http://cargocollective.com Bierbower Tue, 05 Mar 2013 01:36:03 +0000 http://cargocollective.com en http://chrisbierbower.com/JAWBONE http://chrisbierbower.com/following/chrisbierbower.com/JAWBONE Tue, 05 Mar 2013 01:36:03 +0000 Bierbower 5112551 I am currently working as a designer at Jawbone. We have been funded by Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins and others. I work across our product range and have been involved in some fun secret research projects. I am currently working as a designer at Jawbone. We have been funded by Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins and others. I work across our product range and have... http://chrisbierbower.com/Drug-Users-in-Copenhagen http://chrisbierbower.com/following/chrisbierbower.com/Drug-Users-in-Copenhagen Mon, 23 Jul 2012 13:26:47 +0000 Bierbower 1372757 <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1372757/Main.jpg" width="670" height="446" width_o="1000" height_o="667" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1372757/Main_o.jpg" data-mid="6674305" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1372757/1.jpg" width="670" height="447" width_o="1000" height_o="668" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1372757/1_o.jpg" data-mid="6886584" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1372757/2.jpg" width="670" height="527" width_o="1000" height_o="787" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1372757/2_o.jpg" data-mid="6886590" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1372757/3.jpg" width="670" height="502" width_o="1000" height_o="750" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1372757/3_o.jpg" data-mid="6886595" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1372757/4.jpg" width="670" height="502" width_o="1000" height_o="750" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1372757/4_o.jpg" data-mid="6886597" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1372757/5.jpg" width="670" height="478" width_o="1000" height_o="714" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1372757/5_o.jpg" data-mid="6886601" border="0" align="left"/> The project began in a user environment at the heart of Vesterbro Copenhagen. The team mapped the area, and dove right into how the different groups in the environment interact in a variety of ways. After several days of observation, 10 interviews and soaking in all the impressions the team chose to focus on drug users needs and behavior. The interviews lead the team picked out some key concepts that represented reoccurring themes. A great deal of deliberation went into really understanding all parties involved. The findings were discussed and interpreted in to three concepts, but at their core, these concepts centered around how to make users lives less stressful. To get feedback on the concepts and to narrow them down to only one concept the team set up a co-creation session with some users and an expert in the field. Models were prepared and tools for the session were collected. Armed with models and partially formed concepts the team received rapid and effective feedback from the additional interviews. It became clear that the most promising problem area was how to make the disposal and use of needles more efficient by considering the users' environment. As users live outside throughout the harsh danish winters, with significant wind and minimal shelter there are numerous opportunities to improve quality of life in this area alone. The process was incredibly rewarding and the team found that the exercise of story telling, interviews, synthesis and searching for design opportunities was an incredibly effective way of truly understanding the perspectives of various community members. The project began in a user environment at the heart of Vesterbro Copenhagen. The team mapped the area, and dove right into how the different groups in the... http://chrisbierbower.com/Photography http://chrisbierbower.com/following/chrisbierbower.com/Photography Mon, 23 Jul 2012 13:25:56 +0000 Bierbower 1443069 Just a hobby. <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1443069/Screen shot 2011-06-16 at 10.25.49 PM.png" width="670" height="450" width_o="1022" height_o="687" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1443069/Screen shot 2011-06-16 at 10.25.49 PM_o.png" data-mid="7855355" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1443069/Screen shot 2011-06-16 at 10.27.05 PM.png" width="670" height="448" width_o="1021" height_o="684" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1443069/Screen shot 2011-06-16 at 10.27.05 PM_o.png" data-mid="7855361" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1443069/Screen shot 2011-06-16 at 10.28.45 PM.png" width="670" height="447" width_o="1020" height_o="681" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1443069/Screen shot 2011-06-16 at 10.28.45 PM_o.png" data-mid="7855367" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1443069/Screen shot 2011-06-16 at 10.29.15 PM.png" width="590" height="892" width_o="590" height_o="892" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1443069/Screen shot 2011-06-16 at 10.29.15 PM_o.png" data-mid="7855368" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1443069/Screen shot 2011-06-16 at 10.29.58 PM.png" width="670" height="447" width_o="1019" height_o="681" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1443069/Screen shot 2011-06-16 at 10.29.58 PM_o.png" data-mid="7855373" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1443069/Screen shot 2011-06-16 at 10.30.24 PM.png" width="670" height="447" width_o="1021" height_o="682" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1443069/Screen