(press pic- well lit and soft)

About a week ago Anselm bought me another Robot Magazine. (This is how you know someone really loves you BTW) I read it cover to cover and ran across something that made me spin in circles with excitement. I found an article on Pleo’s and decided I must have one.

Now cute dinosaurs are not what I would build if I could actually build a robot for myself. Birds, Bats, Cats, or gnomes come to mind before “cute” dinosaurs. Doesn’t matter. I had to have one. Anselm and I ordered it after about an hour of conversation on the matter. Key points to winning this were: Your son will love it. Your girlfriend will be VERY well behaved. Robots are the future….Don’t you care about the FUTURE? Lots of alcohol and hugs helped too.

(pleo up close and personal!)

“Matilda” cost 350.00 plus shipping/handling and arrived last night. She was tired out I guess since her batteries needed charging and she slept all night long. This morning we all woke up extra early to check her out. You can tell by the flurry of flickr photos that it was pretty fun actually. She does whine like a robot—lots of whirring and wheezing sounds (conveniently absent from the website soundtrack of a pleo).

Most interesting thing so far that Matilda has done is really open my eyes to the future of robotics yet again. There is for all intents and purposes, nothing about the toy that creates a real suspension of disbelief for me…..yet. But that oddly has no bearing on whether or not I LIKE the toy. Which I whole-heartedly do.

Matilda was made by Ugobe which appears to be an interesting company created by Furby inventor Caleb Chung to market the Pleo robot dinosaur. The name is not so bad till you read the bit about what it is comprised of which makes it too cheesy for me. From their site: ...”Inspired by its dream, the group coined the word ‘UGOBE’, which translates to: “You! Go and be!” a creative reworking of Descarte’s “Cogito ergo sum”-”I think, therefore I am.”

Meh. I can live without that one.

Hopefully my new pleo is just one robot in a long line of robots to be that I will get to try out. I am excited to see what this company decides to do next. I am pretty impressed with the social networking aspects of the pleo site to be honest. There is a lot of room for people to explore and share their experiences with this little robot and it is hands down the best way to market this product.

Last night me and skry went to a CHIFOO event. Neither of us had been in a long time. I definitely would not have made it to the event without a ride since it was out in Beaverton on the Tektronix campus. The event was freaking awesome and reallyreally worth the cold and rainy excursion.

The event was called “Sketching Smart Things: User Experience Design of Ubiquitous Computing Devices.” It was presented by Mike Kuniavsky from ThingM





Here is Mike’s bio from the THINGM site:

“At ThingM, Mike Kuniavsky researches, designs, and writes about people’s experiences at the intersection of technology and everyday life. Companies and universities around the world use his 2003 book Observing the User Experience to understand and teach techniques that bring the design of products closer to the people who use them. His next book, Smart Things, expected in 2007 from Elsevier, will discuss user experience design for mobile devices and ubiquitous computing. He has also contributed to a number of other books, including the encyclopedic HCI Handbook (also to appear in 2007) and his articles regularly appear in MAKE magazine. He is a regular presenter at academic conferences focusing on user experience design and ubiquitous computing. In 2001 Mike co-founded Adaptive Path, a leading San Francisco internet consultancy. Previously, he founded the Wired Digital User Experience Lab for Wired Magazine’s online division, where he served as the interaction designer of the award-winning search engine, HotBot.”

Mike talked for a while about how these are the early days of the adoption of Ubicomp and his excitement about how folks are now starting to move in that direction in a more focused way. This is something I have been eager to help push along for quite a while! I was thrilled to see that the room was packed and everyone was really engaged in the conversation as well. It really does seem like these changes are coming up fast. I am struggling to figure out how to acquire the right skill set for this kind of environmental interactive design. I wrote the company today asking them what kind of skill set they look for in a designer. Who knows maybe they will give me a solid list of things I can study! I can’t wait until I don’t have to sit in front of a machine to explore the digital world around me. It makes me nuts to sit still, at a desk and type on a keyboard. I feel crippled as an artist and designer from my lack of ability to just grab something, interact with it and really extend my experiences with tools and the environment.

Some snippets from Mike Kuniavsky I scribbled in my little book from the event: (most likely paraphrased…but you get the point.)

