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Gotham Guide is the first self guided tour of New York using QR code technology.

Introducing Gotham Guide

Gotham Homepage

This semester, I’ve spent a lot of time working with QR codes. Specifically, I’m interested in how QR codes can be used to facilitate a multimedia, location based experience.

QR codes are two-dimensional barcodes that look like this:

Gotham Guide QR Code

You can access them with your web-enabled mobile phone in three easy steps:

1. Download QR Code reading software to your mobile phone.

2. When you see a Gotham Guide QR code, snap a picture of it.

3. Enjoy multimedia content about your current location. Here’s a demo.

With Gotham Guide, I’ve tried to create a self-guided tour of Manhattan using QR codes and a mix of curated and social content. My friend Luke Miller from Real New York Tours, which is the number 1 thing to do in New York according to Trip Advisor, provided much of the video content.

You can view a demo of Gotham Guide during the ITP 2009 Spring Show.

Posted in 1' 2' 10', Mobile Media, Projects and tagged ,

Notes about the QR code reader that Aram and I are building for the Mobile Media final project.

Mobile Media Final Project – QR Code Reader – Update 1

Aram Chang and I are going to build the QR code reader in Mobile Processing that I referenced in this post. To build it, we decided to first build out a screen-by-screen wireframe illustration of what the final program might look like:

This will help us stay on track and also be useful as we collaborate, since we won’t always be working on the same part of the program at the same time. I expect that this version will change several times before we finish, but I’m glad we have it created.

Once we built out the wireframe of what we wanted the program to look like, we broke down each screen and went and tried to think about them in pseudo-code. We’ve still got a lot of choices to make about the color, logo and other branding choices, but this is a sample of what the pseduo-code looks like:

Posted in Mobile Media and tagged ,

Here are a few different concepts I might explore for my Mobile Media final project...

Mobile Media – Final Project Ideas

Here are a few different concepts I might explore for my Mobile Media final project:

1. QR Code Reader/Writer: To compliment the Manhattan QR Code tour I’m creating for 1’2’10′, I’d like to create a QR code reader using Mobile Processing. This branded reader would be used to decode QR codes and also have functionality to remember previously scan codes, share codes with others and view URLs using the mobile web.

2. Mobile Magic 8 Ball: I know that some of these already exist, but I wanted to create one with my own humor. It might be fun to build a MySQL database and when someone texts in a question, it responds using the first two words of the question as indicators for what type of question it is and then responds accordingly.

3. Mobile Social Game for ITP: Last year’s Social Genius was a tremendous success. If you were to combine that game with something along the lines of Foursquare, it could be pretty compelling. Imagine having different badges for different ITP community accomplishments, like “soldered first wires,” “completed Applications presentation,” etc.

4. Sustaina-texts: For me, one of the frustrating parts of trying to act in a sustainable manner is that I rarely get feedback on how my actions affect the environment. What would be great is if I could view some statistics on my mobile phone usage compiled with a bit of humor: “134 texts sent this week. By using your phone instead of paper, you saved 12 trees!” or something like that.

5. Representat-text: I would like to be able to send a text message with my area code to a certain number and receive a bunch of information about my district, including the contact information for my representatives and any additional local news scraped from their site.

Posted in Mobile Media and tagged ,

Our assignment for Mobile Media was to create an alarm clock using Mobile Processing, Android or Flashlite. Since I've spent the most time thus far deep inside Mobile Processing, that's the app I decided to use for this project. My idea was to create a personalized alarm clock for Shawn Van Every.

Mobile Alarm Clock

Our assignment for Mobile Media was to create an alarm clock using Mobile Processing, Android or Flashlite. Since I’ve spent the most time thus far deep inside Mobile Processing, that’s the app I decided to use for this project.

My idea was to create a personalized alarm clock for Shawn Van Every. He said in class that we should create an alarm clock “for him,” which he meant as one that he would use but which I interpreted as personalized. Ha!

The first screen featured a motivational picture with his image:

After that, it was pretty simple. I used the code snippet that Shawn provided and added a couple of extra screens. When you use the Mobile Processing emulator, you’re limited in what you can do. This can be frustrating at times, and I found it to be especially so when I was trying to create this app. Initially what I wanted to do was use the above image for the front page, then have another page that showed the time and allowed you to set the alarm.

Then on the final page you would set the alarm and wait for it to go off. When it went off, it would play a motivational song and get increasingly louder until it reached the time that you wanted to wake up, when it would be full pitch. But Mobile Processing has many limitations, and one of the big ones is the size and type of sound files. After several hours playing with this, I ended up just having the color change to red for prototyping purposes:

So obviously it wasn’t ideal, but I did learn a lot about how Mobile Processing works and I got to play around with a few different sound libraries.

