Russell Davies

watching watches

I've been interested in the collision of watches and computers for ages. I've wasted a lot of money. This is an early example - an enormous MP3 playing watch from Casio. It came with an enormous charging station and I seem to remember it could hold almost a whole album. I can't get it to work any more.

Or this is a more recent example - a Suunto fitness computer / watch which crashed and won't restart. Somewhere I also have bunches of those Casio calculator watches, at least one Fossil MSN Spot watch and - my proudest possession - a Swatch The Beep watch featuring Internet Time. Remember that?

Like I say, I've wasted a lot of money. This is why I need a big corporate job.

I mention this because smart watches are cropping up again, and I'm convinced they're going to be more meaningful than internet fridges, but right now they don't seem to be.

I know this is a thing because Ben Bashford's mentioned it and his antenna are exquisite.

I've been mucking about with the Nano as a watch too. And am equally frustrated by how much it could do, but doesn't.

You've got a moderately powerful computing device on your wrist but it doesn't do anything. Agh.

The new Nike+ GPS thing works really well though. I think because it doesn't try to be a General Purpose Computing Device, it just does a few, very specific things.

And I'm really impressed by the possibilities of this thing - the inPulse. It's Linux based and a cleverer developer than me (ie any actual developer) could probably do all sorts of clever things with it.

What I love most about it though is a really simple thing. It connects to a Blackberry and when you get an email you get a single discrete vibration - then a quick glance at the watch tells you whether that email or tweet is worth paying more attention to. You don't have to get your phone out of your pocket and poke at it a bit to unlock it, read the mail, etc. It gives you back a little bit of time and attention.

What I don't like is that I can't get the battery to last more than about 8 hours. Which isn't enough. Even with the screen off most of the time. But, you know, battery life is hard.

 I think this all connects to the measuring pebbles thought somehow and the idea that as we move "post PC" then we'll start to develop little networks around our mobile devices. Notifications will be distributed around our bodies where they make sense. In our earphones, on our wrists, perhaps a little speaker in our collars or an LED on our laces.

This Eye-Fi card is the latest thing to make me think this. It creates a connectivity hotspot around your camera, connects to your mobile device and access 'the cloud' directly. So every picture you take gets uploaded - you're saving direct to flickr (if you want.)

You're surrounded by a personal area network of connectivity. Your Object Formerly Known As A Phone is the centre of that, providing access to the Data Centres In Fields and your other devices - cameras, watches, whatevers - can be tuned to be good at what they're supposed to do, but still be connected and smart.

Anyway.

 

Interesting 2011 - starting to cohere

Right, the programme for Interesting is starting to come together. Not everything I hoped for is going to be possible, but some things I couldn't have imagined are, so that feels like a good balance.

I thought I'd let you know where we are, roughly, so if you want to demand a refund you can.

We're going to be ask you to be there for around 10.00 when there'll be some initial chat about the location of the exits and then the good people of the Stanley James Press are going to get us all doing some bookbinding and making notebooks - which we can then write notes in for the rest of the day. (YOU SEE - WE DON"T JUST THROW THIS STUFF TOGETHER.)

You can read more about that here, but this is an important sentence:

"The books are going to be A6 in size, so, if you have any cool, interesting, strange A5 paper (you can bring bigger, it will just take time to chop it down), make sure you bring it along."

Then Leila will be presenting her Hack Circus. I'm honestly not sure what this will involve, but based on what's on her blog and twitter it's going to be splendid.

And then Chris will be doing about an hour of this:

"I'm interested in food and cooking. We'll be looking at how we taste food, finding out who are supertasters and what that means, and how taste and texture can be changed in modern cooking. There'll be a little playing with food but no culinary experience is necessary. It'll even be vegetarian friendly."

Then we'll have a break for lunch.

Then we'll come back in for Alby who will "be explaining how a nuclear bomb works and trying to set a world record in the process." This, surprisingly, will take about an hour and involve 1,000 moustraps. These are said mousetraps:

Then Stuart and his gang are going to lead us in this:

"Together we will be designing a Master-Plan for a new settlement with the brief: A living place conducive to searching and developing new ways of living. Using cardboard, tape & our custom stickers (and a few other bits) our proposal will contain the S-mall (tools and devices) to the XL-arge (buildings and systems). Everything will be completed in 2 hours and submitted that day to one or more live architecture/design competitions."

What this means is - we're going to come up with entries for Design/Architecture competitions like this, and we're going to enter them. Stuart and crew organised the carboard prototyping which was so excellent at last year's PaperCamp so I'm really looking forward to this.

And, it doesn't end there.

We've also got stuff going on through the day, around the edges. I'm not quite sure whether to schedule these as discrete activities or to let them all just happen through the day. We'll work that out.

But - they are:

The Words And Pictures organisation are going to get us making a giant comic:

"We’ll be creating a giant-sized comic through the day, an adaptation of one of Marc Ellerby‘s Chloe Noonan stories, which we’ll be creating panel-by-panel with the help of everyone coming along to the event. This day long Drop In + Draw will be for all Interesting-attendees regardless of age and ability, and it’s going to be great."

So - everyone - BRING A PEN.

Oli Shaw is going to be getting everyone making creatures. I think he was high from the plasticine fumes when he wrote this description:

"We have a plump plasticine Queen who awaits your presence for the birthing of her 200 offspring. The place: Interesting 2011! But she needs your help. There are several birthing stations at the ready for the delivery of each and every one. There is just one favour she needs you to perform; her baby monsters and robots need cutifying. You can sculpt & mould your creature anyway you want to make them as cute as can be."

