Granted... this is not a Windows Phone ad, it's all about Vodafone Red Box service, but something that did caught my eye and the main reason why I want a Windows Phone, is that it just works... everything is there at you fingertip, all integrated... no need for Jedi training.
A few days back, I shared with you a new AR assisted experience LEGO put out for kids and grownups to play along this holidays season, today I want you to explore a more of a group-oriented, public interactive experience.
Recently, National Geographic peered up with London studio Appshaker to create a new way for people to interact and discover content from the network's collection of amazing footage.
In order to do so, appshaker came out with a public AR experience that let thousands of people to interact with everything from a T-Rex to Dolphins swiming around you to even a playfull cheetah.
Take a look yourself in the video above. Look at how, both the people that step up to the markers and the people around the mall experience the display. It is in showcases like this that not only brands get something to show for but the society gets the chance to start seeing what the future is going to look like. It prepare themselves for what's around the corner and gives creatives new grounds to explore.
Immagine what would happen if you add a kinect camera into the mix, if you have smart enough movements into the characters that could let people interact with the animals like if they were there, imagine what if you could dress the people with new clothes and take them into a new journey.
Academics: get the ball going, take your research outside, it's time to take all of those experiences out of the lab and into the world!!
This morning Helguita sent me a link to the new Lego Life of George experience and got to say it made me smile and more than that it put me mind to fly.
This hybrid game combines the physical task of assembling legos with that of a virtual-checking using an Augmented Reality app for the iPhone.
Wit this app you can go against the clock with the models the app suggests, while you can also start building your own stages as well, saving them, sharing them and exploring new ones.
Now imagine if we could take this experience and apply it to more complex tasks, verification processes in real time and with the tools with have at hand today.
I think we are living in exciting times of innovation and as I noted yesterday on my Google Profile, it is in the exploration of this new experiences, the key eye to forward thinking and the inherent value for the aesthetics in today's toys that we are setting foundations for a creative society that will move the needle forward in very revolutionary ways in just a few years.
There has been a lot of discussion lately about the current status of Microsoft UX strategy and where is it going. Microsoft reps keep on with the same story of "depends" and away from concrete answers, they keep adding their own weight of uncertainty into the whole equation.
My pal, Scott Barnes, has been probably the most vocal among the outsiders (even though he was an insider not long ago) and making use of his position in the community, he has been reviving the waters of an old discussion. Where is Microsoft.UX going next... what is happening with WPF and, for what is worth, where does Silverlight fits in the whole equation?
To no one is a secret that HTML5 + CSS3 + JS are poised to the be the future of the interaction technologies, not only is the true open cross platform equation, their feature set have been gaining more and more power lately, to the point that it is been brought at par with a lot of its plugin counterparts… it might not be there in full right now... but believe me, it is going to get there very quick.
But the story doesn't end here, there is more to the interaction experience than just web. We need tools and frameworks that let us reap the benefits of the hardware beneath and that of the great user experience that (some) platforms provide, and it's for those scenarios that we wonder: what'd be Microsoft's take?
Enter XAML + C++
Among some slides posted today by Mary-Jo Foley about the new Windows Embedded Compact relase, a few interesting bits where shown… imagine you can take the power of XAML-based UX with the power and reach of native execution. No more performance issues, fat-out frameworks in the middle and as the slides put it no Garbage Collector pauses like in Managed Code.
Now keep in mind these slides are referring to the new Windows Embedded Compact released yesterday and it's not an official announcement of bigger proportions, yet… but it might be what has been missing to bring Windows + Dev units together within Microsoft and help start fresh with a more cohesive story… parallel to HTML5… and for togheter, to build some trust and show us a clearer future.
I know this might not be the best scenario for everyone, but it might be right scenario to move native development further… .NET is one the most ubiquitous development platforms in the Windows world and with Mono doing the dirty work no one at Microsoft have wanted to address… their footprint is pretty much everywhere. But .NET has it's limitations and Microsoft has been aware of them ever since they reset Longhorns from what-is-was-supposed-to-be to what-Vista-ended-up-being. XAML was probably the best outcome from that effort and it has prove to be a great DSL for UX development.
