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Idealist > a platform for sharing ideas, concepts and designs
Future Perfect
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Dot
Posted: July 4th, 2008, 12:22pm PDT
Tags: Tokyo [edit]
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Natural, Ordered, Structured
Posted: July 4th, 2008, 12:13pm PDT
Tags: Mishuku [edit]
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Tagging People and Objects for Profit
Posted: July 3rd, 2008, 11:07pm PDT
Tags: Mishuku [edit]
Last day in Ahmedabad - our rickshaw driver shouting over the drone of the 2-stroke, and she stops to pull in the scarf. We collectively exhale.
Consider the same situation in the future perfect world – where the passengers of the rickshaw can conduct a visual search, use real time video pattern matching to discover related content such as videos of choking motorcyclists (oh you had to follow that link didn't you?) pulled from the ‘tube and stats of actual incidents worldwide. You’re right – this kind of system is far more likely to highlight advertising for where to buy that lovely er, choker, or those fine pink shoes.
In a world of (revenue generating) user generated content – whether knowing about the probability and consequences of an accident the viewer is more likely to simply record the accident waiting to happen. Throw in some form of autonomous vehicles, no-doubt sponsored by You-Tube and you have 21st century paparazzi.
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Tagging People and Objects for Pleasure
Posted: July 3rd, 2008, 1:38pm PDT
Tags: Mishuku [edit]
With the means to identify people and objects around you - with or without their knowledge, a framework to discover, access and extrapolate that data, and a personally carried tool through which to do all of this on the fly and without ever pulling up a web page - how long before the practice of digitally tagging angels and devils kicks off?
When you're queuing for coffee and with a smile the server hands over your order and quietly refuses your money; or ditto with a scowl refuses to serve. For every culture: a heroine or hero; a scapegoat.
An angel of sorts from Naka Meguro (above) and Los Angeles (below).
Which site will be the most popular for tagging errant drivers - with videos to match?
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Objects Prepared for Use
Posted: July 3rd, 2008, 1:18pm PDT
Tags: Mishuku [edit]
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Incentivised Recycling
Posted: June 29th, 2008, 1:34am PDT
Tags: Meguro [edit]
The mental distance between the act of recycling, and what happens with what is recycled. My neighbourhood paper recycling van in Sangenjaya drops off (recycled) toilet paper for customers that recycle paper (above).
And for mobile phones flipswap and its variants.
The process of moving towards upcycled mobile phones.
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Auto-Rickshaw Mud Flap Customisation
Posted: June 27th, 2008, 8:45am PDT
Tags: Tokyo [edit]
One of the sweeter aspects of whizzing between meetings in Ahmedabad has been seeing occasional glimpses of of artistic inspiration fly by - in the form of Bollywood and Gollywood customised rickshaw mud-flaps. There's something just a little GTA about them - a reflection perhaps of the real-life chaos on the roads.
By chance we managed to drop by a cluster of street stalls where they are sold. Cost? Between 200 and 300 Rupees (3 to 4.5 Euros) for an off the shelf design. Add a similar amount if you opt for a truly personalised design based on movie stills of your choosing.
Managed to commission kustom Bollywood style mud flap featuring the research team. Awaited. With. Baited. Breath.
Update: and reader Meena Kadri points to a flickr pool with more designs from the streets of Ahmedabad.
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Highly Qualified Small Print
Posted: June 26th, 2008, 3:22am PDT
Tags: Tokyo [edit]
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Rickshaw Interior Customisation
Posted: June 26th, 2008, 1:43am PDT
Tags: Tokyo [edit]
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Tooth Brush Norms
Posted: June 25th, 2008, 2:23am PDT
Tags: Tokyo [edit]
From the streets of Ahmedabad, India. And a stall selling more of the same on the streets of Old Delhi.
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Inherently Shared Objects
Posted: June 25th, 2008, 1:48am PDT
Tags: Tokyo [edit]
Instructions for sharing written on the side of this 100% orange juice lolly. The extent that sharing is actively supported, implied in the design. The cultural un/acceptability of licking the same object? The contexts where multiple mouth's touching the same object becomes more acceptable?
Wondering how these practices evolve as we develop a nano/bacterial understanding of the world around us...
Related: the common sharing practice of the half life of food on a plate, why and how mobile phones are shared; and how sleazy punters are sleeping around by supporting multiple networks on one device. Shocking.
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Carrying & Interaction Behaviours
Posted: June 25th, 2008, 1:33pm PDT
Tags: Naka Meguro [edit]
The slides from today's Nike Tokyo Design Studio co-presentation with Fumiko Ichikawa on Interaction and Carrying Styles can be viewed above or downloaded from here [PowerPoint, 5MB]. Regular readers will note it's a minor update to previously published research. Thanks to Fumiko Tsuji and Howard Lichter @ Nike for hosting.
Related material includes: an essay on where people carry phones and why, this might interest you; a thread on carrying behaviours around the world; a taster of how we conduct the research and, um, shoes.
