Aktuelle Location-based Kunstprojekte in der Schweiz July 3rd, 2009 by axel

Anbei ein paar aktuelle location-based Medienprojekte die momentan in der Schweiz laufen oder in Vorbereitung sind. Eine Exkursion würde sich vielleicht lohnen:

Davos Soundscape
“The experience and composition of .ds – davos soundscape emerges from the movement, peregrination and strolling of the listeners throughout the landscape of Davos and surroundings. Ten microcomputers equipped with GPS were available for rent at the Davos Tourist Office.”
Dieses Projekt läuft nicht mehr. Marcus Maeder, einer der Beiden verantwortlichen Künstler plant jedoch im Moment ein neues interaktives Hörspiel in der Landschaft namens Der Pfad zur Linken Hand welches aber so weit ich weiss noch nicht so bald zu sehen/hören sein wird.

Pont Sonore Belju
Das Projekt läuft im September 2009 im Jura. So wie ich es verstehe, ist dies ein location-based audioproject, welches sich mit der historischen und politischen Situation des Jura auseinandersetzt. Die Benutzung von Brücken als “Ausstellungs” oder Hörraum unterstreicht diesen Gedanken.

Coop Handy Safari
Die Handy Safari ist ein relativ einfaches Spiel welches sich vor allem an Familien und Kinder wendet:
“Einmal am Ort Ihrer Wahl, starten Sie das Spiel durch ein SMS (Kosten: 20 Rappen) mit dem Stichwort der jeweiligen Region an die Nummer 5555 (ausgenommen Liechtenstein*). Dann erhalten Sie ein SMS mit der ersten von fünf Fragen, welche den Ort und seine Umgebung betreffen. Die Antwort schicken Sie wie-derum an die 5555 und Sie erhalten sofort die nächste Frage. Jedes SMS kostet 20 Rappen. Am Schluss des Spiels, das auf 36 Stunden ausgedehnt werden kann, erhalten Sie den Gewinncode und die Information, wo Sie den Coop-Einkaufsgutschein abholen können.”

Posted in Beispiele Reiseliteratur, Innovative Schreibprozesse, Interaktion, Tools, Uncategorized | No Comments »

iBookmark: locative texts and place-based authoring July 3rd, 2009 by admin

Hallo alle,

ich bin gerade an einem Arbeitstreffen des europäischen Forschungsprojektes IRIS (Interactive Storytelling), an dem ich für die Uni Genf mitarbeite. In diesem Projekt arbeitet unter vielen anderen auch Patrick Olivier aus Newcastle mit. Eben gerade hat er mir vom Projekt “iBookmark” erzählt, eine Forschungsprojekt der Uni Newcastle, der Uni Münster und der Art School in Newcastle:

Kurz: sie haben eine Software entwickelt, die es ermöglicht, mit einem eBook Texte zu lesen, die sich über GPS je nach Ort, an dem man sich befindet, verändern.
Im Anhang eine kurze Beschreibung des Projektes.

Ich habe Patrick natürlich von Texplora erzählt, und er hat mir sofort angeboten, dass wir in Kontakt kommen. Vielleicht gibt es eine Möglichkeit, in Texplora die Software von “IBookmark” zu testen oder gar anzupassen …. ist zu diskutieren.

Mit herzlichem Gruss aus Wien
Urs

Abstract «iBookmark»

With the recent developments in ePaper technology, consumer eBook readers have display qualities and form factors that are approaching that of traditional books. These eBook readers are already replacing paper in some commercial domains, but the potential of eBooks to extend forms of writing and storytelling has not been significantly explored. Using the digital and dynamic characteristics afforded by eBook readers, we are developing iBookmark, a GPS-enabled eBook reader. In iBookmark, writers can create stories that change in response to the location of the eBook itself. By setting context variables based on current and past locations of the eBook reader and using these in the rule-based generation of text and illustrations. We are developing new rhetorical device for writers that extend the expressive range of eBook delivered stories.

download «SchoeningCHI09.pdf»

