Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Mobile interfaces

Well never done this before, but just loved this post from the Amnesia Blog that i had to copy the whole thing here. Awesome mobile interface stuff and yet another reason why i'm backing Android to be the dominant, universal OS of the future. Thanks @eunmac and @razorfish


The future of the mobile UI is behind a velvet curtain

I have seen concepts from this company before (more about this below) and they always seem to be taking different approaches to the rest of the world.

The Astonishing Tribe (TAT) has yet again showcased a UI they call Velvet – pull out a widget or Google Maps query, and a sheet of your desired result waves with the virtual wind, before stretching out flat for you to more comfortably interact with.

This is what TAT has to say about the Tablet UIs out there and why they are different:

On one hand we have companies that scale phone UIs to tablets. On the other hand we have companies offering the full blown desktop experience scaled down to tablet size. We believe that both of these approaches will result in crippled user experiences. For example, the tablet form factor is perfect for media consumption and this could be manifested in the UI. TAT recognizes tablets as a radically different type of device – personal and mobile yet powerful and creative. We are now on a quest to design fantastic UIs that are optimized for this device space.

Here is the Velvet UI in action

As I said before these guys have some pretty awesome, yet radical ideas – check this augmented reality ID out – TAT augmented ID

I have an Android phone and I have been looking for a decent home screen and I really hope this little beauty will hit the market at some time soon – TAT Home

These guys are definitely someone to look out for in the future – if you want to learn more about them, check out their blog


Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Gaming... serious business

Love the thinking around social being 'done' (from tech perspective at least), about reality being 'broken' and the general divergence and convergence between the real world and game driven environments.
Approaches utilising understanding of what drives engagement and motivates interaction are definitely going to be at the core of the next digital wave.

Thanks TED and DICE2010 for these great talks:








Also recommend reading Jane McGonigal's paper on Engagement Economy http://www.iftf.org/node/2306