shot 2011-06-16 at 10.30.24 PM_o.png" data-mid="7855379" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1443069/Resize-4.jpg" width="670" height="502" width_o="1000" height_o="750" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1443069/Resize-4_o.jpg" data-mid="7855838" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1443069/Screen shot 2011-06-16 at 10.27.58 PM.png" width="670" height="402" width_o="1017" height_o="611" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1443069/Screen shot 2011-06-16 at 10.27.58 PM_o.png" data-mid="7855362" border="0" align="left"/> Just a hobby. http://chrisbierbower.com/3DS-Max http://chrisbierbower.com/following/chrisbierbower.com/3DS-Max Mon, 23 Jul 2012 13:25:49 +0000 Bierbower 761398 This is an example of my work with 3D CAD software to create a scene. I used 3DS max to generate a range of materials and lighting elements for this skyline bar. As you may be able to guess, given all the shiny objects, it took a 46 CPU server rack 30 hours to render the video. <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/761398/Final 7.png" width="670" height="502" width_o="1024" height_o="768" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/761398/Final 7_o.png" data-mid="12913348" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/761398/final 3.png" width="670" height="502" width_o="1024" height_o="768" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/761398/final 3_o.png" data-mid="12913340" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/761398/Final 2.png" width="670" height="502" width_o="1024" height_o="768" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/761398/Final 2_o.png" data-mid="12913336" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/761398/Final 4.png" width="670" height="502" width_o="1024" height_o="768" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/761398/Final 4_o.png" data-mid="12913343" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/761398/final 1 copy.png" width="670" height="502" width_o="1024" height_o="768" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/761398/final 1 copy_o.png" data-mid="12913334" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/761398/Final 5.png" width="670" height="502" width_o="1024" height_o="768" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/761398/Final 5_o.png" data-mid="12913344" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/761398/Final 6.png" width="670" height="502" width_o="1024" height_o="768" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/761398/Final 6_o.png" data-mid="12913346" border="0" align="left"/> This is an example of my work with 3D CAD software to create a scene. I used 3DS max to generate a range of materials and lighting elements for this skyline bar. ... http://chrisbierbower.com/Ambi-Presence http://chrisbierbower.com/following/chrisbierbower.com/Ambi-Presence Wed, 11 Jan 2012 01:43:42 +0000 Bierbower 2540054 <img src="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/couple.jpg" width="670" height="469" width_o="700" height_o="490" src_o="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/couple_o.jpg" data-mid="28317868" border="0" align="left"/> My final project first asked: What are couples in long distance relationships missing out on? Among other things it is company. This project seeks to change the nature of long distance communication with a loved one into something more passive and ambient. As if the two of them happen to be in the same room. Not everyone gets to see their significant other on a daily or even weekly basis. More and more people have found a match who doesn’t share the same city or even country. Long distance relationships are hard. Even with advances in technology and reduced costs of long distance communication they can be painful and frustrating. However, as populations become more mobile they are increasingly common. Over my time at CIID I often noticed friends taking on great hardship to keep a worth while relationship alive. But even with improvements in video calling and social networks they still seemed to be having a rough time to say the least. I became adamant that telepresence developments had become stale and unimaginative. Long distance couples are some the most enthusiastic consumers of the technology and yet they had never been explicitly designed for. I eventually dedicated the end of my masters towards taking one step in a dramatically different direction using present day technology. <img src="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/DSC_0405.jpg" width="670" height="443" width_o="1000" height_o="662" src_o="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/DSC_0405_o.jpg" data-mid="13218937" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/DSC_0070_1.jpg" width="670" height="445" width_o="1024" height_o="681" src_o="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/DSC_0070_1_o.jpg" data-mid="13064295" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/DSC_0378.jpg" width="670" height="444" width_o="670" height_o="444" src_o="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/DSC_0378_o.jpg" data-mid="13063917" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/IMG_0854.jpg" width="670" height="500" width_o="1000" height_o="747" src_o="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/IMG_0854_o.jpg" data-mid="13218940" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/DSC_0258.jpg" width="670" height="444" width_o="670" height_o="444" src_o="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/DSC_0258_o.jpg" data-mid="13063913" border="0" align="left"/> The result