After a short sighted week, the idea of autonomous cars interested me. In an article titled Preparing a Nation for Autonomous Cars, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856415000804, Autonomous vehicles are able to provide independence to those who are unable to drive, such as the elderly and young children. They also can lessen the amount of vehicles on the road due to increased usage of… Read more →
Week 4 Looking Towards The Future
This week’s inspiration came from the Internet of Things. As an environmental navigational aid, I looked to streetlights, thinking that they might help navigation for pedestrians. One usage case might be joggers or cyclists, giving them additional eye-level bulbs that light up in succession like an airport runway guiding a jetplane, and also functioning as distance markers to motivate them.… Read more →
Week 3 Finding How People Get Lost
This week consisted mostly of research into how people navigate. One consideration was to change the layout of an MRT station. Inspirations for this week included this fascinating TED talk that changed the function of a public space with just paint. It gave me an idea of painting public transport nodes with different lines to guide commuters. In an… Read more →
Week 1-2 The First Pitch
My initial pitch was to help users navigate using environmental cues, much like how a lighthouse guides a ship. Read more →
Future World Reflection
The most memorable installation for me was Black Waves. Going against the norm of trying to impress, it was instead used to calm visitors down after witnessing the exciting Crows Transcending Space. From a technical perspective, it was also interesting trying to figure out how the waves looked realistic yet styled to remind one of Hokusai’s Great Wave. My group… Read more →
My 2 favorite iLight installations
The installation I remembered most was Groove Light by a group of NUS students. It was geometric sculpture that changes the shadows made when you move the lightbulb up and down. The theme that year was “In Praise of Shadows”, so it was quite an apt installation. It would’ve been nice if it was bigger such that the shadow became… Read more →
Response to You Are What You Carry
The issues addressed in this chapter were the most relatable to me. Money transfers to one’s bank account are silent affairs, requiring one to login and notice the outstanding amount change a few digits. And if not for One Time Passwords verifying your purchase, one wouldn’t realize that the money has already been wired to a vendor’s account. Money today… Read more →
Comment for The Anthropology of Mobile Phones
After watching the TED Talk, one of the things that came to mind was the call by the local Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong for Singapore to progress towards being cashless. After watching the demonstration of Sente’s micro banking system, some barriers of entry for this implementation can be seen. The system in Uganda worked due to a lack of… Read more →
Week 2 Reading Reflection
After reading the chapter, I find the way he gathers insight of something intangible as culture very interesting. Just sitting in a corner and observing people moving or chatting with locals can reveal so much. Applying the examples to Singapore would be to notice small objects or umbrellas on food court tables to reserve a seat, or having… Read more →
