Revisiting Razorfish: Emerging Experiences, RockstAR application, and more... |
| Revisiting Razorfish: Emerging Experiences, RockstAR application, and more... Posted: 08 May 2010 11:32 AM PDT I've written a few posts about Razorfish in the past. What is Razorfish? "The Razorfish Emerging Experiences team is a dedicated group of highly experienced professionals focused solely on emerging experiences and technologies. "Effective innovation" is our multifaceted approach to concepting and delivering pioneering solutions for our clients." Razorfish has forged ahead into very interesting-and fun- territory. Here is a video of the RockstAR application. It combines multi-touch technology and augmented reality, utilizing the Razorfish Vision Framework (RVT), integrated with the Razorfish Touch Framework.RockstAR (Augmented Reality) Experience Demo from Razorfish - Emerging Experiences on Vimeo. A recent post on the Razorfish Emerging Experiences blog provides a detailed account of the technology that was pulled together to make it happen in the post, The Technology Behind RockstAR. The application is integrated into Twitter and Flickr.  -Razorfish Emerging Experiences Blog "For the RockstAR experience, we are analyzing each frame coming from an infrared camera to determine if faces are found in the crowd. Once a face is detected, it is assigned a unique ID and tracked. Once we receive a lock on the face, we can pass position and size information to the experience where we can augment animations and graphics on top of the color camera feed." RELATED One of my previous posts includes a video of the Razorfashion application, which highlights the Razorfish Touch Framework: Razorfish's Touch Framework "Razorfashion" - A lot like my idea for an in-home FashionMirrorAdvisor... I'm still hoping to work on my FashionMirrorAdvisor - but with a twist. Now that I have a smartphone, I want to incorporate a mobile app into the concept. Guys probably just wouldn't understand. (However, something like this would make a nice gift for a guy who is a bit lacking in the fashion department.) Below is a remix of my previous post RAZORFISH'S TOUCH FRAMEWORK: RAZORFASHION - A LOT LIKE MY IDEA FOR AN IN-HOME FASHIONMIRRORADVISOR (5/23/09) Razorfish recently unveiled the Razorfashion application designed to provide shoppers with an engaging retail experience within the "multi-channel shopping ecosystem". I'm not the "shop to you drop" type of gal, but I can see that this concept could be useful in other situations, after a few tweaks. As soon as I saw this Razorfish Touch "Fashion" demo video, it touched a nerve. I've been playing around with a similar idea, but for my personal use, in the form of an RFID-enabled system. I'd call it something like "FashionMirrorAdvisor". Instead of showing skinny fashion models like the Razorfashion application, I'd harness the power of built-in web-cam and mirror my own image on the screen. My mirror would dress me up in the morning when I'm way too foggy to think about matching colors and accessories. My FashionMirrorAdvisor would be my friend. My "smart" friend, since all of my clothes would be RFID-tagged, along with my shoes, jewelry, and other accessories. My make-up, too. It would be a no-brainer. I really could use this application - just ask my husband! More often than not, most mornings I find myself staring at the clothes in my closet, frozen in time, unable to formulate a fashion thought. I might set my eyes on a favorite blouse, but blank out when I try to think about the rest of the steps I need to pull my look together. I know I can't wear my reddish-pink camisole with my dusty-orange/brown slacks, but at 5:15 A.M., who has the time to think about this little detail? My friend, the TouchFashionMirror would prevent me from making this fashion faux-pas. No problem. My FashionMirrorAdvisor would show me a few outfits, and dress my real-time moving image on the screen. Since she knows all things, she'd show me ONLY the articles of clothing that were clean, since my RFID system would keep up with all of that. It would be much more functional than a "virtual wardrobe" application. I could try out different earrings without having to get them out. If I couldn't find something, the RFID system would take care of this detail. My FashioMirrorAdvisor would know where I misplaced my clothes, accessories, and even my keys, since they would all be tagged. The mirror application would provide me with a nice little map of my house and car, and highlight the location of the item. My FashionMirrorAdvisor would keep track of my laundry, too. This would be a great feature. So if my dirty laundry was piling up, and I wanted to wear outfit X, Y, or Z over the next few days, I'd receive a gentle reminder that I'd need to do some laundry first! Another practical feature: My FashionMirrorAdvisor would also serve as my health consultant, keeping track of my weight and BMI. This data, along with information gained from the webcam, would be