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Transparent Equipment

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Meaning: When you do the washing up you don’t think you are controlling your hand to do the washing up. Transparent Equipment is the abilitiy to control equipment without thinking that you are controlling it.

Stelarc – Third Hand

Image from http://summit2011.singinst.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Stelarc-drawing-with-robot-arm.jpg

This image is Stalarc Third Hand performance. As you can see there is a robot arm that control by the nervous impulses sent from the brain to muscles in the body which he has chosen to control the arm in this case his stomach and upper thighs. He then learnt to write the word evolution and after a few weeks he was writing the word with out thinking about it.

A5 Flyer – Bungee Jump

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UPSU: RAG requested 1000 flyer, 500 of which where designed for a 175ft Bungee Jump, that took place on the 11th of February. As this event was during RAG Week also they requested them to stick out among the rest of the events I decided to tie in the flyers to the theme and make them a different colour. I really like the flyers because there easy to read and they also have a nice student feel to them.

The Interaction

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(based on the book HCI 3rd Edition, Chapter 3 & 5)

  • Interaction models
    • Translations between user and system
  • Ergonomics
    • Physical characteristics of interaction
  • Interaction styles
    • The nature of user/system dialog
  • Context
    • Social, organizational, motivational

Interaction is the communication between the user and the system.

Terms of Interaction

Domain
The area of work under study.
e.g. graphic design

Goal
What you want to achieve.
e.g. create a solid red triangle

Ask
How you go about doing it.
Ultimately in terms of operations or actions.
e.g. … select fill tool, click over triangle

Donald Norman’s model

Seven stages

  • User establishes the goal
  • Formulates intention
  • Specifies actions at interface
  • Executes action
  • Perceives system state
  • Interprets system state
  • Evaluates system state with respect to goal

Norman’s model concentrates on user’s view of the interface.

Ergonomics

The study of the physical characteristics of interaction also known as human factors. Ergonomics good at defining standards and guidelines for constraining the way we design certain aspects of systemsErgonomics

Examples

  • Arrangement of controls and displays e.g. controls grouped according to function or frequency of use, or sequentially
  • Surrounding Environment e.g. seating arrangements adaptable to cope with all sizes of user
  • Health Issues e.g. physical position, environmental conditions (temperature, humidity), lighting, noise
  • Use of Colour e.g. use of red for warning, green for okay, awareness of colour-blindness etc.

Wayfinding in Plymouth

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-Sunita Mills
-Plymouth City Council

Wayfinding in the dictionary means  signs, maps, and other graphic or audible methods used to convey location and directions to travelers; also written way-finding.

Plans of Plymouth

Left – before the II world war. Centre – After the II world war. Right – Modern days plan after Plymouth council ran out of money to fully complete the centre plan.

Visitor economy

    • New markets
      • Day trippers – living or staying in the area
      • Weekends away – “Discoverers” & “Cosmopolitans”
      • Business trips – conferences
    • New activities
      • Telling the stories of the city
      • Walking or cycling “tours”
      • Street art / entertainment
    • New events
      • Marine and cultural festivals

Urban API

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What is a city without its people?

Citys from film

Dark City

A city that evolves around a sigle person moving and shaping the environment around him, so that the evil guy can catch him and destroy him.

 

 

 

Blade Runner

The city in Blade Runner is fascinating. It’s set in the future with thousands of sci-rise building but thats not that fascinating bit. The city is in fact a culture mash its set in New York but it looks more like your in Tokyo.

 

 

 

Fifth Element

Similar to Blade Runner this film has tall buildings but the difference is these building are one hundred times the size. Real towering buildings, theres even trains to go up them.

 

 

 

Perth

The city of Perth is set on the Swan River in Australia with a approximately 90 kilometres in length. Thats fine if you want to go east/west to west/east but very costly and far from north/south to south/north.

What is the city but the people?

(William Shakespeare, Coriolanus, Act 3, Scene 1).

URBAN API:

API An application programming interface (API) is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other. An API may include specifications for routines, data structures, object classes, and variables… The term API may be used to refer to a complete interface, a single function, or even a set of APIs provided by an organization. Thus, the scope of meaning is usually determined by the context of usage… An API may describe the ways in which a particular task is performed… The practice of publishing APIs has allowed web communities to create an open architecture for sharing content and data between communities and applications.

