Creative Technology portfolio

Since November I’ve been the owner of an HTC Desire Z. I decided I wanted to add a bit of uniqueness to my phone, so I generated a maze with the maze generation algorithm we had to make for Programming with Structures and burned it in the battery cover of my phone. This is the result:

For the course Ambient Screens, every student had to do some research on a technique we could use for our final project. Of course we had to present our findings to the rest of the group. I decided to tell something about developing Android apps.

Since smartphones are getting the norm, Android is one of the most popular mobile operating systems and – most important reason – I own an Android phone, I decided to focus on Android apps. I made a short presentation about what software you need and a short introduction in the development environment. Slides after the break.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Since it’s vacation, I had the time to improve my website a little. I changed the domain name to herjan.me and I updated my portfolio. I added the fridge magnets and our smart parking system. I still have to add my Graphic Design assignments and a report about our telemedicine visualization though… Maybe later ;)

Today I visited Game in the City in Amersfoort, together with my fellow CreaTer Siewart. It was nice to see so much game designers, developers and business people together. There were inspiring talks about marketing with games, serious gaming and keynotes from different people from the gaming industry.

We also got the chance to play a bit with Microsoft’s new Kinect, which was really promising! Now we are convinced that Creative Technology needs at least one of those devices to use in our different projects. The performance in low-light conditions was much better than I expected. Using the Kinect hacked to a PC, we can absolutely make nice motion tracking and 3D capturing applications.

I also met someone from Teach32, a company that develops interactive solutions for class use. They connect several input devices (tablet, mouse, keyboard) to the teacher’s PC, which enables the pupils to give individual input with feedback using a smartboard (or just a regular beamer). It also allows the teacher to adapt the teaching material to the needs of individuals. Now that the infrastructure is there, all they need is content. I see some nice possibilities! To be continued…

The GOGBOT festival will be held from the 9th till the 12th of September in Enschede. Creative Technology will be present with the results of the Have fun and play! project in the Grote Kerk.

Our installation is a virtual canvas that reflects the visitors’ actions in space, to create awareness about reflections of their digital shadow in virtual space. In relation to the singularity theme, the installation acts as a deus ex machina to counteract the predicted technical singularity by inviting people to create playful drawings and objects. The way these drawings are constructed reflects the occurrence of digital shadows in real life and how technology follows us everywhere. With this installation, the Creative Technology students offer an alternative to the cultural pessimism induced by the fear of the coming human machine civilization.

More information about the GOGBOT festival can be found on the website.