CHI '09 Urban Pixels: Painting the City with light

Ben

Nick

Patrick S

In this paper the guys were trying to make a new form of urban art that was interactive. The display they came up with is called Urban Pixels and it is basically a bunch of balls with white lights inside that can be placed on any surface and that can also communicate to each other and have a wireless network so they can be accessed from a laptop. You can also interact with the pixels by using a flashlight and shining it on them to turn each on individually or use a mobile phone to send a signal to them.

Overall i thought this paper was pretty interesting and it seems like the idea is cool. Since they are dealing with just low resolution arrays of these pixels you cant really make any patterns that are very detailed and that is kind of a downer.

Uist 07: Multi user interaction using handheld projectors

Ben

Devin

drew

This paper was about some guys who made a handheld projector system. The system works with these staple gun like projectors that you hold in your hand and the interface that is used is explored in a flashlight-like manner. Meaning you have to search for the things you want to find by moving the projector around, this is shown clearly in the video. The main thing they wanted to do was try and make file sharing and things like that easy to do, but I really only see this being used for entertainment purposes, mainly amusement parks. Although it did look kind of useful in office meetings, i just don't think i would want to have a projector shining in my eyes while giving a presentation. They also integrated things into it like privacy settings and a feature where the projector will shut off if it is pointed at someone, but that someone has to be holding a projector themselves.