Deribbed-Nigel Whitbread

Graduation Day

2007-07-25T21:42:00.001+01:00

Nigel Whitbread BA Hons C.V.

2007-06-28T13:35:00.000+01:00

Curriculum Vitae

Personal Details

Nigel Whitbread
12 Llwyn Y Gog, Rhoose Point
Barry, CF62 3LS
Tel/ 01446719673
Mob 07841644017
Email nigelwhitbread@yahoo.co.uk
Web www.deribbed.co.uk
Blog http://nigelwhitbread.blogspot.com/
Project Blog http://nigewhitperproj.blogspot.com/
D.O.B 03/12/1974

Profile

I’m creative, professional and personable with an adaptable way of working, be it as part of a team or on an individual level.
Software proficiency – Word, PowerPoint, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Director, Dreamweaver, Cinema 4D, Final Cut Pro, and InDesign.
Whilst at UWIC I developed a prototype of a handheld electronic tour guide for St Fagans National History Museum, I utilised a diverse range of software, instigated in-depth research and had dealings with different institution

Education

University of Wales Sept 2006-June 2007

Institute Cardiff (UWIC)

First Class Honours BA (H) Design for Interactive Media

Modules: ADM301 Design for Interaction (10), ADM302 User-centred Design (10), ADM303 Design for Change (10), ADM204 Production Process (20), ADM305 Contemporary & Contextual Studies (10), ADM 306a Personal Project (40), ADM 307 Entrepreneurship & Professional Practice (10)

Bridgend College Sept 2004-June 2006

HND Design for Interactive Media

Modules: MMO1 Computing Fundamentals (12), MM02 Computer Applications in Art & Design (12), MM03 Multimedia Principles (12), MM04 Computer Applications (12), MM05 Animation Techniques (12), MM06 3D Modelling & Animation (12), MM07 Audio Visual Techniques (12), MM08 Multimedia Design & Authoring (12), MM09 Multimedia Technology (12), ADM202H/6 Cultural Interpretation (20), ADM205H/6 Video Post-Production & Editing (20), ADM203H/6 New Technologies (10), ADM204H/6 Multimedia Professional Practice (10), ADM206H/6 Professional Design Brief (FMP) (40), ADM107H/6 Image Manipulation Techniques (10)

Llanilltud Fawr Comp High School Sept 1986-July 1992

GCSE’s grade C - English Lit, English Lan, Maths, Physics, and Geography

Recent Employment History

Vale Photography Aug 2007-Present

Self-employed as a wedding and portraiture photographer.

D7 Recruitment July 2007-Present

Working freelance as a videographer producing online video CV’s

CAD Trainee Oct 2003-June 2004

I worked as a computer aided design trainee at the CAD Centre in Cardiff learning AutoCAD to produce engineering drawings and diagrams. Awarded a NVQ 2.

Prior to these jobs I have spent time working on the railways and 3 years in the Royal Navy as a Marine Mechanic (based in Portsmouth but on deployment as far a field as Australia, the Indian Ocean and The Gulf . I’ve also spent some time travelling around Europe and the Middle East.

Voluntary History

Friends of The Earth Volunteer Aug 2006-Sept 2006
Working at the Friends of The Earth’ offices in Cardiff performing general admin duties on computer, research, and phoning events

Princes Trust Volunteer June 2000-Sept 2000
Working on a community project at Jenner Park Primary School, work experience at Cosmeston Lakes & Country Park, fundraising and outdoor pursuits.

Volunteer (Kibbutz Bar-am) Sept 1999-Nov 1999
Working on a Kibbutz in Northern Israel fruit picking.

Skills

Adaptable, good time management, communication, IT, team working, problem solving, leadership, creative, photography, and image manipulation.

References

Mr Andy Satherly Bell
Course Director
Bridgend College
Cowbridge Rd, Bridgend
CF31 3DF
Tel: 01656302414
Email: ASatherley-Bell@bridgend.ac.uk

Mr Stuart Neil
Programme Director
UWIC, Western Avenue
Cardiff, Wales UK
CF5 2YB
Tel: 02920 416 308
Fax: 02920 416 640
Email: SNeil@uwic.ac.uk

Mr Dave Noble
Princes Trust Volunteers VGTA, 47 Colcot Rd
Barry, Vale of Glam
CF62 7HR
Tel: 01446725046

Mapping Museums Presentation Podcast

2007-06-14T19:41:00.000+01:00

Mapping Museums Presentation Podcast

BBC Wifi Story

2007-05-21T08:44:00.000+01:00

** Schools wi-fi health warning **
Schools should be careful about installing wireless internet
technology, says a leading government advisor.
<
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_6670000/newsid_6675500?redirect=6675519.stm&news=1&bbram=1&nbwm=1&bbwm=1&nbram=1
>

Visit Goldsmiths Design Degree Show Virtually!

2007-05-13T18:44:00.000+01:00

On 18 May 2007 Goldsmiths Design Students will host the first-ever virtual representation of a real life degree show on Second Life, an internet based 3-D virtual world that enables its users, known as residents, to interact and socially network with each other. This virtual world is already home to a few leading brands such as Adidas, IBM and Reuters however it is not yet common practice for businesses to have a presence on second life.

Visitors are free to look around the show, titled 'Annotations', at any time and can even attend a virtual event on 6 June where they will be greeted by the students, in their avatar* form. The class will stand next to virtual representations of work from their real life degree show exhibition, which includes brushes made from human hair and kettles that race! Along with the opportunity to talk to students about their work, visitors will see Goldsmiths tutor, Matt Ward giving a speech about the class of 2007.

Student, Emily O'Dwyer said "We were aware of the importance and power of virtual networking and feel that having a Second Life profile will soon become a necessary requirement. The class were all in favour of utilizing the most up to date methods of digital communication in order to make our degree show as accessible as possible. Now it doesn't matter where you are in the world, you can still see our show, and even meet us at our event."

This outlook was also supported by the course leader, Matt Ward who comments "Second Life offers a fascinating opportunity for our students to present themselves in a different type of space - a virtual space. This expands the reach of their degree show and allows them to present themselves to a far larger audience, in ways that can only improve and enhance their work."

The virtual exhibition space is a to-scale version of the real Truman Brewery on Brick Lane in London, including the graffiti, weathered brickwork, and old fly posters. It marks hundreds of years of real life, distilled down into pixels. Although it can be argued that nothing can take the place of a real, first hand experience, the students at Goldsmiths have certainly created the next best thing. A visit to the virtual world is highly recommended.

To visit this virtual space you will need to download the software from www.secondlife.com and set up your own profile, if you don't already have one. Then you just search for "Annotations" and teleport yourself there.

Notes to Editors
Virtual Exhibition
Visit Second Life at www.secondlife.com
Search for 'Annotations'
Doors open 18 May 2007, Event 6 June 2007 at 12pm GMT
If you are a Second Life resident you can IM Lilly Losangeles for more information
*An avatar is an internet user's representation of themselves.

Real Life Exhibition
Friday 1 June - Monday 4 June, 11.00am – 5.00pm (Private View for Press 31 May)
Venue: Boiler House, The Old Truman Brewery, 91 Brick Lane, London E1 6QL
Admission: FREE
Contact: For more information call 020 7919 7777 or email design@gold.ac.uk

For further information
Sarah Empey, Communications & Publicity email press@gold.ac.uk or tel: 020 7919 7909

Hi-tech tales from South Africa BBC Click

2007-05-13T17:31:00.000+01:00

South Africa faces a unique set of technological problems and this week Click is looking at how those challenges are being met with some pretty inventive solutions.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/6646469.stm

Free Alan Johnston on BBC

2007-05-09T08:22:00.000+01:00

Business Advice from Banks

2007-03-12T19:52:00.000Z

After meeting up with everyone at the Museum of Wales, went on into town to ask banks for advice on starting a business.

Went to Natwest first and they were unsure if their business adviser was in the building, they kept asking each other if they’d seen her today and saying they’d seen her earlier on blah blah blah. Not very useful in itself but they did take our phone numbers for the business advisor to get in touch with us and gave us a brochures and a CD containing Natwest’s Business Start Up software, which contains MyBusiness essentials and a business planner to help you to work through your ideas and produce a detailed business plan, as well as organise and manage all your financial records.

Then went onto The Royal Bank of Scotland, again didn’t get to talk to anyone and this time was given a handful of brochures and a CD containing business start up software and business planner. These brochures may well be helpful but for someone starting up a new business with no previous experience, I think you need face to face advice with things spelt out for you. I wouldn’t have a clue about making a new business a success, or know the costs involved with paying salaries, setting up standing orders, direct debits, and paying in cheques from customers, business loans, business insurance, whether to be a sole trader, partnership, Limited company, limited liability partnership or franchise.

I just wish I’d been able to talk to a business planner so that I could have asked these types of questions and had anything else I didn’t understand explained to me as we went along. You might as well do everything on the internet instead of going to a bank and get business advice of your mate running a market stall, at least he’s running a business that works.

Design for Change Design Report

2007-03-08T16:37:00.000Z

BA/BSc (Hons) DESIGN for INTERACTIVE MEDIA (Top-up)

Module: (ADM303) Design for Change
Year: 2006-2007
Semester: 1
Tutors: Stuart Neil
Date Issued: 13/02/07
Completion: 09/03/07

Student name: Nigel Whitbread
Student number: ST06000671
Email address: nigelwhitbread@yahoo.co.uk

Design for Change Design Report

Introduction

After initially looking at GPS and PDA technology, and how it could be used in the future for space tourism (Virgin will be providing flights into space within 3 years) I decided to look how this technology could be used in spacesuits. But instead of just concentrating on this I decided to examine how this technology could be used at the moment on earth instead of in space, on the moon, or on Mars.

My design concept is a helmet to be used by sports enthusiasts, motorcyclists, parachutists, paragliders, hang gliders, astronauts (one day in the future) etc to provide heads up GPS data (maps, climb rate/sink rate, altitude, airspeed, waypoints, positioning) to be used for navigation and use voice recognition software and radio technology to keep it completely hands free.

At the moment if a pilot wants to maximise his understanding of how the hang glider, paraglider etc is flying he has to carry a series of instruments (avariometer, altimeter, airspeed indicators, GPS, radios) that all have to be mounted onto the control frame or strapped to the body. The same is true for motorcyclists where GPS units etc are mounted to the handlebars with all their other displays.

All these devices could be incorporated into one device that’s built into a helmet and the data can be viewed on a heads up display projected onto the inside of the visor. This would aid with making the glider/motorcycle easier to control as you would never have to take your hands of the control bar/handlebars and you would have clear audio and visual data unaffected by weather conditions, at fingertips, so to speak.

Using GPS means you’ll always know where you are which is especially useful when participating in Competitions. You’ll also be able to plot a course of where you want to fly to and prove you’ve passed certain waypoint markers. Other uses of GPS are determining high altitude wind drift, alert you to restricted airspace areas, and identifying one’s location for retrieval teams when you land in unfamiliar territory.

For the purpose of this report and the presentation of the design concept I decided to call the device VIS COM.

PEST Analysis – Political, Economic, Social, and Technological

P Competitions take part worldwide (UK, Australia, South Africa, France, Chile, Japan etc). Each country has its own associations and sports unions.
E Prize money for competitions can be as high as £3,000. To help fund equipment you could gain sponsorship from a number of different companies.
S If the costs we’re low enough it might encourage new members to participate in competitive sports.
T The advancement in visor/eye/headset displays is coming on leaps and bounds, even car manufacturers who seemed to have given up on heads up displays have started incorporating them in their latest models. The size of high tech components are becoming increasingly smaller and wires in communication devices are rapidly being replaced with wireless technologies.

