User Experience Amsterdam: August 2011

BBC - Knowledge Shared

Really rather fantastic infographic animation by WeAreSeventeen for the BBC

via WeAreSeventeen

Really fantastic collection of interactive devices.

Over the past 30 years, designer, writer, and researcher Bill Buxton has been collecting input and interactive devices whose design struck him as interesting, useful, or important. In the process, he has assembled a good collection of the history of pen computing, pointing devices, touch technologies, as well as an illustration of the nature of how new technologies emerge.

via BuxtonCollection

Wacom - Inkling

This is incredible technology from Wacom. Simply put: you can draw onto a piece of paper and Inkling will turn that drawing into a digital file. Absolutely amazing.

via Wacom

The tactical displays in Star Wars

As mentioned in a previous post, I have something of a soft spot for movie GUI's and am fascinated by their creation. So, I was more than happy to be recommended this cracking article by a friend.

The article opens:
We had a quick chat with Alien creator Dan O'Bannon and found out just how much CGI there is - and isn't - in the original episode IV...

And without wanting to simply reiterate what has already been written very eloquently, here is the link to the article over at Den of Geek!

AI vs. AI. Two chatbots talking to each other

What happens when you let two bots have a conversation? Well, things get pretty philosophical.. More here: http://creativemachines.cornell.edu/AI-vs-AI By Igor Labutov, Jason Yosinski, and Hod Lipson of the Cornell Creative Machines Lab (http://creativemachines.cornell.edu/)

Absolutely mind-blowing description of how the effects for the movie Tron: Legacy were created by JT Nimoy. He writes:

I spent a half year writing software art to generate special effects for Tron Legacy, working at Digital Domain with Bradley "GMUNK" Munkowitz, Jake Sargeant, and David "dlew" Lewandowski. This page has taken a long time to be published because I've had to await clearance. A lot of my team's work was done using Adobe software and Cinema 4D. The rest of it got written in C++ using OpenFrameworks and wxWidgets, the way I've always done it with this team ;) Uniquely however, Digital Domain's CG artists were able to port my apps over to Houdini for further evolution and better rendering than OpenGL could ever provide. Special thanks to Andy King for showing me that what seasoned CG artists do at DD is actually not so far off from what's going on in the Processing community.

via http://jtnimoy.net/workviewer.php?q=178

1966 prediction of the home computer

An utterly fantastic video from 1966 that speculates on what life will be like in 1999. Unlike most videos from the past that speculated on flying cars and robots doing all our chores, this one went for the 'home shopping' angle, bank account unification and a way to send letters electronically all over the world.

Bad Influence Game Reviews

Aaaaah, they just don't make them like they used to. (I mean both the tv show and the video games)

From the TV video games show BAD INFLUENCE! aired in 1992. The panel review Max on Gameboy and Roadrunner on the SNES. For more go to bad-influence.co.uk

Star Size Comparison

How do you describe planetary and star size to someone? I love this video for succeeding in showing the viewer the mega-scales and proportions that exist in space.

Commonwealth Bank - Vision for 2013

Another awesome realisation of the near future from the Australian Commonwealth Bank.

Delivering customer satisfaction beyond 2010 requires us to drive change and continually innovate beyond what the market dictates or our customers expect. Innovating through the digital platform is one way we can make this happen.
Looking to the next 3 years, the key trends we see shaping banking digital innovation are;
Customisation: Enabling our customers to have a personalised experience with the bank
Continuously connected: Providing immediacy and allowing our customers to access the bank and their financial information in real time
Cross platform functionality: Allowing our customers to access & move information across any digital device
Centralised financial management: Giving our customers to access all their financial information in one place
Community: Connecting our customers and facilitating the exchange of experience and advice
This video piece showcases a series of scenarios that showcases how we, as one of Australia's leading banks, can bring these to life and give our customers an experience and level of service that exceeds all expectations.

via http://www.youtube.com/user/CommBank

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop

The architecture of the contemporary city is no longer simply about the physical space of buildings and landscape, more and more it is about the synthetic spaces created by the digital information that we collect, consume and organise; an immersive interface may become as much part of the world we inhabit as the buildings around us.
Augmented Reality (AR) is an emerging technology defined by its ability to overlay physical space with information. It is part of a paradigm shift that succeeds Virtual Reality; instead of disembodied occupation of virtual worlds, the physical and virtual are seen together as a contiguous, layered and dynamic whole. It may lead to a world where media is indistinguishable from 'reality'. The spatial organisation of data has important implications for architecture, as we re-evaluate the city as an immersive human-computer interface.

via Keiichimatsuda

Starbucks have dark UX

Very dark user experience noted by James Chudley on the Starbucks wifi connect form. As a user you can only access the wifi if you agree to the Starbucks T's & C's which also includes agreeing to be sent junk mail by BT! Sneaky...

Read the Terms and Conditions here: http://ie.starbucks.com/en-ie/_Card/Starbucks+Card+Rewards+Wi-Fi+Support.htm

Password Strength

"Through 20 years of effort, we've successfully trained everyone to use passwords that are hard for humans to remember, but easy for computers to guess."

via http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/password_strength.png

Ben Greenman’s Museum of Silly Charts

This post on silly charts is really funny. The rest of the blog is not bad either.

via http://ilovecharts.tumblr.com/BenGreenman

Before Mario

Erik's fantastic blog showcases and celebrates the toys and games Nintendo created in the period from the mid 60s to the early 80s, starting with the first board games up to the launch of the Family Computer in 1983.

Do you want to find out more about what Nintendo was up to before Mario? Then please read on.

via http://blog.beforemario.com/

Touchscreen security fail

Why are restaurant websites so horrifically bad?

Great article on the poor usability of restaurant websites

The first thing that pops up when you visit the website of the San Francisco restaurant Fleur de Lys is a nearly full-screen animation of celebrity chef Hubert Keller's autograph. That makes sense—when I'm choosing a restaurant, the first thing I want to know is, Can the chef sign his name?

via http://www.slate.com/id/2301228/

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