Posted in Innovative Schreibprozesse, Tools | 2 Comments »

User Journeys, Use Cases und Scenarien June 29th, 2009 by axel

Hier ein paar Artikel und Beispiele zum Thema User Scenarios und User Journeys. Diese Tools sind hier zum Teil recht schematisiert dargestellt, was im Kontext von Softwareentwicklung durchaus Sinn macht. Sie sollen in unserem Kontext jedoch nicht als Anleitung sondern lediglich als Inspiration dienen, aus der jeder seine eigenen Modelle entwickeln kann:

An Introduction to User Journeys

Use Case - User Scenario
(Am Ende des Artikels sind links zu zwei Beispielen)

Posted in Innovative Schreibprozesse, Interaktion, Nutzungsszenarien, Tools, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Protokoll vom 7. Mai 2009 May 18th, 2009 by admin

 

Es wurde der Wunsch geäussert, für das kommende Treffen mit dem Vorstellen individueller Beiträge zu beginnen. Die Ankündigung von Traktanden würde helfen, sich auf die Treffen besser vorzubereiten. Die Ziele und Themen der nächste Sitzung werden folglich vorher angekündet.

Simon hat den Blog-Artikel «Executable content, directed graphs» im Detail vorgestellt. Daraus entstand eine längere und vielschichtige Diskussion über unterschiedliche Formen von Wissensrepräsentation im Bezug auf neue Formen von Reiseliteratur. Dieses Gespräch in der kleiner Gruppe habe ich als sehr inspirierend und produktiv empfunden. 

Es wurde gewünscht, sich in Zukunft vermehrt in kleineren Konstellationen zusammenzufinden und einen Tag (oder auch länger) zusammenzuarbeiten. Lukas und Simon planen bis zur nächsten Sitzung zwei oder drei Tage zusammenzuarbeiten. Eventuell wird auch Christoph dabei zu sein. Der Termin muss noch gefunden werden.

Der von Annina und Simon initiierte Versuch, die gesammelten Guides, Online-Plattformen, Applikationen, etc. mittels eines minimalen Struktur zu dokumentieren wurde erläutert. Folgende Struktur wurde vorgeschlagen:

1. Kategorie

2. Ziel/ Problem/ Bedürfnis

3. Lösung (Tools, Anwendungen, Bild / Beispiele digital und analog / Quelle & Beschrieb)

4. Ideen / Überlegungen / Relevanz

Lukas hat uns gebeten, die Zuordnung der Kategorien zu den Blog Artikel strenger zu handhaben und anzupassen. Simon schlug vor, spezifischere Kategorien zu erstellen, um thematische Überlappung zu reduzieren.

Lukas stellte Web-basierte Applikationen vor, die dem Leser Möglichkeiten bieten, Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen anhand vorgegebener Parameter zu finden, darzustellen oder zu zusammenzufügen und als Sammlung zu speichern. (Beispielsweise selbst zusammengestellter Reiseführer)

Im Gespräch am 6. Mai berichtete berichtete Axel über eine interessante Unterteilung der Reisetätigkeit. Die verschiedenen Aktivitäten werden zeitlich in vier Phasen unterteilt (An die exakten Begriffe kann ich mich nicht erinnern, doch sinngemäss nannte Axel die folgenden vier Phasen: 

1. «Faszination» (z. B. Online Recherche übers Reiseziel)

2. «Reisevorbereitung» (z. B. Reise planen, buchen z.B. Expedia)

3. «Reise / Aufenthalt» (z.B. Reiseführer in Buchform)

4. «Dokumentieren» (Erlebtes, fotografiertes mit anderen teilen, z.B. via, Blog, Flickr)

Axel wird das sicherlich nächstes Mal noch im Detail vorstellen und präzisieren.

