Dynamic Applications in NeoGeography !!

                  Neogeography is a new term in geographical information systems (GIS) . It means 'new geography' and consists of a set of tools and techniques that fall outside the realm of traditional GIS and which combines the complex techniques of cartography and GIS and places them within reach of users and developers. It can be considered an interesting area in Human computer interaction which combines neologism and web technologies. These concepts started becoming more and more popular with the increasing popularity of ubiquitous computing and improved networked devices and Google maps and google earth and geo-spatial information.  It started and helps people share location information with other people and helping shape context and informationn and conveying understanding through knowledge of any place. 
                  The main characteristics of user experience are size, simplified interface using HCI, response time by rendering of information and cartography.As new applications and software begin to emerge, the uses of Neogeography are becoming more evident and versatile. Amongst the various trends, the most widely used, user-friendly and non-technical application of Neogeography is Geo tagging and geo-blogging etc. 
Geotagging
Geotagging is the application of geospatial metadata to a range of web based media. It involves the integration of geographic data or coordinates as latitude, longitude, altitude and grid bearing with non-coordinate geographic information such as data, text, photo, video, web resources and even people, for an effective visualisation and analysis. Thus there are different things that can be geotagged and information can be presented for other people.
Geotagging of Audio:  Geotagging can be extended by assigning geographical co-ordinates to an media like audio. geotagged samples are layered over Google maps, allowing one to zoom in on any spot on the planet and potentially find samples tagged to specific geographic locations. Scientifically, geotagged audio has potential in areas such as the environmental sciences. We can also create and online community which I am going to think in my project where we would ask users to tag their favorite playlists and songs for a particular geographic area , city or town or country. Geotagging involves using a latitude-longitude based coordinate system in simple textual form or information embedded in the metadata stored in EXIF format.
Geotagging of Photos: Geotagging involves the adding of geographic coordinates to digital photographs. Several internet-based applications like the Google Earth, Panoramio and Flickr assist to geo-locate images, while offline solutions are available as both, hardware and software.  Using Picasa, PicasaWeb or iTag to geotag and organize images integrating Google Earth or Google Maps, is a traditional and cumbersome method of geotagging photographs. 

Geoblogging & Geo-broadacsting: These are some other applications of NeoGeography where the user can publish blogs and broadcast videos and media and tag them by assigning geographical information to that media or file. This will help users around the world to browse around the world different things according to a particular geographical location.

In recent times, geospatial has evolved at a very high pace with new tools and software being integrated into a comprehensive seamless solution for wider and dynamic applications. As the uses of neogeography are becoming more evident and versatile, geotagging has emerged as perhaps the most universal and user-friendly tool, with its historic application in collating and sharing of images. Moving beyond, geotagging is fast developing as a technology enabled whiteboard for access, study and analysis of digitally mapped data and images. 

Thus are the benefits of NeoGeography which will be soon breaking the geographical barriers and bring the world more and more closer.
                          

Game as life and Life as game

We have to build a project on this concept and after meeting with the group members we discussed various ideas and finally decided of a idea whereby we say “ game is life and life is game but where is the sound track”. Music is a part of everyone’s life and everyone in the world listens to different kinds of music they like and discover. We can create a real Music experience world by different music experiences. 

With development in technology and the world getting closer and closer and always connected we can think of a Music experience community. This technology in HCI we have thought will use a handheld device which is a media player with a GPS enabled can allow different users to tag music they like at different places and different environments and moods when they are working, studying, working at the gym, strolling in the park or any place they are travelling. If we combine the music capabilities of our devices with the location awareness we can begin to map the sound track of an area. 

Imagine if you will each time you listen to a song it leaves a musical impression on the location you are at. This can be accomplished by having a music playing software interface on the media player device that when a song is played the player records the Date, Time, Location (latitudes and longitudes), and ID3 tags. This is then sent to a central server database that than monitors all the song listened to and ranks them based on play count for a give song in a given location. This can be possible with a big community of users sharing their music experiences and music from different geographical locations and different environments. People travelling to a different location can learn and enjoy the music playlist of that place which other people have recommended thus sharing a entirely different music culture.

