CrAzY optical illusion...

Little Hands, Foul Moods, and Runny Noses

The Game Developer's Conference was last week in San Francisco and I was lucky enough to attend a few sessions about game design. My favorite one was about "Researching Games with Kids". The speaker was Carla Engelbrecht (Teachers College, Columbia University) and she was really lively and wonderful. She showed this hilarious video to start with...

She said that, as game designers, we think we know what kids will like but we don't always get it right. Our "inner child" may still be there but there's NO WAY for us to still be in touch with everything that kids like, hence the need for research.

So how do you do research? Besides getting kids in the room and actually testing with them, there are a lot of other resources to help you figure out what kids will like at what age:

academia, conferences, online Googling

Google Scholar ("cited by" links very useful)

the NY Public Library or other library you have access to

IDC-- Interaction Design for Children conference

CHI-Kids discussion list

Center for Children and Technology

Go to YouTube and search "kids using Wii" for example

Child Development 101 for the Developers of Interactive Media (Wolock, Orr & Buckleitner)

PBS Parents Child Development tracker

Here are a few interface design issues she pointed out:
-point and click is easier for kids than drag and drop -- especially kids under 6
-a trackball is easier for kids because it doesn't move as much as a mouse

Developmental issues:
-kids under 5 often recall isolated events rather than full plot
-kids understand big picture of plot only by age 9-10
-kids can't tell that the amount of water in a short glass is the same as one in a tall glass
-be careful of cognitive leaps you take for granted but kids haven't learned yet

Testing issues:
-setup needs to accommodate kids' small size: chair should be high enough and screen low enough that they don't have to strain to look up or they will focus on the bottom of the screen!
-don't have any fire alarms in the room (!)
-kids get bored, start to give wrong answers-- make sure you account for short attention spans

I hope this will be useful for anyone working on interactive media for kids, I certainly enjoyed her talk and will be keeping an eye out for her work.

How to Make Ringtones for your iPhone using your MP3s

Here's what you need to do it:

* GarageBand 4.1.1 or later
* iTunes 7.5 or later
* iPhone with software version 1.1.2 or later

1. open Garageband (I had never even opened it before, but it's easy to see what's what)

2. Select "Create new"

3. Click "Create"

4. Show the media browser

5. drag a song onto the track

6. click the loop icon


7. drag the loop around or shorten/lengthen it til you get a loop of no more than 40 seconds

8. Go to Share > Send Ringtone to iTunes

9. Connect your iPhone and sync

10. On your iPhone, go to Sounds and select the ringtone

11. Do a little dance every time your phone rings!

Artists and Designers: Starve no more!

Enter contests and win money. Photoshop, photography, design...or start your own contest. Win prizes, get exposure...this is a really nice approach to the online art marketplace...


the site is a bit hard to navigate though. The idea is still cool.

http://www.worth1000.com/

Nice Illustrations by Michael Karshis

found on Design Feed

check out his site >

Super Cool Project from Yahoo!

Yes, Yahoo. Actually, Yahoo!'s Media Innovation Group-- We hope they haven't been decimated by the recent layoffs (anyone know if these are rumors or not?), because this News Globe project is amazing. They've been doing some incredible stuff with Flash-- really innovative. The NewsGlobe consists of three basic pieces: a Yahoo News Top Stories RSS feed, a geo-encoding web service from Yahoo! Maps, and a free, open-source library of 3D classes for ActionScript 3 called Papervision3D. The application loads the Y! News RSS feed every few minutes and extracts the dateline for each story.

read more about it here >
check it out >

MAKE STUFF!!!

...and impress your friends!

Here are some amazing classes for those of you in New York:

Learn how to make sensors, program microcontrollers, LEDs and EL wire, make computer music, interactive videos, and more fun stuff...

Art of Light: Controlling LEDs, EL Wire and Other Lighting Elements with Microprocessors
Sat-Sun 2/23, 2/24, 12:00-4:30 pm
Instructor: Leif Krinkle

Ableton Live for Performers: Integrating Live Computer Electronics Into Contemporary Performance
Tuesdays 2/26, 3/4, 3/18, 6:30-9:30 pm (note skipped date 3/11)
Instructor: Todd Reynolds

Video Tracking in Jitter: Expert Video Tracking for Sound and Video Control
Sat-Sun 3/1, 3/2, 12:00-4:30 pm
Instructor: Joshua Goldberg

Pyrotronics: Pyrotechnics & Control for Artists
Thursdays 3/6, 3/13, 3/20, 6:30-9:30 pm
Instructor: Eric Singer

Microcontroller Progamming for Artists: Introduction to the Arduino System
Level 2: Sat-Sun 3/8, 3/9, 12:00-4:30 pm
Instructor: Roberto Osorio-Goenaga

Sensors for Dancers: Wireless Sound and Video Control Through Movement
(2-for-1 registration)
Wednesdays 3/26, 4/2, 4/9, 6:30-9:30 pm
Instructor: Eric Singer

Electromechanical Systems and Robotics for Artists
Sat-Sun 3/29, 3/30, 12:30-5:00 pm
Instructor: Douglas Repetto

classes are at LEMURPLEX-- sign up at lemurbots.org

IDEO "Thoughtless Acts" Flickr group

Great photo group about things being used for an unintended purpose-- and accidentally uncovering a clever solution to a problem.

