New Paper: An Internet of Old Things as an Augmented Memory System

Tweet

Spinger have published, in Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, a paper by Ralph Barthel, Kerstin Leder Mackley, Andrew Hudson-Smith, Angelina Karpovich, Martin de Jode and Chris Speed based around our TOTeM/Internet of Things work. Entitled, An Internet of Old Things as an Augmented Memory System, the full abstract and download link are below:


Abstract


The interdisciplinary Tales of Things and electronic Memory (TOTeM) project investigates new contexts for augmenting things with stories in the emerging culture of the Internet of Things (IoT). Tales of Things is a tagging system which, based on two-dimensional barcodes (also called Quick Response or QR codes) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, enables the capturing and sharing of object stories and the physical linking to objects via read and writable tags.

Within the context of our study, it has functioned as a technology probe which we employed with the aim to stimulate discussion and identify desire lines that point to novel design opportunities for the engagement with personal and social memories linked to everyday objects. In this paper, we discuss results from fieldwork with different community groups in the course of which seemingly any object could form the basis of a meaningful story and act as entry point into rich inherent ‘networks of meaning’. Such networks of meaning are often solely accessible for the owner of an object and are at risk of getting lost as time goes by. 


We discuss the different discourses that are inherent in these object stories and provide avenues for making these memories and meaning networks accessible and shareable. This paper critically reflects on Tales of Things as an example of an augmented memory system and discusses possible wider implications for the design of related systems.


http://www.springerlink.com/content/v8405w81p2j35451/

Introducing QRator - iPad and Web Based Living Labels for Museums

Tweet

QRator is a collaborative project between the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities (UCLDH), UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), and UCL Museums and Collections, to develop new kinds of content, co-curated by the public, museum curators, and academic researchers, to enhance museum interpretation, community engagement and establish new connections to museum exhibit content.

The interactive system is designed to be non intrusive while enabling members of the pubic to simply type in their thoughts and interpretation of museum objects and click ‘send’. Their interpretation become part of the objects history and ultimately the display itself via the interactive label system to allow the display of comments and information directly next to the artefacts.

The project is powered by Tales of Things technology which has developed a method for cataloguing physical objects online and capture memories and stories via the Internet of Things. QRator takes the technology a step further bringing the opportunity to move the discussion of objects direct to the museum label and onto a digital collaborative interpretation label, users’ mobile phones, and online allowing the creation of a sustainable, world-leading model for two-way public interaction in museum spaces.


At its heart QRator is an iPad/iPhone and web based system that allows everyone to be a curator and share their views on an exhibition. Visitors can examine an object before leaving their thoughts via an iPad to create a digital, ‘living’ label that subsequent visitors can read and respond to.

By downloading a free application to an iPhone or android phone, visitors are able to see rolling updates to the digital label after they leave the museum, or via twitter. Participants are also able to take part in the conversation online via the QRator site with comments appearing live within the museum.

Content currently covers two museums at UCL; The Grant Museum of Zoology and The Petrie Museum of Egyptology. he Grant Museum of Zoology is one of the oldest natural history collections in England, dating back to 1827. The collection comprises over 68,000 skeletal, taxidermy and wet specimens, covering the whole of the animal kingdom. Many of the species are now endangered or extinct including the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine, the quagga and the dodo. The Grant Museum is the only remaining university zoology museum in London.

The Museum will offer a continual programme of ‘Current Questions’ for visitors to engage in. UCL is taking the opportunity to rethink what a university museum can be; a place not simply for a passive experience but for conversation – a cultural laboratory for the meeting of minds. Positioning the Museum as a place of experimentation, dialogue and debate.

You can join the conversation by visiting either the Petrie or Grant Museum or by simply heading over to http://www.qrator.org all comments appear live on the iPad screens in the Museum and on Tales of Things.

Sneak Peak: QRCodes and iPads in The Grant Museum

Tweet

Here at University College London, the Grant Museum of Zoology, which contains some of the rarest extinct animal specimens in the world, is to re-open on 15 March, 2011 after an eight-month renovation and moving period. Over the past few months we have been working here in CASA with the nice people over at the Centre for Digital Humanities and UCL Museums to build interactive signage for the exhibits.

Based around the 'Tales of Things' technology, each artefact has a QRCode and Twitter Hash Tag allowing digital conversations to be carried out both inside and outside of the museum space. In typical 'sneak peak' photo mode, below is a look at one of the iPad mounts:

We are not sure why all first look photos are blurred, but such is the case. The project, known as 'QRator' is placing 10 iPads around the museum to explore new models for public engagement and informal learning in museums using handheld mobile devices and new interactive digital labels. The aim is to enable the public to collaborate and discuss museum concepts and object interpretation with museum curators, and academic researchers.

Wired UK has a good article on the Museum with a mention of QRCodes, for a more in depth view of such matters head over to Digital Nerdosaurus.

We will have much more on QRator over coming weeks....

Tales of Things: Social Objects in the New York Times

Tweet

Its been a busy time, thus the slight reduction in posts - its all good though, we are launching a new survey system with the Mayor of London next week, a tweet-o-meter exhibit in the British Library and our other current project Tales of Things has reached the New York Times, twice...

Rob Walkers article is a good introduction to the potential of tagging and in particular memory. This article has launched many other blogs and tweets that tell our story along with Itizen and Stickbits. Try this: http://twitter.com/#search?q=social%20objects

and these links…

NYTimes1 , NYTimes2 , Read/Write/Web , Inventorspot

The Back Story

By Rob Walker

Ask anybody about the most meaningful object he owns, and you’re sure to get a story — this old trunk belonged to Grandpa, we bought that tacky coffee mug on our honeymoon, and so on. The relationship between the possessions we value and the narratives behind them is unmistakable. Current technologies of connection, and enterprises that take advantage of them, surface this idea in new ways — but they also suggest the many different kinds of stories, information and data that objects can, or will, tell us.

A project called Totem, financed by a grant from the Research Councils U.K., concentrates on the narratives of thing-owners. The basic concept is that users can write up (or record) the story of, say, a chess trophy or a silver bracelet and upload it to TalesofThings.com. Slap on a sticker with a newfangled bar code, and anybody with a properly equipped smartphone can scan the object and learn that the trophy was won in a 2007 tournament in Paris and that the bracelet was a gift purchased in Lisbon.

In May, Totem researchers worked with an Oxfam thrift store in Manchester, recording stories by stuff-donors, for a spinoff project called RememberMe. Shoppers could hear short back stories for about 60 pieces of secondhand merchandise. The used goods with stories were swiftly snapped up, says Chris Speed, who teaches at the Edinburgh College of Art and is the principal researcher at Totem: “You pick up these banal objects, and if it has a story, as soon as you hear it, it becomes something far richer.”

You can follow all updates via the TOTeM Blog