Bluejacking
Bluejacking could be a meme in the making, though the website the article links to appears nonexistent. It’s the “sport” of finding nearby mobile devices with an open, unsecured Bluetooth connection and sending the unsuspecting owner messages (“what’s that you’re drinking?”). Something about having control of your device wrested from you seems like such a [...]
Physical Computing Depot
Billed as “a database of sources for physical computing parts, methods, software, and other resources”, the site is a weblog run out of the Interactive Telecommunications program at NYU. Bless ‘em for sharing the wealth. It’s looking like my thesis paper and project are going to be more socially focused (CSCW: computer-supported cooperative work, social [...]
Grokker
This could potentially be quite a useful tool. The Mac version comes out in a few weeks, but now that I’m on a ThinkPad at work, I guess I can test it out on Monday. One of the guys I work with is Martin Wattenberg, who among other things is an information visualization rockstar (he [...]
Demos on Video
Because videos often get the point across much faster. CHI Video Retrospective U of Maryland HCIL Open House Videos From HCI Index
Robots take over Pittsburgh
If you happen to be in Pittsburgh over the next couple of days, you should definitely check out the Robocup American Open. I’m not nearly as excited about robots as some of the people I work with here, but that’s still pretty damn excited.
Sony’s Next Robot
On Tuesday I went to a lecture by the Masahiro Fujita, the Principal Scientist and System Architect at Digital Creatures Laboratory, Sony Corporation. They’re the group that made the AIBO. He was talking about what looks to be the successor to the AIBO, the SDR-4. The motion, particularly the balance and types of navigation it [...]