Technologies to be Used in Conjunction With Each Other

A GPS (Global Positioning System) Receiver will be used to calculate the helmet wearers position by measuring the distance between 3 or more GPS satellites. Since the signal travels at a known speed, measuring the time delay between transmission and reception of each GPS radio signal gives the distance to each satellite. The signals also carry information about the satellites' location. By determining the position of, and distance to, at least three satellites, the receiver can compute its position using trilateration.

A HUD (Heads Up Display) will be created, by projecting transparent maps, up to the minute GPS data, speed and other information onto the inside of the visor by using holographic laser technology.

Speech Recognition Software will be used so that you can perform many different tasks and use various applications completely hands-free so that you’re always in control of your glider/bike. For example you could simply have the map disappear from the display by saying “map off screen” or use the radio by saying “radio on”.

A Radio for communicating with other pilots in the air, riders on the road, and for reporting back and forth with your ground/pit crew when in competition. Especially useful when pilots want to report their landing locations.

Headset and Microphone so that you will be able to use the speech recognition software and radio.

Bluetooth so that all the separate technologies will be able to communicate with each other completely wirelessly.

Touch Screen Control Panel very much like present sat nav display units but to be used primarily to plot and view journey routes pre journey but also to be used as an aid when setting up the speech recognition software to recognise your particular voice.

A CPU (Central Processing Unit) is quite simply the brains of the device and processes all of the data received and transmitted.

Summary

Taking into account the various components needed to build the VIS COM I decided to set its value at £1000

Existing Technology

Sole rider radio mike transmitter £140
Garmin ZUMO 500 GPS £450
Helmet £68 - £250
Speech recognition software £60
Sportsvue heads up display £120

Total £838 - £1020

Some of the technology that I propose to use is more advanced than what is on the market at the moment but is in development or being used by the military, so can’t really be used as a variable for pricing up the VIS COM.

I believe there is a market for a heads up display/GPS device incorporated into a helmet. Some businesses are already developing more simplistic products with limited capabilities (Sportvue) but my idea would do away other devices or if you wanted to add to it over time all you’d have to do is set it up with Bluetooth.

References

Virgin Galactic
http://www.virgingalactic.com/htmlsite/intro.htm
[Accessed 02/07]

European Space Agency (02/02/2007): The First Hiking Maps on Mars
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEMOI5O2UXE_0.html
[Accessed 02/07]

Wikipedia: Global Positioning System
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System
[Accessed 02/07]

Wikipedia: Head Up Display
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-Up_Display
[Accessed on 02/07]

Wikipedia: Speech Recognition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_recognition
[Accessed on 02/07]

Sportvue: Sportvue MC1
http://www.sportvue.com/store/product.php?pid=14
[Accessed on 02/07]

Myvu: Personal Media Viewer
http://www.myvu.com/
[Accessed on 02/07]

PDALive (Posted by: [meiam] (12/27/2004)): Holographic projector for your future PDA
http://www.pdalive.com/showarticle.php?threadid=7761
[Accessed on 02/07]

HowStuffWorks: How Hang Gliding Works
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/hang-gliding.htm
[Accessed on 02/07]

Wikipedia: Paragliding
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragliding
[Accessed on 02/07]

DefenseTech (22/04/2005): GPS Jumpers
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001506.html
[Accessed on 02/07]

CNN (30/09/2004): Smart helmet for motorcyclists
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/09/16/piers.tucker/index.html
[Accessed on 02/07]

British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association
http://www.bhpa.co.uk/bhpa/index.php
[Accessed on 02/07]

Garmin
http://www.garmin.com/aboutGPS/
[Accessed on 02/07]

GA Serving America: Navigating Communication
http://www.gaservingamerica.com/how_work/work_navigation.htm
[Accessed on 02/07]

Models used for new media 'networking' events.

2007-03-08T15:46:00.000Z

Examples of new media ‘networking events’ events
• http://www.futuresnetwork.org.uk/ - Futures is a new network for design professionals based in Merseyside. They target designers working in the communications field: graphic design, web design, advertising, interactive media and related services such as illustration and commercial photography by hosting a series of seminar events, networking and an online membership scheme and webspace for members’ portfolios to be showcased.
• http://www.wedesignforum.co.uk/ - The West of England Design Forum seeks to establish a dynamic community, which meets, shares knowledge and furthers the value and development of design in the area. We’ll tell you what’s happening and when. Membership is free. Activities include quarterly lecture series, regular monthly social evenings, portfolio surgeries for new graduate designers.
• http://www.thinkandadrink.com - Think and a drink is the monthly get together for the North East's digital industries. Each month the event has a Think - Presentations on topical issues affecting the sector; and a Drink - A get together in a local bar to discuss the issues and meet other people from the sector over a pint and some nibbles.

All three of the above events organisers go about hosting the events in similar ways. They usually theme the nights with a question to start up a topic of conversation e.g. “Who is designing our future? – The challenge facing designers in the West of England”. Some events are free to members and a cover charge is applied to non-members. Drinks, nibbles, and music are provided to give the event a more relaxed atmosphere. Guest speakers give talks to encourage discussions and everyone mingles with everyone else which makes feel less staged.

If I was putting on an event in Cardiff I think it would be best to have it in a pub that hosts live music so that everyone feels relaxed and you have some entertainment so that it doesn’t feel like all work and no play.

http://capcabal.net/2ndTuesday/
http://pulver.com/party/
http://spacestudios.org.uk/All_Content_Items/Events/New_Media_Networking_Event/
http://drewmeyersinsights.com/2006/09/27/all-about-blogs-new-media-networking-event-october-4th/
http://networking-guided.com/topics/networking-events.html
http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/en/Directory-Listings/Networks/?PageNum=1%26subjectarea%3dDesign+networks
http://www.designenterprisenetwork.net/design_events.html
http://www.wedesignforum.co.uk/events_xmas_party.asp
http://www.thinkandadrink.com/

Design for Change - Presentation Notes

2007-03-06T23:25:00.000Z

Slide 1 - Hello my name is Nigel Whitbread and I'd like to talk to you about VIS COM. A design concept for a helmet to be worn by sports enthusiasts who take part in motorcycling, parachuting, hand gliding or paragliding competitions.
Slide 2 - Imagine if you will driving a motorcycle in a road or off road race or piloting a hang-glider in a competition, and you lose your way because you haven't any form of sat nav. You know not which way to turn.Slide 3 - With sat nav you may never get lost, BUTSlide 4 - Your instrument panel or control bar starts to get over cluttered with more and more devices. You need to have wires trailing to a headset so that you can hear your sat nav's directions, because the weather gets too bad to see the screen, and so you can communicate with your ground or pit crew.

Slide 5 - Now imagine once more how life used to be with just the basics, but with the risks of losing your way, and maybe the race.
Slide 6 - With the VIS COM helmet you could have the best of both worlds. You can lose your cluttered instrument panel, and have the data infront of you instead, projected with a heads up display.
Slide 7 - And with built in GPS, you'd need never lose your way again.
Slide 8 - Using speech recognition software you will be able to access all of the applications completely hands-free, which means you will always be in control of your bike or glider. For example you could simply have the map disappear from the screen by saying...
Slide 9 - " Map off screen "Slide 10 - The concept itself is based around your traditional bike helmet
Slide 11 - But with added technology. It contains a CPU/GPS receiver, which put simply is the brains of the device and compute where you are using satelite navigation.
Slide 12 - A head set with a mic and speakers is to be used with the speech recognition software to control all of the applications and for use with the radio.

Slide 13/14/15 - The heads up display will be created by projecting transparent maps, up to the minute GPS data, speed, and other information onto the inside of the visor by using holographic laser technology

Design Sketch of VIS COM

Design for Change - Tutorial Notes

2007-02-27T19:12:00.000Z

Helmet Headsets F1, Motorbikes, Hang Gliding
Sports Helmet Adaptability

P world scale, sports unions initiatives
E built, prize, sponsorship, how much does it cost
S introduce new members to competative sports, build communications device
T advancements in visor/eye/headsets displays, LCD-OLED, sporting technology, GPS, size weight, computing, skydiving helmets, batteries, car, bike

Presentation
Powerpoint
Prototype
Senarios

Input Session 3: Guest - James Cook. Social Networks

2007-02-27T17:59:00.000Z

For next week's Output Session, address the following question:

* Which models are used for new media 'networking' events?

identify: find some examples in various locations, (eg. Silicon Valley, UK cities); describe them.
analyse: are there similarities between the examples that you've identified? can you generalize them, putting them into groups?
evaluate: in relation to the industry - what are the benefits, drawbacks etc of these events?

* What recommendations would you make for such a networking event in your local area?

evaluate in relation to your own, and local area's requirements
[these will be forwarded to james.]

Design for Change Links

2007-02-24T12:00:00.000Z

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragliding
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001506.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/09/16/piers.tucker/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang_gliding
http://www.bhpa.co.uk/bhpa/index.php
http://www.bhpa.co.uk/hangglidepower/index.php
http://www.bhpa.co.uk/paramotor/index.php
http://www.garmin.com/aboutGPS/
http://www.gaservingamerica.com/how_work/work_navigation.htm
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/hang-gliding.htm
http://www.skywingsmag.com/hg.php

Output Session 2: motivation

2007-02-19T19:41:00.000Z

you have control on what you do

project matches your interestsd to give you motivation and keep momentum going with your project.

business catalyst
incubator Venture Capatalist
put in a building
sign here
we invest in you for 6mths
set of objectivea
if you reacgh them they will then invest in your business for a YEAR then reEVALUate the business
if your business has grown and is successful they will take a risk and invest in a % of business

spin outs

first tuesday venture capitalists people ideas ans skills and press

dot com craSH BY 2001 stocks and shares fell 2002/3 things were right down.

flavour of the industry changed overnight

you have control on what you do

project matches your interestsd to give you motivation and keep momentum going with your project.

business catalyst
incubator Venture Capatalist
put in a building
sign here
we invest in you for 6mths
set of objectivea
if you reacgh them they will then invest in your business for a YEAR then reEVALUate the business
if your business has grown and is successful they will take a risk and invest in a % of business

spin outs

first tuesday venture capitalists people ideas ans skills and press

dot com craSH BY 2001 stocks and shares fell 2002/3 things were right down.

flavour of the industry changed overnight

Design for Change - Development of Initial Ideas

2007-02-19T16:18:00.000Z

Development of Initial Idea

After seeing a story on the New Scientist website about The First Hiking Maps on Mars, I started thinking how would people eventually be able to use this data in the future when you could actually hike on Mars or on the Moon.

I also looked at Virgin’s development for space tourism flights which will be up and running in less than 3 years. I felt that this would be the catalyst for more endeavors in the business and tourist market to get their slice of the space pie.

Using today’s technology you could view the maps on a PDA and use them for hiking using GPS technology, but if your wearing a spacesuit your not going to be able to hold a PDA and you definitely wouldn’t be able to control a stylus or touch screen.

My idea is to develop a concept for using and viewing electronic data using maps and GPS so that you could find your way round an unfamiliar planet or moon whilst wearing a space suit.