Teilnehmer: Patricia Schneider, Lukas Zimmer, Christoph Staehli, Simon Tschachtli

Axel war am 6. Mai in Bern, ich ihm offensichtlich die Terminänderung auf den Donnerstag nicht kommuniziert habe. (6. Mai war ein ganztägiges Seminar der Berner Fachhochschule und unser Sitzungstermin musste einen Tag geschoben werden). Um solche Kommunukationspannen oder Missverständnisse zu vermeiden, wird Simon in Zukunft den Termin mindestens eine Woche vorher per e-Mail bestätigen.

Unser nächste Sitzung findet am Mittwoch, 17. Juni 2009 um 14.15 Uhr im Forschungsraum der HKB statt (siehe Texplora Blog-Kalender).

Posted in Protokoll | No Comments »

Using Yahoo’s «Pipes» to look for a vacation home May 18th, 2009 by admin

Yahoo’s «Pipes» is a web based application that radically simplifies the development of personalized mash-ups, searches, etc.. Processed data can be published as an RSS feed or JSON structure (JSON is an open standard for structuring data such as places, people, services). The following simple example shows how structured data can be processed to fit specific interests. Unstructured information generally needs to be processed in order to be useable in this framework. Yahoo «Pipes» can be used as a data mining tool for searching a vacation home in Varazze, Italy that suits your needs. The next level beyond «Pipes» would be a personal agent that represents the traveller’s interests and communicates with home owner’s agents. This example illustrates that such tools can be used for a wide variety of applications including travel information. While the following example is not particularly useful yet, it’s a glimpse of a future where semantic processing is the norm. There’s no reason why data structures have to represent factual information only. An author could publish a poetic description in the JSON data-interchange format.

pipes_001pipes_002pipes_003

Geographic location, specific search results and boolean logic is combined to find vacation homes in Varazze with at least one bathroom and a swimming pool. The output clearly cannot be considered literature yet but at least it might provide up-to-date information.

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Executable content, directed graphs May 7th, 2009 by admin

Target, Problems, Needs
The linear nature of spoken language obviously is limited by our body. As we have one tongue only, we are forced to serialize thoughts in order to express them with language. Reading may be seen as the process that translates a stream of concepts into the spatial domain. Writing on the other hand converts temporally arranged concepts back to the spatial domain. A mental image therefore could be considered mainly as a spatial phenomena, even though time and space are clearly interdependent. Mental models are formed over time.

graph1
Natural language, direct translation into formal system, non-linear schematic representation / visualization in a interactive visual editor. Note that the verb «minus» has been replaced by the operator «-» which can be evaluated by the machine. Processing is not limited to numeric and logic calculations.

Solution
To articulate and visualize relationships between elements, directed graphs offer increased expressiveness over seemingly linear language. External representations like schematic drawings, storyboards or maps augment our thinking process. Unlike a thought, an external representation on paper or on a computer screen is persistent and can be shared among people. It can also be easily manipulated. Interactive computer graphics coupled with semantic systems further extend static representations on paper as they can be based on arbitrary models that can be represented visually manipulated dynamically.

 ums_subprocesses

Unified Modeling Language: Description of (sub)process logic.
 

dag

Autodesk Maya Hypergraph: The yellow nodes represent verbs that produce data. The verbs (methods) create the sphere and the cube as well as the result of the boolean operation «ResultingShape». A small application made with Maya’s HyperShade can be seen here.

Tools, Applications
In the area of computer animation and software development the need for simple to use, yet expressive interaction models caused many innovative applications. It started with visualizing the syntax of program code in order to make is more readable for the developer and to spot common errors. Increasingly, flow diagrams have been used to visually represent the high-level logic of the system to be built. 

