Category: Social and Societal

about either people in my network who I want to profile or about social uses for the technology I study. Behavioral or User Experience topics. This is also where I will put any post that has to do with inhibitions of using technology (looking funny in public), or trends in different societies/regions of the world

Categories
Augmented Reality Policy, Legal, Regulatory Social and Societal

Where is the line?

If, when using the camera and microphone of my future AR-assisted display, I were to record an experience including a conversation, where is the line between what is yours and what is mine? Or if I had my personal cultural assistant operating while visiting a gallery or my digital shopping assistant in a store. What parts of the data belong to the museum or the retail merchant?

In the past 6 months there's been a lot of attention paid in the media to subjects of personal privacy (and personal data protection) and the use of Project Glass. No, Glass isn't AR. But Glass has enough in common with products that do (and will) provide AR features that we can use this post by Robert Scoble as an example of what the dialog is and will be around.

We've probably all read articles like this one and had discussions with people about how to manage personal privacy when sensors are always (or almost always) on. Scoble is of the opinion that privacy advocates sounding the alarm now will look like fools in a year's time.

I don't think it's that simple. Sure, there are already laws to protect personal privacy. In California, it's illegal to record another person's voice without consent or to capture video or photos where there is an expectation of privacy. I'm told that there will be ways address concerns with on-device (on display) software and/or hardware (e.g., Glass' projector light is on when you are recording, a flap over your camera). I'd like to learn about approaches to address and control privacy that might be more discreet and more reliable, or that would work without relying on the manufacturer of the device, perhaps using cloud-based services.

These still don't get to the question of the law. I'm going to be giving a presentation to an association of Law Librarians tomorrow during which I will raise this question of capture in public spaces. Although the managers of law libraries don't themselves argue cases of this type, they might know of precedent. I look forward to an interesting dialog about the direction of change and how those who manage public spaces will address this delicate subject in the future.

When there is precedent in the public parts of our lives, we will all be wiser about where to draw the line in our personal spaces.

Categories
Augmented Reality Social and Societal

The Contextually-Aware Age

I am writing a position paper about how position (ironically) can reduce the amount of data sent to a mobile device and make what is sent more likely to be of interest to the user. Since the paper will be distributed as part of a campaign to promote an OGC event about mobile standards later this month, I’m using the phrase “Next Generation Location-based Services” to describe this, but I’m exploring other closely-related ideas and topics.

A lot of people, especially academics (here’s an example), have developed, as far back as a decade ago, some excellent thinking around such services and there was a very comprehensive CSC Grant report about NGLBS published in 2010 on the subject.

I was watching the recently-posted video by Robert Scoble on the new real-time information feed that TagWhat released the other day. About 8 minutes into the video, I heard that with Forbes writer Shel Israel, Robert is co-writing a book about contextually-aware services called the Age of Context. I look forward to reading it.

The Scobleizer tweet stream is packed with excellent examples of how mobile sensors on devices are going to impact the services we use. So, while the concept of Next Generation LBS isn’t new and it really hasn’t become common (yet), it’s fair to say that it is trendy.

What Scoble hasn’t discussed, at least in what I’ve read of his writing on the topic to date, is the problem of proprietary APIs.

Scoble is a huge fan of social media, especially Google+. On the day that I was watching the TagWhat video interview, I also learned that Robert was going to be using the new Smith Optics Elite Division ski goggles with Recon Instruments technology. I haven’t read Robert’s review of these yet but I hope he does a special about Augmented Reality when skiing.

In the social media “universe” there are few, if any, open standards. Unfortunately, many of the services to which the applications are sending requests for contextually-relevant information are social media services, using proprietary interfaces. Application developers must either develop their own data and limit their users’ access to other appropriate data sets, or write to and use the unique features of each service interface in order to relay the data to their servers, where they can filter the data as needed by the user and according the preferences and context settings of the mobile client application.

