Apparently, I must start thinking about thesis IMMEDIATELY. This scares me for a couple of reasons. First, Im not ready for ITP to be over. No, Im not being a sentimental asshole, there are certain things about this place that I will NOT miss, but change is difficult (I felt similar when undergrad was over) you get used to something and before you know it its over. Second, I am in conflict over what my thesis should be. I have several ideas, two of which actually make sense and could possibly happen and I dont know what to do.

I have been given a great opportunity (which is unfortunately somewhat confidential...perhaps that means I should not be blogging about it) to have full access to a user group and free mobile phones to do user test using freeFormed as a platform and generally be part of a larger and very interesting project. It is an amazing offer (one that I would probably be stupid for passing up) but then there is this other thing (and according to Clay Shirky, when you say that you have just defined your thesis). The other thing is much less concrete but involves asterisks and a networked objects project. So what do I do? I am scared to death of physical computing, but I am also determined to take Networked Objects next semester regardless of whether I use it for thesis or not. Sometimes you have to take yourself completely out of your comfort zone in order for interesting things to happen otherwise you just keep doing the same thing over and over.

I guess I have a month or two to figure it out. F#%king thesis.

Posted by Cat at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Flickr announced (about seven days ago....i'm a little behind) that there mobile site is now live, FINALLY! Flickr had a mobile site url for a while, but it seemed to only work with 'old school' users (although I never saw evidence that it actually worked because I don't know anyone with an oldschool login). I don't know about anyone else, but I'm pretty excited about this. Yay! Thats all.

Posted by Cat at 05:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Nanna and I did some research into color theory and the concept of an aura for our redial final project. I found this particular definition of what an 'aura' actually is to be very interesting:

'Everything in the Universe seems to be just a vibration. Every atom, every part of an atom, every electron, every elementary “particle”, even our thoughts and consciousness are just vibrations. Hence, we may define the Aura as a electro-photonic vibration response of an object to some external excitation.'

We also made some conclusions about the different auras we will be using to define the project and the color mapping that we will using to illustrate the auras on a map:

1) Positive/Energetic Aura: vitality, vigor, excitement. Lots of energy and stamina, creative, productive,adventurous,
courageous, outgoing social nature

2) Sexual/Powerful Aura: Loving, tender, sensual, passionate, affectionate, lifeforce

3) Inspiring Aura: awakening, intelligectual, action shared, mental alertness, analytical thought

4) Calm/Peaceful Aura: clarity and communication, cool, collected, serene

5) Nostalgic Aura: intuitive, psychic power of attunement with self, magical

6) Negative/Dangerous Aura: fear, anxiety, loss of control, nervousness

7) Sad/Unsatisfying Aura: lonliness, depression, despair, grief, feeling worth-less

8) Angry/Stressful Aura: obsessive, unforgiving, fatiqued, unresolved

9) Spiritual Aura: enlightenment and divine protection, wisdom, inner knowledge, spiritual mind, intuitive thinker

10) Fullfilling/Compelling Aura: comfortable, growth and balance, health, and most of all, something that leads to change

View colors

Posted by Cat at 04:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For years I have had a Nextel phone, and for the past few years it has become more and more frustrating...dropped calls, patches of no service that change weekly, phones that break when you look at them the wrong way, even the once nice and eager to please customer service reps have been transformed into evil Sprint demon-spawn. However, as of today, none of these will be my concern any longer, I have been liberated! It is the end of an era (not as monumental as when a certain two-way addicted russian took a similar path to 'raise the bar', but significant still...almost ten years of dedicated Nextel madness...gone, just like that). As you may have guessed, I now have Cingular service, complete with a brand new LG phone that they gave me for free. Other then the complete pain in the ass of having to transfer all of my numbers, so far my new LG and I are getting along rather well. Its a flip phone (I just can't have it any other way, I don't understand keylock, nor do I want to), with a 1.3 megapixel camera (no flash, which is stupid, but oh well) and very easy to use, which is essential for me because afterall I am an idiot (insert tounge in cheek). Also, as per the russian (who is famous for discovering these little tidbits) Cingular customer service is not at the point yet where they hang up on disgruntled customers and actually have provided her with reasonable responses to her..ummm...questions/demands/threats of physical violence/etc. So all in all, it looks like the LG and I will be headed for a beautiful marriage....lets just hope the relationship doesn't head down the wrong path. I simply can't bare another divorce.

