Machines/objects that talk about what they are doing. In this case, is the London Tower Bridge that tells you when is opening and when is closing, what vessel is passing by and which way is going.
The data is already there. It’s taking a device that’s already outputting digital data and piping that output in human-readable form to the web. The idea is how to better inform and distribute that data. The bridges talks in the first person - important note! It doesn’t express any personality,in my opinion but using first person gives somehow a more intimacy relation …”the object should express something of a personality, even if it’s wrapped up in an inanimate object describing itself as “I”.” A mix of usability with poetry. I still think that it could have more storytelling attached.
reference in this article:
Article by Tom Armitage
User comment: ” It would be better if it could sense when there was the most amount of tourists on it, and then open in reverse, dumping them all in the Thames. Can you do this on your computer machine for all of us?”
(eheeh)
We’re letting digital representations of machines (the software that converts their data into some form of English string) address digital representations of ourselves. I find that more interesting: we’re no longer necessarily anthropomorphising machines into people, but treating their digital incarnations as readily-understood metaphors. We’ve moved away from anthropomorphising in its strictest sense and towards finding an actual, idea-space representation of machines. That’s… most interesting.
The other thing that happens as more machines enter spaces previously restricted to humans is that the potential for interaction based on overhearing emerges. I used “overheard” very deliberately earlier - to suggest we’re not getting the original message (which, presumably, is in XML or binary or something) but a chinese whisper of it, cast out in public via Twitter. But now imagine if the API is two ways, and telescopes, watching the Twitter timeline can start acting upon the things they overhear. Scheduling software overhearing the Victoria line announcing that it’s broken. My cooker picking up that I’m leaving the office.
(hum….objects all connected…)
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Here another article that talks about the future uses of these objects that talk with you.
I’m really enjoying the comments that appear in this kind of articles and research that I’m doing. Here is another one:
““Turn me off and go to bed, you will be grateful tomorrow”
-my computer, TV, cell phone, or whatever distracts me at night”