Lack of standards for contextually-relevant data places a heavy burden on developers. In contrast, if the burden on developers can be reduced significantly with the use of open data, linked data and, above all, open Web-based services, more developers will use more diverse data sets in their services and the era of contextually-aware mobile services will blossom.

My position paper describes how some standards already exist to address the problem. The Open GeoSpatial Consortium provides the most widely-implemented set of open standards for geospatially-referenced information for use in the development of contextually-aware enterprise and consumer services. I’m looking forward to learning more about these during the upcoming Next Generation LBS event the OGC is holding on February 27. I hope to meet many of you there!

Categories
Internet of Things Research & Development Social and Societal

Even Minnesotans know about RFID

I don't have anything for or against Minnesota, but why would this little known state come up twice in a few days? This merits a little examining.

Earlier this week a friend of mine who lived in Minneapolis in the early 90s was telling me that upon her recent visit there she was amazed at the vibrant community living there. Is that why in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, 78.2% of eligible Minnesotans voted – the highest percentage of any U.S. state – versus the national average of 61.7%? I guess this could be a relevant factoid in a US presidential election year.

Then, I discovered that the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment and Seoul National University have recently released a study on the use of three things that are squarely on my radar: smartphones, social networks, and "things" (in this case packages using RFID). And, if that wasn't enough to catch your attention, there's also a "green" component to this study. According to this article on the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment's web site:

The study used spatial and agent-based models to investigate the potential environmental benefits of enlisting social networks and smartphones to help deliver packages. While sensitive to how often trusted and willing friends can be found in close proximity to both the package and the recipient within a day, results indicate that very small degrees of network engagement can lead to very large efficiency gains.

Compared to a typical home delivery route, greenhouse gas emissions reductions from a socially networked pickup system were projected to range from 45 percent to 98 percent, depending on the social connectedness of the recipients and the willingness of individuals in their social networks to participate. System-wide benefits could be significantly lower under assumptions of less than 100% market adoption, however. In fact, the study points out that many of the gains might be nullified in the short term as fewer home truck deliveries make existing delivery systems less efficient. But, “with only 1-2% of the network leveraged for delivery, average delivery distances are improved over conventional delivery alone – even under conditions of very small market penetration,” the study concluded.

“What is important is that sharing be allowed in the system, not how many ultimately choose to share time or resources,” says study co-author Timothy Smith, director of IonE’s NorthStar Initiative for Sustainable Enterprise. “We find that providing the relatively few really inefficient actors in the network the opportunity to seek the help of many better positioned actors can radically improve performance.” This is particularly relevant today, Smith says, as online retailers such as Amazon begin introducing delivery pickup lockers in grocery, convenience and drug stores.

Perhaps there is, indeed, a natural link between voter participation and social networking for your local package delivery: if a citizen is more involved in the well being of the community and wants to vote, perhaps the same person will also be open to making small detours for the purpose of delivering a package and protecting the environment.

I suspect that the speakers about NFC and RFID at the upcoming IoT Zurich meetup event will be touching on this topic of citizens using their smartphones with near field communications, but probably not for the same applications. 

Categories
Internet of Things Social and Societal

Where are the users?

Information technology is supposed to benefit people. Not all people, necessarily. But some people, some of the time. Very frequently engineers are looking to solve a problem, but there are few or no end users involved in the design of solutions. There are many explanations, including lack of knowledge of the options, political agendas and financial considerations, for end users to be rare or absent during the design of systems.

Lack of flesh and blood end users is not always an impediment to progress or impact. In the first meeting of the ITU Machine-2-Machine Focus Group (notice that there are no humans in the chain) I attended earlier this week, the end users' needs are considered as part of Use Case descriptions and the final user is represented by actors in these use cases. This approach works well for many situations. But not for all.

Usman Haque's guest post on Wired's new (since mid-January 2012) Ideas Bank blog, makes the case that citizen participation is not optional when technologies work on intelligent city information architecture. In fact, Usman argues that citizens, not corporate giants like IBM, Cisco or General Electric should drive and be at the "center" of the activity.

