[Bradford] Wearable computing workshop, Saturday 27th April.

[Andrew Back]

On 23 April 2013 21:09, Alice Kaerast <alice at kaerast.info> wrote:
> There's a few wearable computing groups in Toronto doing some cool stuff,
> and the universities there have some really exciting courses [0]
>
> They had an exhibition while I was there recently with some really cool
> stuff [1]
>
> I particularly like the technologies which connect people, like Closeness
> [2] - interactive jewellery which glows different colors according to your
> distance from the paired device.  But you could go further with this.  In
> the zine Designing The Future Of Sex [3], they suggest a bracelet with a
> heart rate monitor, gsm modem and actuator to mirror each other's pulse -
> which we can't be too far from being able to actually create.  Since the
> zine is obviously NSFW, I'll paste an excerpt here:
>
> Obviously, at first a bracelet like this would be distracting.
> Eventually, though, given enough time to get used to the stimulus, does
> it fall into sensory integration? If so, what does that end up meaning—
> can you tell when someone wakes up, what the rhythm of their day is,
> just from a heartbeat? How does it cross over into in-person interactions?
> There are some studies that have shown that even loud music can apply a
> synchronizing effect to the heart’s rhythm—would this do that? What
> happens when you have multiple partners, and receive multiple
> heartbeats via different actuators

No so much on the NSFW side, but Rain, who will be running the
workshop, has made some pretty cool projects that are based around
people and interaction. E.g.:

  http://www.electromew.co.uk/projects/flutter.html

> There are some other really interesting ideas in that zine, many of which we
> could at least build the first generation of today.
>
> I'm at the Keighley Worth Valley Railway's diesel gala all this weekend, but
> I wish you all be best with this workshop and look forward to hearing about
> what creations you come up with.

Ah, I'm sure the diesel gala will be a lot of fun too! Which reminds
me that I haven't used any of my free travel on K&WVR and I really
ought to before my membership is up for renewal in June.

Saturday is really just an introduction to wearable tech so I doubt
that there will be anything too advanced/complex getting made, but
hopefully it will inspire people to explore the area in more detail
after the workshop.

Cheers,

Andrew

--
Andrew Back
http://carrierdetect.com