Archive for November, 2006


GameTron 7000

Games are fun to play and also fun to make. But most gaming systems don\’t really include a way for everyday users to make and share simple games. GT7K attempts to do this for people with J2ME-capable phones. You just download the GT7K engine onto your phone and you can play any GT7K game without any additional installs. And you can go to the site and make your own games to play and share. Fun!

GameTron 7000

Games are fun to play and also fun to make. But most gaming systems don\’t really include a way for everyday users to make and share simple games. GT7K attempts to do this for people with J2ME-capable phones. You just download the GT7K engine onto your phone and you can play any GT7K game without any additional installs. And you can go to the site and make your own games to play and share. Fun!

Monday, November 27th, 2006
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The Botanical Garden

The Botanical Garden is an endless sequence of growing plant structures. The plants themselves start as points and grow out and unfold into complex organic forms. Some resemble real life, others become very abstract and alien. But all are formed using the real math — the real code of nature — that biologists use to describe actual plant growth and structural patterns. This includes leaf venation patterns, phyllotaxic arrangement of leaves and flower petals, Lindenmayer systems of growth, Johan Gielis\’ \”superformula\” modelling framework for natural forms, and such. The plants autogenerate, plus there is limited user interaction to generate new forms.

Monday, November 27th, 2006
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OffLines

OffLines has evolved from the question of what to do with your mobile phone when it is not being used for talking. One can text message, or send MMS/ email but these can only be sent when there is network availablity. There are also games of course, but some people simply do not enjoy playing games (gasp!) as much as others do. The phone can be used as an alarm clock, scheduler, even a small computer (with MS Office applications.) However, none of the present applications for the phone seem to fit the time when a person either does not have advanced applications or wants to just browse some information casually.

To fill this casual time, people often carry books with them, newspapers and magazines. However these can be bulky, use paper by the ton, and be full of articles we don\’t care about.
Why not use the dynamic screens that we all have on our cell phones instead?

OffLines is specifically geared toward this time and provides an application with customizable content that provides the option to access this content when there is no network connectivity.

OffLines

OffLines has evolved from the question of what to do with your mobile phone when it is not being used for talking. One can text message, or send MMS/ email but these can only be sent when there is network availablity. There are also games of course, but some people simply do not enjoy playing games (gasp!) as much as others do. The phone can be used as an alarm clock, scheduler, even a small computer (with MS Office applications.) However, none of the present applications for the phone seem to fit the time when a person either does not have advanced applications or wants to just browse some information casually.

To fill this casual time, people often carry books with them, newspapers and magazines. However these can be bulky, use paper by the ton, and be full of articles we don\’t care about.
Why not use the dynamic screens that we all have on our cell phones instead?

OffLines is specifically geared toward this time and provides an application with customizable content that provides the option to access this content when there is no network connectivity.

Monday, November 27th, 2006
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Witness Human Rights Video Hub Pilot

The Human Rights Video Hub Pilot is a first step towards a larger endeavor that WITNESS is currently undertaking: the development of a Human Rights Video Hub. This Hub will be a place where anyone anywhere can upload human rights related footage video from handheld devices or laptops, to create communities and proposed calls to action around the abuses they witness.

The goals of the forthcoming Human Rights Video Hub are to:

* Provide the only global online destination for video content specifically related to human rights violations;

* Provide tools so people can educate and motivate others to act to end human rights violations and create community around their issues;

* Provide a unique online resource for human rights activists, citizens, journalists, and others to access information, resource footage for news stories, and get engaged;

* Help deter and reduce human rights violations through community-enabled advocacy using visual imagery as a catalytic force.

The Pilot is the first step in this process. The pilot is a curated forum that contains a subset of the functionality of the Video Hub which will be released in the summer of 2007. We hope that this pilot project will give witness a better sense of the quality and quantity of Human Rights videos already in existence, and the type and level of public interest in dialogue around them.

The current pilot is powered by freeformed.org.

Witness Human Rights Video Hub Pilot

The Human Rights Video Hub Pilot is a first step towards a larger endeavor that WITNESS is currently undertaking: the development of a Human Rights Video Hub. This Hub will be a place where anyone anywhere can upload human rights related footage video from handheld devices or laptops, to create communities and proposed calls to action around the abuses they witness.

The goals of the forthcoming Human Rights Video Hub are to:

* Provide the only global online destination for video content specifically related to human rights violations;

* Provide tools so people can educate and motivate others to act to end human rights violations and create community around their issues;

* Provide a unique online resource for human rights activists, citizens, journalists, and others to access information, resource footage for news stories, and get engaged;

* Help deter and reduce human rights violations through community-enabled advocacy using visual imagery as a catalytic force.

The Pilot is the first step in this process. The pilot is a curated forum that contains a subset of the functionality of the Video Hub which will be released in the summer of 2007. We hope that this pilot project will give witness a better sense of the quality and quantity of Human Rights videos already in existence, and the type and level of public interest in dialogue around them.

The current pilot is powered by freeformed.org.

Monday, November 27th, 2006
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Speed Dial

Simply put, I wanted to use the phone as a gateway into something different, yet still very social, and enjoyable. Slot cars have existed in one form or another for many years now, and whilst simple, they invoke a great sense of play.

I want to see how the incorporation of the telephone as a controller alters this play. Will people try to collaborate or compete to crash the cars? (most likely) Will people try to chant to keep a steady pace? Will adults enjoy it as much or more than children?

Ultimately I hope people leave the project thinking differently about play and the telephone, as well as having a great smile on their face.

Monday, November 27th, 2006
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Mooretal Kombat

A Player\’s movement and interaction with the game will be mediated by hand-held controllers that are modified versions of the hardware they represent, thus adding a level of physical interaction and intimacy not commonly present in 3D fighting games. The title, Mooretal Kombat alludes to Moore\’s law, a simple heuristic discovered by Charles Moore that predicts the advancement of new technology and inevitable obsolescence of old technology. Moore\’s law posits that the amount of space that it takes to hold a transistor will halve every 16 months, and has held true since its inception in the early 60s. Many have interpreted Moore\’s law to be a kind of evolutionary theory of technology, where instead of the fittest surviving, it is the smallest and most functional that survive. In Mooretal Kombat players will witness first hand the historic struggle of obsolete, slow and featureless hardware, and most importantly, learn that the newest hardware simply kills.

Mooretal Kombat

A Player\’s movement and interaction with the game will be mediated by hand-held controllers that are modified versions of the hardware they represent, thus adding a level of physical interaction and intimacy not commonly present in 3D fighting games. The title, Mooretal Kombat alludes to Moore\’s law, a simple heuristic discovered by Charles Moore that predicts the advancement of new technology and inevitable obsolescence of old technology. Moore\’s law posits that the amount of space that it takes to hold a transistor will halve every 16 months, and has held true since its inception in the early 60s. Many have interpreted Moore\’s law to be a kind of evolutionary theory of technology, where instead of the fittest surviving, it is the smallest and most functional that survive. In Mooretal Kombat players will witness first hand the historic struggle of obsolete, slow and featureless hardware, and most importantly, learn that the newest hardware simply kills.

Monday, November 27th, 2006
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