ubc

See the accompanying UBC mobile brief wiki for notes to this presentation which I gave to the UBC Faculty of Land and Food Sciences on January 13, 2009 (note that this presentation was prepared using the 280 Slides web app which i highly recommend!)

Karen and Paul organized Transport Hero Camp today; a BarCamp for public and the youth delegates from the Youth Summit on Sustainabile Urban Transportation / CUTA / ACTU .

Random observations (some of which you can see in image format above):

• As a national event, it would have been great to have simultaneous English/French translation.
• Paul and Karen did a great thing (they made the difficult look impossible); this was an excellent gathering with savvy youth!
• I am still energized by Gil Penalosa's presentation last Wed (my 10 minute N95 video which is embedded below) to go beyond baby steps in bicycling. How's this for a non-baby step? Bike sharing and secure bike parking at every major transit node in every metropolitan city in Canada (Metro Vancouver, Calgary, Monrtreal, Toronto, Ottwaw, Hamliton, etc!
• Can I vote for Paul! Oops I can't because he is running in Surrey!
• Open Source Bike Sharing?!? why does it have to be monolithic? why does it have to be funded by ads?

10 minutes of Gil Peñalosa's presentation

As part of the UBC MAGIC tagging workshop on June 6, 2007, David Vogt gave a presentation on his super tagging startup, CrowdTrust, which is based on open source software. Sounded intriguing; I am kicking the tires and will report later what I think!

Phillip Jeffrey presented on Facebook and Flickr tagging at the UBC Magic Workshop on taging on June 6, 2007. As always Phillip was engaging and articulate! Phillip is becoming quite the Facebook poster boy as he was recently on CBC Radio as well. Go Phillip go!

Sydney Fels of UBC Magic presented some research ideas about many camera tagging and tagging cameras as well as the digital lifestyle. Particularly intriguing was the notion of Ikea and Home Depot offering mix and match digital lifestyle devices like they do today with non digital things.

My notes from Adrian's Large screen deployment talk at the UBC Large Displays Workshop.

Adrian's Large Screen deployment powerpoint slides.

And here's a video (only 2 minutes since I ran out of space on my N93's memory card, aaargh wish the N93 supported 4GB cards and the videos were more efficiently encoded):

More info: http://rolandtanglao.com/archives/2007/03/29/live-screens-workshop-ubc-nicole-family-blog

My suggestions to Nicole Arksey (Nicole's powepoint slides) and the rest of the team on Family Blog:

1. Don't call it a blog unless it has permanent links and generates RSS which Family Blog currently doesn't
2. Use a standard blogging engine like JRoller (if you must use Java :-) ), Wordpress or h*ck even Drupal and focus on the large display UI part. There's a blogging engine for every technology and language so finding one shouldn't be a problem.
3. Instead of writing a client from scratch on the phone, leverage the capabilities of the built in software. e.g. The N80i has LifeBlog built-in which supports the Atom Publishing Protocol and recent N series phones like the N93 and N95 have a built-in Gallery application that also supports the Atom Publishing Protocol. So re-work Family Blog to use a blogging engine that supports the Atom Publishing Protocol and you can use the built in software on the phone.

Large Display Workshop - UBC - Tony Tang - How and why wall and table displays will be used. 20 minutes 52 seconds

Rodger Lea of Mobile Muse and UBC gives an overview of large displays and the other speakers at the UBC Large Displays Workshop held on March 29, 2007.

e-Campus from Lancaster university, UK

• Context aware tour guide:
• differentiator - like to deploy stuff, put units in the tourist info centre i.e. in the "wild"
• You can't have ubicomp , ubiquitious computing, without deployment!
• What is e-Campus?
• large scale deployment of networked interactive displays across the campus
• put 3 data projectors in underpass
• hard, equipment not designed for 24/7 deployment
• designed reliable system for 8000 pounds
• lessons:
• should have budgeted up font
• want to create open infrastructure that's community resource
• tell stories over place and time
• adapt content as people pass by
• We don't know how people interact with displays
• Group interaction
• Walk up and use
• Stuck because how do you engage large amount of people
• need creativity to figure out new ways
• are using mobile phones for now
• have to make this kind of thing lower cost and easier to maintain
• Opening night was success
• way too many people
• complete rack of equipment: UPS, etc in dank underpass
• Need tools to make content production easier
• Learned
• artists really cared about how content looked
• No need to keep displays busy
• Timing is important
• Had to support a whole load of tools
• Content is eveything
• Decision: if no content, leave it off rather over-exposing
• Campus map application:
• base is phone with no software
• hard to get people to install their custom java app
• Nuffield theatre
• something behind
• Converging on a standard install that uses stock hardware not custom stuff
• typical node is dual platform, pc linux running expiremental software + mac running sony ziis signage software
• gesture based interaction using cameras built into phones
• lot of contributed content
• Lessons:
• Be sensitive to situation/environment you are deploying in (e.g. can't interfere with exams with noisy exhibit)
• Don't underestimate real deployment costs. Test where you are going to deploy.
• Content is the system and how it's perceived. Need to moderate, garden and nurture content as always!
• Where are they now?
• 6 live sites
• content is coming in
• solid hardware and software platform?

• We use them every day: programmes, designers, etc have them
• Windows 98 had 9 displays because of Brady Bunch according to Tony
• bezels and things between provide means of organizing
• What happens when we have large displays where we didn't have them before?
• Large displays can change the way we work with computers and people
• Shadow Reaching:
• The computer sees us as 1 eye with a finger, mouse pointer i.e. x-y coordinate, not the rich way we interact with people
• embody users in large displays
• we've interacted with shadows our entire lives
• so that can help us
• use our entire body as interaction mechanism
• What if we had cameras that can figure out where our hands are (touch and drag demo)
• Problems: too large, can't reach etc.
• So instead, follow shadow around
• More fluid
• can also use rendered shadows instead of physical shadows
• Surface Affordances:
• what are large displays good for?
• We do use large displays aka "surfaces": whiteboards, flip charts, etc
• Observed teams of engineers using these surfaces
• Surfaces have to manage info, visibiliity and info-suface coupling
• management - how easy to group
• easy on whiteboard
• not easy to add all info
• visibility:
• horizontal vs. vertical
• what if screen was on table instead of at front of room
• coupling:
• how easy is it to manipulate info independent of surface
• e.g. you can tear flip chart, and move elsewhere, so less coupled than whiteboard info
• the problem is not how to build but
• Really understanding useful apps and how can we use them to work together
• On table top displays, reaching is still a problem

Family Blog

• upload photos via Wifi to Family Blog app
• Family Blog is java app
• up to 5 users
• right now upload 1 at a time
• app to upload from phone
• back end is java on "media centre"
• server sits on Home Media PC - can run anywhere Java is situated
• Questions: RSS? permanent link