A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Technology

http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/ by Bret Victor

I couldn’t agree more to his view. Technology is limiting our creativity. Interaction should drive design and technological evolution, not the other way around. Technology should evolve to enhance human experience, not humans adapt to available technology. We’re not E.T.–which is what Steven Spielberg envisioned as the evolved form of humans (short legs for not having to walk, big head and eyes due to computer use, long fingers for pressing keys, etc). 

A human bias against creativity is hindering science, research claims

http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/111212_creativity.htm

Not the most readable article. Try using Readability (www.readability.com).

or if you couldn’t be bothered below is the actual article copy-pasta’ed.

Evolution of Performance Capture #1 – Heavy Rain

Capturing emotion in virtual characters is a challenge. It limits expressional creativity in virtual productions–games, 3D animation movies, and the lot. This post is the first of the three part series that introduces some of the recent evolution in motion capture technology, or more accurately performance capture technology.

The following is a video called “The Casting”, featured in E3 ’06 as a tech demo for the engine and technology used for the game “Heavy Rain” (which is also a great piece to look at if you’re interested in creative and interactive story telling for games). The demo was done in real time 3D. First watch the video (in HD).

The technology they used for capturing the performance (which is used often in current motion capture industry) is a two part step–face with voice and body. This is a very similar technology used for the James Cameron movie “Avatar” (except the difference is that Avatar was pre-rendered scenes where as heavy rain is real time.)

As visible in the following video, the facial capture is done with the voice (lip sync is very important in convincing facial performance). The motion capture for body action is done separately in a big studio. The facial capture is done by using markers on the actor’s face and mapping that to the 3D model.

This is the most common method of performance capture done these days. Next we’ll look more into some improvements made in the last few years.

Nike Music Shoes

Video of Japanese Musician Hifana performing live using modified Nike Free Run+

The shoes have accelerometers and strain sensors.

Also the Making of Video explaining what amazing things they did to this shoe to make this happen.

DAVID CARSON ON DESIGN + DISCOVERY

Great design is a never-ending journey of discovery — for which it helps to pack a healthy sense of humor. Sociologist and surfer-turned-designer David Carson walks through a gorgeous (and often quite funny) slide deck of his work and found images.

For those who missed this great TED talk. Loads of humor too.