Human Chips!

In 2004, the Baja Beach Club in Barcelona implanted chips into patrons so they can pay for drinks!



Source http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3697940.stm

Zipper Dress

Some people with a disability have trouble dressing and undressing themselves. This dress allows for this task to be easier.

Imagine also if the dress had a remote control...

"The Living Dress" - Haus of Gaga

Jimmy Choo

Jimmy Choo has added LED lights the heels of one of his SS 2010 collection shoes. You know, this technology has been used in kids shoes for a long time - now its grown up!

RFID

Clip Mobile Coupons

I was walking down the street and saw this sticker





















"love to shop" the sticker said, 'yep' I said to myself. Intrigued, I took a photo with my iPhone. Then went to the website getclip.ca.... it told me to download the app, so I did that...




















It is a location based coupon app. Basically this is what many people want from Foursquare, ie deals at shops and restaurants, without the competitive nature of being Mayor or not.

Clip Mobile Coupon Application from Clip Mobile on Vimeo.

Health Care and Clever Devices

Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital is featured as being a model hospital for clever devices integration, namely for iPhone use.

Using Apple's developer software "iPhone SDK", Mount Sinai developed a iPhone app called VITAL HUB, which basically combines all 66 apps used by doctors.

At the last family bbq I was at, a relative who is Radiologist was telling me how he can clearly view images and from the iPhone and is excited by future uses.

The latest Cisco ad featuring our Ellen Page, shows her visiting her doctor via webcam. Is this the future of doctor's visits? Virtual waiting rooms?

There is a trend towards people trying to self-diagnose via google. Well, self diagnosis isn't a new thing, it was once common to have books that people used in the home. But it is fair to say that some internet sites are not reliable for this, many are also full of ads.

I believe we will see fundamental change regarding health care in the near future. This will have a lot to do with the increasing demand for services with the ageing population.

source

My World Routes Concept

"we’re now able to go anywhere at any time, access information and communicate globally with a few key strokes or via a cellphone"

This installation gives participants the experience of being any place in the world they choose and immerse themselves in sights and sounds of that country/city - without leaving Harbourfront.

Participants will physically move themselves on their own "world route".

Using the technology already available at OCAD and Harbourfront.

















A dedicated room will have a giant interactive motion sensor floor mat - on the mat is a world map.













By traveling on foot, participants select the city they want to see, by tapping on highlighted place names. For example, if they select London, England. The whole room - floor, walls and ceiling - will become immersed in London sights, sounds and culture. 360 degree panorama video of the Thames will engulf the room, you will hear boats and newspaper boys.

Walk around the room and there will be touch points where further interaction can occur, for example, touch a map and select Buckingham Palace, ideally the room feels like it is "flying there", footage required for this hopefully could be sourced from Google Earth - (it would be like being in Willy Wonka's Glass Elevator.)

I am inspired by the video effect used in this ad for Puma.



Participants are encouraged to document their own experience, thoughts and tips about these locations - AND their experience of the installation. By texting a message to a short code number it is then used on a rotating ticker feed. There will also be the option to leave a voice message, this could be played during the experience. The messages will be compiled onto a twitter account and be accessed anywhere in the world.

This addresses the theme of Globalocal by incubating the concept of world cultures, international travel, social networking.

Add some ideas to further this concept in the comments on this blog, or in class - please and thank you!

Google TV

"Google and Intel have teamed with Sony to develop a platform called Google TV to bring the Web into the living room through a new generation of televisions and set-top boxes."

The Antroid operating system is being modified for use on TV sets. This will surely allow developers to come up with a whole new ways to use our telly.

Having the same Apps on your TV as your phone will definitely bring your lounge room into a new era of entertainment and connectivity.

SOURCE - NYT

Cellphone screen menus set to replace IVR options

Sick of having to listen to a recorded voice tell you to press 1 for sue, 2 for bob, 7 for john... well the future of call centre Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is on your screen.

This is major - for the way we interact we customer service - trending towards self-service.

"We believe now is an opportune time for mobile self service. Spending on customer self service via mobile devices is expected to grow at double digit rates to 2015."
Source

Windows Phone 7

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, the company showed off Windows Phone 7 for the first time, which has been designed from the ground up to seamlessly pull together content from social networking sites and other web services on a scale unseen on competing platforms.

Phones based around the new operating system are set to hit the market by Christmas this year. Samsung, HTC, HP, Sony Ericsson, Dell, LG and Toshiba have already signed up as early partners.


Source

Twitter dress

Singer Imogen Heap wore a dress to this year's Grammy's that had its own twitter feed! She wore a LED collar that displays messages from fans and inside a translucent Fendi handbag, an iPhone displayed photos from fans via twitter.

Source

Kodak Pulse

Electronic photo frames are not new - however, this particular one has features that I have not seen on any other e-frame.

1. It is Wi-Fi enabled, so you can access facebook albums
2. It can have its own email address, so friends and family and just email a photo and it appears in your frame.
3. It has a touch screen


Source

Crowdsourcing Massage

As student team from MIT has developed a jacket that allows other people to give you a massage remotely. You can thank the people who send you massages, also you can send massages. Its called the SOS, which stands for Stress Out Source.

