URBAN API is a live Project working in collaboration with Plymouth City Council and i-DAT. The project will generate an open real-time map of the city that will help members of the Council, City based organisations, visitors and the public make critical decisions about its future.

The URBAN API is a group project.

Students are asked to form their own groups of 4 or 5. A Peer assessment form will be incorporated into the assessment process.

The Project has three components:

  1. Planning: Following the introduction from Plymouth City Council students will be tasked to identify a site (used in the broadest sense) that will be the focus of their project.
  2. Intervention: The collection of data from the site will incorporate an intervention. Dependant of the considered methodology used (and articulated by the planning process) the intervention may be a process integral to the data collection process or it may be the outcome of the project (or both). Examples of potential interventions will be provided in the first few lectures and practical sessions.
  3. Map: The data collected throughout the project will be incorporated into a dynamic map of
  4. Plymouth: This map will generate a real-time model of the City and incorporate all of the material generated by the URBAN API Project.

NB: The development of group projects must be negotiated with staff during the practical sessions.

 

Essay – Transhumanism; The Relations Between Art & Science

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Transhumanism; The Relations Between Art & Science

(Link to essay)

Introduction

Today we already have human enhancements available to the disabled for instance, prosthetic limbs to help amputees, exoskeletons to help people to walk, artificial bone implants, hearing aids, contact lenses and artificial organs such hearts, lungs, bladders, cochlear and Pacemakers. These things help people who need them most but not only that we currently also have advanced technology research in Neuro-Science which give us the ability to control computers with just the use of our brains and much more advance technologies. I want to look at the comparison between science art & public mass media. Describing what they practice and how they relate. Also looking in detail at the main individuals that have had an impact on the art culture with using science as there aid. I’m interested to see what effect Science & Art have, can they work together or are they two sides fighting for the best view of the future and expressing both other views in a radical way, in which the public have found disapproved of in some cases, for example animal testing, genetic modification, cloning, human-animal hybrids and human physiology. With our advances in technology, it’s starting to make people unnerved of what the outcomes will be, and how this will make us the more inferior race, finally being exterminated by machines that are more superior treating us like there pests the “Terminator Effect.”

<..Read More..>

Exciting things in the third term at uni!

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Link
raspberrypi.org

I’m quite excited because yesturday I was told by Simon Lock (One of our lecturers) that we will be looking as a piece of hardware called Raspberry Pi.

Raspberry Pi is actually a linux based computer the size of a chip smaller then Arduino boards and the beta chips have been auctioning off on eBay for $3000.

After the beta testing there planning on rolling the computers out at a price of £15 so it can be affordable to anyone.

This is very new technology and has only started reproduction yesturday (10/01/2012.)

We are going to harnessing the technology and developing things for it which sounds great the scary part is they are built using python code!

Python is a high level programming language using similarities to Java but it’s much more complicated.

History of Google (design)

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Google is a web search engine thats uses robots thats find new data to record in there database. Google was founded in 1994 Eric Schmidt and is now one of the most viewed sites on the internet.

In 1994 google was very basic not just in a technical way but also in HCI bearing in mind that it was revolutionary for its time.

Over the years as Google has improved there HCI has but they still have managed to keep there basic principles!


As you can see Google hasn’t made huge changes but it does look improved in design.

Media Representation – Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Review)

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(…More details about the game…)

The main character is called Adam Jensen. He’s the head of security for a company called Sarif Industries, which produces biomechanical augmentations that make humans faster, stronger, and more intelligent.

The story starts of with him breaking into the local police station where he used to work to find some sort of evidence in the investigation of his ex-girlfriend’s death. While he’s finding the files, a police officer sees him through a window and triggered an alarm. The entire staff of the police station is converging on his location.

The games good because you have two options call of duty style running around shooting everyone of splinter cells more elusive spy type style which you pick at the beginning. The game is all about choices that the player makes and as the game goes on you get more and more augmentations. An augmented arms lets you punch through walls.