Back to the future, Windows 8 is just around the corner, coming along with its ARM and x86 flavors, it's supposed to be all about tablet support, energy efficiency and for what's worth it will be the tiding bone between a true cloud driven experience across all 3 screens… if anything we will need portability and we will need increased performance… away from all the cluttered bits in the middle and that's what XAML + C++ could bring to the party.
What do you think? Os this too crazy? or is Microsoft lost… still?
One thing is for sure, whatever Microsoft is set to release next I wished it came with a clear proposition of unity, an homogenized strategy and best of all something we, developers and designers (don't forget about those), can really believe in, not for a season or two but for years to come.
These days there are a lot of us in the business of making things... wether they are tangible or intangible products we are constantly creating. We are creators! And it's under this reality, the rapid advancement of technology and the easy access to it that now, more than ever, the creation process has been democratized world wide, from north to south, all over the place.
But with this democratization of creation there comes a responsibility... a responsibility of making happy products. Products that don't get in our ways and more often than not, help us live a better life, at work, at home and on the streets.
In this short video Don Norman talks us into what he belives are the 3 keys to Emotional Design:
We need to convey emotion into what we do, into the people who uses our products and even more with the surroundings.
It has to feel organic to our shores... so go ahead and have fun creating!
PS: if you feel like exploring more on this subject, here is Don Norman's book on the subject.
With only a couple of days into February and the diversity of slate offerings is just starting to spice up and with that the diversification of offerings, flavors and most importantly, experiences start their lineup to bloom.
So what's in for us? Let's just take a look at the infographic above which pairs up some of the known offerings available until now; as for concerns in design and implementation the lesser common denominator for all of them comes to be Webkit, which means that more and more HTML5 will become the de-facto technology we will catered to if we want to target all them as one as we wait to see how they penetrate in the consumer world individually.
These are interesting times and I'm exited to see how the slate market will evolve. Android is probably the platform with the biggest opportunity to make a dent in Apple's reign, specially given Apple's almost dictatorial behavior as of late and Google's non-stop grow in mobile.
In the mean time Google has a lot to catch up to in terms of facilitating the making money process to developers, if they expect more and more developers to make the jump, which as of now has remained below expectations.
The show is not over and the war of slates will just get hotter as the days advance, next week HP is set to unveil their line up of WebOS based devices, which has been creating a lot of expectation lately, same goes for the iPad 2 whose announcement is eminent and as for Microsoft, well... we'll have to see what MIX '11 has to offer in this arena, since their strategy is still quite vague.
The pastures for us creators is greener than ever, imagination is at bloom and the displays are opening up... democratization for content, experiences and more is becoming reality one bit and pixel at the time... at a very fast rate.
Exited?
As the year comes slowly to its end, the pase of work also comes slowly into the holidays and even though this should be a time to relax and meditate, we geeks always come up with some free time and look out for something new to put in our toolbox, well look for it no more and enter ONTWIK.
Ontwik aims to provide the web community with a hight quality, latest, and best web development lectures and conferences from the best web developers and designers.
I don't know how long has this website been up for... but for what I can see there are quite a few jewels hidden inside.
So don't waste time looking around, now you know what to do with those free hours!
Happy holidays everyone!
I came across this project just a few days back and today it came the chance to put it to use.
Honestly I'm amazed at the level of quality and variety of icons available, it's just amazing!
The project’s mission is to collect, organize and make available an extensive library of free pictograms/icons for common nouns and concepts that make up the universal visual language, and best of all, all icons are guaranteed to be free.
Wether you are working on a new project or thinking in redesigning your current project, take a look and if you use what it's there remember to donate a couple of bucks!
When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.
this is one of the reasons why Apple's products are what they are... wished this was true across the board in other tech companies.
we live in a world that has never been as connected as now... the internet of things keep growing... our world becomes dummer and starter and thru a few key players and some happy API's our happenings are, simply put, collective.
this project I found today explore the idea of augmenting our surroundings with even more data... analog, digital and open spaces come together in a way that even if you don't own a piece of silicon... you still get experienced.
interesting concepts and look forward for more from this creative british agency... who knows maybe we do are living in the future.