He writes, "We, citizens, create and recreate our cities with every step we take, every conversation we have, every nod to a neighbour, every space we inhabit, every structure we erect, every transaction we make. A smart city should help us increase these serendipitous connections. It should actively and consciously enable us to contribute to data-making (rather than being mere consumers of it), and encourage us to make far better use of data that's already around us.

"The "smartness" of smart cities will not be driven by orders coming from the unseen central government computers of science fiction, dictating the population's actions from afar. Rather, smart cities will be smart because their citizens have found new ways to craft, interlink and make sense of their own data."

As I mentioned above, there are frequently excellent reasons for users or citizens to be represented by their proxies. In fact, isn't that what a representational democracy does? It elects people to represent citizens in decision making processes, just like actors in use cases represent the end users of technology systems.

That said, I agree with Usman that, first, it's not easy to bring about a major transformation from brick-and-mortar cities to smart cities, and that people have to drive or at least participate in the innovation or else the outcomes could be rejected by those they are intended to serve. And, furthermore, I agree that the infrastructure for smart cities may serve citizens but it requires investments at such enormous scales that only cities (or national governments in some cases) can fund the infrastructure, and only very large companies, like Cisco and IBM, can realistically be expected to build them.

Perhaps the absence of users in the case of city development, or at least in the planning of city change, is an issue that could be addressed by increasing the use of AR-assisted information delivery and retrieval programs.

Here's the scenario: Joe Citizen is sent a device with instructions (a tutorial) and asked to use it to review a proposed project and give his feedback. He takes the device out into the neighborhood, turns around, explores a proposed project from different angles and answers questions on the screen. He goes to the nearest city office and turns in the system complete with his ideas and feedback. If he doesn't return the system or perform the task on time, an invoice is sent for payment (similar to a fine if a citizen doesn't show up for jury duty).

For very modest investments, the citizens of a city could take an incremental step towards a smart city just by "seeing" the information that their city already has and can make available using Open Data systems. I haven't forgotten my plan to repeat the Barcelona City Walkshop this year.

Categories
Social and Societal

Time Under Pressure

In my most recent post I wrote a bit about what happens when I leave my office. At events I meet a lot of new people, and when out on the road I encounter objects that aren't familiar to me. It can be enlightening but it can be also dangerous and costly if time is your most precious resource (and time is the most limiting resource for populating this blog).

Here's an example of what we all try to avoid. Eric Picker came to Lausanne to give a 20-minute talk about the use of sensors and telecommunications to monitor water quality and quantity during our IoT-4-Cities workshop. His trip to Lausanne was not as smooth as it could have been but he arrived with few hours to spare. The talk was very rewarding and he met some new people and took the opportunity to get in a few hikes in Switzerland.

It was on the return trip that his flight was cancelled due to strikes by the French air traffic controllers trade union and, well, the French train system failed him as well (he missed every connection). It took two days for him to travel back to Cannes. Without incident, Geneva is one-hour away from Nice (by air).

Last week in San Francisco I was nine time zones out of synch with home base and (on the record) was there only to attend the New Digital Economics Brainstorm and chair the AR Innovator's Showcase on the same evening (March 27). I knew that in a hot bed of activity like the Bay Area, I couldn't miss the opportunity to connect with others. In the end, there were people who I couldn't catch but almost every precious minute was accounted for. Among the meetings, I had a great philosophical session with Gene Becker, another with Erik Wilde, visited the quiet offices of Quest Visual, and had lunch with the founder of Vizor (a project in stealth mode). Caught up with spirit sister Kaliya Hamlin, during which we learned about converting communities of interest into consortia with Global Inventures. I had quality sessions with representatives of Total Immersion, metaio, PRvantage, NVIDIA and The Eye Cam.

