir:ror

Designed as a commercially available product, similar to the Nabaztag rabbit, the Mir:ror is intended to allow physical objects to work with online services. “Violet was inspired by a simple fact: the rift between the virtual world – everything happening on the other side of your computer screen – and the physical world we live in is growing, and growing fast.”

Mir:ror

Tikitag

Tikitag is offering a small, cheap USB reader that plugs into any computer with compatible drivers “Tikitag is an Alcatel-Lucent Venture based in Antwerp, Belgium which provides a service to link the real world with the online world.”

Tikitag

Bowl

The Bowl was created as part of the Touch project and designed to be an object that wouldn’t look out of place in the living room. “The Bowl is a simple media player that can be used by people of all ages, particularly young children. A bowl sits on the living room table and range of physical objects can be placed within it. When an object is placed in the bowl related media is played back on the TV.”

Bowl

ThingM

ThingM has been developing RFID-driven interfaces in their WineM concept for a while, and they have developed a smaller, USB version finished in wood.

ThingM / WineM

Airtag

Aimed more towards the high-end, for custom installations in retail environments, “the Airtag reader is a contactless reader for point of sale (POS). Easy to install it can be plugged to any cashier system, or standalone for smart poster.”

Airtag

RFID mon amour

For the sake of completeness, this was perhaps the first commercially available plug-and-play RFID prototyping platform. “Rfid mon amour 1.0 is a kit for designers, artists and architects, which allows the realization of interactive exhibitions in a very simple manner, without any specific knowledge of programming or electronics. The kit comes with an USB based RFID player, Mac OS X compatible software, 10 RFID tags and some sample videos.”

RFID mon amour

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