--- Hydraulikos ---

The Water Labs
Interdisciplinary like MIT Media Lab, but for water.
"Labs" rather than just "Lab" (distributed+inclusive).
Goal: to create the world's water epicentre:
  • Natural User-Interfaces and
    Human-Environment Interaction;
  • Water+nature;
  • Water is universal, tangible, touchable;
  • Nexus of science+innovation, research+teaching+outreach,
    arts+culture + music, fun+frolic;
  • Let's draw inspiration from lateral thinkers like Leonardo daVinci (wet blankets later)

Steve Mann, 2011 November 22
Why are we here?

Opportunities if we can generate a strong sense of "we"

As a symbolic expression:
  • Architouch: every drop of water in the lake is everyone...
  • Touch and be touched by water...
  • A note on notes (hydraulophone pipes)...
  • sound...
Personal Introduction...

Wearable Computing...

Cyborg, shoes, shirt... we're all "cyborgs"...

Nicholas Negroponte, Director of MIT Media Lab:

Neckworn camera with fisheye lens and sensors:

Mann 1998, Microsoft 2004, but possible with cameraphone then
Gesture recognition, autogesture, augmediated reality
glogger.mobi

MindMesh

Mind-controlled illumination... EEG to DMX512 lighting... leading to interactive art installation... Ottawa, Toronto, Niagara Falls

Art Installation at Vancouver Olympics 2010

link

Seeing aid for the blind:


To appear, ACM Multimedia 2011, Mann, Huang, Janzen, Lo, Rampersad, Chen, Doha

Implantable camera system


Canadian Patent 2313693,
IMPLANTABLE CAMERA SYSTEM,
SYSTEME DE CAMERA IMPLANTABLE

Implantable camera system


Broader intellectual landscape

link

--- Visions for a ---
Centre for
Cyborg-Environment Interaction



Natural User-Interfaces and
Human-Environment Interaction


Cyborg Environment Interaction (CEI)





We're all cyborgs in some sense... shoes, clothing...
We thus interact indirectly with nature
We're expected, and even required, to be cyborgs
Nature Deficit Disorder...

Natural environments and intelligent environments


"Environment" and "Nature" in the wide sense
(Philips "Lumimotion" and Illumination Concepts "Intellistreets")

Cyborg Environment Interaction (CEI)





Nature in the wide-sense...
Environment in the wide-sense

Cyborg Environment Interaction (CEI)




Design for CEI

Natural User Interface (NUI)

(image: Wikimedia Commons)
Intelligent Image Processing, Mann 2001
Natural User Interfaces
Metaphor-free computing
Reality User Interfaces

Natural elements: Earth, Water, Air...


Water, in particular, is an exemplary natural element.
Intimate, pure, primal

Dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) is important to us


We even have words for it when it exists in each of its states-of-matter:
Other chemicals like carbon dioxide (CO2), don't have a single word for each of their 3 states.
Takehome: H2O and water are NOT the same thing!
H2O is a proper superset of water!

Hydraulophone

Hydraulophones at Splash2011


Hydraulophone


Ryan Janzen and Dr. Eugene Draw, Beaches Jazz Festival...

Hydraulophone

Hydraulophones as civic centerpieces



Design and public art

Hydraulophones as civic centerpieces


Public art and science outreach...

WOIP (Water Over Internet Protocol)

Splash page: Put on your surf shorts to "surf the web"
Truly Natural User Interfaces

WOIP (Water Over Internet Protocol)

Multimedia beyond acoustic vibrations in water:
To touch and be touched by water.
ARCHITouch:
Try to stop me if you will
I'll keep on spraying, spraying still.
I am water, still as glass,
so block me, block me, still I pass.
--S. Mann, 2011
First Mover Advantage

Interim Hydraulikos (Water Lab)

Hydraulikos collaborators:

Take-home message and Action Items: