Some Slides to further increase my research

Post no. 6

MY PREZI ON WEARABLE MEDIA

Here's a link to my prezi on the future of Wearable Media. I did this presentation for my EMM class, but it has it relations to my essay as well.

Here's the script to accompany the slides.

Slides 1 and 2: 

I will be talking about Wearable Media and its future in technology.

3:

But first, a little summary on the history of communication. Humans first begin communicating with gestures, then oral, then text, broadcasting and digital.

4:

What is Wearable Media you might ask?

It's basically tech which you could put on or off. They seem cool at first, but how is this technological evolution going to be a necessity? What are the real functional uses of wearable media?

5:

Wearable Tech now could be separated into two main functions. Utility and entertainment. In the present, we have wearable tech in different fields such as

Military: Exoskeletons for rehabilitation or to preserve body durability and energy

Healthcare : Armbands To measure heart rate and blood pressures

Fitness: Smart Clothing, Sleep Sensors

Infotainment: Samsung galaxy gear, Google glass and MYO, which all requires wireless bluetooth connections to mobile devices and computers.

6:

There are different misconceptions between wearable media and Gestural Tech.

Both are different entities, although some tech merges the two.

The differences between Gestural Tech and Wearable Media..

Like wearable MYO armband, it requires the user to wear the armband, perform the gesture and then it translates them onto your device. Which brings me to my next question.

7:

All this talk about Google Glass and smart watches got me thinking. Will it ever replace Smart Phones? Mobile phones are considered a necessity for us, the digital natives.

 Are they just an extension for mobile phones?

Wearable media has their limitations.

When we switch between apps.

However, Flexible screened mobile phones are soon to be sold. Will they be wearable as well? Therefore, it would breach a gap between handheld devices and wearable media.

8:

Will we ever be able to take them off?

Take the electronic tattoo display concept for example. Silicon is slipped under the skin. Two small tubes on the device are attached to an artery and a vein to allow the blood to flow to a coin-sized blood fuel cell that converts glucose and oxygen to electricity. 
Uses tiny microscopic spheres for the display.

 “Ophthalmic Electrochemical Sensors,” The sensors are designed to read chemicals in the tear fluid of the wearer’s eye and alert the user through a little embedded LED light, when user's blood sugar falls to dangerous levels.

Thermoelectric Bracelets inventions by MIT enable individuals to control their own body temperature, so they would not need to use large cooling or heating units to achieve 'thermal comfort'.

Microsoft is developing an Earbud mood detector where it detects the mood of the listener via heart rate and thermometer, to play music that suited your mood.

Ironically, these wearable media are invented to solved those problems.

Conclusion:

Are we reversing the history of communication? Verbal communication and gesture recognition with technology is expanding. After all, they are our primitive ways of communicating.

Comments were:
- Include display methods.
- Add in how wearable media helps the disabled.
- Start the predictions earlier in the slides.
- Conclude with the topics relating to the subtopic at the first slide. Is it really necessary?
  Well it is, as I believe wearable media is just a transition to mainstream implant technology. It's an important part of technological evolution if I might add.

PPM - Meeting Our Specialists

Post no. 5

Today I had a meeting with my specialist tutors Yee Siang and Jazmi.

I explained my idea on the wearable media being used in concerts, and we discussed about how I could include the contents of the audience into the display output itself. Yee Siang said that I needed to use C++ and had to consider the amount of people if I wanted to crop out their faces and include them into the projection mapping display. I had the inspiration of face cropping from a theme park ride in Disney Land where it crops the riders faces and renders them into an animation on the screen. It has a really loading time though, something I want to avoid.

Sweii then suggested that I could build a website where it collects the audiences content when they buy tickets online. It could provide both traffic for the potential sponsor and user content for the concert.

I had a little motto about how the audience controls the concert rather than the other way round. Feedback is important to the artists, they could actually get a number for data mining and market research. How could the audience contribute to the artists as well?

I have two angles on the approach to this project.

1. They could replace lighters/phone displays (when they wave them along to the tempo of the songs the artists are performing)
2. The could be in a gestural feedback form, just like the Colosseum Gladiator fighters during the Roman Empire.

I would not want users to download apps or scan QR codes to interact with the installation. It's too much of a hassle.

Plus, I have included labels at the bottom of each post for easier navigation. Posts will be segregated based on the progress labels of my project. 

