by Russell Shaw
February 12, 2008 at 9:26 am · Filed under Games, Messaging, Mobile messaging 2.0, mobile social networking
That’s Trail Messenger, is a virtual dot-dropper that lets people expressive perform and discover messages by walking around and ‘connecting the dots.’
“Interaction designer” Junu Joseph Yang sends along a video of Trail Messenger, based on a ‘Mobile Plassages’ (Playful Mobile Messages) social game experience and platform he designed for a senior college project.
The concept uses turn-based messaging combined with simple sensors to create a social game experience. Junu feels it blurs the boundaries between play and communication which, as Junu tells us he thinks, has much to do with the success of SMS, and the future of mobile messaging.
Junu feels this “playful messaging enabled by cal part of why SMS has been so successful. I would love to have a chance to talk to someone about the project; and how ‘playful messaging’ will really be the future of mobile messaging.
You can find an example of the project here.
by Imran Ali
January 29, 2008 at 10:18 am · Filed under Crowdsensing, Games, Mobile messaging 2.0
Back in October 2006, I started to track stories and developments in an emerging field I termed Crowdsensing; the use of mobile devices and networks to create adhoc sensor networks for applications such as weather forecasting, air quality and road traffic services.
Indeed, developments such as the Participatory Urbanism project and Intel’s Ergo underline how mobile sensor networks are manifesting themselves in useful, real world services.
Philippe Kahn’s Fullpower Technologies promises to equip handsets with multiple sensors that may enable a groundswell of crowdsensing innovation. Though, Kahn’s namechecks sensors such as accelerometers and cameras, it’s unclear whether Fullpower is working with handset manufacturers, networks, looking at developing software stacks, UI innovations or creating reference hardware designs.
However, Fullpower’s site does allude to an ‘inference engine’ capable of ingesting motion, imaging, proximity, light, pressure and GPS data alongside very specific medical data such as heart rate and blood glucose; implying some intriguing mobile medical applications.
Curiously, the company is hiring a games development team, so perhaps the first Fullpower deployment will perhaps be some form of an alternative reality game…
Nevertheless, this is an area and a company that may have some profound implications for the nature of messaging and hence an emerging technology worth tracking.
