Monthly Archives: March 2011

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Elfoid: anthropomorphic horrorphone

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Oooh lordy, this Elfoid cellphone prototype is just horrifying, like some sort of David-Lynch-filming-Dan-Simmons prop to represent the religious fetishes of the Uncanny Valley… [image originally by Ars Electronica; ganked from linked Pink Tentacle post]

Elfoid humanoid phone prototype

The Elfoid phone is a miniature version of the Telenoid R1 robot developed last year by a research team led by Osaka University professor Hiroshi Ishiguro. The current prototype measures 20 centimeters (8 in) long, is covered in a soft fleshy urethane skin, and has the same genderless and ageless appearance as the Telenoid. The control buttons are embedded in the chest, which glows green when the Elfoid is in use.

Like the full-sized Telenoid robot, the Elfoid handset is designed to add an element of realism to long-distance communication by recreating the physical presence of a remote user.

That’s it; from now on, I don’t do phonecalls. Email only.

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Clarke Award shortlist, 2011

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In case you’ve not seen it already, the shortlist for the 2011 Arthur C Clarke Award is out in the wild. The six titles that made the cut this year:

  • Zoo City – Lauren Beukes (Angry Robot)
  • The Dervish House – Ian McDonald (Gollancz)
  • Monsters of Men – Patrick Ness (Walker Books)
  • Generosity – Richard Powers (Atlantic Books)
  • Declare – Tim Powers (Corvus)
  • Lightborn – Tricia Sullivan (Orbit)

A pleasingly diverse selection, with a few of the inevitable surprises. I’ve only read one and a half of them, as it happens (I got halfway through Lightborn before being distracted by other priorities, though I do intend to return to it), but I read more of the complete list of submitted titles than usual this year.

Anyone care to call which way they think it’ll go?

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Snow day

I figure it’s snowing somewhere, anyway. But the point is this: I’m out of town seeing a client all day, so no bloggage.

Please spend upon some other deserving internet site howsoevermuch time you would have spent pondering the magnificent gems of interest I normally unearth for you, why not?

Indeed. Good day!

Blasphemous Geometries

Seeing Like A State: Why Strategy Games Make Us Think and Behave Like Brutal Psychopaths

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0. A Tendentious History of Strategy Games Leading Up To A Question

All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.

– Chuck Palahniuk

Some video games require greater imaginative leaps than others. For example, games like Pong (1972) and Space Invaders (1978) were so graphically primitive that the gap between the things on the screen and the things they were supposed to represent could only be crossed with the use of a rocket-cycle; this collection of squares over here is an alien. That collection of squares over there is Earth’s last line of defence. The little squares moving up and down are particle weapons… or possibly missiles… or shoeboxes filled with explosive. It was difficult to tell. Continue reading Seeing Like A State: Why Strategy Games Make Us Think and Behave Like Brutal Psychopaths →

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GreenGoose and the gamification of… er, pretty much everything

Still trying to get a handle on that whole Internet Of Things idea? Intrigued by the buzzphrase “gamification”, or the concept of lifelogging-as-behavioural-feedback channel? Wondering what people are trying to do with RFID now that the futureglow has faded from that particular tech concept? Here’s where they all meet up:

… the folks behind Green Goose […] have come up with a system that turns boring tasks like brushing your teeth and exercising into a game that awards the ‘player’ with lifestyle points for completing various everyday tasks, in much the same way as players earn experience points in role playing games.

Green Goose uses wireless sensors that can be attached to objects, such as a toothbrush, water bottle or bike, to detect when you perform a task you have set yourself and rewards you with lifestyle points. These sensors were originally only available as egg-shaped attachments tailored for specific uses, but have now been shrunk down to small stickers and credit-card sized devices that can be attached to just about anything.

Worried that your kids live in world that’s much like The Sims? Well, why not make reality more like The Sims!

Interestingly (though not surprisingly, gamifying child behaviour wasn’t the original application:

The company was originally positioning the system as a tool for ecological and financial responsibility with its egg-shaped sensors designed to be attached to a bike, thermostat or showerhead to keep track of how much money a user saves by riding their bike instead of driving, keeping the air conditioning down or taking shorter showers.

At the risk of channeling Chairman Bruce, man, I can’t imagine why people weren’t queuing up to buy a game that would continually remind them how much they were screwing over the environment on a daily basis! We all know we need to do something, but there ain’t much comfort in being reminded just how much we need to do…

GreenGoose looks eminently hackable, though, not to mention easily cloned on the cheap; I can see some interesting interstitial/AR gaming applications straight away, but I suspect that, as always, the street will find its own uses for things that no one entirely expected. How’s about this one: fair allocation and metering of time-sensitive resources in your favela-chic stuffed-animal commune? Gotta keep track of who’s caning the hot water, after all, and if you ain’t done your chores then you don’t get your full bandwidth quota for the day…