PPM - Statement of Intent

Post no. 4

STATEMENT OF INTENT (PPM)

Topic: A Gestural Tech Game

Key Ideas	The key idea of this project is to create an immersive, experience/game that can breach between the digital and physical world seamlessly with wearable sensors. The output will be in the form of projection mapping.
About	Users are able to use every day offline gestures like clapping, hi-fiving, or shaking hands to interact with the installation game. They are required to put on a piece of wearable media first, to experience them.
Issues	1.      Media is commonly confined into screens. Interactive Advertising isn't confined to a Web, as mentioned by Tessa Wegert in an article on clickz.com. Media is diverse, creative and has no boundaries. Therefore, it being confined into screens limits its potential to grow and expand on more greater possibilities. Technology should be available all around us, seamlessly melting into our daily routines. Rather than we, blending and merging our focus to less-than-lively screens. 2.      Motion tracking is inconvenient and troublesome. Based on personal experience at experiments of motion tracking by notable Interactive Studios by ISOBAR and Kinect released games, the calibration time needed deemed too hassling and the results of the output are minimal and buggy. There are experiments with mechanical motion capture where users are to wear simple arm bands at certain spots, without the use of a camera or calibration. They are found on YouTube via the username Snappers Mocaps. They would also not have to worry about losing the tracking halfway during the interaction experience as this wireless mechanical tech could automatically measure direct movements from the direct muscles of the user. With Kinect, body parts would occasionally overlap each other as the calibration gets confused and wrong.
How it relates to multimedia	Gesture Tech and Wearable Media is commonly predicted as the future of technology by Multimedia experts. This interactive experience gives technology a new and more varied ‘body’ than what they are confined in today; which are screens. Gesture Tech and Wearable Media are both a combination of UBI computing (hardware) and Natural User Interface (software). “UBI computing is an advanced computing concept where computing is made to appear everywhere and anywhere.”
Research Question	What is the future for the seamlessness between the digital and the physical world? Would technology be superior to us or otherwise?
Inspirations from the research	Pranav Mistry – Sixth Sense His research encompasses the seamless connection between the physical and digital world. He takes media out of the screen and enables it to be available on any platform or surface. He explores the use of motion tracking as the input, and a small projection device as the output. This projector is designed to be worn on the neck like a regular necklace, while receiving tracking data from the colour taped fingertips of the user. By performing regular hand gestures like pinching and hand compositing, one is able to drag and drop data in real time and take pictures.

About the Project

Genre	Gestural Music Game
Form	Installation
Audio/sonic pieces	Free or purchased sound effects and music will be used. As for the hardware, speakers should do. I hope to get a surround sound by carefully experimenting the placements of those speakers.
Skills needed	Arduino Coding Sewing Animation of Motion graphics
Installation Details	Hardware/Software Arduino Adafruit Touch sensors/sound sensors Flash/Resolume Arena Size The projection would be about 3 metres. The Wearable media would be small and easy to put on. No bigger than a regular sized glove. Time to Consume 30 seconds or less. Number of participants 1
How it works	To initiate the game, users are to clap according to the beat to control the display of the projection mapping.
Risk Assessments	-          Fragile setups
Funding	·         Personal investments ·         Crowd-Funding (Kickstarter) ·         Sales

Target Audience: Young adults

Likely consumers	Ages: 18-25 Occupation: College students to young working adults. Interests: Enjoys socializing and technology. Media consumptions: Music videos, concerts Lifestyles: Party goers, Socialites Consumer behaviours:  Have short attention span, easily excitable
Their Experience with the “Final Year Project”	First, they would put on the wearable media. The will be able to hear the song and react according to the beat. The feedback will be given in the form of projection mapping and sound effects. The experience will conclude with the user's face being captured and showed through projection mapping on a piece in the installation design.

How it relates to existing skills and knowledge

The existing knowledge that I currently possess would act as a foundation to what I would do for the final project. Coding the Adafruit Flora (a circuit board specialized for wearable media) with my previous subject; Livetags provided the basic knowledge of handling the wiring and circuitry needed to operate and function the project.

How it addresses new skills and learning

Since this would be an individual project, one of the new skills that I would acquire would be a further advancement on the understanding of processing coding. I would also need to improve on UX and interface designing. Other than that, I would have a deeper learning on the behaviours of users. Questions would be asked; like what would make them excited to use it? How would they remember the experience? Would they want to use this media in the future? Graphical wise I would also like to explore and reinvent my own personal style which could signify my personality and interests.

