TEI’09 notes and report

TEI’09 | Cambridge
February 16-18 2009, Cambridge, UK
http://tei-conf.org/

Tom Igoe, ITP
We are pretty good at making stuff, we have to get way better at unmaking stuff
Reware, firmware to recycle old devices like ipods, PDAs, etc
http://dev.eyebeam.org/projects/reware/wiki/Reware
Layers of information in a typical electronic device
-firmware state machine
-firmware high level code
-firmware assembly code
-firmware binary
-schematic
-net list
-board layout file
-bill of materials (BOM)
-components materials list
-chemical list
-assembly order
-drill files
-pick & place data
-assembly tool list
-supporting materials used in assembly
-supporting chemicals used in assembly
Not everything is needed for recycling. IP protection still possible
Consider trojan horses to get stuff in the popular imagination
We need to develop basic literacies: energy, materials, production, resources, legacy
Look for opportunities to use dead tech
Defaults to openness

Ylva Fernaeus, SICS
Programming by physical demonstration (ex. curlybot, topobo)
It can work, but sometimes it’s nice to have a bit of code

Conference report and impression

The conference opened with a keynote from Tom Igoe. He presented ideas about sustainability and unmaking things. He mentioned that information about production and materials should be shared more so the community and users can recycle, reuse and repurpose items. A lot of this information is not related to IP. As a corporation, you could/should choose what you want to share/open with the community.

The first session of talks were quite interesting. Ylva and Leah presented their ongoing projects, respectively Dressing robots and Computational Sketchbook. Leah mentioned that the biggest hurdle for sketching with conductive ink is that it takes a couple of hours to dry before it can be used. Marcelo Coelho presented his work with Shutters at MIT. They went through many iterations regarding scale, controller and power issue. I liked his work a lot and hope I’ll be able to visit their lab in the Spring. Amanda Parkes then presented her attempt to harvest energy in garments. It was not very successful but nevertheless a great exploration at the meeting point of fashion and technology. Not so much as takeaway regarding energy production aspect because the main driver for the project was fashion. For example, piezos have not been use in shoes, possibly the best location to harvest energy in regard to weight.

The second session titled New Perspectives and Theories on Tangibility was not particularly enjoyable. The only interesting talk I found was from Jörn and friends with Image Schema (a continuation of previous work presented at TEI07 and TEI08). The last keynote was presented by Ayah Bdeir. I’ve seen her talked before, but it was nice to hear that she is now continuing development of LittleBits despite Smart Design dropping out of the project. I think it’s interesting to have such tiny modules, but I also feel the learning curve is limited with a system like this. The barrier of entry is super low, but as you move along, you might get limited in what you want to do or how you develop an understanding of what the system is doing. Arduino is not perfect either but, in my opinion, it successfully targets and supports both beginners and advanced users. No matter where you are along the learning curve, it is there on your side.

The second day of the conference was entirely dedicated to demos. It was very nice to have a room pack with projects. You could walk all day, try the project and have extended discussion with its creator. The first one that caught my attention was the camera-robot from John Helmes (Microsoft Research Cambridge). It’s nice to see industrial design coming in a project like this. I feel ID can bring a lot to a typical IxD project, but often we simply skip this part or don’t consider it as much as we should. His shield/armor gave a lot of character to the project: simple but extremely valuable. I was also pleasantly surprised that Microsoft Research is hiring industrial designers to work on such projects. Promising for the field, indeed.

One super interesting demo for my PhD was CapToolKit , a board for capacitive sensors from Raphael Wimmer. It is simple but it works well. One of his demo piece was a handheld box with 4-5 sensors and by using a bit of code, you can figure out if the user is holding the device, which grip configuration (left, right, palm, 2 fingers) or if the device is being located in a pocket. Again, simple but clever. I can see a lot use for my own work. I could provide haptic feedback where the user is actually touching the device. It’s all open-source and available at the moment, I’m definitely getting one kit as soon as possible.

Many multitouch tables (including Microsoft Surface) were presented. I didn’t find anything particularly interesting. The Second Light demo from Microsoft was also showcased. I’ve seen it before online, but it was very to try it and chat with the researchers behind it. I have to say that is was working really well. Amazing stuff, the WOW factor was definitely there.

One fun project was a hanging elephant doll, suspended from the ceiling, activating sounds when moved/swinged around in space. Very unusual interface, but joyful for 2-3 minutes (possibly longer for kids). Bart from Eindhoven also demoed a new iteration of his tangible educational system for young children. He is doing amazing work for his PhD down in the Netherlands. Very inspiring work.

Some of “interesting but weird projects” were: the connected umbrella, Asimov’s First Law / Alarm Clocks from Alice Wang, twist UI for handheld, Handhelds for High-Precision Tangible Interaction with Large Displays, and carnivorous robots. I spent a fair of time chatting with André Knörig from Fritzing during the conference. I believe this system is very valuable and interesting for projects at the border of ID and IxD. I really want to play more with Fritzing in the coming months. I’ll also look into hosting a workshop with them in Umeå. One project I didn’t noticed was MIT’s Motion Prototyping. I’ll review it for sure in the proceedings because I think it very related to want I’m doing for my PhD.

The last day of the conference was packed with presentations. Many of them were limited to five minutes. In this case, you can more of a teaser than an actual presentation. One that got us laughing a lot was the one from Japan. The projects were super playful, and very well presented I think. I’ve seen many projects coming out of Japan with the same qualities: they are super simple, stupid almost, presented in funny situations. No matter what you think of the project, you end up laughing a lot. It must be cultural (someone told me there is a japanese word for such funny project). I think we should dedicate more time to present projects in this way. People like it even tough they don’t always get.

Leonardo Bonanni presented his views of using stop-motion prototyping for tangible interfaces. I feel stop-motion can be used very sucessfully in a lot of IxD project. I haven’t done it in a long time. I’ll try to specifically use this technique for upcoming projects. It’s fast and you easily get the natural/analog qualities that take forever to refine with/in digital mediums.

The conference closed with a keynote from Durrell Bishop, the man behind the famous Marble Answering Machine. This fine gentlemen has done amazing work over the last few decades. He usually teams up with engineer(s) as to make sure he can build prototypes that work. He sees real value in doing that, I really agree with him. He presented very nice works covering a broad range of domains/disciplines. Talking about product semantic, he says: “It’s not the products we already understand that need rethinking. It is the new ones that we don’t understand that need to be comprehensible”. He also showed some sketches of a hypothetical interface for video recording/playing with a sink. Quite interesting I have to say. He presented a large collection of projects, some of them were very thoroughly. His marble answering machine, was only one part of a large system where action, use and behavior were specifically manifested tangibly.

My general feeling of TEI’09 is that it was very nicely organized and that the demo day was very valuable, especially for a conference around the topic of tangibility. I found the level of some presentations/projects to be a bit on the low side. Some of the project tend to be so specific or context dependant that it’s impossible to extract something or have a takeaway from it. You can only say “Nicely done, but it doesn’t bring much or contribute knowledge to the community”. Should it absolutely contribute new knowledge to the world? Maybe not…