W. Daniel Hillis view of the Knowledge Web (Aristotle)

In Archive by Fredy Ore

Edge.org has published an interesting article on the 2000 prescient paper by W. Daniel Hillis titled, “Aristotle”, in which he proposes “The Knowledge Web”.

The 2000 paper, covers a similar (if not very close) topic that of Tim Berners Lee’s – Sematic Web. It is an interesting read, that brings up interesting concepts on how the Knowledge Web might change education.

…where what is going on is not just a passive document, but an active computation, where people are using the Net to think of new things that they couldn’t think of as individuals, where the Net thinks of new things that the individuals on the Net couldn’t think of.

His paper is also discussed in detail by responses from Marc D. Hauser, Stewart Brand, Jaron Lanier, Roger Schank, George B. Dyson, Freeman Dyson and Kai Krause among others.

Hello England, Hello Spain

In Archive by Fredy Ore

I finally arrived in the UK after a short stop in Narita/Tokyo, Japan. The super long trip from Sydney was finally over after a total of 26 hours. Phew!.

I will be here in the UK and around Europe for a few more months whilst visiting family and friends. If I’m near and you would like to meet, shoot me an email.

I’ll be posting photos of the journey in the reloade Gallery.

AGDA Design Research Journal Special Issue Call For Papers

In Archive by Fredy Ore

The AGDA Design Research Journal has put a Call For Papers on a special issue of the Journal covering Graphic Design & Visual Communication Research.

More information is available from the Journal, which contains information about the submission process and topics of interest.

Submissions should be sent no later than midnight Friday the 5th of November 2004.

AGDA Design Research Journal Special Issue Call For Papers
Topic: Graphic Design / Visual Communication Research
Guest Editor:
Mark Roxburgh
Visual Communication Program
University of Technology Sydney

Background:
Design research and design knowledge have been the topics of hot debate in the international forum for the best part of a decade. These themes have been covered in numerous conferences and journal issues dedicated to exploring them in great depth.

Whilst this interest has been critical in challenging design educators’, theorists’ and practitioners’ perceptions and understandings of design, much of the discourse can be characterised as:

  • often being largely theoretical.
  • dealing with design as a generic activity.
  • largely dealing with design activities other than graphic design /
  • visual communication / communication design.

This is not surprising. In an earlier moment of design history, these topics were hot property in the “Design Methods Movement” of the 60s and 70s, which emerged out of the fields of architectural, engineering and industrial design. These fields still tend to dominate discourse. Given this history, the implications for notions of research and knowledge in graphic design / visual communication have not been adequately articulated, or if they have, it has occurred in such diffuse locations as to appear as if little has been achieved.

The assumption that is often made about design being a generic activity, with little consideration for the media that one is working in, is also problematic. Though different fields of design have commonality, the implications for each in relation to notions of research and knowledge are potentially varied. It is with this in mind that I am calling for articles that deal with these topics, as they relate to graphic design / visual communication, for a special issue of the AGDA Journal of Design Research.

I am interested in receiving articles outlining case studies, as opposed to theoretical propositions, of the development and evaluation of models of research for graphics / visual communication practice. These case studies could be professional applications or applications at an undergraduate / post-graduate level. It is an expectation that in outlining a research approach, through case study, authors will provide a framing theory and rationale as well as a critical reflection upon it, rather than a ‘how to’ account.

Procedure:
The normal conditions and guidelines of the journal apply for this special issue but as guest editor I will oversee the peer reviewing process. Submissions should be sent to me no later than midnight Friday the 5th of November 2004. As the journal is electronic, all articles accepted on recommendation of the peer reviewers will be published.

Journal URL:
For submission guidelines go to
http://www.agda.asn.au/education/designresearchjournal/index.html

For any inquiries and submission of papers:
Mark.Roxburgh@uts.edu.au
Mark Roxburgh
Director of Program
Visual Communication
Faculty of Design Architecture and Building
University of Technology Sydney
PO Box 123
Broadway
NSW 2007
Australia
ph: 61 2 9514 8903

What is the value of a corporate taxonomy

In Archive by Fredy Ore

OVUM have recently published a interesting research content management report titled, The corporate taxonomy: creating a new order by Eric Woods. The report is available online or as a PDF for members only.

