Jun 21, 2015

Simulated Environment for Theatre

The Simulated Environment for Theatre (SET) is a 3D environment for reading, exploring, and directing plays. Designed and developed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers, SET uses the Unity game engine to allow users to both author and playback digital theatrical productions.



Simulated Environment for Theatre

Mar 1, 2015

Why Copyrighted Coffee May Cripple the Internet of Things

Limiting the interoperability of the Internet of Things could also restrict systems far less trivial than coffee or kitchen appliances; it might have the greatest impact on infrastructure, in important questions that get decided far from the eyes of everyday consumers. As Kominers points out, hospitals are starting to benefit from interconnected sensors, which are finding their way into everything from medication dispensers to doctors’ pens to even (though monitoring devices) the patients themselves. One might hope that hospitals would ensure interoperability within their own internal systems. But without open standards, one hospital’s “Intranet of Things” might not be able to talk to another hospital’s network, causing much usable data to be lost.

Source: WIRED

Feb 19, 2015

When the Art Is Watching You

One morning last week, a team of experts at New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum searched for hidden spots in the rotunda to conceal tiny electronic transmitters. The devices will enable the museum to send messages about artworks to visitors via their smartphones while at the same time collect details about the comings and goings of those guests.

At today’s museums, all eyes aren’t just on the art. They’re on the visitors.

Across the country, museums are mining increasingly detailed layers of information about their guests, employing some of the same strategies that companies like Macy’s, Netflix and Wal-Mart have used in recent years to boost sales by tracking customer behavior. Museums are using the visitor data to inform decisions on everything from exhibit design to donor outreach to gift-shop marketing strategies.

WSJ