As a consultant, my value is a mixture of my knowledge about subjects and the time I have available to dispense it, to use it or to increase it. I do everything I can to manage my time. I've been to many portals and have read books on the topic of time management. Like everyone, I suppose, I try to avoid wasting time, and I use some software tools to save time. It's a topic of much interest to me but here's the ironic twist I've been reading and hearing more about recently: the more you stress about anything, including the time you have, the less of it you (may) have! For example, here, here, here and here. I hate to leave you with this negative thought but it's what's on my mind!

Categories
Innovation Social and Societal

In digital anima mundi

Each year the producers of TED bring beautifully-articulated, thought-provoking content to the world. Those of us who are not invited or choose not to attend the event in person get free access to these talks in the weeks that follow the end of the live production. My first session from the 2012 TED program was by Peter Diamandis about our fascination with negative trends and the concepts he has captured in Abundance, the book.

An example of abundance in the world/on the web is the page on which Gene Becker of Lightening Laboratories shares his notes and slides of an inspirational talk he gave last week on a SXSW stage. Thank you for sharing these, Gene!

 

Categories
2020 Social and Societal

Anticipatory Services (1)

It's March 18, 2012. I've entered the doors of a nice hotel in the outskirts of Austin, Texas. As I greet the agent and approach the reception desk I get my photo ID and my credit card out and lay them on the counter. After a moment of looking at a box on the counter, the agent at the desk replies to me that the fitness center and the swimming pool are on the ground floor. In response to this information (which I will not use), I ask how I can connect to the Internet service in the room and the procedure to follow to have something printed out.

I enter my room and, in anticipation of my arrival, the fan and air conditioner are turning full tilt. I immediately find the thermostat on the wall and turn off everything. The temperature is to my liking. I open the curtains to let in the natural light.

If I were an author, I would write a poem or a short story about a time in the future when all the people, places and things around me are able to detect who I am, what I'm saying, to whom and every gesture I make. The environment will be organized in a way that my every need will have been considered and the options are made available.

I will be able to choose how to be reached (since there won't be these antiquated devices such as telephones and computers any more). Though the inner workings will be invisible to my naked eye, the "alert" surfaces of my surroundings and the objects I carry with me will be the interfaces by which I receive suggestions and make my choices known. When I arrive at the restaurant for an evening cocktail, I'll be served a bowl of freshly made tortilla chips accompanied by dishes of guacamole and salsa.

For a small monthly or annual fee, my preferred provider of premium anticipatory services will be tracking and logging my every move and anticipating my future. When the experiences  I have exceed expectations, I will be happy to pay yet more!

I've recently learned, from an article written by Bruce Sterling in the April 2012 issue of the Smithsonian Magazine on the Origins of Futurism, of the HG Wells essays of 1902 on the topic of life in 2000. The "Anticipations," as the author entitled them, are available as part of the Guttenberg project. I am really looking forward to digesting these, in particular how he thought of the urban life we lead today.

I wonder if he also thought of anticipatory services.

I regret that my visibility into the near future confirms I will be unable to digest these works in the coming days. And that the next place I stay an agent will similarly greet me as a guest with expectations they seek, but will fail, to meet. When I am home, my expectations are lower and the astounding reliability of my world to deliver beyond what I need is much appreciated.

Categories
Internet of Things Research & Development Social and Societal

City WalkShop

Adam Greenfield is one of the thought leaders I follow closely on urban technology topics. Adam and his network (including but going beyond the Urbanscale consulting practice) are far ahead of most people when it comes to understanding and exploring the future of technology in cities.

In this post I'm capturing information about this small event conducted in November 2010 in collaboration with Do Projects (in the context of the Drumbeat Festival) because it inspires me. I've also found documentation about two more of these done in spring of 2011 (Bristol and London). On March 11, there will be another one taking place in Cologne, Germany in collaboration with Bottled City.

City WalkShop experiences are "Collective, on-the-field discovery around city spots intensive in data or information, analyzing openness and sharing the process online."

