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 [...]
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Wireless in the world
An ongoing Touch theme is about making invisible wireless technologies visible, in order to better understand and communicate with and about them (see a Graphic Language for RFID, Dashed lines and Fictional radio spaces). Right now I am sitting near fourteen objects sending and receiving radio signals, from Oyster cards to mobile phones and wireless [...]
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, [...]
Pling Plong
Silje Softing’s project Pling Plong from last year’s Touch course is a soft pillow that plays back audiobooks based on the physical objects or books that are placed on it. 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 [...]
Advertising contactless technology
This spot advertises the new contactless barclaycard that uses RFID technology to make contactless payments. The ad was made by BBH London with creative director Pete Bradly (more info and making of videos). Interesting to see a one minute commercial explain touch/contactless technology.
Images of touch interfaces
I’m happy to say that with great contributions from Nicolas Nova, Matt Jones and many others, the pool of images of ‘touch interfaces’ on Flickr is growing nicely. I originally asked for contributions in February 2005, and the pool has been growing steadily ever since. This collection of ‘vernacular’ designs for RFID-based interfaces is extremely [...]
Early visualisations of cellular networks
I happened to catch the American-centric documentary history of the mobile phone called The Cellphone Revolution yesterday. The most compelling content was the early visualisations of cellular networks, made by Motorola and AT&T at the time that they were trying to convince the FCC that mobile telephony was important. It also features rather nice footage [...]
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, [...]