combined so that my advisor would NEVER suggest an outfit that would be too...snug. I could program the system to provide me with gentle reminders if my weight was an issue. My FashionMirrorAdvisor would show me images of myself "before" and "after", outfits included. Information about the "after" outfits could be fed to the system from the web-catalogs of my favorite fashion retailers, and once I lost those 10 darned pounds, I'd find a nice parcel delivered to my door. Thanks to my FashionMirrorAdvisor, I know that the outfit would be just right. UPDATE 5/8/10: The FashionMirrorAdvisor would be integrated with a mobile app - since I now have a smartphone, this would be quite useful in planning shopping trips centered around the purchase of new clothes, shoes, accessories, and coordinating cosmetics! I created a little game that I think would be ideal for this sort of thing, too. I still want to work on this....someday. Too many ideas, too little time! ALSO RELATED From the Razorfish site: "The Razorfish Emerging Experiences team is a dedicated group of highly experienced professionals focused solely on emerging experiences and technologies. "Effective innovation" is our multifaceted approach to concepting and delivering pioneering solutions for our clients" "Founded in 2008, Razorfish Emerging Experiences is a cross-functional team composed of strategists, artists, experience designers, and technologists. We're part of the Razorfish Strategy & Innovation practice led by Shannon Denton. Jonathan Hull is the managing director of the team, Steve Dawson is the technology lead and Luke Hamilton is the creative lead." Razorfish Razorfish Emerging Experiences Portfolio Razorfish Emerging Experiences Blog Razorfish Emerging Experiences on Vimeo RELATED 5/8/10 Razorfish Health (Fun music on the home page!) Razorfish Establishes Cloud Computing Practice Douglas Quenqua, ClickZ 4/15/10 The Razorfish 5: Five Technologies that Will Change Your Business Razorfish Whitepapers If you are looking for a job, you might be interested in the openings at Razorfish. Before applying, take a look at what is expected: "You dream in digital. You're fluent in the technologies that define our world and passionate about the way they're shaping our future. You're a communicator. A creator. You understand how the Web connects us, and you want to shape the conversation. You're a restless innovator. you're not only waiting for the next big idea to happen, you're making it happen. You're a unique talent, a visionary, an experimenter, and you're looking for an environment that lets you shine. In other words, you're just our type...." FYI When I visited the Razorfish website, I noticed that the background appeared to be a live feed of the offices. Since today is Saturday, it makes sense that the only person busy at the office was a custodian. Below is the screenshot:  http://interactivemultimediatechnology.blogspot.com  |
| Posted: 08 May 2010 08:04 PM PDT I joined Facebook in 2007 when I was taking a graduate HCI-oriented course about privacy and security. Heather Lipford, the professor, and some of the students were working on a study about Facebook and privacy, so I agreed to participate as a subject. What I quickly learned is that even graduate IT students can be puzzled about Facebook privacy settings. Facebook has made numerous changes to the way it handles privacy settings, and this has fueled research on this topic for the past few years (see links below). Too many "regular" folks are unknowingly sharing things they do not want to share with the world, and it is difficult for most of us, including myself, to keep up with these rapid changes. For example, last month I came across a video of Mark Zuckerburg (founder of Facebook), announcing Open Graph which is a way of making "connected, mapped web that is more "social, personalized, smarter, and semantically aware." Zuckerburg's keynote presentation at the f8 conference was delivered on April 21st, yet on the day I posted about it, only a handful of people had viewed the video. As of this post, only about 731 people had viewed the presentation, yet the key points that were reviewed will impact how the information we provide Facebook is used, stored, and perhaps shared by third-party web-based applications. With over 400,000,000 people on Facebook, this is an open invitation for those "in the know" to manipulate things in a way that many of us may not understand. In the video below, Zuckerburg mentions that Facebook's policy for applications integrated with Facebook prohibited the storage or caching of data and information from the user for more than 24 hours. The rationale for the rule was to protect the privacy of Facebook users.   