How it relates to the Degree essay

This project would complement the degree essay which researches on the future of Gestural Tech and Wearable media. The essay would argue about how these forms of media would may or may not be the next cultural technological phenomenon. It would also analyse predictions and current developments of this form of media today. 

PPM - Statement of Intent (Draft)

Post no.3

Statement of Intent – Draft

Today I had the chance to consult Sweii (PPM lecturer) about the Statement of Intent draft. After much thought and research, I managed to narrow down my idea to what I might execute for my final year project.

I have decided to merge both projection mapping and wearable media into one installation artefact.

We discussed a few important notes:
1. It is going to have an entertainment or utility factor?
2. Is there going to be a narrative? I should keep my options open for this one. I would very much prefer the multiplayer aspect rather than an individual participation.
3. Maybe this could be the opportunity for me to show my conceptualization skills. Could I incorporate this installation into an advertisement?

AS mentioned in my previous posts, I would want to have my installation bring forth emotion and enjoyment. So right now, my plan is leaning more towards the entertainment side rather than its utility. One of the reasons why I chose to do so is because of this existing Bluetooth phone glove I saw over the internet. Why would I want to remake something that has already been done?

Besides, I figured people would remember experiences more. I have to measure my capabilities as well, I really need to be realistic and depend on my past experiences with installations. This would be a prototype, I hope next time it would be wireless just like one of those rave rings I got where you could just put it on easily.

What’s next?
What I am going to do:
- Start thinking of a concept I could relate to my project. (I have a ridiculous concept on this one.
- I’ll bold it and you can read it after this list)
- Further research on existing technology that relates to what I might be doing.

Ridiculous Concept:

I have been to ONE rave in my life and a couple of concerts. Since I was planning to use clapping as one of the prime gestures (and also the most primitive of the bunch) to initiate the gameplay which would then output through projection mapping, I thought that I could have this technology be part of parties and concerts where people could interact with the displays and mood of the concerts.

People go to concerts and raves for the music. Not about getting high and dying because of overdose. So I figured, to keep everyone sober and excited, why not have them control the excitement of the concert? When they clap according to the beat, it could control the hype of the displays and special effects. (In the future, why not involve fireworks and stage effects as well?) This way everyone would LOVE to participate and have their feedback to the concert as well.
Maybe it would work similarly to the Gladiator fights in the Colloseum centuries ago where the crowd decides the fate of the losing Gladiator just by thumbing up or thumbing down? Gestures. Maybe this similar concept could be applied to these concerts as feedback if the DJ is doing a good work or not.

There’s something about the ‘Law of conformation’. People get excited when people are clapping in unison. These are all just a couple of thoughts that are from the top of my head.
Feedbacks are important as well for the betterment of the product. That is why both big and small companies like Google, Facebook and such placed such great importance on them.

Lead to action:
Research more.
Feedback to self: There’s A LOT of cognitive bias in this post. Contradictions.

PPM - 5 4 3 2 1 POSTER

Post no. 2

Okay so I had my presentation on the 5 4 3 2 1 Poster today.

So here is how it went:

I talked about gestural tech and how I have an interest in them. I spent majority of my time researching the ideas rather than the execution methods because I believe ideas always have the upper hand. Execution is just secondary.

You could say that I fell in love with the idea of breaching both the digital and the physical world. Pranav Mistry fed me that. His ideas of the future seem to parallel mine. Speaking of gestural tech, I have been reading up on the history of media and how people started to communicate since the primitive era. 

It all began with gestures. Then vocal communication. A few thousand years later, came writing and print. Broadcasting and digital communication came right after.

So why not use content that has already been around for thousands of years? Gestures are used everywhere. It goes where sound could not. Ie. Sign language.

Hand shakes, composting pictures with fingers, waving goodbye, clapping, and ..rude gestures are all key gestures still being used today.

Now am I going to make these gestures expand their usability? Could it really mean more, could it DO more? Maybe we could just form the gesture of a phone like we would normally do, and use it like a regular phone?

What we could do with these gestures and their imaginary functions, is to realize it. Make it real. This isn't a new idea, but I think it's worth exploring.

