4/16 Lecture Notes Class 8 Admin
Go over names Sign up sheet Get people to sign up for presenting papers Chapter 3 Mainwaring Writing due Friday Quiz Friday on 3 and Mainwaring Discuss project more on Friday There is no digital Starting from bits vs atoms What if the distinction had been bits vs electrons? Considerably more confusing What is a computer? It is a machine Electrical charge That reads and manipulates electrical charge The electrical charge itself describes how to manipulate the electrical charge People can also manipulate the charge The computer runs processes that humans describe Humans interact with the processes as they are running to change them slightly or radically Some new perspectives to look at tangible computing from Artifacts What is being manipulated? Observability Can the computer see the artifacts? Through what perspective? Can humans see the artifact? Through what perspective? Interpretation How are the artifacts interpreted? Representation Are the artifacts representations of something else? Or do the artifacts represent themselves? Phenomenology Action Who can act on the representation? Computers? Humans? To what degree can they act? Complete action electrons Partial action vibration on phone sound Contrasts Mobile phone not really tangible computing it is "digital computing" that moves Mechanical Clock (a computer) Artifacts Hands of the clock Observability Complete observability by clock and people Interpretation Hands are interpretted as time Representation Is this a representation? Yes, of time Action The computer runs a process decided by humans Human intervene occassionally to reset the process What if a clock wasn't a representation of time, but it was actual time itself? Science Fiction What if a picture wasn't a representation of objects but actually the objects? The enterprise of Tangible Computing Taking a physical object combining it with electrons combine it with new physical properties that can be easily manipulated by electrons displays sound vibration motion? Using the physical object and the electrons to jointly represent something new Using the physical representation to guide the interpretation of the new representation But, the object still largely retains it's original self-representation at the same time. It exists in two parallel worlds, it's original representation and its new representation Tangible interface designer must come up with a way of allowing both of those interpretations to co-exist