Technical/Tangible/Social

Technical/Tangible/Social
Elizabeth Lane Lawley, Director, RIT Lab for Social Computing, Rochester Institute of Technology

link: http://delicious.com/mamamusings/il08
blog: mamamusings.net/

This talk was the final keynote presentation of the conference. Elizabeth’s talk was about ways that old technology (that she characterized as tangible) and new technology (the technical) relate to social interactions. Hence her keynote theme: when you combine the three concepts of technical/tangible/social you have something magical. She spoke of the balance to technology that can be found in traditional crafts, the realm of old technology. In her presentation, she showed two magazines for the combining the technical and the tangible that she says should be in every public library: Make and Craft: transforming traditional craft
Quote: “So often in technology there is nothing tangible that results from your work. The sense of making something that matters is especially important for people who work with technology, that you can see by how people like to knit and crochet at conferences and other places. The tangible, the technical and the social combined in an object = magic.”

As I listened, it was interesting to me that she separated knitting and other forms of craft from technology; these are just older forms of technology, necessary ones, too.

The rest of her presentation was a tour through ambient technologies, objects that can notify us of changes in the physical environment or alert us to the need for action. Many of these were humourous objects that seem to fit the world of distracted multitaskers.

Ambient devices: We deal with overload by letting some things slip into the background of our perception. Ambient objects tell you by color: today’s weather, high temps. in your region, current cost of electricity, current energy usage etc.

Availabot – this is not commercially available yet. A little figure that tells you when IM is available.

Chumby is an interactive media player that constantly streams your favorite parts of the internet in a fun, always-on, always-fresh format.

mir:ror – give power to your objects – ex. keys; who’s home? if you choose to, add rfid to your library card, and when you go in the library, your friends may be there too and you will know.

botanicalls – Botanicalls: The Plants Have Your Number From the web site: “Botanicalls opens a new channel of communication between plants and humans, in an effort to promote successful inter-species understanding. Botanicalls allows plants to place phone calls for human help. When a plant on the Botanicalls network needs water, it can call a person and ask for exactly what it needs. When people phone the plants, the plants orient callers to their botanical characteristics.”

arduino – Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

lulu: make your own books etc.

Play money, the craft project – a virtual and tangible book, an artifact

outlets to go – a practical and lightweight device powerstrip, social hardware “share power outlets in airport” a well-designed object

Concluding statements - how to encourage people to visit the library more frequently? She offered the idea to create a welcoming physical space with good technology access, along with the “tangible” elements of comfortable chairs and food, where people can sit together, particularly in academic libraries.