» Telepresence inspirations

Imaginaires, technology & filiation

maxmollon — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 12:54:24 +0000

I collect every adverts or documents I find, related to a sense of historical filiation in technology evolution or, in other words: Traces of “imaginaires” of innovation.
For instance I collect youtube videos, like this one, on my my Youtube channel, in this specific playlist .

Here are a selection of them:

The “past-future” of iPhone?

maxmollon — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 14:20:33 +0000

From:
• Nicolas Nova http://betaknowledge.tumblr.com/
• http://windowshighasfuck.tumblr.com/

Why do I blog this?
Except the fact it is funny, I find this old desktop metaphor in a way reassuring, as it reminds of well-known interactions (the ones considered as simple/natural), the first ones we’ve learned, while this is no skeuomorphism, it is symbolic/iconic/pictographic. And I wonder, would it reassure older generations?

Wrist watch state of the art

maxmollon — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 12:54:14 +0000

Thanks to SamsungMobileUSA on Youtube, here is a quick review of the historical filiation of wrist watch telephonic devices: Samsung Galaxy Gear: A Long Time Coming

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3qeJKax2CU

TeleSound – The Sound Messenger

maxmollon — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 12:44:40 +0000

TeleSound is a cute speaker containing over 1,000 sounds that you and your friends can trigger from a smartphone or tablet over the Internet. Coming on Kickstarter on Thursday 28 Feb., don’t go further than your fridge!
telesound.me

Family portrait

maxmollon — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 08:46:19 +0000

When Skype collaborates with artists:
Skype 2013 VS a project from John Clang 2012

• http://skypestaytogether.com/denis/
• http://www.johnclang.com/artwork/beingtogether.html

Skype

John Clang

A collection of telepresence robots

maxmollon — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 21:37:02 +0000

This collection of artifacts will help me to begin my “State Of The Art” of telepresence artifacts. I received it from my friend and former colleague at Bell Labs: Fabrice Poussière, thank you!
Memo: I will also have to make a SOTA of fictional/diegetic/futuristic prototypes in that field.

Exhibition: L’adresse, Museum of La Poste

maxmollon — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 13:35:12 +0000

I didn’t know the existence of pneumatic networks of communication in Paris in the 60’s. I’ve always been fascinated by these devices in Brazil (1985), they look exactly like it! As shown in this video http://youtu.be/lfjLpa-n4d0?t=1h45m5s

I also found this information in Montagné’s book: Transmissions (2008) – see this post.
Text taken from the museum: “Le pneumatique apparaît à Paris en 1866, il est constitué d’un ensemble de tuyaux parcourus par des cylindres appelés curseurs et acheminés par déplacement d’air. Le réseau, placé dans les égouts, relie les bureaux télégraphiques. Il atteint une longueur de 400km en 1957. Les curseurs voyagent jusqu’à 600 mètres/minutes et peuvent contenir 35 lettres. Le pneumatique cesse de fonctionner en 1984.”

I found this last week, I went to L’Adresse Musée de La Poste. – http://www.laposte.fr/adressemusee – “L’Adresse Musée de La Poste is a place of preservation and diffusion of the mail heritage centred on Writing, History and Culture. From Seven League Boots to the Aeoropostale’s heroes, by way of the panorama of 160 years of the French postage stamps, the Museum collections tell us a story, not only about a company but also about everyday life. Openned since 1946” Here is a couple of pictures I made over there.

• Montagné, J. C. (2008). Transmissions. Jean-Claude Montagné.

Below, the feeling of missing someone is directly linked to the act of writing letters – in this advert.

The rest of my pictures in this gallery

Figures from Montagné’s book: Transmissions (2008)

maxmollon — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 13:34:47 +0000

Back cover text in french: “J.-C. B. Montagné, a rassemblé dans l’ouvrage la presque totalité des procédés permettant aux hommes de toutes époques de communiquer entre eux à distance par la transmission de signaux. Son passé d’ingénieur radio-électronicien et son penchant pour un bon usage du Français lui furent utiles pour transcrire en langue courante à la portée de chacun les informations éparses dans les nombreux documents techniques consultés. Les références de ces documents rassemblés dans la bibliographie ouvrent le passage pour une recherche plus approfondie à ceux qui le voudront. Ouvrage de référence rapide, résumé, ce livre est sans doute les deux à la fois. L’expérience de la première édition en a apporté la preuve.”

Auto Smiley, writes smiley when you really smile

maxmollon — Fri, 30 Aug 2013 18:40:00 +0000

Auto Smiley – Computer vision smiley generator from Theo Watson on Vimeo.

“Auto Smiley is a computer vision application that runs in the background while you work. The software analyzes your face while you are working and if it detects a smile it sends the the ascii smiley face letters “: )” as keyboard presses to the front most application. Auto Smiley has many uses from just straight up convenience to enforcing honesty in your online communication :)”

It has been a while (years) that I want to re-use this brilliant idea from Theo Watson in an experiment—that I could finally do, now that I started my PhD. More soon (hopefully)!

To be find on Theo Watson’s website F.A.T:
• Windows PC Version!! Courtesy of Joey!
• Non US/UK users version – should work on all keyboards!
• The mac app here ( for US / UK / NL keyboards )
• Mac app for QWERTZ keyboards
• The project uses openFrameworks and MPT for the smile detection – you can grab the source code

Skype eye contact finally made possible

maxmollon — Fri, 30 Aug 2013 09:57:19 +0000

Skype eye contact made possible thanks to 3D face rotation by C. Kuster, T. Popa, J.C. Bazin, C. Gotsman & M. Gross from ETH Zurich.
Innovative software rotates the face of the person on screen during video conferences in order to make eye contact. (Photo: Computer Graphics Laboratory / ETH Zurich)

“Those separated from family and friends by long distances often use video conferencing services such as Skype in order to see each other when talking. But who hasn’t experienced the frustration of your counterpart not making direct eye contact during the conversation? A software prototype from the Computer Graphics Laboratory ETH Zurich may be able to help.”

Text by Angelika Jacobs from ETH Life Blog

I don’t know why but this “computer vision” software makes me think of the AutoSmile project by Theo Watson from F.A.T.

More on the project (+source code):
• Skype eye contact finally possible
• http://graphics.ethz.ch/publications/papers/paperKus12.php
• Paper: Kuster C, Popa T, Bazin JC, Gotsman C, Gross M: Gaze Correction for Home Video Conferencing. Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH Asia (Singapore, November 28 – December 1, 2012), ACM Transactions on Graphics, 31 (6), 174:1-174:6