I discovered the concept of WalkShops when I was exploring Marc Pous' web page. Marc just founded the Internet of Things Munich meetup group a few weeks ago and, in addition to being eager to meet other IoT group founders (disclosure: I founded IoT Zurich meetup in October 2011), I learned that he is a native of Barcelona (where the IoT-Barcelona group meets).

I got acquainted with Marc's activities and came across the Barcelona WalkShop done with Adam.

The WalkShop Barcelona is documented in several places. There's the wiki page on UrbanLabs site that describes the why and the what, and I visited the Posterous page. Here's the stated goal:

What we’re looking for are appearances of the networked digital in the physical, and vice versa: apertures through which the things that happen in the real world drive the “network weather”, and contexts in which that weather affects what people see, confront and are able to do.

Here's a summary of Systems/Layers process:

Systems/Layers is a half-day “walkshop” organized by Citilab and Do projects held in two parts. The first portion of the activity is dedicated to a slow and considered walk through a reasonably dense and built-up section of the city at hand. This portion of the day will take around 90 minutes, after which we gather in a convenient “command post” to map, review and discuss the things we’ve encountered.

I'd love to participate or organize another of these WalkShops in Barcelona in 2012, going to the same places and, as one of the outcomes of the process, to compare how the city has evolved. Could we do it as a special IoT-Barcelona meeting or in the framework of Mobile World Capital?

I also envisage getting WalkShops going in other cities. Maybe, as spring is nearing and people are outside more, this could be a side project for members of other IoT Meetup Groups?

Categories
Internet of Things Research & Development Social and Societal

Risks and Rewards of Hyperconnected-ness

I often get asked to define a Spime. The definition is simple “Space + Time” but the implications are deeper than most people have time to think about. That’s one reason that Wranglers are needed. But the fundamental attribute of a spime is that it is hyperconnected and it is doing something with its connections. By documenting or publishing where it was made, by whom, where it has traveled, or how long it has been “on” (or another attribute that can be detected by the object), our objects are developing memory. Ironically, for humans, being hyperconnected may work differently. 

In a series on the Read Write Web portal, Alicia Eler is exploring the hyperconnected life. The first piece she posted, How Hyperconnectivity Effects Young People, summarizes the results of a study on American Millennials and consequences of having an “always on” life. The Pew’s study of the impacts of always being connected to the Internet on the brains of youth is both qualitative and quantitative. Well worth a scan if not more of your time. Here are a few of the highlights I found particularly relevant:

  • relying on the Internet as our “external brain,” saves room in our “wet brains” for different kinds of thinking (no surprise here). 55% of those surveyed believe that the always on youth will have positive impacts on the world as a result of finding information more quickly and thinking in less structured ways, “thinking out of the box.” 42% of those surveyed feared the result would be negative.
  • always being connected tends to build a desire for instant gratification (no surprise here), and the increased chances of making “quick, shallow choices.”
  • Education reform is much needed to meet the requirements of these “new” and hyperconnected and mobile students. This really dovetails well with the outcomes of the Mobile Youth Congress held last week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The iStudent Initiative suggests that learning should be more self-directed and the classroom will be where students report what they’ve learned.

Then, in a second post entitled, Introducing Your Hyperconnected Online-Offline Identity, Alicia explored the subject of fragmented identity. The premise is that our identities are fractured because we can be different people in different places and in response to those around us who are different (home, business, sports, entertainment/hobbies).

“The real self is saddled somewhere in the overlap between these three circles. These ideas of the self apply in both an online and offline context. This abstraction, explains ScepticGeek, may come at least partially from Carl Rogers.

Basic-Three-Circles-with-Text2.png

“Online, we battle with the same conflicts, plus a few other quirks. We are a Facebook identity (or two), a Twitter account, a LinkedIn oh-so-professional account and maybe even Google+ (plus search your world, no less). Each online identity is in and of itself an identity. Maintaining them is hard, often times treacherous work. We must slog through the Internet-addled identity quagmire.”

