We are standing on the brink of a new ubiquitous computing and
communication era, one that will radically transform our corporate,
community, and personal spheres. Over a decade ago, the late Mark
Weiser developed a seminal vision of future technological ubiquity, one
in which the increasing “availability” of processing power would be
accompanied by its decreasing “visibility”.
As he observed, “the most profound technologies are those that disappear…
they weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are
indistinguishable from it”.

Early forms of ubiquitous information and communication networks
are evident in the widespread use of mobile phones: the number of
mobile phones worldwide surpassed 2 billion in mid-2005. These little
gadgets have become an integral and intimate part of everyday life for
many millions of people, even more so than the internet. Today,
developments are rapidly under way to take this phenomenon an important
step further, by embedding short-range mobile transceivers into a wide
array of additional gadgets and everyday items, enabling new forms of
communication between people and things, and between things
themselves.



an elephant RFID location collar



a roach ??

Making art with living systems

The idea of making art with living systems is not new; you might even
consider a garden or a goldfish pond to be biological art. What is new
is the degree of control over biological systems and materials
contemporary technology offers us. Topics on the organism weblog
include technical, practical, aesthetic, and ethical issues related to
making art with living systems. Artists, scientists, engineers,
students, and anyone else with an interest in this area are invited to
contribute.

In this next project the Singing Plant



"a plant is wired up to a theremin, through custom software, triggering
various samples based on the theremin's pitch. sensor system detecting
users approaching the plant and then dimming up a spotlight placed over
the plant."

Plan a Sonic Journey + Share Sounds



SoundTransit is a collaborative, online community dedicated to field
recording and phonography. On this site, you can plan a sonic journey
through various locations recorded around the world, or you can search
the database for specific sounds by different artists from certain
places. If you are a phonographer, you can also contribute your
recordings for others to enjoy. The Creative Commons Attribution
license encourages the sharing and reuse of all sounds on this website.

Phonography is the art of recording sounds from the environment around
us, with an emphasis on the unintentional sounds which often go
unnoticed in our daily lives.

On the "Book" page, users can create a SoundTransit by choosing a
location of departure and arrival, as well as several stopovers along
the way. Based on your selections, an intinerary with details about the
selected sounds and a soundfile are generated, which can be downloaded
as an MP3 or sent to friends.

Summary only available when permalinks are enabled. Read More

Random Screen is a mechanical thermo dynamic display which does not
rely on any electricity.

Each of the 12 by 12 cm pixels is built as a seperate module. A tee
candle lights and controls each pixel. The rising heat of the candle
turns a modified beer can which turns the pixel on and off. Each pixel
has its own frequence. The more bright a candle shines the faster is
the rotaion of the can.

Plants that generate their own wind...


machineARIA invites the viewer to contemplate a hybrid ecosystem
natural and artificial of electromechanically modified plants. The
augmented plants contain the source of the wind that sways and caresses
them.

A custom circuit with a PIC microcontroller is connected to five
motors with their propellers and LEDs, each one grafted to the trunk of
a bamboo plant. The motors and LEDs are being turned on and off
sequentially: the resulting motion simulates a delicate wind blow.

Summary only available when permalinks are enabled. Read More

In Getting Your Body (And Soul) Wired, Newsweek Magazine reports about
Finger Whisper, a wristwatch-phone that transfers voice signals via
your body:



"In his gadget-filled office at Tokyo Medical and Dental University,
Prof. Kohji Mitsubayashi tells a visitor to touch a transmitter with
one hand and a receiver with another. Voila! A jaunty TV jingle blares
from a pair of attached speakers. Surprised, the visitor releases both
gadgets, and the music stops. The simplicity and strangeness of
becoming a human circuit—with electrical signals coursing through one’s
body from fingertip to fingertip—is so fascinating that visitors
usually repeat the act. “Fun, isn’t it?” says Mitsubayashi, grinning.

Not just fun. Japan is abuzz over the potential of such body-based
technology as the ultimate wireless networking tool. A string of
Japanese companies are experimenting with systems that use the human
body to conduct electricity—some manipulating weak currents that pass
through the skin itself (as body-fat scales do), others taking
advantage of electrical fields on the surface of the body. Associated
products are on the way. The question is whether this represents a
paradigm shift in the way we think about wires."

A video about life among robots.
Directed by 1st Ave Machine.

Print club stickers from Seoul.



What other spaces are adorned by the content they help create?
If you could embed additional information in each of these images what would you want to embed?
as someone coming across these photos what questions would you want answered?
What are the different needs between the user(s), the provider, and the consumer(s) of this information?
If these photos were all digital what would the service/space it look like?

Given that all this can be digital why isn't it?

Are you interested in other peoples/cultures gameing environments? Plenty of video games-related pictures here: http://games.textamerica.com.




I find this of particular interest when considering how other people use and interact with video games, how people sit, what other objects they use, whether they are with friends or solo. The ‘user experience’ is essential when considering immersive environment content.

Check out this work by Erik Sandelin & Magnus Torstensson of unsworn, whom I met whilst participating in the Pixelache Festival last April. they have created what they call a Breather. A solar-powered electronic devicemade from a solar panel, a small circuit, and a speaker. When put into a container and attached to a south-facing wall, it converts solar light into chirping sounds.



Breathers is part of a Desearch and Revelopement programme - that recontextualises technological progress into meaningful artefacts through workshops and interventions on the theme of recycling, reappropriation and de[con]struction, the Breathers project imagines that in the future not only the radio frequencies but also the spectrum of visible light will be available for licensing by private companies.

The Breathers are some kind of sonic grafitti that could be used by free-spectrum activists. By subtly parasiting the private frequencies of the solar spectrum - thus subverting the business model of solar filtering companies - the Breathers articulate a resistance of the commodification of the energy spectrum.

"I've seen a great deal of techno-optimism and even -utopianism around
ubicomp, including a fair amount from people who should know better.
But despite a deep folk understanding of some of the risks involved -
Philip K. Dick was writing stories featuring recalcitrant doors and
dilatory automated taxis in the late 1950s, and we've all heard of
HAL9000 - there hasn't really been much in the way of people pushing
back against the idea of ubicomp, in a measured and knowledgeable way.
And so I've started to make some noise about what I see coming down the
road, describing the reality I see lurking behind the marketing hype
that's already beginning to build about the ostensible "conveniences"
that await us."
-Adam Greenfield interview on Studies and Observations.



Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing by Adam Greenfield:

From the RFID tags now embedded in everything from soda cans to the
family pet, to smart buildings that subtly adapt to the changing flow
of visitors, to gestural interfaces like the ones seen in Minority
Report, computing no longer looks much like it used to. Increasingly
invisible but present everywhere in our lives, it has moved off the
desktop and out into everyday life–affecting almost every one of us,
whether we're entirely aware of it or not.

"Everyware" aims to gives its reader the tools to understand the next
computing, and make the kind of wise decisions that will shape its
emergence in ways that support the best that is in us.

Cuckoo IP is a voice messaging system. The clock's answer phone can be dialled from mobile or landline. Leave a voice message, select a time for the delivery of it. At that time, the cuckoo will emerge from the clock and broadcast your message.

The device uses networking protocols to communicate with a server. Every minute, the clock asks the server if there's any message for that time-slot and request the sound file.



created by the artist Tobie Kerridge