is what may be the first attempt at simulating the sensory effects of merging two rooms into the same space so that people have the experience of truly spending time together. The final concept utilizes surround sound speakers, 3D camera’s (Microsoft Kinect) and an articulating light on the ceiling of each persons room. With ambi-presence, users can hear their significant other as if they were moving around their own living room in 3D space. A beam of light indicates the other persons corresponding position. Research on virtual reality as well as my own tests showed that even though the resolution is much lower than a hologram, users mental models of the significant other fill in the gaps surprisingly well. The system is mapped to one object in the room (the bed, couch, kitchen counter) so that the couple can sit together in spite of architectural differences in their respective rooms. This proposed change in direction is based on how people in long distance relationships consume telepresence. After the first few days, they don’t want to be forced into hour long face to face agenda style meetings. They miss out on the experience of having someone else in the room to share thoughts with or purely to experience their company. However, this insight took a great deal of research and prototyping to reveal itself. While initially conducting research on couples using telepresence I noticed them carrying laptops around apartments and adjusting webcams while cooking. We discussed how quality sound was the most emotionally dynamic form of communication and that they felt the significant other was infuriatingly trapped behind a piece of glass on video calls. beyond this they have to act as their own cinematographers if they have any desire to do anything other than sit still. This lead to the problem statement: How might we allow couples in long distance relationships to spend time together by augmenting their living space? Ambi-presence is the result of a series of iterative prototypes in sound and spacial movement. <img src="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/DSC_0439.jpg" width="670" height="444" width_o="670" height_o="444" src_o="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/DSC_0439_o.jpg" data-mid="13064418" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/DSC_0306.jpg" width="670" height="443" width_o="2000" height_o="1325" src_o="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/DSC_0306_o.jpg" data-mid="13064256" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/DSC_0359.jpg" width="670" height="444" width_o="670" height_o="444" src_o="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/DSC_0359_o.jpg" data-mid="13063916" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/DSC_0315.jpg" width="670" height="443" width_o="2000" height_o="1325" src_o="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/DSC_0315_o.jpg" data-mid="13064257" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/DSC_0329.jpg" width="670" height="444" width_o="670" height_o="444" src_o="http://payload12.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2540054/DSC_0329_o.jpg" data-mid="13063915" border="0" align="left"/> My final project first asked: What are couples in long distance relationships missing out on? Among other things it is company. This project seeks to change the... http://chrisbierbower.com/Being-me-for-Novo-Nordisk http://chrisbierbower.com/following/chrisbierbower.com/Being-me-for-Novo-Nordisk Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:43:37 +0000 Bierbower 2294541 Helle Rhode, Alix Gillet Kirt and I put together a social media concept for Novo Nordisk, the largest diabetes company in the world. They wanted a new way to engage with type one diabetes patients. These patients are diagnosed much more suddenly than type two patients and usually at a much earlier age. After a great deal of research we created both a physical kit to help guide Doctors and certified nurses through the situation and an online advice network that would allow existing patients to reach out to the newly diagnosed. User Research and Rapid Prototyping <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/DSC_0057.jpg" width="670" height="444" width_o="670" height_o="444" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/DSC_0057_o.jpg" data-mid="12924756" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/DSC_0085.jpg" width="670" height="444" width_o="670" height_o="444" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/DSC_0085_o.jpg" data-mid="12924757" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/DSC_0098.jpg" width="670" height="444" width_o="670" height_o="444" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/DSC_0098_o.jpg" data-mid="12924759" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/DSC_0103.jpg" width="670" height="444" width_o="670" height_o="444" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/DSC_0103_o.jpg" data-mid="12924762" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/DSC_0577.jpg" width="670" height="444" width_o="670" height_o="444" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/DSC_0577_o.jpg" data-mid="12924764" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/DSC_0631.jpg" width="670" height="444" width_o="670" height_o="444" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/DSC_0631_o.jpg" data-mid="12924765" border="0" align="left"/> Concept Kit and Social Network <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/DSC_0224.jpg" width="670" height="443" width_o="2000" height_o="1325" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/DSC_0224_o.jpg" data-mid="11514195" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/DSC_0207.jpg" width="670" height="1012" width_o="670" height_o="1012" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/DSC_0207_o.jpg" data-mid="12924763" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/Image2-01 copy.jpg" width="670" height="502" width_o="1000" height_o="750" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/Image2-01 copy_o.jpg" data-mid="13291822" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/Image1-01 copy.jpg" width="670" height="502" width_o="1000" height_o="750" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294541/Image1-01 copy_o.jpg" data-mid="13291821" border="0" align="left"/> Helle Rhode, Alix Gillet Kirt and I put together a social media concept for Novo Nordisk, the largest diabetes company in the world. They wanted a new way to... http://chrisbierbower.com/Living-Frame-for-Intel http://chrisbierbower.com/following/chrisbierbower.com/Living-Frame-for-Intel Sat, 12 Nov 2011 06:32:40 +0000 Bierbower 2294519 <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/10.jpg" width="670" height="443" width_o="2000" height_o="1325" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/10_o.jpg" data-mid="13130925" border="0" align="left"/> Marco Triverio and I recently worked on a very interesting project. A team from Intel asked us to look 10 years into the future and imagine how people might capture or display photos given expected advances in technology. Intel is in the ever faster processor business and uses these predictions to steer chip architecture as well as to help spur developers imagination to maintain demand for faster silicon. Over the course of the project we realized that using photos for story telling is such a fundamentally instinctive behavior that it is safe to predict it will last through several generations of technological innovation. Our concept develops on this insight. However, foreseeing 10 years into the future is tricky. With IBM’s Watson, we’re seeing a sneak peak of improvements in natural language and intention recognition. We think that one of the photo related advances users will enjoy are computers that will actually help us tell stories and have richer conversations. We created the video below to illustrate the concept, but thought it would be fun to explain our reasoning and how we found sneaky ways to quickly prototype experiences that may not be possible for another decade. 10 Years in the past 10 years is a fairly arbitrary amount of time in technology. Many things seem to perpetually be just a few years off. So to give ourselves some perspective we decided to look 10 years into the past. What we realized was that in 2001 many thought we would have flying cars and HAL9000. However the major advancement of the time was actually the launch of Google’s search algorithm. Technology Trends So we had a conversation early on as to what technologies seem to have made legitimate advances in the last few years. Among others we found facial recognition, analytics applied to natural language, and voice recognition. You can see these in Facebook’s photo tagging, IBM’s Watson and Siri (released as we were wrapping up the project) respectively. However all of these are in their infancy. Facebook’s face recognition is not always accurate, Watson’s undisclosed cost is estimated to be $100 million and $1.5 billion, and Siri can often struggle to compose a text message. User Research Focused on Behavior While we believe it is impossible to accurately predict technological breakthroughs that are going to take place in the coming 10 years, we are convinced that human behavior will change at a much less rapid pace. For this reason we decided to start the project by observing current user behaviors surrounding pictures and photography. As we conducted interviews, one factor that quickly become evident is the social nature of photos. People share photos online but also during face-to-face conversations. We found many users handling photos or smart phones in an effort to enhance a conversation. Pictures provide common references, visual cues, and rich details that support and enrich storytelling. <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/1c.jpg" width="670" height="443" width_o="1000" height_o="662" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/1c_o.jpg" data-mid="13130677" border="0" align="left"/> We re-framed the brief in order to address the core need, asking ourselves: what will storytelling look like 10 years from now? How will technology, which already heavily influences the way we tell stories, assist us in our narrations? Experience Prototyping The devices that surround us have become increasingly aware of the context in which they exist. Yet the scale to which this works is still coarse and devices are not aware of what is immediately surrounding them. What if our devices knew more about the few foots around them? We have started from the idea of a picture frame that simply listens and shows pictures pulled from keywords in the dialogue. *These are some rough mockup's we used to pitch the concept early on.