Sunday, May 25th, 2008
Geekyoto - Fixing the broken world
Geekyoto
Last week I attended Geekyoto in London (and visited some friends). I just had time to typeout my notes of the day with short blurbs on each presentation and pointers where I can find them. Great event where I learned a lot and took away quite a bit of inspiration.
Video’s of each presentation should become available in the near future and I would recommend watching it.
Christian Nold
Nold did a talk on local experience maps to visualize the impact of the environment on people. One very cool demo where he would map the galvanic skin response people have over locations on isomaps.
Alex Haw - Atmoss
Surveillance as an anti-architectural tool and surveillance as it relates to the body.
They made a map of all the area in a space which was covered by security cams and then got rid of all the rest (because that obviously does not matter). Showed some stuff about work space positions and efficient use of space. Also tackled domesticity and the dilemma between exhibition and privacy. Privacy could just as well be served not by building opaque walls but by putting shields in front of people’s eyes where you control up to what resolution you are visible to whom.
Also showed some work visualizing database cells into physical locations, one for the Deutsche Borse. And another one for a faculty of architecture where activity within the building would be mapped to a lightscape in a central space with fiberoptic lamps (this blogpost has pictures).
Moixa
Efficient re-usable energy. Green energy is not yet mass market. The battle between AC and DC. Pretty much everything you use locally uses a small DC current but we need to generate large amounts of AC to transport over long distances. Not efficient.
Demo of the USBcell battery which is a battery form factor chargable from a powered USB port on any pc. That way you don’t need to mess around with chargers anymore and most people have a charger device handy most of the time.
Adrian Hon and Naomi Alderman
During sabbath Jewish people need to observe some strange rules. They cannot change the state of anything electrical. So to work around this they have timer lights and water reboilers. Sabbath is a time when people come together and they are more focused on
They checked what the environmental impact of the sabbath is and found out that it actually saves energy. You could observe an environmentally friendly sabbath by inviting friends over, no TV, no phones, no computers, just chat and walk.
Gavin Starks - AMEE
What if all the energy data of the world was available? AMEE is a neutral aggregation platform where they collect the energy footprint of everything in the world.
Mentions this blessay by Stephen Fry.
75% of change does not require new technology
25% of change has no cost
Vincenzo diMaria - Saint Martins ID
Showed a design prototype of a trinacria box for sun dried tomatoes from Sicily for some sort of agro-tourism.
Bruno Taylor - Saint Martins ID
Talked about the nature of play in a changing public realm and why there is no play on streets right now and adult supervision most of the time. Are we creating a future of socially inept individuals? The YouTube video with the bus stop swing he mentioned.
There’s a tension between vandalism and playful behaviour. Children come at the bottom of the user hierarchy on the street level while they should be considered first.
Richard Sandford - Futurelab
Picture by Rachel Clarke
How do we make better futures? Challenged us to think about alternative futures and to believe that we can make a difference in it. What we imagine is what gets built. Events are not predestined and an uncertain future may be a good one because we get to change things. Future literacy consists of knowledge, awareness and confidence and it should be embedded at the school level.
He also mentioned the notion of the extended present of about 200 years which stretches out from your grand parents to you and then from you on to your grand children.
Wattson
Picture by Mark Simpkins
Also saw a design demo of the Wattson device and Holmes web interface from DIY Kyoto. (explanation). It was more or less a product pitch but for a very relevant and well designed product.
Edward Scotcher
The image of Africa as tremendously behind is no longer accurate. It is a place where mobile phones, internet cafés and WiFi are all around. Traditional forms of media are not trusted and web2.0’s market for information has a large potential to create transparency.
Personal site is Moamba.net
He mentions White African blog article.
Ushahidi and Sokwanele are two Google Maps initiatives to map actual events and increase awareness in regions in Africa. As time goes on only more people will have access.
Bryony Worthington - Sandbag
Politics broke the system of emissions trading and she wants to fix it. The system has removed the individual’s ability to make a difference. She wants to remove permits from the system, destroy unused ones and lower caps alltogether.
Sandbag.org.uk is an initiative to bring emissions trading into the pubblic domain
James Smith
Can software save the planet? He makes socially responsible software like Carbon Diet and Do the green thing.
Jeremy Gould and Mitch Sava
Government Barcamp crossovers. Break up policy issues into Symptoms, Actions, Objectives, Issues, Outcomes and invite collaboration.
Mentions Polywonk
How do we show support to let politicians make the right decisions with confidence?
Ben Saunders
Final talk by Ben Saunders about arctic expeditions very inspiring with great stories and pictures illustrating some of the most difficult conditions on the planet.
“Nobody else is the authority on your potential.”
Picture by kokeshi
(Thanks Cristiano for your tireless photography.)
