NMS2014

This brief video discusses how our senses are too limited to perceive everything is going on. The video suggests that technology has begun to form a sixth sense for us, one that tunes us into a reality that we cannot perceive with our own senses. Bizarre. qualcommsparks. "The Digital Sixth Sense." Youtube. 11 September 2012 Web

When I typed "meta-reality" into youtube, what I found was not exactly what I was expecting. These glasses are not using the term in the same way as the assigned readings, but they function in a fascinating way. The cyber reality functions similarly to how we navigate our touch screens, but rather than being confined by the screen, this product gives the illusion that it's projections are a part of one's 3d landscape. Globetrendy. "Trying on meta-reality glasses." Youtube, 14 November 2013. Web http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rj9nMJq1Vk

The Cantor Art Museum at Stanford is hosting a new exhibit that is the result of a body of work designed and implemented by a host of medical experts. James Chang MD is the chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery and has long had an affinity for observing the hand conditions he often treated in sculpture by Rodin. In this project, the bronze hands were scanned and the internal structures superimposed digitally, which are then viewed by a museum patron with a smart phone or pad via an augmented reality application. This is a lovely example of the collapse between disciplines - medicine and art - that advances in imaging technology allows.

This website catalogs the growing trend of utilizing animated infographics to convey information. Not only is it becoming necessary to continuously filter the great amounts of data we experience into slick new ways of perceiving, a database that houses these new tools of perception becomes useful. Of particular interest to me is the combination of database with social media on vizualizing.org - the site hosts contests and challenges to better suss out interesting new designs in organizing information.

This beautifully animated four-minute mini-film provides a simple yet profound response to a poignant question: What is the connection between social networks and being lonely?

Nice! This is very powerful example of critical media practice. Augmenting traditional rhetorical appeals and persuasive gestures with the affordances of digital animation and sound design.

Here's a collection of the NSA slides, revealed by Edward Snowden by way of the Guardian news. The slides detail the various pervasive and invasive methods of surveillance, tapping into phone and social media networks, as orchestrated by the National Security Agency. This is the internet-of-things-that-go-bump-in-the-night. Also, as discussed in class, the layout and design of these slides is often horrendous, complicating or obstructing clear communication of information. "NSA Prism program slides" The Guardian News. Published Friday 1 November 2013 http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/nov/01/prism-slides-nsa-document. Accessed April 6, 2014

One of several excellent online collections of Data Visualization endeavors. Browse the many different categories, keywords, authors and approaches to comprehending 'big data'. Along with aesthetic variation along the metaphorical to modernist continuum, there are many new media trends covered. Those of you exploring social media in your final research paper may well find this useful reference, too! Visual Complexity. Last updated February 19, 2014. www.visualcomplexity.com/vc. Accessed April 6, 2014

This audio-visual overview of the Internet of Things was published by IBM's Social Media cohorts in 2010. Combining voice-over and well crafted, legible motion graphics, it provides a summary of the underlying concepts of the Internet of Things. In 2004, when Bruce Sterling was first writing about spimes, he mentions the Internet of Things, a then emergent infrastructure linked to build out of RFID enabled gizmos, and eventually, perhaps, spimes. "The Internet of Things" posted by IBMSocialMedia on March 15, 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfEbMV295Kk Accessed March 21, 2014

This short essay by Julian Bleeker talks about exactly what is insinuated in the title design, science, fact, and fiction, and how all of these components come together in order to form what we know as design fiction. This short essay is not very short but there are a lot of interesting points and picture about how and why design fiction functions. Bleeker, Julian. Design Fiction: A Short Essay on Design, Science, Fact, and Fiction. http://drbfw5wfjlxon.cloudfront.net/writing/DesignFiction_WebEdition.pdf (accessed March 20, 2014).

This piece of design fiction by Cisco called "The Internet of Everything" is probably closer to a sci-fi movie than design fiction but I found it interesting to contrast with the BERG Cloudwash prototype that I posted. Its pretty ridiculous, but it would also be cool if some of these things became realities. Just watch it and you'll see. "The Internet of Everything." Cisco 2014. Web, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt5VulFqBm4.

The Circle by David Eggers is an interesting take on social networks and the possibility of a future dystopia cyber landscape. It is about a young woman who starts working at a facebook/google like company called The Circle and looses her private life her job. This novel is similar to design fiction in presenting what could possibly happen in the future, but in this case it is a negative view. If you are interested in context collapse, social media, communication and interaction this book is really interesting. I have linked to a 45 minute audio recording in which David Eggers reads a excerpt from his book. Here is a better summary of the entire story if you like the exerpt: "When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users' personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company's modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can't believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world-even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman's ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge" E

Eggars, David. The Circle. Knopf, 2013.

An interesting case of design fiction where they have actually programmed a washer to be connected to a smartphone through the cloud so that you may control changes from you phone as well as receive notifications. What they have done which I find interesting is that they have made this video as a way to "start a conversation" about this instance of design fiction. Unlike some design fiction they are not claiming to know what the future will look like or pretend like they have already created the product and worked out all of the bugs. Their approach to design fiction is very simplistic and honest. ""Cloudwash is a prototype connected washing machine. We prototype products at Berg to help us understand how our platform should work, and to encourage better design in connected things…" BERG, "Berg Case Studies/ Cloudwash." Accessed March 20, 2014. http://bergcloud.com/case-studies/cloudwash/.