Technologies to consider

• Electronic textiles for use as buttons that can be incorporated into the suit
• Heads up display to be viewed on the inside of a helmets visor
• GPS (Global Positioning System) using satellites
• Speech Recognition Software
• Touch Screen Technology to be able to use the helmet itself as a touch screen
• TV Camera and viewer
• Hardware and Software

Links
Motion-sensitive spacesuits could generate power
The first hiking maps of Mars
Virgin boss unveils space trips
'Personal spaceflight revolution' beckons
New face on space flight
'No experiments' for SpaceShipOne
Unknown future of space tourism
Virgin Galactic: The logical next step
Virgin Galactic
HowStuffWorksSpacesuits
wikipediaSpacesuit
wikipediaGPS
wikipediaHeadsupdisplay
wikipediaEyeTap
wikipediaTouchscreen
wikipediaSpeechRegognition
Moon colony 'within 20 years'
Colonize the Moon before Mars
Colonizing The Moon
Holographic projector for your future PDA
Sportvue MC1
MiVu

Motivations for Working In the New Media Field

2007-02-16T16:55:00.000Z

Sitting down and really thinking about it I’d have to say that my motivations for working in new media are:

Money – I find that my wife works far too many hours in her chosen field as a financial advisor and always seems to be on the road, so I want to be able to take over the responsibility of being the main wage earner so that she can slow down while we try for a family.
In a small way fame but only because having your name known in the industry will help with networking and getting better work.
For the good of society – I would much rather be working for a charity or NGO (Non Government Organisation) than for a large advertising company because I think I’d have greater satisfaction if I thought that my work might be helping to make a difference as opposed to making money for the sake of making money.

Some of these motivations have started to become apparent in my personal project. I’ve managed to link it with The National Museums & Galleries of Wales (NMGW), which is Wales' premier heritage organisation. ‘The NMGW develops, cares for, studies and encourages access to its collections for the benefit of society in perpetuity. Although an independent chartered body, NMGW is supported by the National Assembly for Wales as an Assembly Sponsored Public Body (ASPB) and receives its core funding through grant-in-aid.’ Because it’s a fairly new area to specialise in I think it’s also a good way to stand out and try and get my name known.

Richard Branson seems exemplify all of these motivations in one way or another. Branson's business empire is owned by a complicated series of offshore trusts and companies. The Sunday Times stated that his wealth is calculated at £3.065 billion; if he were to retire to his Caribbean island and liquidate all of this he would pay relatively little in tax. He’s been involved in numerous record attempts from crossing the Atlantic in record time, the hot air balloon crossing of the same ocean and a few years later the crossing of the Pacific ocean by hot air balloon. He’s also made numerous cameo appearances on TV and film and his high public profile often leaves him open as a figure of satire. On 21 September 2006, Branson pledged to invest the profits of Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Trains in research for environmentally friendly fuels. The investment is estimated to be worth $3 billion

‘Ridiculous yachts and private planes and big limousines won’t make people enjoy life more, and it sends out terrible messages to the people who work for them. It would be so much better if that money was spent in Africa – and it’s about getting a balance.’
Richard Branson on life, philanthropy, and money.

Design for Change Brief

2007-02-13T19:07:00.000Z

Brief

Your client, who you can assume is a community, charitable, public or business organization, has commissioned you to help identify key changes in the social, economic, cultural or technological environment and to suggest concepts for products and initiatives which can address those changes.

For example, you may consider how people are using technology in their everyday lives, in their own ways and for their own needs.
How does choice impact on how everyday things are used or are likely to be used in the future?

In response to this you are required to identify, describe and evaluate what you believe to be the key changes and possible evolutions in these environments, with a particular emphasis on opportunities for the design of new interactive tasks, systems or products.

From this initial audit you must then consider a new or novel task, system or product that you would like to investigate and further develop to concept prototype stage and offer researched evidence in support of your proposal. Evaluate and specify design concepts to capture this opportunity.

60% of marks
You are required to develop a prototype which will be presented to your client. Presentation content will be discussed with tutors.

10% of marks
In addition you will need to develop short design report including the following constructs:

• Research and discussion documents

This must take the form of a written design report. You are advised to revisit guidelines for previous modules on design research.

Research into the history of your specified design concept, find out if it came from the convergence of technologies or if it was a technological progression.

Discuss the nature of this product or initiative and all that it currently encompasses.

• Concept document

Specify a design concept to capture the opportunity these changes create.

You could choose to follow a structured process by asking the following questions and using the answers to assist you.

WHY would people want to use a particular technology?

WHAT would they want to do with the technology?

Use scenarios of how real people might actually
use your application/platform/product/tool and note how this might then change and improve your initial set of answers.

This should include an introduction, summary and complete list of references.

The Web-report in its entirety should be a minimum 1000 words.

Time structure

Week 1
• Team allocation [the team dynamic will aid you in your evaluations during your prototype development
• Group work and discussion with Stuart Neil
• Idea generation

Week 2
• Peer assessment [progress of team development]
• Development of initial ideas to form a one page document
• Documented research and discussion

Week 3
• Peer assessment [Stuart]

Week 4
o Project deadline 9th March 07

Schedule:

Tuesday 13/02/07 10am:
Briefing, Split into working groups and begin research.

Wednesday 14/02/07 10am:
Group work and discussion with Stuart Neil.
Idea generation.

Tuesday 20/02/07 10 am:
One page - Development of initial ideas to be emailed to : sneil@uwic.ac.uk
Assignment development

Wednesday 21/02/07 10am:
Assignment development

Tuesday 27/02/07 10am:
Individual tutorials
Assignment development

Wednesday 28/02/07 10am:
Individual tutorials
Assignment development

7th + 8th March 10am:
Presentations

Web-reports Deadline 9th March 06

This schedule may change notification will be put on the DfIM notice boards on a daily basis.

Assessment methods

Assessment methods

100% coursework.
Delivery of:
• Written, practical & presentations of assignment that demonstrate the required learning outcomes (70%)

• Contribution to discourse as demonstrated through group work, seminars, tutorials (15%)

• Development of Personal Progress File, through theory and practice (15%)

Assessment is undertaken in relation to student’s ability to achieve required learning outcomes.

Assessable components:

Presentation
Think ‘Dragons Den’
You will have a short amount of time to present your ideas and communicate to your client the idea for your project. Remember this needs to be conveyed in a way that your client will understand quickly.
Supporting visual materials may be included. Consider the presentation methods very carefully to ensure that you communicate your research findings clearly and effectively. (Refer to guidance notes on presentations).

Prototype
Start to develop physical products that will help you communicate your ideas. Your prototype may be a storyboard, paper prototype, model prototype, software prototype or a combination of prototypes. Remember that your ideas are based on novel, creative and innovating methods, so let this be something that transpires in your prototype. Help communicate this creativity to your employer by developing a prototype that reflects its nature.

Reports
Your written web-report should be no less than 1000 words in length. Your web-report should be detailed with the correct assignment details and bearing your name, student number and email address.

Maintenance of Personal Development Journal
You must ensure that your Journal reflects your critical evaluation of this module. Refer to the Journal briefing sheet for details.

Seminars and Tutorials
Group seminars will be conducted in the Lab and should be used for reflection and for establishing a framework for discussion on which the group presentation can be built. These may be student or staff led and may include discussions with visiting speakers. See schedule and notice board for information.
You must ensure that you book regular tutorials with staff throughout this module. Booking sheets are available on the notice board.

Directed Reading:
• Students are expected to undertake significant directed reading in all aspects of the course and will be set reading tasks from the reading lists to extend and reinforce module content.
• The library's physical and electronic resources are also heavily utilized.
A selection of key reference books are available in the DfIM Lab.

Required reading:
• Negroponte N. Being Digital., 1996, Coronet;

Recommended reading:

• Castells, Manuel (2001) The Internet Galaxy, Oxford (Paperback - 304 pages (31 October 2002) Oxford University Press; ISBN: 0199255776)

A good journal issue to look at would be:
• Howard, Rainie, and Jones, 2001;Days and Nights in the internet: the impact of diffusing technology American Behavioral Scientist (special issue on the internet and everyday life)

Tracey and Anderson 2001 “The significance of lifestage and lifestyle transitions in the use and disuse of internet applications and services “American Behavioral Scientist (special issue on the internet and everyday life)

• Brand, S. How buildings learn, 1997; Orion Paperbacks;
• Castells, M. The Informational City. 1989 Blackwell, Oxford, UK..
• Alexander, C. A Pattern Language, 1978. Oxford University Press Inc, USA;
• Card, S. et al Readings in Information Visualization , 1999. Morgan Kaufmann;
• Jones, J C. Designing Designing, Phaidon Press, (Architecture Design and Technology Press), London, 1991
• Jones, J C. Design Methods, 2nd Edition, Van Nostrand Reinhold (International Thomson Publishing), New York, 1992
• Tufte, E R. Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative. Graphic Press, 1997.
• Maeda J. Design by Numbers, The MIT Press, 2001;
Woolman, M. Digital Information Graphics. Thames & Hudson, London (Spring 2002)

LEARNING OUTCOMES
On completion of this modules students should be able to demonstrate:

Subject-specific skills
• Evaluate economic, social and technological aspects of change;
• Evaluate requirements of design for emerging technologies;
• Critically assess impact of change on design, production and use of interactive products;
• Deploy appropriate design principles to development of interactive software product of system.

Cognitive skills
• Understand essential concepts, principles and theories;
• Solve problems through the application of appropriate knowledge;
• Critically appraise and review a range of practices;
• Compare and evaluate various methodologies;
• Analyse tasks, systems and products;
• Synthesize various methods, approaches and theories into a distinct, personal practice;
• Think creatively;
• Develop ideas, concepts, proposals and solutions in response to a brief and as self-initiated activity;

Practical Abilities
• Specify and design interactive products or systems;
• Publicly present their own work in a cogent and concise manner;

Please refer to Module Handbook for further information

Entrepreneurship & Professsional Practice 2

2007-02-12T17:10:00.000Z

Input Session 2

What are your motivations for making work in this field?

Money?
Fame?
"Contribution to knowledge"?
For the good of society?

Are these motivations apparent in your personal project?

Identify examples of projects that exemplify each of these possible motivations, (and any other that you may think of.)

----
Notes from Input Session Seminar

Production Processes Gantt Chart

2007-02-02T15:33:00.000Z

Production Processes update2

2007-02-01T16:23:00.000Z

Breakdown of all the different design elements used to produce an interactive banner for the npower brief - Final Development

Mask created to act as a spotlight rollover

npower logo and banner box to contain the interactive advert

Panorama made up from a series of still shots

Tagline - Uncover your savings by switching to npower

Simplified image of the panorama that is uncover by the rollover mask

Blur of the above image to help create the sketchy animation effect

Still of the final advert

Production Processes – Understandings of Project Management

2007-01-31T12:55:00.000Z

To understand more about the production processes used by professional organisations, I arrange to meet up with two different companies to ask them about the production processes they use.

The first company I talked to was Sequence, who employ over 30 skilled staff, are one of the 50 fastest growing digital companies in the UK and the largest new media house in South Wales. There I talked to one of their account managers.

The second company I talked to was Filco which is a family run supermarket chain in South Wales and I talked to their Advertising Designer.

So as not to overwhelm them with too many questions and take up too much of their time I settled on five questions to ask.

Q1. Is the majority of your business client based or speculative work?

Sequence
At Sequence about 40% - 50% of their business is client based but the rest is speculative work, where they pitch ideas (invitation to tender) to companies like the BBC and other clients (existing and non-existing) based on what they might like.