Example, Images, Publisher
Unified Modeling Language like Maya’s Hypergraph (Hypergraph is a visual editor of a 3D animation application named Autodesk Maya) are methods to specify behaviour of systems. The idea is that behaviour can be expressed on a meta level that can ultimately be turned into arbitrary representations such as natural language, images or even machine code that can be executed. Like in language, the idea is to represent nodes and relations between them. A node is an abstract object that can be a method, an attribute or data like text, a number or an image). Descriptions are made by linking the desired objects in a particular way.

quartzQuartzComposer by Apple. Visual authoring system aimed at application developers. Quartz Compositor is part of every OS X distribution. It is hidden in the «Developer Tools». Aa wide variety of node types are present and can be connected to build applications. Nodes range from Text processing (XML, RSS, etc.) to image processing and general purpose operators. Image by Noiseindustries.com

 

shake

Shake by Apple is a node-based image compositing application for post production. The name «Shake» is derived by the node’s behaviour. Connected nodes can easily be detached by shaking them off the established connections visualized by lines. Images can be either inputs or outputs. The direction of the flow is defined by the order of the connections.
 

Ideas, Thoughts, Relevance
Written language generally is «read only», meaning that the medium like a book contains just text or «data». This data or content can only be interpreted by the reader itself. Executable content like a software application on the other hand can be interactive and therefore communicate with reader. The «reader» turns into a «user» or even an «author». In other words, the document can become a tool. This is a fundamental change. Clearly travel literature could profit from node-based representations of information as much as 3d graphics.

Posted in Innovative Schreibprozesse, Philosophie, Sprache, Theorie, Tools | 1 Comment »

Cartoville City Guides May 6th, 2009 by admin

Category
Cartoville is a series of map centric city guides that aim to combine the physical compactness of a tour guide and spatially arranged information of a map.

Goals, Problems, Needs
While maps are a rich source of information, they are generally too big to be practical for the city tourist. Travel plans are often made on the go. Whether it is on the train or on a airplane, space is precious. 

cartoville_front cartoville_index

Solution
To limit the size of the included maps, Cartoville subdivides a traditional city map into six to eight partly overlapping areas. The individual maps determine the chapters which are laid out as individual flip-out maps. Each area map features its own index page organized with common categories such as hotels, landmarks, points and activities of interest. By dividing the city into distinct areas, the density of information is greatly reduced and the selected chapter is likely to contain relevant information as it is based on the reader’s current or imagined proximity. 

Tools, Applications
When using a Cartoville guide, typically the first step is to roughly determine the the starting point for looking up information. is either the traveler’s current origin or the location of a hotel found via overview map. Alternatively the index page of each area contains short articles about the history, points of interest, travel info and more centered around this specific area.

Example, Images, Publisher
cartoville_flip

Size: 125 x 176 mm
Publisher: Guides Gallimard

Ideas, Thoughts, Relevance
Cartoville’s design addresses a number of  shortcomings of traditional city guides by segmenting its content into spatial districts and categories. This reduces the density of information and increases relevance based on proximity. With the use of a clever fold-out layout the guide overcomes the practical limitations of maps.

Posted in Beispiele Reiseliteratur, Gestaltung, Interaktion, Nutzungsszenarien | No Comments »

Some more Interactive Travel Planners May 6th, 2009 by axel

Offbeat Guides

Offbeat Guides is very close to our own research. it is actually a travelguide which the user can put together from existing templates. The final product can either be ordered as a pdf or as a bound booklet.

The main interface of Offbeat Guides. Once a destination and travel date are chosen, the site compiles a contents page with several chapters which the user can turn on and off.

The chapter overview interface of Offbeat Guides. Once a destination and travel date are chosen, the site compiles a contents page with several chapters which the user can turn on and off.

The main interface is a simple five-step wizard. First one has to type in name, destination and travel dates and then the site generates a list of articles or chapters relating to the chosen destination. Those chapters contain the usual stuff such as sightseeing, food, history, events, etc… The user turn individual articles on and of via mouse click. There is also the possibility to add custom chapters.

One can imagine how this could develop into an elaborate tool with sophisticated handles for the user to customise his travel guide. At the moment though the result seems rather dissappointing. The texts are all bog standard and the customisation is mainly about eliminating unwanted information. No idea why this is called “offbeat”. There seems to be no information that wouldn’t be found in any other guide, at least not for the destinations that I tried out. This is even more astonishing as the concept behind the information draws from the web and individuals on site:

 

Our content is the most up-to-date because we have an enormous technology base of spiders and crawlers that find the best information out on the internet, and combine it with information from established authors and thousands of locals who are always updating the information about where they live. We also believe strongly in Creative Commons, in which users can share, create and build information that is available for mixing and remixing into unique new applications.