* <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/DSC_0049.jpg" width="670" height="502" width_o="1000" height_o="750" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/DSC_0049_o.jpg" data-mid="13130950" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/1.jpg" width="670" height="444" width_o="1000" height_o="664" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/1_o.jpg" data-mid="13130788" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/2a copy.jpg" width="670" height="444" width_o="1000" height_o="664" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/2a copy_o.jpg" data-mid="13130789" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/2b copy.jpg" width="670" height="445" width_o="1900" height_o="1262" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/2b copy_o.jpg" data-mid="13130793" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/3 copy.jpg" width="670" height="444" width_o="1000" height_o="664" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/3 copy_o.jpg" data-mid="13130794" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/4 copy.jpg" width="670" height="444" width_o="1000" height_o="664" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/4 copy_o.jpg" data-mid="13130796" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/5 copy.jpg" width="670" height="444" width_o="1000" height_o="664" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/5 copy_o.jpg" data-mid="13130798" border="0" align="left"/> At CIID we really like to rapid prototype. Most future scenarios out there are just a lot of special effects and some ideas that seem promising on paper. We wanted to legitimately iterate through several versions of a technology that does not exist yet, so we had to be sneaky. At first we investigated the possibility of building a fully working prototype for very specific scenarios. After acquiring the best voice recognition solutions available and training the software on our state of the art Macs we quickly realized that they were still far too computationally intensive and slow. When two people spoke at once, our computers fans sounded like they were ready for lift off and promptly locked up. We quickly switched to a secret “Wizard of Oz” experiment in which voice recognition was carried out by a hidden human actor. We invited users to sit in a room and start a conversation with Chris. On the table was our first prototype: a laptop (in the role of a picture frame) showing full screen images. What our guinea pigs subjects did not know was that Marco was sitting in another room, listening through the laptop microphone, and manually changing pictures on the display. For the geeks: this prototype was created by writing a Python script on the Wizard of Oz computer that would query Google Images and download the first result. This top result image was then pushed over the network on to the prototype laptop in the interview room. A Processing sketch on the prototype would load the most recent picture and display it full-screen. The learnings from this experiment were: Speed is crucial. Even a 2-second lag can be annoying and can slow down or derail the conversation. Pictures must be personal. Photos from Google Images are generic while storytelling is tied to events, people, and places as we see them through our pictures. In the next iteration we focused on content at least one speaker was familiar with. We thus carried out a new “Wizard of Oz” experiment where Marco would pick images from a curated library of 100 pictures taken at a party the subjects had attended. Chris steered the conversation towards talking about that same party and, once again, we observed the reactions of our guests as they helped retell the events of the night. This prototype was dramatically more successful and showed great potential for creating user delight, but we still had more to learn. This time we noticed that back lit displays can be preeminent and distracting. Whenever the picture frame switches picture, the speakers’ attention is drawn to the device, even when it sits in the periphery of their vision. In the last prototype we have switched from a LCD laptop screen to an E Ink screen, in our case the Kindle’s. Through the “Experimental” mode in this reader and through the help of BERG’s James Darling we have managed to have the Kindle load images that could be changed remotely. For the nerds, the Kindle was loading a web page that was refreshing every time a new image was loaded on the webserver. <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/8.jpg" width="670" height="443" width_o="2000" height_o="1325" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/8_o.jpg" data-mid="13130917" border="0" align="left"/> The non-backlit E Ink display nicely fades in the environment in which it exists. This picture frame prototype did not distract the speakers. When useful, it was within easy reach to help the discussion. Living Frame Concept The prototyping sessions brought us close to experiencing the potential of a reactive picture frame. We learned that the frame should be quick, personal, and ambient. In other words, it should feel like a living entity dedicated to gently offering pictures. With frames like the ones illustrated in our concept video places all over the house, it would start to feel as if the home were reacting to your current experiences with past memories. Homes would become incredibly personal. So much so that we even had several conversations about how frames might hide certain photos while you had guests over. Technology Behind it Since the beginning of this project we have tried to avoid predicting major technological breakthroughs. We have focused instead on trying to understand existing behaviors and how they might evolve in the future. Similarly, we imagine Living Frames as being built with existing technologies, improved and made more reliable by ten years of evolution. We envision a picture frame that is aware of its physical surroundings. Kinect-inspired sensors could give all sort of information about the people in the room: who they are, whether they are facing the frame or not, and so on. Natural language recognition could enable the frame to understand