Filco
At Filco all their work is produced solely for the supermarkets they own and for their website but of that work about 70% is client-based, and that is dictated by the Directors and what they specifically want to promote on a week by week basis. The other 30% is speculative designs pitch by the Advertising Designer to the Directors.

Q2. How is your team structured in terms of in house and freelance expertise?

Sequence
At Sequence they try to keep everything done in-house as much as possible to avoid complications and keep the costs down, but they will on occasion, when deadlines are tight or they need experts to produce complex Flash productions bring in freelancers from a pool of people they’ve worked with before. The Executive Management team at Sequence is built upon the dynamic professional model and they claim that this is without doubt key to their ongoing success. They also claim on their website that the direct ‘hands on’ approach exhibited ensures continuing client satisfaction, sustained business development, as well as excellent ongoing commitment from all employees.
All paper based printing is done outside of house.

Filco
At Filco all their work is produced in house by the Advertising Designer and his assistant, who liaise directly with the Buying Director and Director who are all based in the head office. Even though it’s a smaller company than Sequence in terms of design output they produce all their paper based printing in house from A4 to wall sized posters.

Q3. Do you use a standardized project cycle model on each job?

Sequence
At Sequence they use different processes for different jobs i.e. a graphics leaflet would use a different process to a website or game. DSDM (Dynamic Systems Development Method) is used on the majority of their work because it assumes that the client will want to change things along the way and suits a more flexible way of working and keeping the client involved.
They also use Prince 2 on projects that need a more controlled environment especially when dealing with companies or government agencies who use this model in their own departments.

Filco
At Filco they use a project life cycle passed around Prince 2. At the start of a project they formulate a plan of action, which involves
• Planning
• Initiating
• Directing
• Controlling
• Managing Product Delivery
• Managing Boundaries
• Closing Project
At lot of the work produced is adapting previous designs with this weeks offers so once your past the first few stages the Advertising Designer and his assistant are pretty much left self directed for the rest of the project.

Q4. How do you encourage collaborative working and successful communications with your clients/employers?

Sequence
At Sequence they believe that customers shape the project. They believe that you have to have an equal partnership and make them feel like their involved every step of the way. Right from the start employees are chosen for specific projects based on how well they think that they will get along with the clients. When they’re given a brief from the client they specifically ask what are the MUST HAVES, SHOULD HAVES, AND WON”T HAVES to make sure that right from the start your going in the direction the clients want.
Clients have easy access to the account and management departments who can inform them on the progress of their projects and are always kept in the loop.

Filco
At Filco they have a very open office based structure, with everyone based in the same office at their main supermarket. As it’s a family business passed down through the generations they still hold family values at the heart of its operation and encourage an open approach to projects where everyone is involved in equal measures no matter how much input the might have in the end design.

Q5. How do you test your work before completion; I.e. User / Expert Testing?

Sequence
At Sequence they mainly use in house expert testing. Elements of their work are first tested in isolation e.g. a flash button, and then the whole project is tested for full functionality. The Design and Development teams work together to bring the project together as a working product. Then the development team test the work, before they pass it onto the Quality Inspection team who test the product (using profile testing – role playing as the user that will be using the product) before they pass it onto the client for them to test.
They will sometimes use expert testing – special testing is often required for disability websites, where they use people with disabilities as expert testers. They also sometimes use children to test sites if it’s possible and necessary.

Filco
At Filco the Advertising Designer and his assistant perform expert testing before passing it on to the Directors who perform their own usability testing. They rely mainly on their own experience and marketing skills.

Future Schools

2007-01-31T08:37:00.000Z

Saw this feature on BBC Breakfast this morning.

Follow the link to read and watch the full story
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/breakfast/6315991.stm

Future school

Mission control or the school of the future?

Things aren't what they used to be in the classroom.

Where once pupils stared at blackboards - they're now almost as likely to be peering at podcasts.

New technology is being used to help the way our children learn.

One primary in Devon has invested £250,000 in state-of-the-art kit.

Every pupil has their own computer terminal and podcasting and web design are all part of the

Breakfast's Sarah Campbell has been to Broadclyst Community Primary School to investigate

Entrepreneurship & Professsional Practice - BBC Commissioning

2007-01-30T14:50:00.000Z

The Commissioning Process at BBC Wales (New Media Department)

The BBC states that its relationship with independent companies and the programmes they produce are a fundamental part of achieving our overall aims and objectives, and is keen to commission cross-media productions.

The main examples of these are:

• Websites - integrated programme sites, live webchats or online community applications such as chat rooms
• Interactive TV - Enhancement of linear programmes through additional audio or video content, voting, messaging or gaming
• Mobile Devices - Text messages, WAP content, MP2/3/4 downloads, 3G video downloads, streaming and bluetooth content distribution

BBC Wales and independent production companies...

How The Commissioning Process Works
BBC Wales has specific commissioning rounds throughout the year which are initiated by a commissioning brief. The brief sets out the programme/s they are looking for, gives an indication of particular strands with examples of previous commissions and defines the tariff range within which the license fee payable by the BBC will fall.

When the brief is issued they set a timetable within which they will make decisions regarding shortlisting, interviews and commissioning.

- Example of commission -
December 2006
Young Adults - BBC 2W / BBC TWO Wales
BBC Wales wishes to commission exciting multiplatform entertainment for a younger audience demographic. Closing date 30 January 2007.

BBC Wales wishes to commission exciting multiplatform entertainment content for a younger
audience demographic. It will lead on ‘primetime’ television with strong ‘family’ branches on
line, and possibly on the radio. The minimum television requirement will be 20 x 30, hitting
the screen May 07. We are therefore seeking imaginative, innovative and distinctive
propositions from Independent Production Companies in Wales with strong track records in
high quality and high volume entertainment programmes for young adult audiences.
Premise:
Content for a younger BBC Wales demographic (18 – 30): a popular entertaining watchable,
irreverent, informative brand of content that will attract younger viewers. It will give them
loyalty to BBC Wales and to its content in this ‘light’ entertainment genre. It will be talked
about, push the envelope, be different, contemporary and innovative but watched.
Brand:
The Brand will be developed for television, online and radio in various manifestations. These
content manifestations will target specific aspects of the demographic from relax, sit back, be
entertained and feel amused and ‘naughty’ to the edgy, knowing, ‘kool’, rude. We want the
Brand to change their view of BBC Wales, its content and its relevance to them and get them
to watch and use other BBC Wales content with regularity!
Content:
We imagine that it might be celebrity led and have Music and Sport as its backbone, but also
celebrity gossip, fashion, news items and live bands.
Process:
BBC Wales therefore would welcome substantial tender proposals by January 30th 2007 that
include:
1) A content proposition that matches (and expands on the above brief) highlighting,
Editorial, style and key personnel ‘on’ and off’ screen.
(Screen test dvds of any unknown or new discoveries will be appreciated)
2) A production process schedule from research to broadcast.
3) Company CV and track record.
4) a ‘style’ showreel.

Outside these specific commissioning rounds they do look out for the ‘next big thing’, so you can send your ideas in at anytime and try a convince them that you are ‘it’

It has become increasingly important in a multi-channel environment to maximise the potential for ideas and programmes put forward to BBC Wales. You need to consider BBC Network, cross genre and cross media potential and think whether a programme would work best on television or radio, whether it could have an interactive element or have shorter spin offs on 2W, for example.

Even if your expertise does not encompass these areas the BBC can help you develop, realise and maximise your ideas for collaborative ideas and formats.

Proposal Layout
• Title
• Volume and Duration
• Indication/Acceptance that the programme can be made on the allocated budget
• Delivery
• Key Talent (Intended presenter, director/producer, other relevant individuals)
• Your name and contact number on all pages (even if you have sent a covering letter with these details)
• If your proposal is centred around a specific individual or organisation you will need to state whether they have given you permission to film
• Highlight any area with potential link ups for new media and other media
• If there is a time factor linked to the project please state this at the top of the proposal
• Concept/Synopsis: No more than one side A4, stating in your first paragraph what or who the programme/s is about and what it will show us

Confidentiality
BBC Wales will treat as confidential any proposals received. The BBC adheres to the code of practice as agreed between the Alliance for the Protection of Copyright and BBC, ITV, C4 and Channel 5.

Submitting Ideas
Outside of publicised commissioning rounds, in the first instance please send your ideas through to the Commissioning Department either by email to commissioningwales@bbc.co.uk or by post to Martyn Ingram, Room 3023 Broadcasting House, BBC Wales, Llandaff, Cardiff, CF5 2YQ. Your ideas will be registered and then discussed with the relevant genre heads within BBC Wales.

New Media Department Details
Email:newmedia.wales@bbc.co.uk
Telephone: 02920 323077
Fax: 02920 322169
Address: Room M2001, Ty Oldfield, BBC Wales, Llandaff, Cardiff, CF5 2YQ.

Links
http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/newmedia/index.shtml
http://www.bbctraining.com/newMedia.asp
http://informitv.com/articles/2006/07/19/bbcannouncesradical/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2006/04_april/25/newmedia.shtml
This is the one
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/info/commissioning/content/newmedia.shtml

Entrepreneurship And Professsional Practice 1

2007-01-29T13:52:00.000Z

Information regarding the Entrepreneurship & Professsional Practice module will be posted at http://dfim-e-and-pp.blogspot.com/

Input session from Simon
Employment - contracts - scales of business - me(1) -definition of scale of business - number of people - working self employed in bigger businesses - why do larger companies sub-contract employees? - advantages/disadvantages - cost.
BBC assumption - used to be a big employer of smaller companies project by project - sub contract and part time contracts - mid 90's went to full time employment in house. (SME's) small to medium sized enterprise.
Look at NMA - New Media Age magazine.
See what BBC are saying about its New Media Dept.
How do you go about getting work with the BBC? Cardiff/Bristol - List of Suppliers - Open days for perspective clients.
How do Channel 4 get their new media stuff done?
BBC has to have a percentage of its work done outside of London.
Endemol UK producers of Big Brother for Channel 4 - break up of companies for bigger competion

http://reader.kaywa.com/
http://www.shotcode.com/

Production Processes update

2007-01-26T12:31:00.000Z

Had a meeting with Stu on Wednesday and discussed how the projects getting along.
Progress since last meeting - More sketching - Good level of research about companies development.
Discussion concerned - rotating galleries - users may prefer not to click on banners as it generally takes them away from what they are viewing.
Requirements - charismatic movement - simplicity - felt pens -blog - project lifecycle -flicker pics

Design Ideas

Concepts and ideas for Production Processes

2007-01-23T16:28:00.000Z

Initial concepts and ideas for Production Processes

2007-01-19T21:01:00.000Z

Here's me initial thoughts on the npower brief

Production Processes Tutorial

2007-01-16T20:00:00.000Z

Had a catch up with Neil to go over my ideas for the npower interactive banner brief.
Things to think about

Why have npower listed the url's in the brief
ORBS link and their ident
ideas and drawings
look at last years briefs and the final outputs
emotive
low cost
voluptuous images
charismatic movement
emotionally engaging
animals in the womb
switch - save money

Professional Organisation Visit

2006-12-12T19:40:00.000Z

Went to see Sequence with Lee, Nick, Jon and Kirsty to ask them questions about their production processes. Lee had been in touch with Mark Johnson the Creative Director to arrange a visit and when we got their we were met by Richard Shearman, who talked to us and answered questions about the companies production processes and how they dealt with clients.

