More Thesis Ideas....

The Living Plaque

- A system that uses QR / Tag codes to give patrons information about the various heritage sites around the city of Toronto. The reason why QR codes are being used rather than physical plaques is that the QR codes add an additional layer of interactivity. Users will be able to share and document their images, experiences and ideas about specific heritage sites, through sites like Flickr and possibly a blog of some kind.

Interactive Advertisement

- From a blog previously posted. Before the internet, advertisements have always been a one-sided medium. Now, however they are very interactive pieces of design; allowing users to share their ideas and thoughts about it. Not entirely sure what to explore with this one yet....

Life Based Gaming

- Since we were very young, we have been playing games with one another like tag and hide-and-go-seek. Now with mobile devices we are able to play games through GPS and location services. What would the future hold for the practice of playing games? When people play games they always strive to achieve a specific task or goal. Is there a way we can apply playing games to our everyday lives? Would it help us actually work harder and better if it's more fun and enjoyable?

Ahhhh!!

Sorry for having posts all over the place.

I usually write them all down on paper first, then post them on here when I have time. I've gotten crazy busy (plus I have 4 of these things to post to), so I fell behind! :( I will post proposal ideas soon...

Interactive Narrative

For my 'Game Studies' class, I am looking into the game genre of the interactive narrative. What these games usually encompass is that they are titles whose storyline changes shape or form depending on the player's actual actions while in the game, and through their interactions with characters and NPCs. I've been reading the book "Pause and Effect: The art of the Interactive Narrative" (by Mark Meadows) and it has been a really interesting project so far. The evolution of this particular genre (and the 'AI' as well) has advanced so quickly it boggles my mind. Moving from chatterbot programs like ELIZA (which was made in the 1960s) to games like Facade, Mass Effect and Heavy Rain, even the visuals have moved leaps and bounds giving us very realistic characters to interact with. It makes me wonder what the future holds for this type of genre...

Folding@Home

Folding@Home is a downloadable online application for the Playstation 3 (and PC - but I'll be focusing on the console version) that was created by Stanford University in 2007.

The program studies the changing shapes (ie. folding) proteins make for different functions ( ex. one can become an antibody to fight disease, but another can fold and become hair, or skin). If proteins don't fold correctly, the result can be any number of diseases, such as, Alzheimer's, Mad Cow, Parkinson's disease, and cancers.

What makes the application so interesting, is its technological innovations. While using the program online, the Playstation begins to work in sync with the hundreds of thousands of other systems around the globe that are running the program at the same time, giving an incredible amount of computing power to simulate the folds in proteins. Stanford states that thanks to this increase in processes, previous studies that would have taken years to even simulate can now be completed from within a few weeks to a couple of months.

The console version is also a social activity as well, allowing you to join teams of others online, and having a scoreboard to see the top contributors. The program also contains a map allowing you to see all of the other systems that are folding, an news program to catch up on headlines, and local / international weather.

The program is free to download, and can be a source for news and weather reports. It is available for Playstation 3 owners, as well as computer users. Users can contribute to these studies and eradicate diseases just by leaving their systems or computers idle ( using a computer just to listen to iTunes, why not help towards a cause?). Innovative in that instead of a University or Lab spending an incredible amount of money on a new supercomputer or technology - why not use the processing power that is already widely available?

Folding@Home