Posted by Cat at 02:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

View Wireframe

Posted by Cat at 06:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For my mobile apps final project, I am going to create an application that make posting pictures and videos to freeFormed easier.

I am also going to create a version of this application to be used with the Witness Human Rights Video Hub pilot that I have been working on with the members of freeFormed.

Posted by Cat at 05:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Jadie and Yonatan are back from the Kaist University Young Investigators Forum in Cultural Technology. Overall, they both say it went very well. Interest in certain areas of work that we are currently researching for an un-named non-profit, namely privacy and security in the third world was considerable. As was when freeFormed.org was going to be released....more pressure.

Here are a couple of pictures:

Or view the whole set on Yonatan's Flickr.

Posted by Cat at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Otherwise known as the Redial final project (and possibly the Mobile Apps final project)....

For a while, I have been interested in creating something where a mobile phone could control visual information in the real world. I worked on a project last semester using Max/MSP that sort of addressed these interests using the mysql object and live user-submitted photographs (although the actual performance of the project was compromised thanks to Tonic's unreliable internet connection- but that’s a different story). Upon taking the Redial class, I obviously became very interested in how the human voice could become a control mechanism and renewed my previous interest in speech recognition.

So far my final project in Redial I came up with an idea to combine all of this into one. I will be working on the project with Nanna Halinen and a few others (no firm commitments yet), and a special thanks has to go out to Jadie and Ben, who recently made me rethink the complexity of the idea (it’s always great to know people smarter then yourself..hehe). I was initially inspired by the concept that as we have become more inclined to communicate through digital means (email, text messaging, myspace and the like, etc.) we have perhaps become less likely to communicate through traditional means, such as face to face or through voice on the phone. Not that I believe that email or text messaging is a bad way to communicate, simply that it is interesting to see how information is translated differently in that format, specifically information that deals with memory and emotions. I touched on similar concepts in the first semester of ITP when I worked on the SMS Case project with Nanna and Alex Bisceglie. However, our goals were never fully realized due to a fried Bluetooth module (no comments on this please) and the perceived limitations of J2ME. I also think in retrospect that we were making the concept to complex. So here is my new thought:

There has been a lot of work and research done surrounding speech recognition and analysis in an attempt to glean some kind of emotional context automatically through analyzing pitch, tone, intonation and the actual spoken words. I have also seen a number of projects that allow bloggers to use voice to make comments on photographs they have taken (which is particularly interesting because, especially if you are in a rush or not the best text messager in the world, this seems to be a much easier way to describe an event you have witnessed or contextualize a memory and have it immediately posted). For this project, I want to create a interactive screen display of user-generated photographs that are location based, perhaps visualized on an actual map, perhaps not. Viewers would be able to submit photographs to the screen via an MMS message. Then they could call in and leave a comment about the photograph (either a description of the event they attended, a memory of that location, the reason they took the photograph..etc,). Each photograph will have a unique ID displayed on the screen. Other viewers can then call in, find out where the photo was taken, hear the recorded voice comment and leave a comment/memory of their own. Each comment will be put through some kind of speech analysis to determine its emotional context. That emotion will then be tagged to that location in the database.

Viewers can then download an application (from the web or from a Bluetooth location, i.e. my computer) that will assign a specific ring tone and visual graphic to a set of common emotional responses on their mobile phone. (the ring tones and graphics will initially be pre-determined but can be changed at any time through the application itself or on the website) Then when the person is out in Manhattan, they can send a text message with their location and receive a phone call that will alert them to the emotional context of the location they are in by playing a ring tone and displaying a graphic on their phone. If they choose to answer the call, they can listen to the comments left about the location, leave their own comments and choose to have the most recent photographs viewable on their phone. In addition, if they are in an 'unhappy' location, for instance, they can choose to 'find' a 'happier' location, and the application will alert them as to which direction to travel to find a specific emotion.

Much of this idea still needs to flushed out, but this is the general concept. More info will be available as we work on it.

Posted by Cat at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)