Zucherburg introduces the "One Step Permission" feature that provides third-party websites a simple means for users who have Facebook accounts to connect with the site. The hitch is that the user can't move forward and access what they'd like to access on the site unless they make the quick decision to give up quite a bit of their Facebook information. This will now give the host application and stored. Here is a screenshot of the single permissions dialog from the video at about 4:16:  Zucherburg's words: "Now, if a person comes to your site, and gives you permission to access their information, you can store it. That means no more having to make the same API calls day after day. No more having to build different code paths just to handle information that Facebook users are (unwittingly?) sharing with you. We think that this step is going to make building with Facebook platform a lot simpler." I knew there was a BIG problem with Facebook's privacy settings when Nathan Yau, author of the Flowing Data blog, tweeted about his discovery of information that Facebook somehow shared without his knowledge. Nathan's recent post, "Evolution of Facebook Privacy Policies", contains a interesting visualization, created by Matt McKeon of the Visual Communication Lab at IBM, that provides an interesting look at Facebook's privacy policies from 2005 on. The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook (Interactive graphic with options for viewing an animation or an image-based version.) The blue area represents the default settings regarding the availability of your personal data. As you can see, the default settings allow a large set of personal information to be shared among your Facebook connections as well as the outside world. As a member of Facebook, you must manually change your settings to make sure you have your preferred level of privacy. Don't assume this is taken care of for you by the application!      RELATED Five Hidden Dangers of Facebook: Security Expert on Big Risks You Should Be Aware You're Taking When You Use the Site (CBS News.com 5/8/10) "Your information is being shared with third parties Privacy settings revert to a less safe default mode after each redesign Facebook ads may contain malware Your real friends unknowingly make you vulnerable Scammers are creating fake profiles " Privacy bog causes Facebook to disable chat Caroline McCarthy, CNET News 5/7/10 Video: Major Facebook Security Hole Lets You View Your Friends' Live Chats Steve O'Hear, TechCrunch 5/5/2010 Nathan Yau and Flowing Data f8 2010 Breakout Session Videos Previous Post: Mark Zuckerburg's Recent Keynote at f8: Facebook's OpenGraph HCI Lab at UNC-Charlotte: "At the Human Computer Interaction Lab (HCILab) at UNC Charlotte, we investigate novel ways for people to interact with computers, and through computers with their environments. Our research covers a broad range of areas within Human Computer Interaction, such as Novel Interaction and Multimedia, Privacy, Creativity, and Visual Analytics. We collaborate with researchers in a number of areas related to HCI, such as visualization, gaming, art, and psychology. We also study interaction in a variety of domains such as intelligent information systems, information privacy and security, image processing and graphics, and intelligence analysis." UNC-C's HCI Facebook Research ArticlesLipford, H. R., Besmer, A., and Watson, J. "Understanding Privacy Settings in Facebook with an Audience View." In the Proceedings of the USENIX Workshop on Usability, Psychology, and Security (UPSEC 2008), April 14, 2008. pdf Lipford, H.R., Hull,G. Latulipe, C., Besmer,A., Watson, J. Visible Flows: Contexual Integrity and the Design of Privacy Mechanisms in Online Social Networking. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Security & Privacy in Online Social Networking, August 2009. pdf Lipford, H.R., Watson, J., Whitney, M., Froiland, K., and Reeder, R.W. "Visual vs. Compact: A Comparison of Privacy Policy Interfaces. In Proceedings of CHI'10. Atlanta, Georgia, USA. April 2010. pdf Strater, K., and Lipford, H.R. "Strategies and Struggles with Privacy in an Online Social Networking Community". In the Proceedings HCI 2008, Liverpool, UK. 2008. pdf Watson, J., Whitney, M., and Lipford, H.R. "Configuring Audience-Oriented Privacy Policies." In the Proceedings of the Workshop on Assurable and Usable Security Configuration, ACM CCS, November 2009. (abstract) SOMEWHAT RELATED IBM's Visual Communication Lab is behind the Many Eyes website, which I used as a resource during when I was taking a course in information visualization and visual communication. At the time, I was looking at data related to the high-school drop-out problem in the US. I loved how the on-line Many Eyes application provided me with a variety of ways of looking at the data I had collected for my team's project. Since then, thousands of other people have utilized the Many Eyes website. Warning: If you are interested in data, stats, and information visualization, be prepared to spend a while exploring. It is an enticing rabbit hole! Many Eyes: For Shared Visualization and Discovery Cross-posted on The World Is My Interface http://interactivemultimediatechnology.blogspot.com  |
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