I found talking to Richard really helpful and he gave up a lot of his time to talk to us, and for that I for one thank him

http://www.sequence.co.uk/index.html

Production Processes (ADM304) Live Brief

2006-12-11T19:44:00.000Z

The live brief I've chosen to look at is:
CREATE AN INTERACTIVE ADVERT PERSUADING PEOPLE
TO GET AN ONLINE QUOTE FROM NPOWER
Further information
www.npower.com
www.urbancricket.com
www.fan-power.com
www.orbworld.com
www.dandad.org/student awards07

Honeymoon Photos

2006-12-11T16:25:00.000Z

Honeymoon Phots

Presentation for Contemporary Contextual Studies

2006-12-10T14:24:00.000Z

Instead of extending one of my blogs into a presentation, I have decided to look at an different subject.

Machinima (pronounced Machine-ama)

My Wedding

2006-11-25T15:39:00.000Z

Got Married Today to my beautiful wife Sara at St Illtuds Church in Llantwit Major.

Analysis of Eclipse Creative Website

2006-11-21T16:02:00.000Z

Before settling on analising www.eclipsecreative.co.uk
I looked at www.atticusmedia.co.uk
and www.no-brake.com as well.
Eclipse Creative deal with Graphic Design, production for television, print, and New Media.
Some of their clients include:

Channel 4,
S4C,
Wales Quality Centre,
Ladbrokes,
Plumbline,
WDA,
Bafta Cymru,
Wales Screen Commision.

The types of work they have produced are:

Brand animation ising image packages and after effects
TV Titles
Video Editind
Live action filming
Music Festival Titles
Childrens TV Series Titles
Modelling and Animation
Promo Videos
Website Design

Looking at the website your first impression is of a slick contemporarylooking engaging page with plenty of visual emphasive to interest the viewer. My only real problem is with the logo and background animation (still image with ken burns effect), which takes up at the top a good third of the screen easily. This seems like a waste of space but it does get used when you watch videos of work produced. There is text above the logo which is way too small to be legible and is the only text embeddid in Flash so can't even be resized. If you went to the bother of trying to read it, it seems to be in Latin anyway so your unlikely to even understand it.

The good points of the site are: the images in the centre of the site directly relate to videos that they are linked to when you click on them and you get good background desriptions of the work produced and the videos play without a hitch. The page have a visual consitancy in layout but vary the logos background image and main background colour on everypage giving you visual cues that you are moving around the site.

Production Processes (ADM304) Notes

2006-11-21T15:39:00.000Z

New module started today - Production Processes
Module Value: 2 Module:
Year: 2006-2007
Term: 1 & 2
Tutors: Stuart Neil
Date Issued: 22/11/06

Brief
Part One

Week One: Project Management, Analysis

Following the initial briefing you will be expected to undertake research on the local multimedia production companies. You will need to have a clear understanding of the work that these organisations produce, starting with the company website. You must analyse the CONTEXT as well as the CONTENT of the work. Who is it for? What’s the visual tone of voice?

Then analyse the functional and aesthetic aspects of the design: some things may look great but be difficult to use, others may look dull but be easy to use. Consider whether the visual appearance is appropriate for the intended audience - you may not like the way it looks but it may be exactly right for its particular readership.

A useful directory of new media companies can be found here http://www.sgrin.co.uk/MadeInWales.html

Later on in the brief we take on live/competition briefs
Part Three:
Weeks Four – Eight: Putting ‘production processes’ into practice
Your will be given a number of live briefs and competition briefs. You are required to select ONE and produce an original, creative outcome according to the stated deliverables..

D&AD http://www.dandad.org/studentawards07/briefs/
YCN http://www.ycnonline.com/0607_all.php

VOIP Session Notes

2006-11-14T12:05:00.000Z

VOIP or Voice over Internet Protocol, IP Telephony, Internet telephony, Broadband telephony, Broadband Phone and Voice over Broadband is a way of routing voice conversations (talking on the phone) over the Internet or through any other IP-based network.

Typical Applications for making VOIP Calls

Skype
Skype was founded in 2003 by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. With Skype you can talk to anyone, anywhere. And if you are both on Skype, it’s free.
It is available in 27 languages and is used in almost every country around the world. They generate revenue through its premium offerings such as making and receiving calls to and from landline and mobile phones, as well as voicemail and call forwarding.

Other features
You can send SMS messages, see who you are calling and be seen with video calling, chat with IM instant messaging.

Free Features
• Calling other people on Skype
• Video calls on Skype
• One-to-one and group chats
• Conference calls with up to 5 people
• Forwarding calls to other Skype names

Sipgate

Sipgate is a free Internet telephone service provider.
Sipgate is like a fixed line ...
Real phone numbers across the country
Conversations in perfect ISDN quality
Call to and from every telephone in the world

No need for the PC, just use your normal phone

Usability features

Calls from 0 p/min
No basic costs, no setup costs, no minimum balance
Comfort & functionality i.e. voicemail service, itemised billing entries, calls list
Additional possibilites: Calling from your PC with free software from sipgate
Useable from almost any broadband connection in the world

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VoIP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_VoIP_software
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VoIP_Providers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_VoIP
http://blog.voipally.com/2006/07/25/wifi-phones-for-skype-and-sip-available-now-but-be-careful-what-you-buy/
http://www.whitedust.net/article/30/VoIP%20Security:%20Uncovered/
http://www.skype.com/intl/en-gb/helloagain.html

session six: doug englebart & Ted Nelson

2006-11-13T15:45:00.000Z

Dr. Douglas C. Engelbart is an American inventer of German descent who is best known as the as the inventor of the computer mouse, alongside Bill English.

Engelbart reasoned that the state of our current technology controls our ability to manipulate information, and that fact in turn will control our ability to develop new, improved technologies. He thus set himself to the revolutionary task of developing computer-based technologies for manipulating information directly, and also to improve individual and group processes for knowledge-work. Engelbart's philosophy and research agenda is most clearly and directly expressed in the 1962 research report which Engelbart refers to as his 'bible':Augmenting Human Intellect: A conceptual Framework. The concept of network augmented intelligence is attributed to Engelbart based on this pioneering work.

Theodor Holm Nelson is an American sociologist, self styled philosopher , and pioneer of information technology. He coined the term "hypertext" in 1963 and published it in 1965. He also is credited with first use of the words hypermedia, transclusion, virtuality, intertwingularity and teledildonics. The main thrust of his work has been to make computers easily accessible to ordinary people. His motto is:

A user interface should be so simple that a beginner in an emergency can understand it within ten seconds.

Ted Nelson promotes four maxims: "most people are fools, most authority is malignant, God does not exist, and everything is wrong".

Nelson founded Project Xanadu in 1960 with the goal of creating a computer network with a simple user interface. The effort is documented in his 1974 book Computer Lib/Dream Machines and the 1981 Literary Machines. Much of his adult life has been devoted to working on Xanadu and advocating it, dispite the fact that vit has failed to flourish.

http://dfim-ccs.blogspot.com/2006/11/session-six-doug-englebart-ted-nelson.html
http://dfim-ccs.blogspot.com/2006/11/seminar-six-englebart-nelson.html
Watched Ted Nelson movie interview - Maverick - Rows and Columns - Article in Scientific America (Cosmology for the computer era) - Xerox Park mentality 74/76 - in California developed Doug Engleberts ideas, resarch and developments lab - Zig zag simple programming language - Failed Zanadoo project article in wired - Ted Nelson ADD Attention Deficiency Disorder - MOMEX System.

Session 7 VIOP
http://dfim-ccs.blogspot.com/2006/11/session-7-voip-voice-over-ip.html

Leonardo Electronic Almanac

2006-11-11T18:30:00.000Z

LEA Vol 14 No 3 July 2006
http://leoalmanac.org/journal/vol_14/lea_v14_n03-04/intro.asp

ADM302 – User Centred Design Assignment

2006-11-10T11:39:00.000Z

BA/BSc Design for Interactive Media (Top-up) 2006/07
ADM302 – User Centred Design
By Nigel Whitbread

Stage Two - Testing
In this part of the assignment we are required to evaluate our re-designed prototypes using Neilson's Discounted Usability Engineering Method (DUE). To aid me in this I tested my redesign on a selected user group of my family members from a wide age range.
Testing framework following Neilson’s Discounted Usability Method (DUE).
The DUE approach is intended to keep costs as low as possible for testers with limited resources and because of this should be viewed as a way of serving the user community.

The process I followed for the user testing of my prototype is as follows
• I typed up a scenario describing the path I wanted my users to follow through the interface I’d designed in Flash. Because of the limited functions in place on the prototype this was a fairly rigid way of testing.
• Before I went on to full testing I tried out different ways of delivering the scenario, first of all I talked a user through the stage of the scenario whilst showing them myself how the prototype worked. This approach was quicker then the others but I received less direct feedback because I’d explained everything as I went along.
• I then gave a user the scenario to read a follow but soon found that the scenario was more or less ignored as they tried to work the interface be random button hitting and self discovery. Because not all the functions were working this lead to a lot of errors.
• Taking these two trial runs on board I asked 5 users from my family to test the prototype. (Tognazinni (1993) and Redmond-Pyle & Moore (1995) suggest that three users can give the evaluator a good idea of what users in general might think and that after three there may be diminishing returns from involving additional users. Monk (1993) suggests five users)

• The methodology I’ve chosen for my main user testing is based on Cooperative Evaluation developed by Monk et al (1993). Its aim is quite simply to identify problems with the system. Instead of having the users read through the scenario as the work their way through the prototype I decided to read it out to them and have them work through every stage one step at a time. I also had the users think out loud their actions and encouraged them to ask questions, list the problems they encountered and comment about the user experience.

Users interaction with the prototype

Heuristic Evaluation
Using Jacob Nielsen’s heuristic evaluation of the original and redesign.

Icons used in the menu structure are sometimes vague and don’t relate well to what their supposed to be symbolising (2. Match between system and the real world),

No accelerator functions to allow expert users to short cut or tailor frequent actions (7. Flexibility and efficiency of use),

Camcorder doesn’t contain any integral help functions and the users manual isn’t easy to search through (10. Help and documentation)

Using the feedback gained from user testing I would try to incorporate more features into a redesign of the redesign. People found that the menu’s similarities to mobile phone menus was a concept already familiar to them, so taking functions already in use on a limited scale on phones should transfer well on a larger scale with the much greater memory capacity on the camcorder. Such a function could be having DEMO videos incorporated into a HELP menu showing you how to use the different functions on the camera, in the same way that mobile phones have demo videos introducing you to some of its applications or set up wizards taking you through the basics. In terms of the interface design the icons need to visually describe the action it represents and need be vague or totally unrelated. I would also make the more photo-realistic or even three dimensional to help bring them out of the screen.

Link to Prototype Online
http://uwicworkinprogress.moonfruit.com/

ADM302 – User Centred Design Assignment

2006-11-09T14:20:00.000Z

BA/BSc Design for Interactive Media (Top-up) 2006/07
ADM302 – User Centred Design
By Nigel Whitbread

Stage One – Redesign
The product that I reviewed and I am now redesigning is JVC's GZ-MG26 Everio Hard Disk Camcorder. It is portable (handheld and compact), and has a multimedia interface (display screen).

When I analysed the product I found that its editing capabilities were extremely limited, all you could really do in-camera was reorder your movie scenes by creating a playlist. Because the online advertising for this camera claimed you could edit in-camera, I asked people what they expected when they read this, and the views I received were - simple editing, cutting scenes up, and deletion of unwanted scenes. This kind of approach seemed to make sense to me especially as seeing you could attach the camcorder directly to a DVD burner, therefore bypassing a PC that could contain software incorporating these simple editing techniques.