Personally I feel media is being restricted to screens. It should be everywhere, melding into our lives, not the other way around. 

Okay, back to the poster.

I found the drum pants very interesting, it takes the idea of hitting your pants on the way home in a school bus and making it real. It has sensors in them and when the user hits that particular area of the pants, the drum sounds.



Another is the guitar shirt where chords are programmed to individual sensors on the shirt enabling the user to 'strum' the guitar and play actual songs on them.



The two theories I found relevant to the subject matter would be the :

'Symbolic Interactionism' by George Herbert Mead 

This theory dictates the view of social behaviour that emphasizes linguistic or gestural communication and its subjective understanding, especially the role of language in the formation of the child as a social being.

I could use this theory to identify how people use gestures and the psychology behind them.

and

'The extensions of Man' by Marshall McLuhan

McLuhan proposes that the media, not the content that they carry, should be the focus of study.
He suggests that the hardware is more important than the content itself! I might have a little debate on this soon.


3 HEROES

A little more than what is not on the poster:

Pranav Mistry
What else can I say? I admire his ideas and I really hope he could be one of the pioneers of future technology.

Walt Disney
One of my childhood heroes. He definitely thought me that no dream is too big or too crazy. Also, you might fall into the lowest of pits but somehow you'd always rise higher than you ever were.

Steve Jobs
I know that it seems a little far fetched that I have chosen Steve Jobs as one of my heroes considering his lack of sympathy toward incompetence and his sunny disposition around the workplace. But what I do admire about him is his ability to sell a product without you knowing that you are being sold to. Generally people like me hate seeing advertisements (ad-blocker) and door-to-door salesmen (if they still do exist). 

I would actually voluntarily log on to YouTube, and watch him sell me things even though it was the first generation ipad. I just love how he believes in the product he's selling.

The AFTERMATH EXERCISE

I wrote this on a piece of mahjong paper which I thought was pretty clever. *pats back*

My installation would have to induce:
- Excitement
- Enjoyment (I know the two mean the same but that's just how important it is to mention it twice)
- Easy Navigation (Lots of R & D needed here)
- Emotion
- Nostalgia (I wanted to find another E but.. Oh well. Couldn't find other words that could convey remembrance.)


Issues on this wearable tech project.
1. I have to learn how to sew. More worried about this than the coding.

I bring dishonor to the women race.

On a more personal note:
I never really talked about my specific idea in the presentation. I just wasn't sure yet. I feel like the process has been too quick. Especially on the final decision on the final project. It just seems so conclusive. I know it's bound to change. It's like I'm obligated to regurgitate an idea without giving it much thought or exploring yet. Gosh, I haven't even done any proper market research on the target audience and demands of whatever I will do for the final assignment. Will it still be relevant next year during my final exhibition?

So many unanswered questions.

Til then, au revior tout le monde!

PPM - Idea Proposals

Post no.1

So the first semester of my final year begins.

This post is written for the PPM subject, and like all first posts that I have ever done, it would contain a bunch of links where I was instructed to find to start off my research.

I chose responsive website design, gesture technology and interactive motion graphics. Those are the three of the core topics I'd 'like', may or may not execute for my final project. Obviously I would be into installations first, but website designs and graphic jobs work as my, how do you say it; "bread and butter" for the real thing which I'm really passionate about, which is a hybrid of Guerrilla Marketing + Interactive Installations.

Guerrilla marketing basically means (from what I understand) doing something so out of the ordinary with the least budget available, making maximum impact. That's what I'd like to do. Supervise and be the thinker of those ideas. Unfortunately, there's this metaphorical ladder which I have to climb. Which means, that I have to start from the bottom of the food chain, the executors.

I'm quite an all rounder, my skills of graphic and technical skills are at average. I think alot, so that makes me more of a contextual kind of person.

Okay enough of the nonsensical rambling, I'll save them for my next post when I actually start to reflect on the pros and cons on each category.


1.  Responsive Website Design

Responsive web designs. Try pulling the screen smaller and larger with your mouse and you could see it take effect. It's basically responsive, it responses to the size of the screen. Be it mobile/desktop or whichever platform.

A)   Benchmarks

Which makes These sites rather amazing.

Junction Design
Link Here

Things I notice on this site besides its beautiful responsive grids, are:

- Quick loading times
- It has that really smooth transition when you scroll down
- Easy to navigate, tons of contrast so that you would know where the buttons are.
- There's optimum amount of information provided on the site.
- Or like how the fonts change color and react when you are that particular section of the website.