the context and meaning of conversations. However, even with this knowledge, the system must know enough about an image’s content be able to retrieve the relevant one amongst libraries containing thousands. Most of our photos now reside online, often, for instance, in Facebook albums that are increasingly communal. For this reason we envision a frame that is acutely aware of our digital life. Yet we also imagine an evolution on the kind of metadata available with each picture. At present we know when and where the picture was taken. The increasing digitization of our life (for instance, in invitations to events) and technologies such as face recognition can provide new awareness on the social context in which a picture was taken. Information such as who is in the photo, who was nearby, and so on become available. <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/Frame and Cloud.jpg" width="670" height="376" width_o="1274" height_o="715" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2294519/Frame and Cloud_o.jpg" data-mid="13133359" border="0" align="left"/> Value for Intel Digital photography can be split in three phases: capturing, editing, and consuming. Intel has an interest in photography since it involves computing power in all three phases. At present comparatively little computation goes in capturing and consuming pictures, while editing often requires a great deal of computational power. Living Frames re-invents the way we currently consume pictures by introducing a listening entity that reacts to the environment around it. This has an impact on people, who have a completely new way of interacting with their memories. Yet Living Frames also creates the need and desire for devices powerful enough to handle the technology necessary to be able to “listen” and react appropriately. Intel does some very interesting work. Here is a great economist article on the team we worked with. Marco Triverio and I recently worked on a very interesting project. A team from Intel asked us to look 10 years into the future and imagine how people might... http://chrisbierbower.com/Copenhagen-Airport http://chrisbierbower.com/following/chrisbierbower.com/Copenhagen-Airport Mon, 19 Sep 2011 05:11:15 +0000 Bierbower 2023624 With this Service design Project, our team, Josh Noble and Harikrishnan Gopalakrishnan and myself looked into the possibility of short term, remote office space for frequent business travelers. With much the same model of Zipcar, this membership-based office sharing program could make frequent business travel much smoother. The WorkCPH service communicates via mobile app to guide the traveler through their business trip, anticipating their needs and providing useful offers and information, while the WorkCPH offices provide a private and comfortable personalized working space in the city and in the airport. Our service provides a secretary you can access with your phone and an office you can use in the city or the airport to make working while travelling less stressful and more productive Who is it for? 
WorkCPH aids budget business travelers who travel frequently for work through CPH but do not have access a flagship airline rewards private lounge. These travellers fly up to 20 days a month but are rarely rewarded by their airlines for their patronage. WorkCPH is a way for the airport to intervene and provide a service and rich data to these travelers, making CPH a better place to work. Why is it Valuable? 
WorkCPH provides travelers with real-time information whether they’re booking office spaces or not, as an incentive to use the WorkCPH office spaces, and as a reward to the traveler for using CPH Airport. If a traveler decides to book the WorkCPH space they have a quiet location to get online, make calls, and work, while receiving notifications and data that they may need through the mobile service. How does it work? 
After signing up with the WorkCPH service customers are asked to submit their preferences: how they travel, their privacy settings, what sort of beverages they would like with an office space when they book one, and their contact info. Forwarding an airline confirmation to the service registers a flight with the WorkCPH service and the application allows you to book transport to CPH and an office space as soon as the flight is confirmed. The day of the flight WorkCPH gives up a wake-up call, arranges transportation for you, and if you’ve booked an office space, provides a quiet place to work with a beverage of your choice for just the amount of time that you might have at the airport. In the case of delays, your stay at the WorkCPH office can be extended automatically and information from the airline and airport can be routed through the application. <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2023624/process.jpg" width="602" height="825" width_o="602" height_o="825" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2023624/process_o.jpg" data-mid="10062956" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2023624/210.jpeg" width="670" height="502" width_o="1000" height_o="750" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2023624/210_o.jpeg" data-mid="12896715" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2023624/310.jpeg" width="641" height="960" width_o="641" height_o="960" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2023624/310_o.jpeg" data-mid="12896716" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2023624/510.jpeg" width="670" height="502" width_o="1000" height_o="750" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/2023624/510_o.jpeg" data-mid="12896717" border="0" align="left"/> With this Service