Collaborative Gaming controlled by your phone

(((use of Mobile phones to control public screens as a two way experience)))

MegaPhone makes digital signage interactive using a regular phone call.

MegaPhone is a real-time collaborative gaming platform where anyone can use any phone to interact with a public display, using their phone as a controller.

It’s NOT a downloadable application that runs on your phone, and it’s NOT a wireless network, like Wifi or Bluetooth. It’s just a regular phone call. Anyone can participate by just calling a regular phone number, using any phone, on any service provider, in any country. Their input changes what happens on the display.

There are two ways to send input to the display: keypad and voice. The keypad can be used much like a video game controller, and the volume of the phone’s microphone can also become input in the game. MegaPhone updates the game state on a big screen, or on multiple screens.

MegaPhone also closes the loop between a viewer and the screen by allowing two way communication. As part of a MegaPhone experience a caller can also contribute text, image, video, and audio content to the screen, and can receive the same. A caller can also receive mobile digital content, such as ringtones, wallpapers, and games. This allows for the development of fully interactive outdoor collaborative experiences of all types, including games, information systems, and realtime voting and polling.

tap is the new click

(((How will we read, see and interact with stories when the devices that show them are based on interaction through gesture?)))

designing interfaces for gestures

Even though the technology has been around for decades, only now are we starting to see mass production and adoption of touchscreen and gestural devices for the public… the launches of Nintendo’s Wii, Apple’s iPhone, and Microsoft Surface, have announced a new era of interaction design, one where gestures in space and touches on a screen will be as prominent as pointing and clicking.

But how do you create products for this new paradigm? While most of us know how to design desktop and web applications, what do you need to know to design for interactive gestures?

…usability and ergonomics; a brief history of the technology; some elemental patterns of use; prototyping and documenting; and how to communicate that a gestural interface is present to users.

nodes and temporal edges

In the language of telecommunications and dynamic social networks nodes implies ‘people’ and temporal edges are ‘calls’.

link to terms in use

Interfaces

(((How will people be viewing stories in 10 years time? What is required of the interfaces that will search, share, mix and display these stories?)))

via O’Reilly Radar:

Edward Tufte‘s notions about density of content are extremely relevant in this age of information overload, and he has just released a video in which he evaluates what works and what doesn’t on the device of the moment, the Apple iPhone. Before I give you the link, I should emphasize that the QuickTime file is enormous and may take many minutes to download, but its insights and presentation make it worth the wait. It’s here.

“The future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.”

William Gibson