These photos are great:



join this group at http://flickr.com/groups/thoughtlessacts/

Funky Art Made of Pencils

This incredible sculpture made of pencil tips is by Jennifer Maestre. It looks like some kind of sea urchin.

wow, check this one out too:

there are more on her site as well

via craftzine

A Personal Helicopter That Can Lift You Up

Finally, a better way to commute.

Check out this video:

helicoptere personnel
by OXY67

thanks erok for the link! Found on pistolwimp...

Cleverest Idea I've Seen In Years Too!!

This is the cleverest idea I've seen in years: PlayPumps.

Kids play on a merry-go-round and pump water for villages at the same time. Girls benefit in particular because they are usually the ones fetching water.

Wish I'd thought of that.

Thanks to Diego for the link, Guy Kawasaki for the post, and National Geographic for the feature-- and PlayPumps for doing something worthwhile!

check out this video:

Must-See Sound Installation Space

I saw (or rather, heard) a performance a few nights ago in San Francisco that was really great. AUDIUM is the only theatre anywhere constructed specifically for sound movement, utilizing the entire environment as a compositional tool. There are 167 speakers hanging from the ceiling, attached to the walls, and coming out of the floors-- the effect is total "surround-sound" in its truest sense.

AUDIUM's creators, composer Stan Shaff and equipment designer Doug McEachern, were both professional musicians before getting this space and building it with the help of several grants, including NEA grants. They started doing this in the 50's!! The performance is done in complete darkness, and lasts about an hour-- it's a combination of recognizable sounds (kids playing on a beach) and synthesizer noise. Very modern--and long enough to get you completely in a trance...

Stan was there himself doing the performance he composed, as he has been doing every weekend for years and years. He stuck around to talk to the audience afterwards (and dare I say charm the ladies), it was great.

check out the site at http://www.audium.org/

What Color is YOUR Precinct?

Cool election-related tool.

Zoom in on the map and find your neighbors and which party they've contributed to! Yikes.

It's called "FundRace 2008". Here's what they say:

Want to know if a celebrity is playing both sides of the fence? Whether that new guy you're seeing is actually a Republican or just dresses like one? If your boss maxed out at that fundraiser or got comped? Whether your neighbor's political involvement stops at that hideous lawn sign?

FundRace makes it easy to search by name or address to see which presidential candidates your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors are contributing to. Or you can see if your favorite celebrity is putting their money where their mouth is.

FundRace gives you the technology to do what politicians and journalists have been doing for years: find out where the money's coming from, see who it's going to, and solve the mystery of why that crazy ex-roommate of yours is now the Ambassador to Turks and Caicos.

http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php

This was originally created at Eyebeam, and is based on contributions to the 2004 or 2008 elections filed with the FEC.

Mail Art: Hair Mail and Others

Around a hundred A6 sized cards sent to Margaret Huber from 2004 to 2006 from Japan, Finland, Spain, Russia and England. Hair, fish, a sachet of white powder, a piece of broken record etc. were sent to test the postal system. Only three cards never reached their destination.

This great project is by Riitta Ikonen
http://riittaikonen.com/projects/mail-art/
via newstoday

Amazing 3D Game by Media Molecule

You HAVE to see this! Stunning visuals, innovative interaction, multiplayer creativity and collaboration. The game is called Little Big Planet. Take a look at this video from the Game Developers Conference to get a sneak peek inside...

"easily the best PlayStation 3 game that Sony has ever shown off"
Wired

"this is the reason to buy PlayStation 3"
Slashdot




visit the Media Molecule site for more info.

Very, Very Silly.

and also kind of gross.

it was my breakfast...

An Artist Inspired by Interaction Design! Mafalda Santos

Love it! Her art is about the relationships between things, and contains lots of diagrams.

Organizational schemes, networks, interconnection and principles of scale and composition are determinant in Mafalda’s work. Expanded drawings on murals or ground works cull their information from computer interface, books and archives to create a simplified imagery that reflects “a moment/place in a mental or social structure of relations.” The artist also considers that they offer a comment on the specific context for which the work was produced.

She's from Portugal and has some work on view at Location 1 in NY. You can see more of here work on that site too, it looks like she doesn't have her site up yet.

Using Lasers to Highlight Emissions...Nuage Vert Project in Helsinki

The vapor emissions of he Salmisaari power plant in Helsinki will be illuminated to show the current levels of electricity consumption by local residents. A laser ray will trace the cloud during the night time, highlighting the need for power conservation...

Presented at the Pixelache Festival of Electronic Art and Subcultures, the idea comes from HeHe (Helen Evans and Heiko Hansen)-- not sure if they are french but they do live in Paris. Check out their site, they have a few other cool projects that are very different from this one(such as THE INTERNET AS IT WAS ON 23RD JULY 2004 - GOOGLE HITLIST)

check out the Nuage Vert project on pixelache >

via core77

Valentine's Day Challenge that Bridges the Physical and Digital

Another cool feature from Nike + -- If you run a 5k this Valentine's Day, February 14th, and upload your run to Nike+, you will get to see how you matched up against other people in the challenge.

You will have 24 hours to record your 5k -- I will be competing, you should join the challenge too.





Also...

I just love these scrapable widgets!

They're such a good viral idea.



You need Nike + to participate.

Secret Codes on Websites...Immersive Games

Trent Reznor is doing some cool promotional games...check out this Wired article:
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_args

Photo: Robert Maxwell