In another paradox, I think that when “things” are connected, even via a social network such as facebook, we (humans) truly have the opportunity to know the objects or places better, with a richer and deeper understanding because we think there’s more information, less subjective and more quantitative data on which we can base our opinions.

I wonder if there will also be ways for Spimes to have different personae, to project themselves in unique ways to different audiences. Perhaps it will be simpler because inanimate objects don’t have the need or desire to reconcile all their identities in the “self.” But it will always remain the responsibility of the wrangler to manage those identities. Job security is what I call that!

Categories
2020 Internet of Things Social and Societal

My Refrigerator

It's convenient to store your white wine and perishables outside when your refrigerator is small. On our balcony, there are no predators to come and take our food. And the temperature outside remains a relatively stable level of cool. In Western Switzerland we are experiencing a cold snap and I brought in items I had been keeping outside so that they wouldn't freeze. I put them in the refrigerator but it was not easy finding room.

[side note: I'll never forget the remark made by an American I once visited shortly after she arrived in country. She asked me "What is it with these Barbie-size appliances?" In many parts of the world, Barbie-size appliances are all you need when you can easily and frequently stop at retail stores. We don't drive a pick-em-up-truck to the grocery store. We walk there, buy what we need and carry it home.]

When I need to stock up, I ask everyone in my family to pick up a few items, or I use the on-line shopping service, LeShop. It's time consuming to go through the catalog but it is convenient to have the products delivered to your door for approximately 4% of the purchase price. (LeShop charges 7.90 CHF to deliver a 200 CHF order).

Taking a break while perusing LeShop's catalog, I read this article in the New York Times about smart appliances of the future. "Is this the next step in the evolution of my Barbie-size appliance?", I asked myself.

I would find it terrifically useful if my next refrigerator not only kept an inventory of its (small but tightly packed cold box) contents, but also connected tightly (or even loosely) with my LeShop order.

What if I could select a recipe the night before, ask my refrigerator (including my balcony shelves) and pantry if there was any ingredient missing, and then have whatever I was missing brought to me? Almost as easy as going to a restaurant and ordering from a menu!

A fridge that synchronizes with my store would be very useful to me but maybe not everyone. Society may not want this time-saving feature. Some may like to shop for food. Before there were roads leading to every door, people questioned the benefit of the automobile. Until everyone had one in their home, office and pocket (or pocketbook) people questioned the utility of the telephone. Why have a camera in a telephone when you have both separately? Many other innovations have become essential components of daily life.

In a recent post RCR Wireless writer Marshall Kirkpatrick took this whole question of machines talking to one another further. He identified a topic that resembled my posts about new technology adoption and use of AR technology among kids and teens. Kirkpatrick points out how quickly technology has evolved since our parents and grandparents were born (television, Internet, etc) and asks:

How do we talk to children about such a radically new relationship with technology that will characterize the world they’ll work and play in as adults? Machine-to-Machine connectivity is not as easy to grasp as the prospect of people communicating with new devices.

And he brought in an illustration from an article co-authored by Dominique Guinard, one of the young Swiss IoT entrepreneurs. Please click on the illustration to enlarge! Under the illustration are Kirkpatrick's translations to English of all the things these connected devices are saying to the teen pictured on the right.

 

 

 

 

 

Freezer: I was thinking about defrosting today.

Clock: Aren’t you supposed to have left the house already by this time?

Faucet: I dripped all night! You should call the plumber.

Toaster: Do not give me too big a toast toast, this time, eh?

Cooking utensils: I remind you that you have not eaten any greens for three days.

Washing machine: And my clothes? who's going to hang them out to dry?

Categories
Augmented Reality Social and Societal

AR-4-Teens

Changing human behavior is difficult. Go ahead, try it! Exercise more! Eat tomatoes for breakfast!

