The device exhibited by Pattie Maes is obviously very exciting. It has both a significant wow factor (somewhat enhanced by the appearance of something very similar in a relatively recent science fiction film), and untold practical applications. It also seems relatively inexpensive and easy to produce.
Designers of interactive multimedia might take note of several aspects of the device, but there were two that occurred to me.
Firstly the use of gesture to control the device, which is something becoming more an more common, particularly in Apple devices. The Iphone brought touch screens and gestures like pinching and swiping to the masses, a process continued by the popularity of the Ipad. Gestures are now fully integrated into Apple laptops and desktop machines. As this method of controlling media becomes more ubiquitous a whole new language of gesture will develop.
Another thing that developers will need to think about is how information is filtered before being delivered to the user. With the amount of information available growing exponentially, almost from day to day, it is becoming more and more important to be able to filter that information to make it useful. The use of both automatic filter settings (based on user history and other biographical data) and user defined filters will become more and more important.
Yes Andrew, I agree that filtering is a real challenge in our increasingly connected community, particularly when we want students to have access to networked data. I imagine there could be some rather unexpected links made to mis-identified objects with the system.
ReplyDeleteI think the idea of filters is an interesting one... to create these would require a certain amount of knowledge about what needs to be filtered. This is still, at heart, a cognitive task - I think. Can these choices be made for us? Can this be handled through design of resources? What do you think?
ReplyDeleteHi Andrew,
ReplyDeleteDid you ever see the '70's sci-fi movie Zardoz? In one scene, Sean Connery puts on a ring that holographically displays the details of the objects he's pointing at. Sort of like augmented reality you get now on Android and iPhones. It was pretty neat and somewhat prescient given what we've seen in the Patty Maes video.
As for your filtering comment, I'm reminded of the T.S Elliot passage:
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge, and where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
Kind of sums up the whole information distillation process!
Hi all,
ReplyDeleteI think there is definitely a role for user defined filters, but there are also many "smart" filters that can analyse our online behaviour and provide us with more 'targeted' information. This technology is already used extensively for marketing purposes. Mobile devices with GPS tracking can and do also use information on the users on the user's location to filter content.
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
ReplyDeleteI definately agree on the need for a filtering system. There is so much information available and no person could want all of it, all of the time. I'm sure those geniuses that design software can work something out for us. If not I guess the user always has the option of turning to device off when they don't wish to us it!