And, actually, maybe Matthew was also at the plasticine when he wrote this:

"You + sound-making objects + MIxD-up = some noisy shit. Join Jason Mesut, Ed Chocolate and Matthew Solle with their collection of sound and noise making objects. Part interaction design, part music technology, part toy-hacking and circuit bending. MIxD-up will be attempting to create various compositions throughout the day using the sounds that you bring, and make at their little table. You can bring your own little instrument, show off your voice, or play with some of the gadgets on display. Ed Chocolate, may even do some live circuit-bending to twist up your ears. Just remember to bring something that makes a sound, and MIxD-up will try to weave it into the chaos. Who knows how it will turn out, but it’s guaranteed to be noisy, and certainly interesting."

And we'll aim to be finished by about 4pm. Everyone's always said the best bit about Interesting is talking in the pub afterwards so we're going to leave more time for that.

And, that's about it. Hope it sounds good to you. I don't think I've forgotten anyone from this list, but I might have.

Key things to remember:

1. Bring A Pen (preferably a big fat one)

2. Bring Something That Makes A Noise (could be your mouth)

3. Bring A Mug For Your Tea And Coffee.

4. We're going to be starting around 10. Aim to get there before that.

5. We're going to be finishing around 4.

6. You already have your ticket - it has been emailed to you by eventbrite - just print it off and bring it along.

Hope that all makes sense. Shout if not.

And massive, massive thanks to everyone mentioned above. Without whom etc.

dawdlr - the slow experiment continues

Dawdlr has just updated. I try not to mention it anywhere else because part of the experiment is seeing whether it can get any traction at postcard speed.

I'm mentioning it now because the trend seems to be of slow decline and I think that means I shouldn't be shelling out for the PO Box any more. Seems economically daft. Therefore, please be aware, if you want to send a postcard, that it needs to go to a different address - the address on the dawldr page, over on the right.

That is all.

Interesting 2011 - fourth and final lot of tickets

Righty-oh. The last 50 tickets will go on sale this Thursday at 11am. Here.

If you need an extra incentive to snap tickets up here's the description Leila sent of her Hack Circus bit of the day:

Roll up! Roll up! Leila Johnston, editor of Hackers! presents HACK CIRCUS, an hour of intriguing experiments, uncanny performances and mind-bending workshops! MARVEL at robotics artist Sarah Angliss, witness Dave Cranmer's musical pig with YOUR OWN EYES, experience THE FEARLESS Paul B Davis, and sing along with THE SPECTACULAR MJ Hibbett. Don't miss kinetic sculpture OF MAGNIFICENT DELIGHTS, lock-picking MYSTERIES REVEALED and REAL MACHINE-PEOPLE.

Sounds great doesn't it? Bear in mind however, that I don't know what most of this means.

Also confirmed are Mr Heathcote doing things with molecular gastronomy, if we can get some fridges sorted out and Mr Reid demonstrating nuclear fission, if we can source the mousetraps. Other guest hosts are being arranged as we speak, including some musical and sculptural side shows. It could all be good. It might not be though. Don't forget that. It might all be a bit of a damp squib.

Anyway.

the doctor who guy, right?

 

Interesting 2011 - third lot of tickets

One for the evening people this time. The third lot will go on sale at 9pm on Thursday 5th of May. Here.

interesting 2011 - second lot of tickets

Will be on sale this Thursday (the 28th) at 11am. Here.

but what about Wendy Cope's last.fm account?

James wisely responded to the news of the acquisition of Wendy Cope's archive with this comment on delicious:

""Elaborate signatures, perfumed missives and intimate scribbled secrets are set to disappear from literary archives as they become increasingly full of one-line emails, spam and Amazon.co.uk receipts." – This is the dumb response to the amazing future news."

I'm sufficiently up myself to want to point out that I anticipated that amazing future for authors and scholars and wrote about it in Wired. You can, should you wish to, go there and read it.

rivers, fishing, the sea, might be the connection, and blazers

As I enter my twilight years I am increasingly of this opinion.

the pretending layer

I was chatting to Max the other day, trying to impress him, as I always am, by telling him about some thinking I've been doing about dashboards.

I've been looking at various dashboards for a little project and the problem with them seems to be that they look like Excel. They're very clear, sensible and readable but the people who are supposed to use them (media, marketingy people) aren't using them as much as they should.

I think it's because they want a dashboard on their screen to make them feel like some sort of Master Of The Universe Trader, or Spy or NASA controller. Their expectations have been set by this. They don't want to feel like an accountant. So maybe they need some more exciting fonts and blinky red buttons - to add the appropriate pretending affordances.

And Max just said - yeah, the pretending layer and moved on. But I was bowled over with the genius of that formulation. Because that's what we need to add to so many things, to give them that extra neccesary magic. A pretending layer. So it's not just a useful or beautiful or functional object - it's got some little nod to who we're pretending to be when we're using it. I've thought a lot about pretending, before. But it's that phrase 'the pretending layer' that really makes it work.

That's the pretending layer. The layer you add when you've solved the important problems, made the thing work properly and seamlessly. It's the extra bit. The things I love the most have a pretending layer, so they're not just for the practical me, they're for the imaginary me.

Anyway. Well done Max.