Maybe the problem is that this is still a beta and the network of individuals supporting it yet not big enough. The question is, whether this will ever reach the critical mass to function properly. Another problem is the quality of their semantics. Why the event page for Lucerne comes up with a football match between Oberhausen and Freiburg, played in a stadium a few hundred kilometers away is a conundrum. The listing of the EUCHEM Conference on Stereochemestry amongst the events is similar puzzling. With a price of about 25 dollar one would expect some high quality standard. This is simply not worth the money. However, the basic concept - creative commons material, collaborative authoring, customisation, data mining  -  seems to go into the right direction.

offbeat_guide_02

The Pdf version of the Offbeat Guide

Nileguide

Nileguide is very similar to Tripwolf which was discussed in an earlier post in that it offers a customised tour guide that can be downloaded as a pdf. Similar as with Tripwolf I did not find a way to get it printed as a book which would be a really nice feature. The generation of content also works similar  as in Tripwolf: There is a database which rather fixed content from which the user chooses his items. Or in other words, the whole database makes up a full guide book and the user decides which parts of the guide book he wants. The actual interaction when assembling the guide though is different than in Tripwolf. While the latter allows one to drag and drop arcticles, Nileguide just lets one tick boxes. There is drag-and-drop though when it comes to organising the trip (see image).

 

This is the part of the nileguide interface that lets you organise the trip. Venues, sights and attractions can be added to a specific date through drag and drop. These drag-and-drop items contain preprepared articles about the specific object.

This is the part of the nileguide interface that lets you organise the trip. Venues, sights and attractions can be added to a specific date through drag and drop. These drag-and-drop items contain preprepared articles about the specific object.

The general problem with these kind of tour guides (Nileguide and Tripwolf) is that the information seems rather generic. The local and expert know how seems to flow into the hotel recommendation process but not into the writing of the guide book articles. 

 

 

GetJealous.com

GetJealous.com is actually not a travel planning website but an online travel diary. It provides travellers with webspace to post blog entries, movies, images and also a map with the destinations and a message board for friends to leave notes. This is a very plain and straight forward solution with no real networking aspects. A downside might be the fact that people already post images, movies, etc… on different platforms and might not want to have a different account for their travel blog.         

the main interface of getjelous.com. The different content sections are navigated via tabs on the top.

the main interface of getjealous.com. The different content sections are navigated via tabs on the top.

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Posted in Beispiele Reiseliteratur, Innovative Schreibprozesse, Tools | No Comments »

A Few Examples of Interactive Travel Platforms April 23rd, 2009 by axel

I think it is also important to look at a few exisiting examples of online travel literature. There is actually quite a lot of stuff out there that does allow the user to interactively put together travel information and even to export it into a pdf. In the following article I will give an overview:

TRIPWOLF

tripwolf's main interface

The main column of the tripwolf travel guide

 
Tripwolf is a social network around travelling. At the core is a guide which gives insider information about destinations but there is also the possibility to post images in a gallery, to book hotel rooms and to write travel blogs. The networking aspect is quite interesting as this is a platform for individual travellers. Therefore people can actually meet fellow travellers online. Once you sign on, Tripwolf actually allocates you what they call a trip guru, who sends you a friendship request and thus supposedly supports you. Not exactly sure but I could imagine that those “gurus” get payed by Tripwolf or maybe just like in other platforms this is all about status. This means that supporting other users somehow hightens a user’s status on the platform - there is actually such a thing as a top trip guru - and that some users simply compete via this ranking.

