Posts tagged design
Reach Out and Touch Something
Carnegie Mellon and Disney Research have teamed up to create a prototype called Touché that turns almost any surface — from solid to liquid — into a multifaceted touch surface.
Via Carnegie Mellon:
A doorknob that knows to lock or unlock based on how it is grasped. A smartphone that silences itself if the user holds a finger to her lips. A chair that adjusts room lighting.
They are among the many possible applications of Touché, a new sensing technique developed by a team at Disney Research, Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon University.
Touché is a form of capacitive touch sensing, the same principle underlying the types of touchscreens used in most smartphones.
But instead of sensing electrical signals at a single frequency, like the typical touchscreen, Touché monitors capacitive signals across a broad range of frequencies.
This Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing (SFCS) makes it possible to not only detect a “touch event,” but to recognize complex configurations of the hand or body that is doing the touching. An object thus could sense how it is being touched, or might sense the body configuration of the person doing the touching.
SFCS is robust and can enhance everyday objects by using just a single sensing electrode. Sometimes, as in the case of a doorknob or other conductive objects, the object itself can serve as a sensor and no modifications are required.
Even the human body or a body of water can be a sensor.
We look forward to the day Touché and Siri get together and make babies.
Time’s Upcoming Cover
Discuss.
The Hashtag Comes to Architecture
The Bjarke Ingels Group, a Danish architecture firm, has taken inspiration from the (resurgent) hashtag in its design plans for an apartment complex in Seoul, South Korea.
Via Dezeen:
“The Cross # Towers constitute a three-dimensional urban community of interlocking horizontal and vertical towers. Three public bridges connect two slender towers at different levels – underground, at the street and in the sky. Catering to the demands and desires of different residents, age groups and cultures the bridges are landscaped and equipped for a variety of activities traditionally restricted to the ground. The resultant volume forms a distinct figure on the new skyline of Seoul – a “#” that serves as a gateway to the new Yongsan Business District signaling a radical departure from the crude repetition of disconnected towers towards a new urban community that populates the three-dimensional space of the city.” Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG.
Images: Schematics for the Cross # Towers in Seoul. Via BIG.
Suit Yourself
Or Shit Yourself as the mirrored text might say.
Choice is yours. We’re going with the former.
Via Reddit.
Awful Event: President Lincoln Shot by an Assassin
Before the Banner headline front page news was a bit understated.
Image: New York Times front page from April 15, 1865. Via the NYT’s Facebook Timeline.
Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is.
In a recent TED talk, Chip Kidd walks us through the design process he used to produce iconic book covers over the last 20 years, from Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park to David Sedaris’ Naked.
His thoughts about digital books and tablets: “Much is to be gained by eBooks: ease, convenience, portability. But something is definitely lost: tradition, a sensual experience, the comfort of thingy-ness — a little bit of humanity.”
Bonus, Part 01: Has Kindle Killed the Book Cover? via The Atlantic.
Bonus, Part 02: Is the Book Cover Dead, via Technology Review
Fans of the husband and wife designer team Charles and Ray Eames who were or were not around to see their original 50 foot long, 1961 infographic chronicling the history of mathematics can now download an app version of the huge idea. Very mathy!
Google Unveils its Glasses
In a post on Google+ the Google[x] team unveil their vision for augmented glasses. The design concept is available here.
Via Project Glass:
A group of us from Google[x] started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment. We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input. So we took a few design photos to show what this technology could look like and created a video to demonstrate what it might enable you to do.
Could almost be as handy as a reporter’s notebook.
Three Unique Publisher Apps
Digiday points out 3 mobile apps created by publishers that go above and beyond just recreating the web & print experience (look, feel, layout, content). You know, actual innovation on the mobile front:
Unfortunately for readers, it seems as though media outlets often take the path of least resistance and just port their online content into an app. There are a few, however, who forge their own paths. Here are three unique mobile apps where publishers are trying something new.
Orange County Register: This local California paper (1.3 million uniques in February 2012, according to comScore) takes a unique approach to delivering content on its app, The Peel. The outlet plays to the audience, serving stories throughout six categories — news, sports, business, trending, things to do, and photo/video gallery — that are chosen based on iPad reader’s interests and many of the stories can only be found within the application. Additionally, the app pushes content in the evening and each addition features content exclusively for the app. A novel approach for a local outlet, this app can go a long way for those living in the OC — or those just stopping by.
Download the app here.
WP Politics The Washington Post has an election 2012 specific app, which does way more than port content from its website. Sure, there’s news from the paper and a website that finds its way onto the app — like Ezra Klein’s blog or The Fact Checker — but the app delivers additional information that’s not on the site: a polling map for the uber-wonky who want to know how each candidate is faring in sentiment at any given time; candidate issues tracker, which uses motion graphics to provide users with an “at-a-glance” understanding of where each of the candidates stand, and previously stood, on the major issues of the campaign; the historical election results map, which includes every vote, in every state, for every candidate, in every presidential election since 1789, and is presented with Washington Post articles written before and after every election since 1880. This app is a political wonk’s dream as it gives information that can’t even be found on the Washington Post’s site.
Download the app here.
King’s Cross, London – Streetstories The Guardian recently released an app that lets users listen to the sounds of Foggy London Town while walking the streets of King’s Cross. Additionally, the app serves as a walking guide with more than 70 stories and two hours of audio material, all relevant to a user’s location. The app boasts of readings from Dickens (location-specific), the architecture of Gilbert Scott’s St. Pancras, as well interviews with former street workers giving listeners an oral history of the area. This is a great idea for users who want to learn more about their surroundings. Hopefully other major news outlets will follow in The Guardian’s footsteps, especially in cities around the world.
Download the app here.
No one’s happier that Tiger Woods won this weekend than the boys’ club at the New York Post.
The New York Post gets a little freaky with today’s front page, no?
Tumblr provides interface for users to view image metadata.
Der Mensch als Industriepalast (Man as Industrial Palace), 1926, Fritz Kahn
Image from Information Graphics, a new book by Julius Wiedemann, that explores the history of data and visualization.
The Guardian has a few more images from the book.
Handcrafting Type, Literally
Graphic designer Tien-Min Liao created Handmade Type, a “typographic experiment that explores the relationships between upper-case letters and lower-case letters, and also records the transformation between them.”
In this experiment, I drew shapes with ink on one or both of my hands, manipulating my gestures into the corresponding shape to signify an upper-case letter. Then, using the same shape on my hands, I manipulated my gesture or changed the perspective through which the shape is viewed in orderto transform the upper-case letter to a lower-case of the same letter. Removingor redrawing the darkened shape on my hands is not allowed in the experiment. The only way to make the model transform from an upper-case to a lower-case (orvice versa) is changing the gestures or the perspectives.
Click through for more animated letters and a video of the making.
H/T: Colossal.
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