Related research can be found here.
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Cellphone, Anthropology
Posted: June 23rd, 2008, 1:52pm PDT
Tags: Tokyo [edit]
Readers arriving from the New Scientist will probably want to read this thread about life on the road, and peruse the research downloads here.
On a side note - it's interesting to see how other people label that thing that you do. I'm neither a trained anthropologist nor do I aspire to be called one - but whatever it takes to get on with the job. Ditto - only a small % of the work is related to mobile phones - life is way more interesting than little lumps of plastic and metal.
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A Space, Lingered
Posted: June 20th, 2008, 5:21am PDT
Tags: Mishuku [edit]
This corner of Mishuku, fairly close to my home where the taxi driver's pull up their rigs, take a pee in the nearby pubic lavatory, catch a smoke and Japan being the home of passionate baseball fans and diligent teams - watch the game.
Why, as a service designer spaces-to-linger might interest you - in this Tokyo pachinko parlour and extrapolated to this Ahmedabad shopping mall.
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Public Spaces, Seating Norms
Posted: June 20th, 2008, 1:27pm PDT
Tags: Kagoshima [edit]
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Mobile Phone Airline e-Ticketing
Posted: June 20th, 2008, 1:27pm PDT
Tags: Yakushima [edit]
The scanner at the JAL ticket gate, Yakushima airport for reading the QR bar code of the e-ticketon the mobile phone display.
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Personalised Apology in a Group Context
Posted: June 20th, 2008, 12:59pm PDT
Tags: Yakushima [edit]
A member of the ground crew (left of picture) stands with head bowed, apologising to passengers for technical delays. For every culture and/or industry: whether customers expect an apology; whether it is forthcoming; the form it takes; and the effects of that acknowledgment of [guilt] from calls for compensation to soothed anger.
After an earlier canceled flight, manage to narrowly avoid an extra day on the island. Back in Tokyo in time for izakayas.
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Japanese Restaurant Condiment Norms
Posted: June 20th, 2008, 12:50pm PDT
Tags: Yakushima [edit]
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Nudity in Context II
Posted: June 20th, 2008, 12:45pm PDT
Tags: Onoaida [edit]
And continuing on the thread of nudity in Japanese society - the now outdated practice of pixelating pubic hair in pornographic videos. More information on its history here and a dissected pixelated photo still from a porn movie.
Channel surfing in the hotel since you had to ask. But you had to ask, right? Tsk.
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Nudity in Context I
Posted: June 20th, 2008, 12:18pm PDT
Tags: Yudomori [edit]
I've got an hour before the next transport trundles by, so it's off to the local onsen - where the pool just so happens to be situated a pebble's throw to the beach on the outskirts of Yudomori - and is for mixed gender bathing. For the record m'lud - onsen are normally the least sexual places you can imagine. My only other gender-mixed onsen experience (um, in Japan) was by co-incidence also situated next to a beach - this time on the Izu peninsular. Not quite knowing what to expect I unwittingly ended up knee to knee in the pool with two Tokyo porn starlets and a good dozen otaku.
Yakushima is dotted with geo-thermally fed onsen - public and private pools where both locals and visitors to the isle strip, wash and once cleaned, bathe. Only a heathen would sit in their own dirty water, right? Here in the sticks the onsen functions as a social hub for the elderly - a neutral place where one can unwind, chat and slowly get into a state-of-mind to move onto something else. Or not - island life is slooow. Yeah, the experience is not a million miles from a bathhouse in Iran or its many equivalents in Finland.
Onsen are often sold on their unique attributes and if you happen to be in Yakushima - the JR Yakushima Hotel has an onsen with water so soft it feels like you're gliding through a pool of aloe and stepping out is as refreshing as having your your body licked by a perfectly minty tongue.
Most public onsen are gender separated but, as with today, on occasion you can find men and women sharing the same pool. It's fairly normal to take a rest from the intense heat of the pool by perching pool side - one leg dangling in the water, but I couldn't quite figure out why in my Izu experience these two attractive women would every so often rise out and stand at a right angle to the pool before turning their head to gaze out to sea a maneuver that, as you might expect, contorted the body to give an all too perfect bodily profile. I'm all for new experiences but this one I couldn't quite place - everyone seemed to know each other, but they weren't talking like friends.
It turned out that it was a informal porno package tour - the guide / pimp who introduced himself in faltering English drove a mini-bus down from Tokyo with paying punters and the aforementioned starlets. With a couple of bemused locals and the token white guy making up the 'pot. Every so often one of the gents would haul a small waterproof-cased camera from the pool and snap the ladies in situ, and after a while they kindly offered to take a photo of me sandwiched between the two ladies in a seating position that revealed their freshly shorn hooves. Pretty sure that had I accepted - that the photo would have been used as an advertising lure to pull in foreign punters for the next tour.
Context is everything. Especially when it out of context.