The scrapbook of the Tripwolf website

The scrapbook of the Tripwolf website

The most interesting thing with regards to our project is probably the so called scrap book in the side bar. The scrap book allows one to drag and drop information about venues from the main middle column and to collect them there. Later those information can be exported into a pdf file and printed out on paper. Thus one can turn the digital information into an analogue leaflet.
However I find this leaflet rather disappointing. In my case I have chosen Vienna as a destination. Thus the first few pages give me a very rough overview over vienna which is more or less a collection of addresses of all kinds of hotspots (culture, sport, nightlife, hotels, etc…). I had manually added the Stefansdom as one of the attractions I wanted to visit which shows on the guide as a single page with a few images and a few lines of text.
Besides the rather meak content the process of putting together the trip via the scrapbook is rather clumsy I find. I would prefer a layout preview which shows me all the content and lets me add and delete information.
As it is I would  rather buy myself a proper guidebook than using this as an analogue tool for getting around my destination.

 

An excerpt from the pdf that can be exported via Tripwolf's scrapbook

An excerpt from the pdf that can be exported via Tripwolf's scrapbook

 

GOPLANIT

Whilst TripWolf concentrates on aspects of social networking, GoPlanit’s focus is more on the  integration of various Web2.0 applications and they do this quite cleverly: The planning of a trip in this case is around itinerarys and accordingly one starts with a calendar overview. One has the choice to either add activities individually to this calendar or to go for an instant predefined itinerary (as this is a beta this can currently only be done with a few destinations mainly in the US). However, any kind of items can be deleted, edited or added to and from the itinerary.

An instant itinerary of a trip to New York generated by the GoPlannit website. Items can be added, edited and deleted.

An instant itinerary of a trip to New York generated by the GoPlannit website. Items can be added, edited and deleted.

There is also a very smart mash-up with Google Calendars mapping all events, hotels, venues etc… of the itinerary onto the map of the City/area that one intends to visit. But what I think could be the killer application is the iCal integration of the itinerary. This means that via iCal the whole trip schedule could be accessed via iPhone or any other iCal enabled smartphone. This means that there is hardly a need to print out any information.

Obviously the platform also contains a journal function. What is currently missing from this seems to be the possibility of adding photos. However, this is a really clever tool and one to watch.

goplannit_02

A mash-up that maps all items in the itinerary to a Google map.

more reviews to follow…

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Posted in Beispiele Reiseliteratur, Innovative Schreibprozesse, Tools | No Comments »

Browsing Online Maps – Google even knows the colors of my water color painting March 31st, 2009 by admin

«Varazze, Via Helvetia»

A friend recently sent me a postcard from Varazze, Italy. Old memories came back and I wanted to know if I could locate «Casa Henri Dunant» on Google maps. It must have been about twenty years ago as I stayed at this remarkable villa. To my surprise I was able to locate this building instantly by following the beach walk from the town center and passing by landmarks that triggered buried memories of a past summer vacation. It seems like spatial relationships can be recalled easier than temporal relationships. At least that’s how I function. Suddenly I was in Varazze again! While visually exploring the the area with the «satellite view», I discovered photographs of this familiar coastline someone uploaded via panoramia.com. My next task was to find the photograph that best matches a water color painting I acquired a few years ago. This aquarelle by Adolf Flückiger pictures the coastline of Varazze. As I filled a sketchbook drawing these rock formations, I was quick to tell that this must be Varazze. Knowing that the painter has stayed at «Casa Henri Dunant» clearly helped as well. I was stunned to have found a photo that matches both the viewpoint and the exact lighting condition. Needless to say that I soon found myself comparing  hotels and rates. Perhaps it is time to plan the next holiday. 
aquarell-photo2

Services used for this visit:

- Italian and Swiss postal service, for delivering the analog post card

- http://maps.google.com 

- http://www.panoramio.com/photo/7959545
A Google service that lets users upload tagged photos, routes and link them to Google map.

- http://www.varazzevirtuale.com
Portal with links to web sites of hotels in Varazze and other local tourism sites. This may not be a particularly interesting site but a but it features additional photos of the area.

Posted in Beispiele Reiseliteratur, Nutzungsszenarien, Orte oder Regionen | No Comments »

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