hello.

Patagonia has a footprint tool on their site to help you understand the environmental impacts of some of their products. Not a bad visualization of the manufacturing process.

Thanks to Allison Woodruff for the link.

Régine Debatty’s interview with Graham Pullin on WMMNA is a good read. I like what I know of Graham’s work a lot, and I love the Museum of Lost Interactions. I think it’s an excellent way to teach about interaction. Looking forward to his new book, “Designing Braille for the Sighted”.

A few people have asked what I thought of the Greener Gadgets conference. The short answer is: had a good time, glad I went, it provoked some good thinking for me. The long answer is over on core77’s site. Thanks to Marc Alt for the chance to go, and Allan Chochinov for the opportunity to write about it.

Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design Bill Buxton. Morgan Kaufmann, ©2007. ISBN: 0-1237-4037-1.

In this book, Bill Buxton talks about the role that sketching plays in the design process. He gives a number of good examples from hand sketches to digital sketches. Then he launches into a discussion of what a sketch of an interactive experience is, and gives a number of good examples of interactive sketches and sketching methods. It’s an excellent read for anyone who makes interactive things.

Technorati Tags: design, interfaces, networked objects, networks, pcomp, philosophy, physical computing, sketching, toys, wearables

Shaping Things Bruce Sterling, Boston, MIT Press, ©2005, ISBN 0-2626-9326-7.
Bruce Sterling’s take on a plausible future in which everything made has a network address, and therefore a documented and documentable history. He takes this vision to its extreme, showing how it changes everything from design to manufacturing to consumption to disposal of material goods. An inspiring read if you’re interested in networks, material or information design, or sustainability.

Technorati Tags: design, environment, law, networked objects, networks, pcomp, philosophy, physical computing, RFID, sociology, sustainability

I finally got my hands on an Openmoko Neo1973 phone tonight. Not sure if it’s ready for primetime. A few notes:

It took me an hour and a half to flash the root file system and kernel on it. The getting started page and the Mac OSX page were helpful. I used this version of the kernel from buildhost.automated.it and the 2007.11 snapshot of the rootfs.

The operating system takes longer to load than OSX 10.4 on my macbook.

There are a couple things about the UI that bother me:

• It’s not obvious how to answer or hang up a call
• There’s no obvious way to access system settings through the UI, including things as basic as ringtone or volume
• It’s apparently not yet possible to send or get text messages.
• There’s no way to turn it off when the OS hangs, other than removing the battery.

I hope it gets better. It’s a nifty-looking phone.

NIBIT is a photo blog of physical control interfaces, some really obscure and fascinating ones. Inspirational for people building interfaces of all kinds.

Thanks to Terri Senft for the link.

From the Chaos Communication Camp comes Open Beacon. It’s basically an open design for actrive RFID:

“OpenBeacon is a free design for an active RFID device which operates in the 2.4GHz ISM band. The device contains a unique serial number, but may have other information. OpenBeacon is designed as a transceiver device and therefore both transmits and receives radio waves. The intention of this project is to offer a wide range of use cases such as visitor or item tracking and wireless remote control with a free self-contained and low-cost RFID design.”

Thanks to Massimo Banzi for the link.

Technorati Tags: electronics, networks, open source, RFID

Ben Hopson has a good site detailing his work on his masters’ thesis at Pratt on designing movements. The videos are very nice illustrations of some simple, expressive mechanical movements.

Thanks to Lesley Flanagan for the link

Technorati Tags: design, mechanics

Johanna Brewer sent this to me. Looks like a fun workshop, I wish I could go.

A Public Inconvenience
The 3rd workshop in the in-between-ness series.

Subterranean, ceramic-tiled bathrooms, plastic temporary urinals or compact, metallic washrooms in transit spaces; public toilets are an often-overlooked space in our urban environment. Technologies designed for the city often try to abstract away from the inconvenient necessities which our bodies require; or, when they are designed explicitly for public toilets, the focus is on supporting the cultural values of hygiene and privacy. What do we miss by ignoring the fact that public toilets are also the site for a variety of social practices?

‘A Public Inconvenience’ will explore the experience and affect of public toilets in an urban environment, in this case Amsterdam. Through observation and engagement we will consider how public toilets are shaped by, and themselves shape, cultural practices, values, and attitudes. And further, how this essential part of the urban fabric contributes to the everyday experience we have of our cities.

‘A Public Inconvenience’ is the third in a series of workshops exploring in-between-ness in urban environments. That is, the places and times that are often on the periphery of everyday life - the journey to work or the time spent queuing in a shop.

To be considered for participation, researchers and practitioners are invited to send us a compelling public toilet story (see The Stories section of the website for inspiration), an optional toilet photograph, a brief biography, and a short rationale outlining your interest in the workshop. This document should not exceed two pages.

Submissions:
Send to karen.martin@ucl.ac.uk by 21st September 2007
Acceptance Notification is 28th September 2007

Further Information:
http://www.inbetweeness.org/apublicinconvenience/

Place and Time:
26th & 27th October 2007
Waag Society, Amsterdam

Organisers:
Arianna Bassoli (The London School of Economics)
Johanna Brewer (University of California, Irvine)
Karen Martin (Bartlett School of Graduate Studies)
Valentina Nisi (Fattoria Mediale)
Martine Posthuma de Boer (Fattoria Mediale)

Technorati Tags: cities, conferences & workshops, design, environment