Great article in the NYT today - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/business/20unbox.html?hpw - about where video games are and are going.
One particularly salient point: where literature can pull you in (i.e. to make you feel sympathy, even empathy for horrible raskolnikov) video games go a step farther by literally making you complicit (you make all the detailed decisions about how to get those dead bodies across NYC)
Clearly there is a need for something to be done... too bad I'm focusing on a different sort of interaction design.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
I recently got a new phone and glanced at the Facebook EULA when I was installing its app. It's pretty horrific as they claim an irrevocable license to whatever I post.
"
Sharing Your Content and Information
You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:
1. For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos ("IP content"), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook ("IP License"). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.
"
The crazy part here is that last little bit - the content will remain on the network so long as everybody you shared it with doesn't click the "delete" button on it. Has anyone ever seen such a "delete" button for other peoples' content?
"
Sharing Your Content and Information
You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:
1. For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos ("IP content"), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook ("IP License"). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.
"
The crazy part here is that last little bit - the content will remain on the network so long as everybody you shared it with doesn't click the "delete" button on it. Has anyone ever seen such a "delete" button for other peoples' content?
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
adhd tracking
“It’s essentially a dull, boring task,” he said of the Quotient system, “so do you want to medicate your child to pay attention to dull, boring tasks?”
- http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/health/01attention.html?pagewanted=2&hpw
Dr. Martin H. Teicher - a researcher in attention deficit - uses a system that tracks eye, head, and leg movements, in addition to posture and response time and accuracy while a participant is responding to a boring, meaningless, repetitive task for 20 minutes. The test aims to be a more objective assessment of ADD and ADHD, and returns a graph of one's state of engagement: "Green marks attentive, yellow is impulsive, red is distracted and blue is “disengaged.”"
Why not use a computer's built-in web-cam to produce an (admittedly imperfect) approximation? This could not just help people pre-diagnose themselves, but more importantly understand and control their own attention/focus. It will be interesting to see studies on whether and how an individual can affect their own level of attentiveness - my guess is that, for those who believe it can be done, they will learn to follow a practice much like a Zen monk who eventually learns to be entirely still and focused at all levels of consciousness (and even beyond?)
Linking this data to one's dietary intake would probably reveal a high correlation and significantly decrease the need for artificial stimulants.
- http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/health/01attention.html?pagewanted=2&hpw
Dr. Martin H. Teicher - a researcher in attention deficit - uses a system that tracks eye, head, and leg movements, in addition to posture and response time and accuracy while a participant is responding to a boring, meaningless, repetitive task for 20 minutes. The test aims to be a more objective assessment of ADD and ADHD, and returns a graph of one's state of engagement: "Green marks attentive, yellow is impulsive, red is distracted and blue is “disengaged.”"
Why not use a computer's built-in web-cam to produce an (admittedly imperfect) approximation? This could not just help people pre-diagnose themselves, but more importantly understand and control their own attention/focus. It will be interesting to see studies on whether and how an individual can affect their own level of attentiveness - my guess is that, for those who believe it can be done, they will learn to follow a practice much like a Zen monk who eventually learns to be entirely still and focused at all levels of consciousness (and even beyond?)
Linking this data to one's dietary intake would probably reveal a high correlation and significantly decrease the need for artificial stimulants.
news
I'd like to form a news-reading group as a way to combat information anxiety. I'll read the New York Times and the Economist, someone else can keep track of gizmodo and engadget, and a third person will pay attention to the science rags, etc etc....
We'll all post the most interesting and relevant story or two on FB, and - assuming I ever socialize enough to make this feasible - we can be confident that stray trivia or current events needed to solve a design project or win a friendly debate are likely to be in the room.
This is not too different from what I see happening on my facebook feed this morning - just that it would be a little more coordinated. Maybe I could link my web browser with several other peoples' and see stories (or sources) that nobody in my group has looked at yet (probably that the general population [or even better some specialized population(s)] has indicated is worthwhile) highlighted or pushed towards the top of a list.
Or I could create a list of all the world's news sources and invite a few of my friends with a similar viewpoint to sign up and select the ones they're responsible for. The list would prompt each of us to read stories, type in a summary of what we've been reading, and keep track of what %ge of the content we've been covering.
We'll all post the most interesting and relevant story or two on FB, and - assuming I ever socialize enough to make this feasible - we can be confident that stray trivia or current events needed to solve a design project or win a friendly debate are likely to be in the room.
This is not too different from what I see happening on my facebook feed this morning - just that it would be a little more coordinated. Maybe I could link my web browser with several other peoples' and see stories (or sources) that nobody in my group has looked at yet (probably that the general population [or even better some specialized population(s)] has indicated is worthwhile) highlighted or pushed towards the top of a list.
Or I could create a list of all the world's news sources and invite a few of my friends with a similar viewpoint to sign up and select the ones they're responsible for. The list would prompt each of us to read stories, type in a summary of what we've been reading, and keep track of what %ge of the content we've been covering.
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