Digit

It’s been with us since the year dot, but the end is in sight for the beloved manila folder. A main stay of the last twenty years of computing, the first and last bastion of computer symbolic physicality, actually had it’s humble beginnings as a real life paper folder. The first time the word “file” was used as a reference for stored data was in 1952 at IBM, it was used to describe data stored on punch cards. We all understand that folders contain files and that if we want to open a file with have to open the folder or folders to get to it.

So, why do I think it’s days are numbered? Well, with the increased usage of mobile and tablet devices, some of which do not have a traditional file browser its usage is decreasing. We seem to only have four distinct categories of things now; pictures, video, music and documents.  Our emails are stored in our email app, our SMSs stored in the messenger app and so on. With the advent of cloud storage then the concept of a physical folder on you hard drive to me already seems antiquated. So behold, the swan song for the manila folder (video by emiliogomariz.net/)

Last night our R&D project ‘I Could Do That’ moved off the streets and in to the gallery space. The first test of this new area was an exhibition organised by the Lava Collective, just down the road at the Rag Factory where work from two artists Stik and Jo Peel were being exhibited. ‘I Could Do That’ were asked to be involved and yesterday we got busy making comment pages and qr code stickers. After sticking codes next to each artwork the visitors arrived and from 6pm-11pm they were given the opportunity to use their phones to read and leave comments for each of the artworks. Check out the results here. This exhibition was for one night only but hopefully we’ll be back on the gallery scene for some more exhibitions in the future. Watch this space for more info. Thanks again to the Rag Factory and LAVA Collective for hosting us. :-)

So we’ve been working on something new in the R&D lab and this time it’s a mobile site. Here at Digit HQ we are situated alongside some very cool (and some pretty terrible) street art, which everyone seems to have an opinion about. We thought it would be great if we could find some way to leave our comments alongside these pieces for other people to read and add to. So instead of graffing up the surrounding walls with our comments we decided to leave QR codes next to each art piece that would link to a mobile site where viewers can have their say and also read what other people thought.

So if you’re hanging round the east end and spot one of our codes, either scan with your phone or enter the url and add your thoughts about the art. If you’re not local check out the desktop site to see what people have said so far and feel free to join in the discussion from there.

For this summer’s world cup we decided to combine some R&D, our love of the beautiful game and a bit of good old gambling.

The result?…the Digit HTML 5 world cup golden boot interactive game (catchy eh?!).

At the start of the tournament each Digitee picked and ranked the 7 players they thought would score the most goals.

Live feeds of each player’s goal tally are then pulled in to a site built in HTML 5 with the results being displayed through the interface shown below.

So who’s winning? Well with 4 games to go it’s a girl!…who’s American! Maybe it’s broken.

Disclaimer: This site requires a browser which supports HTML5.

Last week I took Poly on the train up to Manchester so she could be exhibited as part of the Future Everything festival. Future Everything previously known as Future Sonic is a an award winning festival showcasing art, music and debate around the themes of technology and innovation. After a couple of weeks hiding out in the R+D cupboard building the big Poly it was a great opportunity to exhibit Poly in a different space and to see how people would interact with her. For the festival we collaborated with the Manchester magazine ThingsHappen who were interested in the way the city was perceived by the people that lived there. They supplied us with a number of Manchester themed questions to ask Poly and for Poly to visualise, although many visitors also added their own questions. We also streamed the live video on the Poly site from Manchester so that even people voting online could move the Poly exhibit and watch her move in the space. With around 200 people visiting the exhibition each day and interacting with the artworks, as well as people voting online, Poly was definitely put to the test and stormed through her Manchester themed questions, “Is the Hacienda dead?” – “Yes”. “Should the Oxford Street Odeon be knocked down” – “No”. The results of these questions can now be seen on the ask-poly website in the archive section and I think are still being asked on the live section. It was a great festival and many thanks to the organisers for having us up there and for being so helpful.

I did also manage to check out some of the other artworks and talks at the festival and here’s a quick roundup of some of the great stuff I saw. Firstly an amazing piece of work that won the Future Everything award was the eyewriter project. This is a collaborative project involving amongst others the Open Frameworks team and the Graffiti Research Lab. Basically the project looks at empowering writers and artists with paralysis to still be creative by using a low-cost eye-tracking apparatus and software. This allows them to draw and create using only their eyes. Wow.

Some great kinetic sound sculptures were shown in the basement of the Palace Hotel. Sarah Farmer’s Organised Sound where a power drill powered the mdf and wine glasses xylophone was awesome.

Also loved kimchi and chips – Journey Box. This was an old wooden medicine box that depending on what part of it you opened created a different experience (with light and sound) each time. Amazing model making of a miniature city. Another project the Bicycle Built for 2,000 project was a collaboration between Aaron Koblin and Daniel Massey. Check out the website. Also saw great talks on the future of sound, art and open source projects by Last fm, wow design and tinker London. … ok that’s it for now… phew.