Sixth Sense technology

I wanted to mention this article as I watch and read TED talks sometimes and came across Pranav Mistry’s interesting research on Sixth sense technology. Pranav Mistry did his bachelors from my city Mumbai from IIT Bombay(Mumbai) and right now a PHD student working on Fluid interfaces at MIT Media labs. He thought orf Sixth Sense technology a technology to integrate information with the real world. SixthSense is a wearable gestural device interface that relates physical world around us and digital information and enables natural hand gestures to interact with that information. It is observed that information we deal regularly with is just confined with paper or interfaces on digital screens or buttons. Here this technology bridges this gap and allows one to interact with the natural world via hand gestures and thus shows virtual reality. This technology consists of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The projector projects information and the camera and sensor for hand lets one interact with the information interface and produce results. The current prototype creates just costs $300 to build and I feel this can be a great future device where people wont feel the need to carry digital smart devices to interact with the information and a gesture and sixth sense can do the work. This device can also be used by various NGO’s for people with disability and hearing impaired and dumb who can express and interact with the world using the hand gestures.

The $300 Million Button

This was a interesting article I found which describes how a small change in design of a form can lead to a drastic increase in business for e-commerce companies and a increase in a site’s revenues by $300 million annually. The design in the form consists of a Login email address and password for existing customers and a register button for new customers. This is not a problem for new registering customers but existing customers had to remember different email addresses they entered for registering and this was difficult as they have enter the email address and retrieve passwords by “forgot password” button as they can even have multiple registrations on same site.

The designers fixed the problem simply. They took away the Register button. In its place, they put a Continue button with a simple message: "You do not need to create an account to make purchases on our site. Simply click Continue to proceed to checkout. To make your future purchases even faster, you can create an account during checkout."

I feel this was a good move to make things more simpler in online shopping and thereby increasing sales in shopping. Better layouts and design can simplify things where details are not needed and thereby the customers enjoy fast shopping with the click of a button.

Angrezi (English), the Phoney Way

This is MILLEE (Mobile and Immersive Learning for Literacy in Emerging Economies), a research project that aims to help poor Indian children acquire English as a second language. With India all set to have 500 million cell phone users by 2010 and the UN estimating that half of all residents in remote areas will have mobiles by 2012, the 'anytime, anywhere' learning project will have a guaranteed audience.
A few professors of the Carnegie Mellon University are working on a project to develop mobile games that will help the children and elders in rural areas in India to learn the English language. MILLEE adopts a human-centred approach to designing immersive, enjoyable, language learning games on cell phones, modelled after the traditional village games that rural children find familiar.
The team under Dr Matthew Kam point out that there are economic inequalities between people sending their children to school and hence cannot afford to teach their kids. They research they did for MILLEE proposed challenges designing a game which can suit both and thus created various levels thereby kids who finish faster don’t have to wait for other students.
I feel this project can be widely implemented and promoted to all the rural and underdeveloped countries in the world where English is a foreign language so that children can learn English in a interesting manner and adapt well to technology and Human computer interaction.

Scottsdale Museum of contemporary arts ( SMOCA) Design, Music & Everyday Experience.

This SMCOA is located by North Scottsdale road exhibits an exhibition on material culture of music and basically talks about how different companies and manufacturers have designed innovative products which changed the way music can be listened and created. This exhibition generally talks about the innovative product designs by various music creators and manufacturers. This spectrum of objects forms a complex matrix of use, a kind of ecosystem involving both“ecology” of products (their relational network) and “evolution” (historical development). This exhibition has displayed objects in different areas which show the relationships between design and music culture in terms of history and future innovations. The various objects displayed were 1. The Boom box 2. Personal portable stereo 3. Synthesizer 4. Electric guitar and turntable. This was a experience for music and art connoisseurs and esp. people who can use this objects to create creative and amazing music for people.
If you would like to have more information on this visit the Scottsdale Museum of contemporary arts as its open till 3rd march 2010 or visit their website.

http://www.smoca.org/exhibit.php?id=192
http://www.rewindremixreplay.org/kiosk/about.php