This article lays out a semi-realistic landscape of the closer future of the internet of things. The provided infographic is a barrage corporate logos separated into sections of lifestyle and platforms. The image itself is a little disturbing, putting into mind a close future surrounded by a cloud of companies, infiltrating our homes with even more information invading our privacy. That being said I liked this article in particular because it did not have a cynical view of the internet of things and did not suggest we judge the validity of the technology on the worst case scenario. I think it's important to be paranoid, but not so much as to stall progress. Turck, Matt. "Making Sense Of The Internet Of Things" Tech Crunch. May 35, 2013. Accessed March 19, 2014. http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/25/making-sense-of-the-internet-of-things/

A few thoughts --the infographic begs for better design, so too the implementation of IoT? Perhaps pronoiac view is happy medium to achieve here ---- Progressive paranoia, or "pronoia" was an outlook popularized amongst cybernetic countercultures of the 1990s. General concept was that "universe is conspiring on your behalf"

This piece of Design Fiction is imagined to exist in a world where products are developed to the point where they almost have lives themselves. When thinking in terms of Spime, "Brad the Toaster" is a product that plays into the idea of discontinuing the process where products of today's consumer culture are built, and then soon become obsolete due to new technologies arising. Brad and his fellow Sprimes might be the answer to all environmental sustainability problems. Sprimes would be sent out into the world, their every move being trached. Every interaction that they have with people will be tracked, and stored in a database, ready to be accessed by developers. If these developers can study these interactions, what does work with a product, and what doesn't, then their Brad 2.0's can be the best possible product, without having to create a series of upgraded products, only to be obsolete when a new need is discovered. Vanhemert, Kyle. "A Toaster That Begs You to Use It: Welcome to the Bizarro Smart Home." Wired. March 14, 2014 http://www.wired.com/design/2014/03/addicted-products/

Thanks, this intersects with a number of rich topics within realm of New Media and, as you note, spimes in particular! There's also a funny variant here of anthropomorphized machines and notions of sentience. The video for Brad the Toaster is another compelling example of a diegetic prototype

  After reading Alexander Galloway's Countergaming chapter from his book, I wanted to see some examples of artist-made game mods. I Youtubed video game mods and discovered a Youtube channel called 'Vsauce'. Vsauce is run by internet personality Michael Stevens who posts videos that discuss and answer questions about scientific topics, gaming, technology, culture, and more. The video I found about game mods was called Top 7 Video Game Mods: V-LIST #6. As a person that doesn't do a lot of gaming, I found it pretty interesting to see the mods in action. The coolest thing in the video was a guy who is building a working 16bit arithmetic computer. I don't know if it can technically be considered a mod at all, but it is pretty impressive regardless. The implications of stuff like this brings me back to the Galloway reading which ponders the future of video gaming and a as of now unrealized independent gaming movement. "Top 7 Video Game Mods: V-LIST #6 " Posted by Vsauce. Sep 30, 2010. Accessed March 19, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaTsPvyTCLQ

Here is another article dealing with the questions I posed in my last post. This one is by Bruce Schneier, who, if I am correct, is a friend and colleague of Bruce Sterling. Schneier seems to be an expert on digital security and he goes over a lot of interesting points regarding security with the internet of things. Schneier, Bruce. "The Internet of Things Is Wildly Insecure - And Often Unpatchable" Wired. January 6, 2014 http://www.wired.com/opinion/2014/01/theres-no-good-way-to-patch-the-internet-of-things-and-thats-a-huge-problem/

I wonder what opportunities for "electronic civil disobedience" might be uncovered in the IoT landscape?

In Bruce Sterling's excerpts from Shaping things, I kind of felt like he didn't spend enough time talking about privacy or security in a world of things that are always on and connected. So after searching "spimes" with keywords like "security", I found this article on an online magazine called "Government Technology" (of course). But the article did bring up some valid points about security regarding the "internet of things". My only question is how do we maintain privacy in a secure world of the "internet of things. Is it possible to have both? The idea of spumes is exciting and there is no denying the positive potential, but what do we have to sacrifice for convenience? Lohrmann, Dan. "Can We Secure the Internet of Things?" Government Technology. February 25, 2014 http://www.govtech.com/security/Can-We-Secure-the-Internet-of-Things.html

One example of how objects are slowly turning into spimes, is the addition of RFID into products that consumers use on a daily basis. Baltimore is one of a few cities that have begun distributing trashcans to businesses and individual house holds that contain the id chips. It is the hope that they will be able to collect information that will assess the usage of the cans by the customer, as well as other factors that are useful for creating a positive trash-collecting experience both for the company and the customer. Mark Reutter, Mark. "Inside City Hall: Are you ready for "smart" garbage cans?" Baltimore Brew, November 21, 2013

In Shaping Things, Bruce Sterling identifies RFID or "arphids" as key technological development that enables his imagined objects, "spimes," to function. This video, "Zapped!," by Preemptive Media, provides an easy to understand history of RFID tags, how they're used, for better and worse. The video concludes with the group's own tactical interventions using RFID equipped insects. My main impetus to post it here is to help illuminate the technology and, in doing so, make Sterling's Spimes concept more tangible. "Zapped! by Preemptive Media. Posted April 30, 2008 by Heidi Kumao. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIDClPlKHzE Accessed March 19, 2014

This is a project that could be categorized as design fiction. The artist/architect Mark Shepard explores the possible ways in which the proliferation of 'sentient cities', urban environments equipped with many, many networked sensing devices, might jeopardize privacy and increase unsolicited data collection. He does this using the affordances of fiction, designing and building functional prototypes for an imagined 'near-future' context. This sort of 'critical making' is a strong supplement to traditional modes of scholarship which Shepard also pursues. Mark Shepard "Sentient City Survival Kit" 2010 http://www.survival.sentientcity.net/info.html Accessed January 25, 2014