“Embedded information processing is a material…”

“Information as a material is at the heart of Ubicomp…”

“Devices are secondary, they are the avatars of service…”

“Using magic as a design metaphor…”

“User’s Animist explanations for unusual behavior in our consumer technology…”

I also gathered some great LTU’s (look this up’s, I use a twisted shorthand in my note-taking)

Walmart and RIFD tagging- It appears Walmart is doing some interesting things with RFID tags. If anyone actually reads this blog…wanna post a link on what you find. ( Note to self: create a false avatar to communicate with on this blog and pretend to be your own audience.)

Faceted Classification Systems which I have seen examples of in Jennifer Tidwell’s book “Designing Interfaces” Was looking around for a cool pic of a faceted classification system and found this awesome-looking blog www.eleganthack.com all about UX design and IA.

Hacking Roombas- A book by Todd E. Kurt

Information Appliances by Eric Bergman

I think I will look into the Hacking Roombas book first, since I believe I could tie that into my schooling. A robot that can draw!

The Academic Essay: How to Plan, Draft, Revise, and Write Essays by Derek Soles

My-Not-So-Top-Secret-Christmas-Wish-List

I know there are tons of people wondering what I want for Christmas, wringing their hands, and pulling out their hair trying to figure this out. Well, fret no more! I am here to help!

LilyPad

LilyPad is a wearable e-textile technology developed by Leah Buechley and cooperatively designed by Leah and SparkFun. Each LilyPad was creatively designed to have large connecting pads to allow them to be sewn into clothing. Various input, output, power, and sensor boards are available. They’re even washable!

Description: This is LilyPad Arduino – the main board consisting of an ATmega168V with the Arduino bootloader and a minimum number of external components to keep it as small (and as simple) as possible. Board will run from 2V to 5V.

AIBO (Artificial Intelligence roBOt) is homonymous with “companion” in Japanese!

One of several types of robotic pets designed and manufactured by Sony (but not longer!!)

Aibo can walk, “see” its environment via camera, and recognize spoken commands. Considered to be autonomous robots since they are able to learn and mature based on external stimuli from their owner or environment, or from other AIBOs.

Artist Hajime Sorayama created the initial designs for the AIBO.

Recently inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame at Carnegie Mellon University. The AIBO has seen use as an inexpensive platform for artificial intelligence research, because it integrates a computer, vision system, and articulators in a package vastly cheaper than conventional research robots. (Thanks Wikipedia)

ANYTHING that We-make-Money-Not-Art Suggests

(For Example)

Natural Architecture, by Alessandro Rocca (Amazon USA and UK).

Publisher Princeton Architectural Press says: Natural Architecture presents sixty-six site-specific installations that use raw materials, manual labor, and natural stimuli to create truly green architecture that is as organic as the materials with which it is created. Projects by Olafur Eliasson, Patrick Dougherty, Nils-Udo, Ex. Studio, Edward Ng, nArchitects, and many others are shown together for the first time. Selected for their commitment to the use of raw materials, manual labor, and natural inspiration, these works are vividly displayed in photographs, drawings, and models. These fantastical creations allow the changing landscape to naturally overtake each structure until it finally decomposes. Each project is accompanied by a series of photographs, drawings, and models. The rugged and surreal beauty of the projects in Natural Architecture question the wisdom of our ever accelerating construction processes and point a way forward, toward a new organic simplicity of structure and form.

Oh Yes. This Season’s Must Have Accessory

One thing I like very much to do is imagine. I imagine a lot of things in fact. I could list a whole mess of things that I imagine here but why bore you with details? You and I are really only interested in one thing—Robots. I know your secret and you know mine too so lets just get right into it shall we?

What are we gonna do about the Robots? They are everywhere!

I for one have a master plan. I created this category on the rhinestone blog to talk about my interest in robotics. Here comes the imagining part: I am imagining a career intersection occurring between Robotics, Ambient Findability and Interaction Design. And I would like very much to be a part of this so I am jumping myself in. I have decided to built robots from kits talk about them. But right now I will just use Blingee to scrap-book some of my all time favorite robots here.

I dunno. Decorating Kismet was funny. Decorating Phip K. Dick was not. So I took it down. It was too creepy.