design Project, our team, Josh Noble and Harikrishnan Gopalakrishnan and myself looked into the possibility of short term, remote office space... http://chrisbierbower.com/Emergency-Vehicle-Navigation http://chrisbierbower.com/following/chrisbierbower.com/Emergency-Vehicle-Navigation Sat, 13 Aug 2011 05:15:02 +0000 Bierbower 1710077 Alix Gillet-Kirt and I participated in a City Surfaces Course with Adam Greenfield and Mayo Nissen at CIID. Alix and I are both really happy with the results. Adam and Mayo are notorious advocates of smarter cities. After an investigation in to how sensors are being embedded throughout urban spaces, Alix and I decided to look into how one could make enhanced street lights function as something of a graphical user interface for the city. Alix and I did some desk research on the current state of affairs of lamp technology to make sure we were drafting a concept that could be incorporated into present day city planning. What we found was that the streetlights of the present to near future will be LED based (instant on, can change brightness on command) and individually addressed on the network so each one could be doing something different. Even without adding projectors or futuristic technology you can already think of some pretty interesting ways you could use this kind of technology to enhance a city. We came up with a range of concepts but only illustrated the most pressing one: Enhancing emergency services. Emergency vehicles often have a very tough time navigating busy cities when civilians can not anticipate their moves around corners or through busy intersections. Copenhagen in particular has a great deal of bike and pedestrian traffic.    LEaD the Way is a concept that would use enhanced street lights to give civilians fair warning of the emergency vehicles route so that they can make intelligent decisions about how to give way. This could happen even before the emergency vehicle is in sight. First Responders would simply press a button indicating they were heading to an emergency or back to base. They system would plot the fastest route for them and change light behavior as they moved through the city. We have imagined a range of solutions with this same technology. From cultural celebrations to city wide emergency evacuations we think this is a really interesting area to design for. <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1710077/main_6.png" width="670" height="502" width_o="1000" height_o="750" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1710077/main_6_o.png" data-mid="13656641" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1710077/2.png" width="670" height="502" width_o="1000" height_o="750" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1710077/2_o.png" data-mid="10070807" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1710077/3.png" width="670" height="502" width_o="1000" height_o="750" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1710077/3_o.png" data-mid="10070809" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1710077/4.png" width="670" height="502" width_o="1024" height_o="768" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1710077/4_o.png" data-mid="10070810" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1710077/5.png" width="670" height="502" width_o="1000" height_o="750" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1710077/5_o.png" data-mid="10070812" border="0" align="left"/> Alix Gillet-Kirt and I participated in a City Surfaces Course with Adam Greenfield and Mayo Nissen at CIID. Alix and I are both really happy with the results.... http://chrisbierbower.com/Gravitational-Haptic-Feedback http://chrisbierbower.com/following/chrisbierbower.com/Gravitational-Haptic-Feedback Thu, 16 Jun 2011 15:16:39 +0000 Bierbower 1603665 Working with Stanford's Bill Verplank on haptic feedback. Haptics are an excellent but often overlooked form of user feedback. With some motors and software, this project simulated varying levels of “gravitational pull” towards different planets on the screen. When the user allows the control to hover over the planet, their avatar falls at the same rate they would on that planets surface. This was an interesting rapid exploration of haptics with Bill Verplank and shows one of the many ways user feedback can be achieved without graphical user interfaces. <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1603665/image4.jpeg" width="670" height="502" width_o="1000" height_o="750" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1603665/image4_o.jpeg" data-mid="12904106" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1603665/Resize-2-2.jpg" width="670" height="446" width_o="1000" height_o="667" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1603665/Resize-2-2_o.jpg" data-mid="7855070" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1603665/image1.png" width="670" height="502" width_o="1000" height_o="750" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1603665/image1_o.png" data-mid="10072564" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1603665/Resize-3.jpg" width="670" height="446" width_o="1000" height_o="667" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1603665/Resize-3_o.jpg" data-mid="7855071" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1603665/Resize.jpg" width="670" height="444" width_o="1000" height_o="664" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/1/51089/1603665/Resize_o.jpg" data-mid="7854954" border="0" align="left"/> Working with Stanford's Bill Verplank on haptic feedback. Haptics are an excellent but often overlooked form of user feedback. With some motors and software,...