Idea Lab

The Travails of Taking a CPU Tower from Zimbabwe to France

by Amanda Atwood
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

Brenda and I went to Paris recently for a development launch and brainstorming meeting for Freedom Fone. In addition to picking the brains of a small handful of experts in the field, we thought it would be a good opportunity to have some of our equipment assessed. So in my bag I packed my own laptop, and digital audio recorder, a Voice Blue 4-SIM card GSM Gateway, and a full sized CPU tower, as well as the various power cables and USB connectors for this equipment. The tower didn't fit in the elegant, cabin sized roller bag we'd hoped it...

• September 15, 2008
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Tell Me You Hear the Writing on the Wall?

by Paul Lamb
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Microsoft's Tell Me subsidiary announced the launch of a new audio service for the BlackBerry which allows the user to conduct local business search, get directions or traffic information, etc. using voice commands. Apparently, by uttering a singe word like "coffee" your GPS enabled Blackberry will do an automatic search (in this case via Microsoft Live Search) and provide you with the nearest cafe links, directions, phone numbers, etc. That's a cool feature to have, especially as our "smart" phones get smaller and their screens way too damn small to read. Of course voice activated software has been around for...

• April 24, 2008
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Baghdad...By the San Francisco Bay?

by Paul Lamb
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Imagine your city as a war zone...like Baghdad. This project called Shadows from another place, by Professor Paula Levine at San Francisco State University, involved the transposing an interactive map of Baghdad on San Francisco using GPS mapping - complete with a warzone audio track. How does this impact our understanding of and feelings about the Iraq war...or any war? This is an early example of locative media projects that will eventually move such computer based experiences into your own neighborhood and direct reality. Imagine, for example, the ability to point your cell phone at your post office in your...

• October 15, 2007
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