This report discusses the importance of taxonomies in information management within a corporate environment and also, some of the areas to recognise as risks, ownership, costs, lifespan, etc. It also covers in further detail, structured and unstructured information management technologies, how to develop a taxonomy, the investment and resources required and of course the bigger picture.

The licensing of code, copy and paste and attribution

In Archive by Fredy Ore

Chris Adamson has written a really interesting blog post at O’Reilly (and at Java.net) about the licensing of code in books and also online web articles.

Eric Meyer has also added an interesting discussion on the topic, titled Code Constraints.

The discussion looks at the extent in which the licensing of code is allowed to be copied and duplicated, and where copy and paste is regarded as a copyright infringement. Do readers and publishers have different viewpoints?

Peter Ottery and the CSS redesign of the SMH

In Archive by Fredy Ore

Last night I had the opportunity of attending the Sydney June meet of the Web Standards Group (WSG), a local chapter of developers and designers pushing for web accessibility. The night included a presentation by Peter Ottery, head of design for F2 on the process involved in converting The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne The Age sites into full CSS transitional from HTML tables.

The night was fun and very interesting and was also great to meet Russ Weakley for the first time, IA friend Chris and some peers and lecturers from IML at UTS.

Overall the talk by Peter was really excellent, he shared his views, obstacles and methods encountered during the process of conversion which was somewhat organic and evolved during a process of 2 years. Education was interestingly one aspect that resulted from the conversion, not necessarily by the developers involved and their technical challenges, but across the board, including Editors, Marketing managers and others for changing to CSS.
The design of the CSS eg. where to put nested DIV’s, etc. was also fundamentally created using these principles of education – “if we put the DIV tag here, the editors will realise their photo is too big”.

One very interesting aspect I found was that the adoption, application and use of CSS is not purely a Technical one. Its whole concept is central to reaching a larger number of users and expanding market share. A sentiment that is shared by other interactive departments within a project including marketing & advertising. It is for these reasons the business added value of such conversion is necessary, and to not necessarily unleash the Nielsen’ness within me, it stems from User centeredness.

The night was attended largely by developers but included, designers, interaction designers and information architects.

Digital Pick and Drop concept

In Archive by Fredy Ore

I’m finally back at the helm of the reloade journal, been away for a few months working on a uni research project.

I came across this interesting article today on the BBC technology website about the development of Pick-and-Drop, which Sony CSL Japan have been working on since 1997.

I found the whole concept quite interesting and also the two related research papers (PDF1, PDF2) by Jun Rekimoto, Director of the Interaction Laboratory at Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc.

OZCHI 2004 at the UOW 22-24 November

In Archive by Fredy Ore

OZCHI is the annual conference for the Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group (CHISIG) of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia.

It is Australia and New Zealand’s leading forum for work in all areas of Human-Computer Interaction. OZCHI attracts an international community of researchers and practitioners with a wide range of interests, including human factors and ergonomics, human-computer interaction, information systems, design, software engineering, artificial intelligence, social sciences and management.

The Conference will be held this year at the University of Wollongong, Australia from the 22-24 November 2004. The conference is now accepting submissions for full papers, short papers, workshop and tutorial submissions, attendance at the doctoral consortium. Details of themes, submission dates & procedures visit the conference website. Thanks to Peter Hyland for the reference.

Vodafone’s think tank magazine – Receiver

In Archive by Fredy Ore

Check out Vodafone’s receiver mag – Vodafone’s cool think tank, on Art, Music, Communication, Interaction and technology.

The archives are separated into various topics:
Receiver1: The Information Society of the Future – May2000
Receiver2: E-Commerce – July 2000
Receiver3: Web and Entertainment – October 2000
Receiver4: WAP and the consequences – May 2001
Receiver5: The deconstructed interface – Feb 2002
Receiver6: The Mobile Self – Oct 2002
Receiver7: Mobile Travelling – Mar 2003
Receiver8: Mobile Environment – Aug 2003
Receiver9: Mobile Art