Donald Norman describes in his book “The Design Of Everyday Things” what he deems ‘good’ and ‘bad’ design through case studies and proposes design principles. He extols the importance of design in our everyday lives, and the consequences of errors caused by bad design. He also goes on to talk about designing with the user in mind, simplifying the structure of tasks, making things visible, getting the mapping right, exploiting the powers of constraint, and designing for error.
I have tried to take these principle in to consideration whilst working on my redesign.

I started the redesign by choosing to change the way you edit and alter the style of the menu interface to make it more similar to a mobile phone interface. The users of the camcorder (families, kids, anybody really but the size of the camcorder might put off the visually impaired) should relate well to the mobile phone design metaphor as they should be the same type of user. The Sony Ericsson range of phones also has similar video editing capabilities to my proposed design.

I started off using a low fidelity prototype to get my ideas flowing and straight onto paper in their simplest terms. I used yellow post-it notes for their ease of use and because you can move them around and reposition them in different orders.

Start up screen on the camcorder as scetched out on post-it note

New MENU interface set up in the same style as many mpbile phones

Doing this helped me plan out the vertical functionality and fine-tune the functions I wanted to represent. I then designed a high fidelity prototype in Flash to give user testers a more realistic experience when testing it.

High fidelity Flash prototype

The original MENU listed your options using text and small, animated icons but you had to scroll off screen to find some of the options, as they weren’t all shown on screen at the same time.

Original Menu

My redesign of the MENU splits the screen up into nine squares so that all of the options are visible and I’ve made the icons larger for better visability.

Redesigned MENU

For the Editing function as I said earlier I took inspiration from Sony Ericsson phones and some elements from iMovie. I got rid of the playlist function from the original product and introduced an editing function instead. Under the new system you’ll be able to split movie scenes, delete the old or new scenes, reorder scenes (as in the original camcorder), preview scenes as your working on them and save changes as you go along. Doing these editing tasks in-camera could save you having to do any other further editing on a PC so you could burn straight to DVD if you had a DVD burner.

New editing functions showing users feedback and some of your options

I also moved the MENU button from the inside of the casing to the left hand side of the screen, above the other buttons, so that when you close the screen with it facing out you are still able to use all of the MENU functions. You were unable to do this before, because the screen covered it.
If I’d had more I time I would have introduced some kind of help function as on websites or a demo video of how to use the functions so that if you forgot how to use a certain function, you’d be able to find out directly from the camera (which has a 20GB hard drive) instead of having to look for your users manual (which invariable gets lost or thrown away).

User Centred Design Notes

2006-11-08T21:16:00.000Z

User Centre Design-Flash Prototype 2

2006-11-07T22:57:00.000Z

Screenshots of development of Flash prototype from Today

Back from Stag Do in Prague

2006-11-07T10:19:00.000Z

Back from a long, long, long weekend in Prague where fun was had by all. will post photo's when I get them.

Locative Aware Services-Locative Media

2006-11-02T08:02:00.000Z

Locative media is a truly location specific medium. It can bring users out of the office or classroom and deliver the spatial qualities of information to where they have relevance (space specific). Not only does it refer to all the information in the physical location but to other contextual cues as well.

Many of the various locative media projects researched have concentrated on social interaction with a place and with technology and have a social critical or personal background.

The types of technology that enable locative media are; (GPS) Global Positioning Systems, laptop computers, Palm computers (PDA’s) Personal Digital Assistants, Mobile Phones, Bluetooth and Satellite Navigation Software.

Whilst these technologies are the catalysts for locative media, they are not the goal for the development of projects in this area of research. Rather

"Locative media is many things: A new site for old discussions about the relationship of consciousness to place and other people. A framework within which to actively engage with, critique, and shape a rapid set of technological developments. A context within which to explore new and old models of communication, community and exchange. A name for the ambiguous shape of a rapidly deploying surveillance and control infrastructure." (Russell, 2004)

Context-aware computing represents a relatively new area of research. Context awareness means gathering information from the environment to provide a measure of what is currently going on around the user and the device. Activities and content that are particularly relevant to that environment can then be made available. Mobile devices are especially well suited to context-aware applications simply because they are available in
different contexts, and so can draw on those contexts to enhance the learning activity. Context-aware mobile devices can support learners by allowing a learner to maintain their attention on the world and by offering appropriate assistance when required.

The museum and gallery sector has been on the forefront of context-aware mobile computing by providing additional information about exhibits and displays based on the visitor’s location within them.

User Centre Design-Flash Prototype

2006-11-02T08:01:00.001Z

Notes from Tuesday Needs and requirements-users-redesign.
Stages
Identify, data collection and analysis, capture.
VOLERE TEMPLATE
Requirements
Tunctional/Env/User/Usability/Data
Prototyping
Paper, storyboards,screenshots
Horizontal-Look of homepage
Vertical-Functions behind the homepage

Screenshots of development of Flash prototype and progress sheet from Wednesday

The Big Welsh Challenge

2006-10-31T18:12:00.000Z

Today Stephen Morgan from BBC Online and Education department came to the lab to test a new Broadband Broadcasting development.

We acted as guinea pigs helping the BBC test their latest development ( as part of The Big Welsh Challenge) This helped give us an inside look at how the BBC go about getting user feedback and testing their prototypes.

I guess it's aimed at teenagers upwards to be used as an alternative to the more cartoonish welsh learning site on the Beeb - Colin & Cumberland

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/colinandcumberland/south/

Partitipation session notes

2006-10-31T08:02:00.000Z

Web 2.0, stumbleupon.com, delicious, useit, sitepoint.com, istumbler-bluetooth
http://dfim-ccs.blogspot.com/2006/10/seminar-four-participation.html
session 5 location aware services/locative media
software and systems that are aware of their locations. Google-earth-maps-multimap. Tom Tom how do they use maps.
Follow Taff Trial no these maps
phones know where they are so you can ask for services near it eg cinemas, banks
Commercial services
Locative media - art term
"The shape of locative media" MUTE by Simon Pope
GPS-Smartphones services
HP USA
Create-a-scape
How stuff works phone technology
Japanese phone GPS
Schengen zone at airports
degree confluence project.
http://dfim-ccs.blogspot.com/2006/10/session-five-location-aware-services.html

UCD paper prototypes 2

2006-10-29T15:53:00.000Z

Photos of postit paper prototype ideas and screen and buttons of camcorder.

DfIM Assignment 1: Reading a Research Paper

2006-10-29T15:45:00.000Z

Research Area of Interest - Locative Media

Paper for Evaluation

Examining Mobile Phone Use In The Wild With Quasi-Experimentation.

The motivation for this work is for commercial (funded by Nokia Corporation) research into how users interact with mobile devices and they environment around them on the go as opposed to in a laboratory environment. One problematic issue has been that current methods are not suited for attempting to establish causal relationships between context variables and interaction. In the paper they describe an experimental method, called quasiexperiment, and apparatus for recording mobile phone usage and the environment in a mobile context.

The proposed solution for recording people’s interactions with mobile devices (in this case web browsing on a mobile phone) is to use a series of miniature cameras set up to record;
• The user’s face and eyes
• The phone display and keys
• The environment as seen from the users point of view
• The user and environment as seen by a moderator
Two of the cameras are attached to the phone, another is attached to the shoulder of the user, and the fourth is carried by the modulator disguised as a mobile phone. Images from the four different cameras are combined into one and time coded together to produce a complete record of the users interaction.

In terms of the evaluation of the proposed solution to recording mobile phone use in the wild, they conclude that their portable apparatus allowed them to gather multi-variable data from the different mobile contexts, and that no other study has captured as much data with such a wide range of variables.
They felt that their method would be suitable for other field experiments where device interaction and/or user behaviour and the environment have to be examined.
They claim to have managed to root out relevent and scientifically reliable data about user behaviour in the mobile context. So in terms of purpose they felt the research was a success.

I was persuaded of the merits of the proposed solution in that I agree that putting all 4 camera views together and having the time codes sync up would lend to you gathering all the relevent data you could get from the users interacting with the device. But I do feel that when people on the street question the users about what they are doing, this acts as an unwanted distraction and outside influence that could affect the results.

The future directions for this type of research is primarily to have more easily operated portable, light equipment to be able to record events and environmental circumstances automatically, thus minimizing the need for manual coding and time logging of data collected, which would make it less laborious and time consuming.

Because of cost constraints no portable eye tracking equipment was used in the experiments. Use of this technology in future experiments could provide useful extra data concerning eye movement and attention of the user.

The writers of the paper “hope that future work will hopefully be able to provide better and lighter-weight methodology for system developers and other practitioners to evaluate and examine their applications in the wild”. As I’ve said earlier this method of date collection would lend itself very easily to other field experiments using mobile devices.

While reading and re-reading the paper there were a few things that I didn’t understand:

• I didn’t know that quasi meant “used to show that something is almost, but not completely, the thing described”
• They didn’t explain their reasons for not telling the participants the real purpose of the experiment until the end of their participation.
• I didn’t understand what [Low Experimental Power “experiments in the world are susceptible to low power” page 13] meant.
• I didn’t understand what [The Reliability of Measures “Measures of low reliability may not register true change” page 13] meant.

Bibliography

Virpi Roto, Antti Oulasvirta, Tuulia Haikarainen, Jaana Kuorelahti, Harri Lehmuskallio, Tuomo Nyyssonen. (2004). Examining Mobile Phone Use In The Wild With Quasi-Experimentation. [online].
Available from: http://www.hiit.fi/publications/pub_files/hiit2004-1.pdf
[Accessed 15 Oct 2006]

Gaetano Borriello, Matthew Chalmers, Anthony LaMarca, Paddy Nixon. (2005). Delivering Real-World Ubiquitous Location Systems. [online].
Available from: http://www.lazowska.cs.washington.edu/gb.pdf
[Accessed 17 Oct 2006]

Anne Galloway, Carleton Matthew Ward. (2005). Locative Media As Socialising And Spatialising Practices: Learning From Archeology [online].
Available from http://www.purselipsquarejaw.org/papers/galloway_ward_draft.pdf
[Accessed 17 Oct 2006]

Yesterdays notes on collecting primary data

2006-10-28T13:14:00.000+01:00

Collecting Primary Data Types

Quantitative
Qualitative
Observations
Interviews
Questionnaires

Observation - The role of the researcher!
Hawthorne affect - might play up for the camera
Which role do I adopt?
Field observation!
Data collection!
Group interviews!
When to use interviews!

Initial insight
Follow-up
Criticalness

Practical Considerations!

Time available
Access to responants
Expertise
Equipment
Setting

Questionnaires! Advantages and disadvantages
Question Design!
The DECIDE framework.

UCD Paper prototypes

2006-10-26T17:10:00.000+01:00

Started looking at simple editing software on PC's, camcorders and phones and sketched out different approach's for paper prototypes.

Todays Notes

2006-10-25T17:58:00.000+01:00

Stuarts up to his old tricks again, having us sign our lives away on the new module - UCD
Discussed camcorder re-design - evaluation, whats wrong with it, editing - and proposed a plan of action, paper and Flash prototypes

User Centre Design-Notes

2006-10-24T15:33:00.000+01:00

User Centre Design UCD - Re-Design. Intro to the module-read through of brief.
Intro-methology-development-conclusion-reference-bibliography
Ideas- left handed, ambidextrious camcorders.

