iBeacon

Interesting thought :

But iBeacon is much more than that. It is the infrastructure on which the iWatch will run. For all intents and purposes, iBeacon is the iWatch. The advantage of a wearable device, after all, rests in its ability to interact with the Internet of Things. All that remains for Apple is to build its Internet around the world’s things.

Geek Questions for 2014 : Programming on Tablets?

My latest geek question for 2014 (over on Smart Disorganized). How the hell do I program on my tablet?

As Bruce Sterling Said ...

I'm glad I don't have a job ...

FirefoxOS Launches in Brazil

FirefoxOS phone launches in Brazil. If it's not too expensive I'll look into getting one.

Smart Watches

The Guardian has a piece on developments in the Smart Watch world.

Personally I think people have Smart Watches the wrong way around. They think that watches are going to be an extra screen for mobile phones.

To me, the biggest problem with the device swarm, particularly Ubuntu's idea that your phone becomes your main computer, but portable, is that it's just so damned easy to lose it.




To me, the obvious move is to use the watch as the main processor / storage for a mobile computer (how often do you lose your watch?) and use a tablet as a dumb input / output device.

(I guess there are battery problems though.)

Inventing The Impossible

Nice. Modern magic.

Reminds me also of Sixth Sense.

Very cute: Paper Video Games.

Boing Boing :

An Apple patent describes a system for allowing venue owners to override compliant cameras. The patent describes using an infrared signal that compliant cameras would detect; in the presence of this signal, the device would not allow its owner to activate its record function. It is intended for use at live events and galleries and museums, and it will be a tremendous boon to policemen who shoot unarmed subway riders, despotic armies putting down revolutions as well as anyone else who is breaking the law or exercising coercive power.

This is part of an increasing trend to designing hardware and software that allows remote parties to override the instructions of the owners and users of devices. This trend, coupled with the increasing degree to which devices are privy to our secrets, our sensitive information, and even our biological functions, worries me an awful lot.

Nice printable electronic phone.

Something I've been trying to figure out how to do for a while. LED and optic fibre decoration + Arduino creates quite a living effect.

This is just a hacked together concept demonstration, but it would be nice to take it further.

Playing with pencils as input devices.

This is nice :

One thing’s for sure though, this new raft of watch accessories and the iPod nano being close to being jailbroken means that 2011 is shaping up to be an exciting year for nano owners and watch enthusiasts alike.

OMFG!

Cheap printed autonomous fliers.

We are racing towards a zero-privacy future.

Could Kinect control your internet of things?

I'm a big fan of Alan Kay (inventor of Object Oriented programming, and general interesting thinker) so I bought the Points of View book.

As usual, this is a connection competition. Suggest interesting parallels, contrasts, connections between the different recent acquisitions shown here.

OrangeCone on the "LAN of things"

• Devices are "building blocks" that serve specific functions. Printers, tape drives and modems all served specific functions in the early LAN ecology.



• They "combine transmission, storage, and processing operations." In other words, each device works standalone, but it is the combination of the devices that provides greatest value ("synergy" in the business language of 80s).



• Components are "added and shaped [...] meet specific user applications." This implies that not all LAN have the same components and that LANs are built as needed, rather than defined in its entirely beforehand.

What's up with Phil? A quick blurst of news.

It's a long story I may go into later, but I got kind of burned-out working on the last project I was on. So I decided to take some time off and apply to go back to university. I'm now at Goldsmiths college in London, doing the MFA in Computational Studio Arts.

This is quite a departure for me. I've tried being a scientist (but really don't have the attention to detail and statistical rigour for it), hung out with philosophers (and felt tempted by philosophy), and married an artist. But I've never thought of myself as *being* an artist. Or even *wanting* to be an artist. (Despite all the music I make.) I'm not sure I do now. There's still some puritan part of my brain which finds the whole thing rather self-indulgent and disreputable.

OTOH, here are two things I find really attractive :

a) the idea of being a "craftsman". That is, an expert maker of things.

And

b) the idea of artist as self-directed "gift-giver"; that is, someone who's work is inspired by what they want to give to the world rather than reacting to commission.

Of course, the world is full of programmers who say "I'm looking for a job where I can write what I want instead of having the pointy haired boss telling me what to do."

Well, artists are effectively living that dream. (Though, naturally, having to cope with the financial constraints that inevitably follow.)

So part of what I'm looking for on this course, is to stretch that part of me. Not so much the part which makes stuff up, which is fairly extended anyway, but the part which turns vague dreams into real things. A lot of it is to do with observing and modifying my own attitude and values. Even getting a bit more disreputable if it helps me push things forward ;-).

Inevitably the course is starting with some "learn to program for artists" type courses. Which aren't exactly an issue for me at the moment. But we're getting shown some nice graphics and sound related tools like Processing and openFrameworks (the latter of which I hadn't seen before).

And, soon, we'll start working with multi-touch, audio processing, and what Goldsmiths call "Physical Computing" which is all the magical, device-swarm, circuit bending electronics stuff. This is something I've wanted to get down to for a while, but haven't had the structure or time. I hope this course will give this to me. And if all goes according to plan, some of my device ideas may become reality.

Meanwhile, you can look at my ongoing course sketch-book (starting with Processing sketches.) I'll keep using this blog as my main "artistic" blog. So expect to see more art and music appearing here. I'll also use ThoughtStorms for further notes and ideas. And any swarm music I make will probably also find its way to the Gbloink site.

Abandon Normal Devices

So does the "device swarm" (or "splinternet" as Josh Bernoff calls it) spell the end of the web's golden age? (And help Apple to trounce Google into the bargain.)

Meggy Jr. looks very cool.