You Look Ridiculous: The Other Augmented Reality Issue AR presents interesting user experience design issues [for through the viewfinder type AR] that involve navigating expected norms of behaviour in public. What the critical comments in this article illustrate is that AR is not a one-size-fits-all technical solution. Perhaps it needs to be folded back [...]

Cupping Coffee: Comparisons, Analysis, Deliciousness – Portland Roasting Coffee Straight forward and easy to understand description of the coffee 'cupping' process with good illustration of comparative scoring. (tags: coffee cupping cupofexcellence)

What happened to those inventions of the future? – Telegraph a humorous take on the technologies of the future predicted in science fiction. (tags: technology future futurism science scifi anticipation forecasting futurology)

Micro Machines and Opto-Electronics on a Contact Lense | h+ Magazine "Fiction now meets reality with prototype contact lenses developed by Babak Parviz at the University of Washington, in Seattle. Dr. Parviz’s prototype lenses can be used as biosensors to display body chemistry or as a heads up display (HUD). Powered by radio waves [...]

IxD Spring Summit 2009 – Jack Schulze on Vimeo Excellent talk exploring various concerns for the practicalities of living with ubicomp, which is – electricity plus connections via wires or radio waves plus people using the technology and constructing behaviours around it/ molding it to existing behaviours. Questions arise: how do we think about [...]

City ID, profile "City ID develop unique design, information and wayfinding solutions to fully integrate people, movement and places. We combine thinking, ideas, planning and outstanding design direction to make cities more welcoming, engaging and easier to navigate." (tags: design place-space city maps architecture bristol UK

Google SMS for your phone "Google SMS is a suite of mobile applications that allows you to find information on topics as diverse as sexual & reproductive health, and agriculture to sports scores and weather. It also includes a new marketplace application, Google Trader, that will help buyers and sellers find each other; use [...]

The architecture of the future | The Institute For The Future "The New York Times has a piece (Future Vision Banished to the Past") about the likely destruction of Kisho Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower, a "rare built example of Japanese Metabolism, a movement whose fantastic urban visions became emblems of the country’s postwar cultural [...]

International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR) 2009 "The International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR) will launch its inaugural program featuring the latest developments in the Arts, Media and Humanities (AMH) research and applications.
Artists, designers, media producers and futurists will present new frontiers in the power of Mixed and [...]

Mobile augmented reality: Reality, improved | The Economist Economist on Augmented Reality: "AR starts with reality itself and then augments it… It all sounds rather distant and futuristic. The idea of AR has, in fact, been around for a few years without making much progress… Several AR applications are already available. Wikitude, an AR [...]