To-Genkyo, a Japanese design studio, offers a new way to mark the freshness of produce. Based on the amount of ammonia in a product the label will darken in color until the barcode is no longer readable. This is an interesting interaction for produce, where we often look for the longest shelf life as we go shopping. How does this relate to interactions though? Can applications have shelf lives? Can the barcode on the Creative Suite darken until unreadable letting us know the next version is around the corner? Or do interactions themselves have shelf lives?

As interaction design has developed as a profession we have seen various platforms and tools wax and wane; Flash was used as a key tool for many system that are now being developed with the newest html and css scripts. Is it valuable or even possible to determine time stamps on interaction models? When will the accordion fall by the wayside to something else? Or when will the save icon be represented by something other than a floppy disc? Produce isn’t timeless, and this is for health reasons. However many systems (especially business systems) are implemented for significant periods of time and are not updated as often as might be expected. What could visual expirations of software and interaction models provide to designers, customers, and businesses as a whole?

_{Images: The Dieline}

By now we have seen a number of different ambient futures for the web here on Johnny, which almost all include some form of augmenting the physical world. Recently Pattie Maes of the MIT medialab presented Sixthsense, a wearable interface that augments the environment and uses gesture based input. A big difference with the things that we’ve seen here so far, is that this one actually works…

Sixthsense is the work of Pranav Mistry. I could give it try to explain to you how it actually works, but I’m sure Pattie Maes does a far better job than me so I’ll just leave you with the video.

Sixthsense is one of the first things (and one of the most impressive things as well) I’ve come across, which puts the data from the internet to good use in such an intuitive way. Off course the device itself, in its current form, is not something you’ll find on the shelfs any time soon. But it is one step closer to a future in which we are able to use any data, anywhere, in any way, and without having the feeling that we’re interacting with a computer.

I can’t wait till technology like this becomes available to a broader audience and gets accepted by society. When more people get access to a certain technology, the more interesting things tend to happen with it.

At petitinvention Mac Funamizu is working on his vision for the future. He created a mobile augmented reality screen. Through this screen you can see everything around you, covered in a layer of digital information. Funamizu envisions all sorts of applications, ranging from practical to funny.

One of the features is the ability to scan the buildings around you for practical information. Imagine that you are looking for a new house… you fill in what you are looking for and start scanning your surroundings. On your screen you see the buildings with indicators of the available spaces. Another application is shoppingmode. Through this you can scan every object around you and see where you can buy it, the price and (if applicable) available colors.

Besides the fact that this concept isn’t technically possible yet, it is great to see that somebody is thinking about it in his spare time. So: keep it up. We love these ideas.

Every day we look in the mirror, observing our own reflection. Alpay Kasal came up with the idea to bring interactivity to this moment, enabling us to use the mirror as a digital playground.

Interactive Mirror from Alpay Kasal on Vimeo.

First of all… an interactive mirror has been created before. Companies such as Philips have been experimenting for ages with ambient technologies as these. The main difference is the fact that not a part of the mirror is interactive, but the total mirror. This makes it interesting technology, but…

On the other hand the video only shows some useless games. Of course I understand that it’s only prototype, but even then it should show how this will make my day-to-day life different. E.g. what if we connect it to our social life? Remember the mirrors in fairy tales? They always lead to a fantastic world full of magic, or I can communicate with witches. What if we could do this for real? Wouldn’t it be great to step in front of the mirror and see it change in a window to a friend’s room? Or maybe I don’t have explicit influence over the connection. Maybe when I’m drawing or writing on the mirror it registers what I’m doing and connects it with people who have the same style or words… at that moment the mirror slowly fades to the room of that person, like magic. I’d love it.

The Interactive Mirror was conceptualized by Alpay Kasal of Lit Studios and Sam Ewen of Interference Inc.

Every once in a while a “visionary” video drifts into the cloud called Internet. This time the video is called ‘The Ambient Life’ and was created for Freeband, a Dutch researchprogram in which a.o. Philips and Delft University participate. The video tries to show a glimpse of the future they want to see, a future where you are ‘surrounded by “intelligent” electronic equipment that can provide almost all of your information and communication needs on demand: an ambient intelligent environment.’

The Ambient Life from Buro Knapzak on Vimeo.

What I notice in this movie is an ambient life doesn’t necessarily mean that people are interacting more with systems, but the other way around. Systems are interacting with me, my body and surroundings. At the same time the systems are interacting with each other, exchaning data… and from that point they can start interacting with other people. So in a way this means that my everyday (inter)actions will cause a ripple of interactions around me, mostly invisible for me. Will this result in a new kind of serendipity? Because my environment is being pushed in a direction because of my actions… changing every ‘regular’ flow. Or am I seeing things that aren’t there?