Lecture Notes
Stages of design

Develop alternative designs
conceptual level
physical level
building
test & evaluate
final development

Look at others designs, ask users, put yourself in users shoes.

Lifecycle models

Traditional waterfall
Rapid application development RAD
A simple interaction design model (Preece et al 2002)

Christine Falken/Norman/Neilsson

USD in my work

Long Timerecording
unavailable with any
other storage
medium.
No Costfor or need to
buy additional
recording media.
Direct Access
to scenes you want.
No Risk of erasing
something by
mistake.
Easy Deletion
of unwanted scenes.
Simple Editing
is possible by
camera itself.
Playlist function.

Using these 6 descriptions of the advantages of using the hard disk camcorder taken from JVC's broucheres. I want to ask users what thier expectations of the product are concerning each of these statements. I might use these answers to see where the expectations fall short and re-design appropriately.

Participation

2006-10-23T16:45:00.000+01:00

People are starting to participate with work in our field in a variety of ways.

YouTube is one of those mediums that you participate with twofold, not only can anyone watch videos on it but anyone can post videos to it as well. It is a place on the web where you can engage in new ways with video by sharing, commenting on, and viewing. If nobody participated in these ways then YouTube would be as redundant as the shelves at a Betamax video store.

The National Trust is encouraging people to record a diary of their day (the 17th of October 2006) on a website, as part of what is being called "Britain's biggest blog". They are trying to get people to participate and help create a “fascinating social history” archive of everyday life for future generations. People who want to contribute to the project have until the 31st of October 2006 to upload their accounts of the 17th of October 2006.
As you can see from the above examples these new forms of audience participation are nothing without your contributions. The artists of the work are in essence now conductors of a multi varied canvas.

In terms of the work I want to produce I could make use of the YouTube technology to have visitors upload video blogs of their experiences at the memorial sites they have been to.

http://www.art-themagazine.com/pages/tokyo2.htm
http://www.artinteractive.org/curatorial.php
http://www.chapter.org/7088.html
http://www.youtube.com/t/about
http://video.google.co.uk/video_about.html
http://www.historymatters.org.uk/output/page96.asp
http://www.myspace.com/Modules/Common/Pages/AboutUs.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About
http://www.e-consultancy.com/news-blog/361871/jakob-nielsen-s-tips-on-increasing-community-participation.html
http://technokitten.blogspot.com/2006/01/participation-tv-as-part-of-mobile.html

Participation brief

2006-10-23T14:58:00.000+01:00

http://dfim-ccs.blogspot.com/2006/10/session-5-participation.html

Seminar 4; Sustainability

2006-10-23T14:56:00.000+01:00

http://dfim-ccs.blogspot.com/2006/10/seminar-four-sustainability.html

RADAR

2006-10-22T11:19:00.000+01:00

Here's the postits from Fridays lecture

HND Graduation

2006-10-21T17:59:00.000+01:00

Went to Pencoed College today for my HND Graduation Ceremony. I was surprised be the number of other courses also at the ceremony, there was HND's HNC's MBA's and PGCE's from University of Glamorgan, UWIN and UWIC.

Another surprising thing was that I was the only person from my course to actually turn up for the ceremony (obviously all turned off by the price of hiring robes) but their loss I guess. My parents we're very proud and will be even more proud for my big boys graduation next summer.

Sustainability

2006-10-16T19:05:00.000+01:00

On November 29th 2006 The Green Awards For Creativity In Sustainability are being held at The London Guild Hall. The reason for these awards is to spotlight brands and organizations that have demonstrated their commitment to sustainable development in a creative and effective way using various marketing and media platforms.

The awards are open to all types of businesses in both the public and private sectors who are willing to nominate themselves. The event is supported by The United Nations Environment Programme(UNEP), Media Guardian, City of London, Marketing Week and CSR Wire.

"The overall objectives for the Green Awards are as follows:

To recognise and reward outstanding creative work that communicates sustainability.
To set the agenda for brands to brief agencies to include CSR within the creative process.
To create a forum for how the media can help solve some of the environmental issues in a creative way.
To develop the notion of 'Reform Advertising' i.e. advertising which includes environmental and social considerations during its planning and execution."

What they have to say about the reasons for the awards are “Today brands and organisations built on strong ethical and environmental credentials are becoming more influential across sectors as diverse as banking and retail, to food and pharmaceuticals. Marketeers and communications experts understand only too well the strong link between corporate reputation and customer trust, which in turn feeds through into brand strength and an organisations public positioning.

According to Mori, 82% of consumers want companies to make more effort to show what social, environmental and fair trade activities they are engaged in. The good news is that many businesses and corporations today see social and environmental issues as being critical to their overall success.”

The field that we work in ideally placed to encourage innovation in sustainable development, by

practicing greener lifestyles,
using energy efficient devices,
producing our own green energy via solar panels and wind turbines,
fitting in to our environment,
encouraging social interaction eg blogs,
recycling technologies,
producing less waste heavy and toxic products,
putting people first.

http://www.greenawards.co.uk/
http://www.csr.gov.uk/index.shtml
http://www.forumforthefuture.org.uk/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability
http://www.leeds.gov.uk/sustain/
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,,1924434,00.html
http://www.hydrogeneration.co.uk/intro.htm
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/contentlookup.cfm?ucidparam=20060918141449
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4445060.stm#
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6040536.stm
http://laptop.org/

wireless networks review

2006-10-16T17:37:00.000+01:00

Looked at bluejacking but simons software wasn't able to communicate properly with our phones.
pico net
The cloud wireless in jukeboxes
Use blimps or balloons to broadcast wireless networks
pringles can antenae
MESH AP

Free, Open Wireless Networks

2006-10-15T17:43:00.000+01:00

Seeing that I live in a small part (Rhoose Point) of a small village (Rhoose) on the edge of Cardiff (Rhoose) Wales Airport I thought I’d try to find out how many wireless networks there are in a this small rural area.

To start with I have a wireless network on NETGEAR shared between 2 laptops, which is open and free to use for anyone who wants to try.

Looking from home I found closed networks on BTVOYAGER a network called HORACE and one called SABAD. I then drove round the village with my laptop and found several networks - cxl-wifi, another BTVOYAGER, belkin54g, SABSW, NETGEAR, HILLNET, Livebox-2FAD, WANADOO-550D, linksy_nth, and at Cardiff Wales Airport BT Openzone.

Out of the above only 3 are open wireless networks free to use by anyone who finds them and the others are all secure. The exception to this is the network at the airport which uses BT Openzone. To use this you have to buy access time, walk into a hotspot, which could be a train station, café, shopping centre, restaurant/bar or airport open your wireless laptop or PDA, and connect to the internet using wireless broadband. Although not free to use it does give you access to thousands of public hotspots in the UK and tens of thousands global hotspots worldwide.

A completely free wireless network would allow people greater access to the internet no matter what their income and would create greater mobility of use for laptops and PDA’s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1707753,00.html
http://www.nycwireless.net/articles
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/technology/05wireless.html?ex=1299214800&en=de3c127408552e0a&ei=5089
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warchalking
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/wireless/0,39020348,39195421,00.htm

UCI - BRIEF THREE

2006-10-11T17:27:00.000+01:00

Ring Riders Arcade Game

To play Ring Riders you sit on replica motorbike shells, which move and tilt with the weight of the riders but doesn’t unlike other bike games offer much steering control. To steer you have to use the handlebars on the front of the replica, which also contains a throttle and brake control. During game play the interface is of a racetrack with different characters on bikes with your character at the back who’s movements are controlled by your movements on the replica bike.

In relation to HCI and usability I would say

• The user is attracted to the game by the motorbike shells, which get you more involved than by just using a joystick. And the fact that there are two bikes means you can interact not just with the computer but with one of your friends as well.
• In regards to health and safety the replicas are designed to move like real bikes but without the dangers of toppling or throwing the users to the floor.
• Before the actual game starts you choose from a range of difficulty levels linked to weather conditions and type of surface. So you can make the task easier or harder depending on your experience of the game.
• Your character gives you immediate feedback on screen as you steer and depending on if your using the throttle or brake, and the noises coming from the game link your actions to the action on screen. Bikes revving and crashes.
• I found the fact that you used the bikes movements less than on other bike games that I’ve played frustrating on my first go because I was bringing what I thought was prior knowledge to the game and getting less feedback than I’d expected.
• In terms of learnability and re-learnability, the instructions are easy to follow and given to you step by step. Once you’ve played it once you’ve unlikely to forget how to use it even after a few months.
• The game is effective in that your involved enough to believe that you’re on a bike racing other bikes round a track. Sitting on a replica adds a sense of reality to the whole experience.

The forms of interaction experienced playing the game are
• Instructing – you are shown instructions on how to use the controls on the replica to help you play the game.
• Manipulating – you can alter the environment (weather/track) and you can choose what you character looks like.
• Exploring – every lap you make helps you explore what the track looks like and where certain hazards might be.

The exhibits at UCI compared to those at Techniquest
• In terms of design they try to entice you and keep you forsaking all other games so that your addicted and spend all your money on that one game. Bur they both use shape and colour in similar ways, its just the time spent at one game or exhibit that differs.
• Are aimed at an over all older target audience, teenagers and young adults (or forever young adults). Especially some of the more gruesome graphic games.
• Are designed more to specifically entertain than educate.

arcadeflyers

Contempory Contextual Studies 3

2006-10-09T15:16:00.000+01:00

Link to blog of todays seminar
http://dfim-ccs.blogspot.com/2006/10/seminar-stars-of-cctv.html

Stars of CCTV

2006-10-06T14:14:00.000+01:00

I decided to concentrate on the different ways you can get images and video onto sites on the web for public viewing and feedback reviews.

I looked at;

• YouTube – which allows anyone to watch and share original videos online.
• Flickr – which allows you to upload and share your photos online either by sending them over the web or via camera phone.
• GoogleVideo – which allows you to upload video, provided you own the necessary rights.

I signed up to all of the above and uploaded a video to YouTube and GoogleVideo and a picture to Flickr. All files uploaded without any problems but YouTube took the longest to load. In terms of getting your work seen by as many people as possible all 3 sites have their uses, you can even integrate the videos directly into blogs or websites and they are all free to use. There are literally millions of images and videos that have been shared worldwide.

I am interested in producing some film or animation work and in this regard I could find using YouTube and GoogleVideo and in some ways Flickr constructive in terms of getting the work seen be an audience with the power of rating my work after viewing it. People can rate the work out of 5 stars, leave a comment or email a link to the video to friends, family or colleagues. By reviewing the responses you can tell if your work is well received and worth marketing to a more profitable kind of mass media such as through TV production or pay per view download.

http://www.youtube.com/
https://upload.video.google.com/
http://www.flickr.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/capturewales/
http://www.thetrailermash.com/

TECHNIQUEST - BRIEF 1

2006-10-05T12:18:00.000+01:00

Film/Music Mixer

Once you approached the film/music mixer after being attracted to it by its big screen all you do is press the "try me" button on the top left of the left control panel. On pressing this you receive simple on screen instructions to "Press the play button to watch the film".

The play button is green and is place on the right-hand control panel. It looks like the standard play button that we’re used to on CD/DVD players. Once you’ve pressed it the movie starts to play on the LCD screen on the wall. As you watch it you can see the rate of play in the timeline and it also shows you the audio waveform of the music tracks that you can choose to play along to the video.

The main point of the exhibit is to get you to interact with what music is playing along with the video by using the 8 buttons above the play button. The video and audio is split up into 4 segments and by using 2 of the buttons that line up with that segment you can choose between having no music or a choose 1 of the 3 different music tracks in that particular segment.