Source

Wearable technology

What if you couldn't be with your loved one this V-Day? Wouldn't you wish you could just hug them!?

Now you can with the Hug Shirt from Cute Circuit. This wearable technology has the ability to mimic human to human contact - it is highly intuitive and is designed with user emotion in mind, including the sensation of touch, warmth and intensity of a hug.

The system is very simple: a Hug Shirt™ (Bluetooth with sensors and actuators), a Bluetooth java enabled mobile phone with the HugMe™ java software running (it understands what the sensors are communicating), and on the other side another phone and another shirt. If you do not have a Hug Shirt™ but know that your friend has one you can still send them a hug creating it with the HugMe™ software and it will be delivered to your friend’s Hug Shirt™!

When touching the red areas on your Hug Shirt™ your mobile phone receives the sensors data via Bluetooth (hug pressure, skin temperature, heartbeat rate, time you are hugging for, etc) and then delivers it to the other person.

Source

Case Study - Kiva microfinance

Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend to unique entrepreneurs around the globe. (kiva.org)

















Everybody loves a feel-good case study. Kiva is probably one of the most successful mirco-financing sites I have come across. Micro-financing you ask? Whats that!? Well, just like it is hard right now for some people in North America to get loans - imagine how hard it must be if you live in Africa and have no capital. That's where Kiva steps in - instead of sponsoring a child, you sponsor a businessperson. Lenders do not recieve interest back, although beneficiaries are charged some interest. The good news for you, is that there is a 98% rate of paying back loans, so its a win-win!

How Kiva has made a social change, is that it allows people who have some money, just sitting in the bank, to make better use of it for a good cause.... along the way, take some needy people out of the cycle of poverty.

There are a whole lot of Apps for Kiva other than the main website, at this stage, I don't think they are developed by Kiva, but most of them are recommended on the Kiva website. So basically you can keep track of your loans and the businesses that you are benefiting via twitter, widgets, igoogle, iPhone, mobile device, websites and email! This is a way to communicate and help people that you would probably never come across if it weren't for this concept.

Whats also awesome about this concept is that teams can compete for highest amounts of loans! From first glance, I saw a "team Canada", "London", and various social and religious affiliations.

Profile
Kyle
Toronto
Middle aged, steady job, educated.
Very busy
Enjoys surfing the web and using his iPhone
Does not have much time to contribute to charity causes, but loves business and wants to help other people, without risking much of his own money.
Prefers trusted brands.

Scenario
Kyle logs onto kiva.org
Selects a business/businessperson who he wants to support
Donates nominal amount
Tracks the success of the business while waiting for the bus
3-6 months later, this loan is repaid,
Searches for another business to support

Source - World Summit Awards

Man says cell phone's preloaded content caused his divorce!

Text Message Fiasco with Virgin Mobile - Feb. 4, 2010 - Winnipeg, Manitoba from ChrisD.ca on Vimeo.

"It all began when the 49-year-old’s wife found (preloaded/suggested) texts on his cell phone along the lines of, “Booty Call” and “Let’s Do It.” Now the guy is facing the possibility of divorce, as his wife is under the impression he has been cheating on her."

This is a case that demonstrates how intertwined clever devices are in our interactions with other people. Preloaded content diminishes the role of personalisation and dictates what a user sees. Clearly, this content was targeted towards a youth demographic. This is misappropriation of the capacity of the clever device.

Read more here

Happy Social Media Week

This is Toronto's first Social Media Week.

Check out the schedule here

FourSquare first News Media partnership

It was announced today that Foursquare is partnering with Metro News, the top free newspaper across Canada. This will not only increase Foursquare usage in Canada, but may also have implications as to how we relate to news and editorial.

For example, when you are near a location that Metro has written about/reviewed, you can opt to receive a message on your mobile device informing you.

Restaurant/retail owners have long been reviewed positivity or negatively in mainstream press or sites like yelp, however foot traffic from passers by have largely not been influenced. In the long term, I would hope that Foursquare partners with several news organizations.


Read more about it *this link sometimes works*

Read more about FourSquare
5 Ways Foursquare is Changing the World

New handset innovation

Battery waste may be harmful to the environment. This device attempts to address this issue by using sugar as battery power.

Designer Dai Zi Zheng says

"This is a client project aimed at designing an eco-friendly phone for Nokia. As a result of my research, I discovered that conventional phone batteries are: expensive, harmful to the environment and difficult to dispose of. In addition, the conventional battery manufacturing process consumes many valuable resources. The concept is based on the idea to create a pollution free environment by using bio-batteries as an alternative to conventional batteries. A bio-battery is an ecologically friendly, energy supply system which uses enzymes as a catalyst to generate electricity from carbohydrates (currently sugar). In order to use the bio-battery as a power source for the phone all that is required is a small supply of a sugary drink. Once the battery dies only oxygen and water remains. Bio-batteries are fully biodegradable and have, on a single charge, a potential life-span three to four times longer than conventional lithium batteries. Meanwhile, bio-batteries are a whole new way of looking at batteries and afternoon tea."



Read more about it here
Eco-friendly phone for Nokia by Daizi Zheng