Tagged: innovation

Kaleidoscope tunnel

Olafur Eliasson’s colorful glass tunnel comes to life when you stroll through it one way, but if you look back over your shoulder, the panels appear black. The mesmerizing, kaleidoscope-like tunnel is comprised of stained glass triangles held together with bold, black piping. When viewed from one end, the tunnel is a rainbow of purple, pink and yellow, but the interesting one-way effect masks the colors from the other side.The Icelandic artist is known for engaging viewers in nontraditional ways by inviting them to interact with his artwork. He is known to incorporate air temperature, moisture, smells, light and walkways into his pieces to help guests more fully experience his work. In keeping with this theme, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art billed the one-way tunnel as “intentionally simple in construction but thrilling to behold, sparking profound, visceral reactions designed to heighten one’s experience of the everyday.”

Meet Dorothy:

Have you ever been stuck in an awkward situation, praying your phone would ring so you could politely extract yourself?  Of course you have.  That’s why we made Dorothy, a physical trigger that makes any dumb shoe smart. Dorothy consists of the “Ruby” (a small connected device that slips into your shoe) and a mobile App that allows you to trigger a call to your phone from a fake contact (your “boss”) whenever you tap your heels together 3 times. Dorothy can also send text messages to your contacts with a custom message and your current location, letting them know exactly where you are. Soon, we’ll be working toward summoning an Uber.

I can’t even fathom how important this idea could be, how life saving. How many people have been in a situation where a timely phone call could save them from a potentially dangerous situation?

Definitely keeping an eye on this one.

Actively interacting interactively

The importance of interactivity in digital texts and how that differentiates old and new media.

Not all digital texts are interactive, but those that aren’t could usually be taken out of the computer and played by another medium.

Ryan asks what this might mean for narrative form and storytelling, and as a self-diagnosed, scaffold-loving, traditional narrative fanatic, I am also interested in what the future might look like in an ever-expanding networked media.

I really like these diagrams of plot graphs Ryan provided – they offer a range of perspectives on narrative that don’t necessarily have to conform to the traditional structure.

I found most interesting what Ryan raised in the last section, that interactivity is an umbrella term that covers a wide variety of relations between the user and the text. So far in the examples of hypertext I’ve looked into, at least online, I’ve had to simply click different sections and links and I’ve been transported to a different story segment. But where else could this idea of interactivity lead as technology progresses? Admittedly, I’m still transfixed by the idea of a build your own adventure theme park, but the directions that could be followed… I can’t begin to fathom.

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On Evan Williams’ newly launched publishing platform, Medium, a big focus is on sharing and collaboration. Articles are arranged by themes so that readers can contribute and gravitate toward content that fits their likes. The comments are set up to aid in that too. They’re not at the end of the piece, but sprinkled throughout, paragraph by paragraph. The aim is to foster dynamic discussions around what you’re interested in.

“The crowd can actually improve the quality of the content,” says Williams, who also co-founded microblogging site Twitter. “Our goal is to create a better place to read and write.”

The Publishing Industry’s Secret Sauce Is You

Television has already grown to have what AMC calls the “two–screen experience” with certain shows. The new NBC show, Hannibal (which I recommend highly), live tweets during its episodes, and Sam Witwer live tweets during the SyFy show Being Human for both the East and West Coast air times.

So let me bring this back to the issue that spurred this blog: ensemble casts and the changing nature of big movies.

A Different Kind of Experience

The world’s first interactive street-furniture installation is for Nokia’s N-90 and the moment it detects a pedestrian it springs into life. The monolith-like installation first swivels either right or left to ensure that the creative message is directly in front of the consumer. It then snaps a photograph of the person and displays it on a screen.

Street Furniture Gets Interactive (2006)

There is no way to deny that fact static pages just don’t cut it anymore. With every company combining social media profiles with their standard websites, designers are discovering more and more that creating a successful site means embracing interactivity.

Internet users view countless websites each day, so as a brand you need to figure out how to stand out and make your mark in the mind of the viewer. One of the best ways to do this is to incorporate interactive elements on your site. The goal is to draw the customer in and engage them through interactive element—innovative scroll navigation, animated characters or unique click controls. Whatever you choose to do you have to make it worth talking about.

Interactivity Is King

Interaction is something as simple as pressing Space to make the story continue, and as complex as deciding the fate of a universe based on your actions. Such interactive storytelling breaks down into three rough categories. There are games that wish to tell you their story, and ask you to complete tasks that allow it to be told. There are games that have stories which can go in multiple directions, and allow you to choose which of these pre-determined routes to take. And there are games that provide a template in which you can tell your own story.

– Games Are The Ideal Place For Telling Great Stories

A very important factor of interactivity in games is how the player experiences and learns about the story. Audio, visuals, and other elements of a game help to create truly interactive experiences.

– Interactivity as it Relates to Video Games and Story