A screenshot of website --> mobile interface. It changes! WOW!

the cons are:

- few.
- it feels a little confusing to me at first with those random triangles being placed around as such.

Creative Knight
Link Here

Another screenshot of web to mobile transitions

Pros:

- Not confusing at all, super clear and clean

- I notice the images in the links actually scale a little bit in and out to give more life to the site.

-The intro animation helps.alot.

- I have a thing for full blurred images plastered onto websites as backgrounds.

- It has a pretty cool custom cross-haired cursor.

Cons:

The colors bore me.

Design a Watch
Link Here

Pros:

- CLEAN
- Easy to understand
- The animations of the tick buttons. It scrolls rather than just switch coordinates/frames.

CONS:

- When I switch between the web and mobile sizes, they actually change the section I was in! BAD!
- It looks kind of unfinished. But the animations saved them.

B)   Sources of inspiration:
- The need to have the ability to be diverse in coding to translate webs into different platforms.
- Various award winning websites

C) Anyone who could code and design a beautiful website with good User experience.

 
2.  Gesture technology – Sensors (THE CHOSEN ONE)

I have always been intrigued by the future, ever since that one assignment where it required me to read some sci-fi novels by Philip K. Dick. Who knows, in the future our mobiles would just act like CPU's and everything physical around us could be the interface? I don't like media being confined into a screen.

A)   Benchmarks

Sixth Sense
Link To Video Here

Your hand becomes your phone!

*on the down-side, nobody ever remembers hand phone numbers so this might be a major flaw.

Taking a digital picture by just forming the ol'-picture-taking-gesture that has been done even before the invention of cameras.

Notes:

What interests me about Pranav's work is that although introduced in 2009, it's technology and idea still impresses me today. He successfully used everyday gestures and their imagined functionalities and realized them. He was able to realize people's imaginations of technology when all they had were their bodies / everyday static objects.

This 'translation' idea of making what is unreal, real - intrigues me. 

Arduino Game controller
Link Here

This is one of the first inspirations ever since the last project I did which involved these sensors. I love how seamless it is on how technology could be disguised into our everyday lives. It could be as thin and comfortable as fabric.
 
Large-Area Touch Sensors Using Textile Integration Technology
Link Here

Notes:
One thing about textile-integrated technology is that you wouldn't have the same physical feedback you get from clicking a regular button. Therefore, many replace that feedback with sounds/vibrations and responsive graphical interfaces. Very much like touchscreen interfaces today.

The good thing about textile tech, is that it could be worn. Seamlessness.
 
B)    Sources of inspiration:
- TedTalk by Pranav
- Innovative sensor experiments on Youtube 
- Livetags


C)  Person of inspiration: Pranav Mistry - Sixth Sense

3.  Interactive Motion Graphics/Animation 

I generally love animating things, (I do so in Flash and After Effects) transforming them from a static image into a character with full fledged emotions and character.

I like seeing unusual transformations of one scene or object to another, and about how seamless it all looks.

The thing I notice about all the random stills I screenshot from them, is that they still looked like a complete, stylized picture even tho it's just randomly taken. The three benchmarks below are my favorite styles. Flat, Surrealistic and Vintage.

A) Benchmarks

There are more than 11 Trillion Things To Learn
Link Here

Notes:
- Every frame has its moving elements and it's done with such fluidity.
- They play with positive and negative space alot, which I find interesting.

DISFORM 2013
Link Here

Notes:

- Is my speaker spoilt or does this MG don't have any sounds done to it?

- I learn that sounds play a very important role if a message is to be conveyed in such a manner.

- Again, the distortions look fluid and the elements look finished.

Hector Herrera
Link Here

Notes:

- Vintage is my own personal style. I deal with alot of browns and blacks and woody textures.

- In this case, its bright, happy and colorful which is wayyy more interesting to look at.

B)   Sources of inspiration 
- Award winning videos
- Interactive and innovative campaigns which increase revenue and awareness.

C) Whoever working in Clemenger who did Telekinize the Rainbow . They were uncredited.


Their promotional case study motion graphic video was pretty good. They are able to explain the entire case study under 1 min 50 secs. Time, is essential as airtime are precious.

Til then, bientot!