Changing behavior with new technology is right up there amongst the world's greatest challenges, after world hunger and a few other issues. In my post on AR-4-Kids, I concluded that if children were introduced to AR during infancy, adopting it would never be in question. Certainly using it in daily life would seem natural. Do companies providing AR today really need to wait for the crop of children born in 2010 or later (introduced to tablets with Ernie and Bert speaking to one another) to play with these technologies and keep them as part of their behaviors? 

Suppose you learned as an infant to adopt new technology? "Millennials" are among those who, from their earliest memories have mobile, Internet-connected technology in their hands and pockets and, in some cases, intuitively figure out the role it plays in their lives. 

Results of a study covered in several mobile marketing portals (but is surprisingly difficult to find on the Ypulse site), are not encouraging. The high school and college-age participants of Ypulse's survey are “baffled” by augmented reality technology, particularly when it's infused in mobile apps on leading smartphones. Neither of the news bulletins I've read about this study (here and here) describe the Ypulse methodology or sample size. However, below are the findings at a glance from the Mobile Marketing Watch portal:

  • Only 11% of high schoolers and collegians have ever used an augmented reality app.
  • retailers like Macy’s and brands like Starbucks have come out with mobile AR apps. They’re fun and clever, but as with QR codes, Millennials don’t always get the point.

Among students who have used AR apps:

  • 34% think they’re easy and useful;
  • 26% think they’re easy but not useful;
  • 18% think they’re useful but not easy; and
  • 9% think AR apps are neither useful nor easy to use.

We have a long way to go before the technology put in the hands of consumers, even the magnificent millennials today, meets true needs, adds value and gives satisfaction. Heck, we're not even near a passing grade! 

Those who design and produce AR experiences must reduce their current reliance on advertising agencies and gimmicks. Or at least they must reduce emphasis on "wow" factor that clearly has no purpose (except to engage the potential customer with a brand or logo).

Utility, especially utility in the here and now, is more important than anything else to change behavior and increase the adoption of AR. 

How useful is your AR experience?

Categories
Augmented Reality Social and Societal

Pop-Up Poetry

I occasionally read using the Amazon Kindle application installed on my laptop, but eBook reading doesn't appeal to me. I prefer physical books. That's why this new publication written by Amaranth Borsuk and programmed by Brad Bouse, Between Page and Screen, caught my eye. It's a physical book that can only be read using a webcam connected to the web. You point the book's page at the webcam to read the letters and watch the animations.

This work consists of letters exchanged between two lovers, "P" and "S." Some have called it poetry. Without a literary reviewer's mind or having read it myself, I can't say if it is truly a work of poetry but it is exciting to see how technology, paper and art continue to mingle in new ways.

I'm not thinking this is a practical or particularly enjoyable experience, in part because I don't care for the big marker approach to AR, but this is a natural progression following upon other "magic book" projects.

One of the most well-known is Camille Sherrer's magic book project Le Monde des Montagnes (2008) which uses Natural Feature Recognition (no markers) to detect the page you have shown to the camera and then superimposes animations on the live video of the page (the augmentation is only on the screen).

 

 

 

Imagine what this could be like if it were a graphic novel, like some other projects. I'm thinking here of Jack, the Time Traveller, a project developed by Julian Looser, Adrian Clark, Shunsuke Fukuden, and Katy Bang (while they were working at the HIT Lab NZ) for the Australian Centre for the Moving Image exhibition Screen Worlds. The book tells the story of Jack's journey through the history of cinema and his quest to find an interesting and well-paid job.

There are other ways to play at the intersection of print books and video. In one example of about the same time period as Jack, The Time Traveller (early 2011), Davy and Kristin McGuire created a 3D effect and digitally inserted characters into the story using video recorded with a Canon 5D Mark II projected onto paper.

"It tells the story of a mysterious princess who lures a boy into her magical world to warm her heart of ice. It is made from sheets of paper and light, designed to give a live audience an intimate and immersive experience of film, theatre, dance, mime and animation."

One of the many differences between these three important Magic Book projects and the first work I referred to above is that Between Page and Screen is available for USD 24.95 from Siglio Press.