Here’s my selection of the best of the sci-fi London 48 hour film challenge. In no particular order:-
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Sci-fi 48 hour film competition 2012 – complete list of entries
Took part in the Sci-fi London 48 hour film competition at the weekend. It was an exhausting 2 days but loads of fun. I thought I’d put together a list of all the films that have been posted on twitter.
Here’s our entry:-
And everyone else’s mighty efforts…
Kinect hacking goodness (SXSW 2012)
South by South West has intrigued and delighted me in so many ways. But I’ve got to say I really enjoyed sitting back and watching Dan Fernandez and John Boiles demo their kinect hacks.
First up they showed how relatively simple it can be to hack the kinect using various engines to track body movements and tie that in to an on-screen avatar. In this case a character from a video game.
Then there was a wonderful demo that could only out of the brains of a frustrated developer. What if you don’t want people coming to your desk and stealing your pens? Here’s a pellet gun that tracks your movement and when you get too close it will fire a shot at you. Your groin area to be specific.
Much to the delight of the audience we were then shown a hover copter controlled by movement. He flaps his wings to make the machine go higher and leans left and right to control it. Sensors on board prevent if from hitting into anything. There was a big round of applause for this one.
And finally, kinect powered boxing robots. Two players’ movements are tracked and mapped onto these beautifully crafted bots. Robot wars eat your heart out. Much clapping and general whooping ensued.
Applying psychology to web design (SXSW 2012)
I went to a great talk during SXSW which focused on how we can apply the principles of psychology to great web design. Hosted by Jason Hreha, an applied psychologist and UX adviser, this session covered some key principles which I can outline here.
Fogg’s behaviour model asks us ‘What causes behaviour?’
- Ability
- Motivation
- Trigger (or cue)
For example, a rocket can be broken down into these key areas. If you think of the shell of the rocket as its ‘ability’; the fuel is the ‘motivation’ and the match is the ‘trigger’. The first two always exist in people, it is the third that is affected by outside influence.
1. What factors your ability to do something?
- Time. Does it take too long to carry out a task?
- Money. Are we asking too much cash from people for this?
- Physical effort. Is there a practical barrier in front of a person?
- Mental effort. Are there too many things to think of in order to carry out a task?
- Social deviance. Are we asking something that may cause offense?
- Non routine. Are we breaking conventions?
2. What is your motivation for doing something?
- Does the product solve a true problem? Does it provide a user with value?
- Can you be rewarded for little things as you go? E.g. A progress bar to indicate how much of the signup process you have completed.
3. How can we trigger behaviour?
- Email is a great way to notify a person to go back to your site. For example, Oh Lifesends you a daily prompt at exactly the right time of day to encourage you to fill out your daily journal.
- Facebook alerts you when a new picture of you has been uploaded and tagged giving you the option of going in and untagging or commenting.
- You can also have on-site triggers too. A strong call to action with clearly defined button is preferred so a user knows exactly what is expected of them.
There’s plenty more good stuff over at Jason’s site and he’s even promised the slides…
We are all cyborgs (SXSW 2012)
“We are all cyborgs” says Amber Case a cyborg anthropologist speaking at SXSW. Firstly, that’s the best job title in the world. And second, cool, we’re all cyborgs.
By plugging in to our little pocket devices we are in fact becoming superhuman giving us abilities we couldn’t even comprehend ten years ago. But we are becoming trapped by these devices. Hunched over screens as we navigate the world oblivious to what’s going on around us. We’re missing life. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
We have a habit of adopting technologies and then letting them stick for an inordinate amount of time. The mouse, for instance, was never, meant to be around for so long and even superior input devices, such as the one handed keyboard the Twiddler, never took off. We are doing the same with screen technology. An assumed reliance on one device. Yet we should be looking to branch out beyond this.
The haptic compass is a belt that is worn around your waist and buzzes every time you face north. Worn for an extended period of time a user gets an increased spatial awareness of where they are at all times without the need for maps. Imagine a gps system that vibrated the fingers on your steering wheel to guide you.
Computing is moving towards a singularity where it becomes invisible. We should not allow this to mean we are tied to one device necessarily. We should bring computing into our lives so that we can fully realise our life and potential. Amber has been working on a great project called Geoloqi which is a platform that taps into geo-locational data that already exists and serves it to you in context. For instance, without opening an app you’d have messages served to you when you reach a bus stop to tell you all the next buses on route. Or you might be served a Wikipedia entry on the building you’re stood next to.
By stopping the need to have multiple apps that you need to download, open and use you instead allow people to go out and live their lives and serve them things they have requested as they arrive in a physical space. Buttons become invisible. Interfaces disappear.
Check out Geoloqi’s rather lovely real-world game of pacman for a demo of this emerging technology.