The user learns how to use the exhibit after the initial instructions by trial and error. You press the buttons on the control panel above the play button and you get immediate visual feedback on screen (where you can see that the track has changed) and audio feedback (you hear a different music track or no music at all).

The target audience as with most of the exhibits on the top floor is older kids – teenagers and young adults. This has influenced the design in that instead of using bright primary colours to attract the user they’ve used orange and purple and a big screen. The interface on screen uses visual cues linked to the music that younger kids are unlikely to understand or appreciate fully, especially the audio waveforms.

The film/music mixer is fun to use, simple to learn (you get immediate visual and audio feedback after pressing a button) and it gives you an insight into how music video’s and film scores are put together which should appeal to the MTV/Ipod generation or whatever they’re called now.

In regards to HCI (human computer interaction) and usability I would say that it was

• Easy to learn and use.
• Memorable, in the fact that you wouldn’t have to relearn a difficult process
• Useful as a teaching and entertainment device
• Flexible, all in all you have 16 options of where you link the music or lack of music to the video.
• Efficient, you only have 4 states to choose from at a time in each of the 4 segments and the only mistake you can really make is not doing anything at all.
• Enjoyable to use and entertaining.
• Good to look at.

I think the exhibits lack of instruction bar “press the play button” encourages a general button bashing and self learning experimentation which aids interaction with the exhibit.

gogglevideo

Techniquest

2006-10-04T18:43:00.000+01:00

Today we visited Techniquest to look at and interact with the exhibits they have on show there.

Design For Interaction 2

2006-10-03T17:40:00.000+01:00

Interface Design and Usability

HCI - Human Computer Interaction

Design, evaluation and implementation
A bridging
Humans - Computers

Goals of HCI
A HCI approach aims to

Support
Extend
Optimisation
How ?

Multi Dimensional Nature of Usability

Learnability
Re-learnability Memorable
Utility
Flexability
Effeciency
Safety
Effectiveness
Usability Criteria

The User Experience

Feel
Satisfying
Aesthetically pleasing
Enjoyable
Fun
Entertaining
Motivating
Helpful/supportive
Rewarding
Emotionally Fullfilling

(Norman 1988)
(Nielsen 2001)
Usability principles useit.com nng.com

CCS Notes

2006-10-03T16:47:00.000+01:00

notes for ccs taken by Kirsty

Chatted about what info we’d found out about peer-to –peer

Napster or a link – unstructured – p2p
Tapestry – structured p2p

Discreet (closed to outside world) networks for specialised areas
Another social network

History of internet – internet is simply inter networks –

How computer networks mirrored social net

6% of separation we’re all only 6 connections away from each other

Trace through address books 6 times to get to who you want

Hub
http://www.flickr.com/blog.gne?photo=258439096

Small world theory

The hub would be the most likely to know others in different groups

GOOGLE – searches Documents are most trustworthy if there are lots of links to them

Dark net (underground)

Nutella napster – issues behind them p2p – legal issues

List of companies of people are not happy with p2p
E.g. Sony, MGM

Copydex – underground movement – giving music away free
Embrace – play to enjoy music not to make money – hold secret gigs
Don’t believe in the copyright for music – just on name

Pre internet copyright movement

Music Industry

Producers (view) - people listening , merchandising, press & promotions,
How to get known
PureVolume – can lead to record deals
My space –

Distributors – charge – approx 50% of profits

Strategy of promotion
Merchandising
Maintaining brand of the band
Most of the revenue is through merchandising and live events
Self Distribution
Internet promotion
Pod casts
I Tunes 99p download
New bands have pop up of samples
Frattellis
Mass protest against record companies (people power)
Donate money to the band
Using the networks to promote
E.g. DJ’s / bands if you listen \ download a set and you like them you’ll be likely to pay to go and see there next gig/ dj set

Technical p2p
Social p2p
Cultural impact
Marketing – Significant word of mouth

In a peer 2peer networks if you can find the hub you can contact them for their contacts

If you want something rare important it is hard to get into the closed social networks
Spys undercove

PRODUCT ANALYSIS - BRIEF 2

2006-10-02T18:38:00.000+01:00

Product Interface Interaction

The product that I have chosen to review is JVC's GZ-MG26 Everio Hard Disk Camcorder. It is portable (handheld and compact), has a multimedia interface (display screen), and has some features that could be redesigned or features that could be introduced.

Description and Functionality

The product itself is a handheld digital camcorder with a built in 20GB hard drive. You can also be use it as a digital camera to take still images. It is built out of a strong black and gunmetal plastic (as are the buttons, knobs and levers) and the lens housing is made out of aluminium.
Shooting is simple. Just flip out the LCD monitor screen, select the camera or video mode and press the record button. All photos and video are stored on the large built-in 20 GB hard drive which can hold between 290 to 1500 minutes of video and up to 9999 still images depending on the compression rate and picture quality.

Judging by its online brochures it's intended users are families in there 20's and 30's who are computer literate and willing to learn simple editing software to produce their own DVDs.

Apart from taking video and stills you can use the camcorder to view these image in its LCD screen or hook it up to a TV monitor or via saving them to a PC. You can re-order the scenes or delete them and add special effects to the playback of the video.

Concerning the environment within which it can be used its mainly designed for daylight conditions but it does contain a white LED and a night scope for darker conditions. You can also buy tripods, flashguns and a marine case for under water shooting up to 30 metres.

To access the functions of the device you mainly use the menu button, the index button and the control lever to move around the display and interact with the onscreen interface menus. In terms of multimedia you can view what you have recorded on TV, copy it to PC to edit fully from there, or you can burn DVD’s directly onto a “share station DVD burner” and view the footage on any device that plays DVD’s.

Interface Design

The interfaces look and feel is typical of most camcorders with various symbols, battery levels and other information on top of the footage on screen. But when you press the main menu button the interface is more like a mobile phone menu with animated icons next to text descriptions. Even the control lever, which you use to navigate up, down and left, right through the on screen options is reminiscent of the joystick controls on many mobile phones, especially Sony Ericsson models.

In play mode as opposed to the record mode the interface splits the screen up into 9 rectangles, each one containing a snapshot of the first frame of a video or a photo. If you have more than 9 videos/photos stored on the camcorder a scrollbar appears on the far right showing that you that you can scroll down onto further content. Using the control lever you can view full screen photos or play full screen videos. You can also pause, scan and zoom into the videos and photos using the control lever and the interface.

The interface is easy to use but when using the menu functions you really need to have the users manual to hand to know where to look for relevant functions and what they do. Using trial and error here would just lead to a lot of errors and you would lose track of where you’ve been. When in play mode, since its all visual you can instantly see where you are and what videos/photos are only one click away. This instant feedback is more user friendly and invites more trial and error interaction because your only one click back to its main interface so its hard to go wrong and lose yourself.

In terms of human cognitive processes I would say that the interface
• grabs your attention with its use of animated icons.
• in terms of perception uses easily distinguishable icons but not all of them have obvious representation.
• in terms of memory and learning has some actions in common with other camcorders which aids the learning experience if you have prior knowledge to bring to the device but would be difficult to master if you didn’t have a user manual to refer to.

Task Analysis
The online brouchures mention that you can perform simple editing in camera, so this is the task I’ll try to analyse. First of all you have to create a playlist which will enable you to organise recorded video in order of preference. To do this you select the power switch to the play mode; set the mode switch to video; press the menu button; then select the “playlists contents” option on screen; choose “NEW LIST”; then select a file from the scenes you have saved on the camcorder to add to the playlist; when using multiple files in the playlist you can choose the exact order you want the scenes to run or delete unwanted files; when you’ve finished your playlist, save and quit. To play the playlist when in the “playlist contents” screen select your required playlist and use the toggle switch to play/pause or stop the scene.

To perform this task you definitely need to have the users manual to hand (which is 70 pages long and printed in black and white). But once your on the editing screen you’ll find the interface is really easy to use. The left of the screen has all the scenes on the disc, which you can scroll through and the right of the screen is where you place the scenes that you have chosen in the order that you want them.

Contempory Contextual Studies 2

2006-10-02T15:59:00.000+01:00

Kirsty took notes of this session and Simon recorded it to put on a podcast. We talked about what we'd found out about P2P networks.
6 degrees of seperation, we are only 6 steps away from knowing each other-Small world theory.
Next blog to be on : Stars of CCTV

www.ubermatic.org/life/

P2P File Sharing

2006-09-28T14:14:00.000+01:00

P2P

Peer to peer (P2P) software allows the sharing of files between computer users. Files can be shared between users without the hassle of having to email them.
One of the earliest P2P file sharing systems was Napster. Users connected to one of a many servers from which they could obtain files, which had been made available by the other users.

The latest generation of P2P "systems" (e.g. Grokster, Streamcast, KaZaA) are far less centralized Napster was. There are no centralized servers; rather users download software (normally free), which effectively turns each user's computer into its own separate Internet server, creating a totally decentralized system.

P2P on Kazaa

Kazaa uses P2Ptechnology. This means that individual users connect to each other directly, without need for a central point of management.

All you need to do is install Kazaa and it will connect you to other Kazaa users.

Overview of the legal issues.

Loosely speaking, you are not infringing copyright by just using P2P software. This is because the software is, in most cases, made available freely by the owners of copyright in circumstances giving rise to an implied license. Of course, if this is not the case then the mere use of the software without license may infringe copyright.
Nor will the use of P2P to share files involve a copyright infringement where the owner of copyright in the material being shared has consented to this.
In our case (me, lecturers and my peers) we may use P2P to share our work (these blogs) in order that others can provide critical comment and evaluation.
It is the use of P2P to share or trade copyright works without the consent or license of the copyright owner that has the potential to give rise to an action for infringement of copyright.

http://www.grokster.com/
http://www.kazaa.com/us/index.htm
http://www.streamcastnetworks.com/FullPress-vs.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grokster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/4104827.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/imp/

Alumni Presentations

2006-09-27T16:24:00.000+01:00

Today we were visited by Steve Woollard and Carol Wilkins who graduated in the summer from this course. Steve gave a presentation on tourist lacative media and Carol talked through some of her work from last year.
www.versiontwopointzero.com
www.mobilebristol.com
www.createascape.org.uk

Design For Interaction 1

2006-09-26T17:16:00.000+01:00

Groups looked at interaction with apple macs, photocopyers, and nokia 8210.
Briefs were given out for us to look at. Trip to techniquest, product interface interaction, trip to UCI. Break down of marking is brief 1 blog report 15%, brief 2 blog report 20%, brief 3 blog report 15%, and brief 4 presentation 10%

Take camcorder in tomorrow for brief 2 Product Interface Interaction

Debbie Lamont
dlamont@uwic.ac.uk

Contempory Contextual Studies 1

2006-09-26T17:00:00.000+01:00

Start of a new course having previously been on a HND in Bridgend and already a day behind with my blog (this is the entry for yesterday). Simon talked about peer to peer networks, copyright-creative commons, located media (google earth), sustainable development.
Report on various assignments are going to be in the form of online blogs like this one.
Journal - 1. Identify - Examples
2. Describe -URLs/Source
3. Analysis - grouping
4. Evaluation - Criteria -(you, other/society, field of interactive media)
www.charade.org.uk
creativearchive
spope@uwic.ac.uk

Hello and welcome

2006-09-23T10:05:00.000+01:00

Hello and welcome to my Blog