Posted in Mobile Media and tagged ,

My Mobile Media midterm: Using QR codes to strengthen the ITP community bu interviewing students on my iPhone and uploading them to a Twitter account and blog. At the same time, QR codes were placed next to their pictures in the lobby so that students can listen to the interviews on their mobile phones.

QR Code Presenation

My Mobile Media midterm: Using QR codes to strengthen the ITP community bu interviewing students on my iPhone and uploading them to a Twitter account and blog. At the same time, QR codes were placed next to their pictures in the lobby so that students can listen to the interviews on their mobile phones:

QR Code Presentation Mobile Media

Posted in Mobile Media and tagged , ,

Send Me Your iPhone Screenshots

Did you know that you can take a screenshot with your iPhone? It’s pretty easy. All you have to do is hold down the top button and the front button at the same time for a few seconds, and it will snap an image and place it in your photo album. Please take one and send it to me for my Mobile Media class. I’ll show you how:

Please help me with a project I’m working on by taking a screenshot of the icons on your phone and sending them to me at: aaron.itp@gmail dot com

I will collect them for a week and post them to a page where you can see how we organize and prioritize the applications on our phones.

Here’s the step by step instructions:

1. Hold down the front button of your phone and just tap the top button (don’t hold it down).

2. Your screenshot will appear in your Photos under ‘Camera Roll’

3: Use the button in the bottom left corner (as you see above) to email the image:

Finally, send the image to me at: aaron.itp(at)gmail(dot)com and in the subject, put your first name:

And that’s it! If all goes well, you should receive a thank you note automatically.

NOTE: Right now, only Gmail and Yahoo accounts will work.

You can view all of the entries here, but I’m still tweaking it so please be gentle with your comments.

Thanks for your help!

Posted in Mobile Media and tagged

For my Mobile (Me)dia class, I am testing a PHP script I modified to collect mobile phone images of "for sale" or "for rent" signs via MMS. If you see one, please send it to me at: aaron.itp[at]gmail[dot]com Walking around New York, I've seen a staggering number of stores close or go out of business recently. Of course it's a symptom of the economy, but I thought it might be interesting to collect examples of different types of signs that real estate companies are using to try and attract new tenants. Most of the signs are pretty generic, at least here in New York.

Send me mobile pix of "for sale" or "for rent" signs

For my Mobile (Me)dia class, I am testing a PHP script I modified to collect mobile phone images of “for sale” or “for rent” signs via MMS. If you see one, please send it to me at: aaron.itp[at]gmail[dot]com

Walking around New York, I’ve seen a staggering number of stores close or go out of business recently. Of course it’s a symptom of the economy, but I thought it might be interesting to collect examples of different types of signs that real estate companies are using to try and attract new tenants. Most of the signs are pretty generic, at least here in New York.

The second part of this request is that I would like to test the PHP script that I modified. This is my first attempt at coding in PHP, so it will be fun to see if it works. What should happen is that once you email a picture from your mobile phone (it will not allow other domains to send images through to prevent spam), you will receive a note thanking you for your participation.

If it works and you’d like to leave feedback, please do so in the comments!

NOTE: This particular project ends on Thursday, February 5. I will shut the script down at that time.

Photo credit: thetruthabout

Posted in Mobile Media and tagged ,

Part of this week's assignment was to read a chapter from The Mobile Revolution by Dan Steinbock. Luckily, Google is in the process of scanning every book known to man so that we can read everything online. Unfortunately, this particular book was only a preview and thus, incomplete. Here are some of the key takeways for me...

The Device Formerly Known as the Cellphone

the mobile revolutionPart of this week’s assignment was to read a chapter from The Mobile Revolution by Dan Steinbock. Luckily, Google is in the process of scanning every book known to man so that we can read everything online. Unfortunately, this particular book was only a preview and thus, incomplete. Here are some of the key takeways for me:

  • The mobile phone very early on became a key form of self expression, not only in terms of the device’s color but its features as well.
  • By 2005, there were really three main styles of phones: block phones (candybar), flip phones and folder phones (clamshell). I was never a fan of the flip phones, which had a weird piece of plastic covering the keypad that would flip down and become the mouthpiece. They were kind of ugly.
  • There were a lot of great comparisons between the athletic shoe industry (Nike) and the mobile industry (Motorola). This is probably because the CMO from Nike moved to Moto and was a central figure in this chapter. Either way, interesting to see how both companies were able to differentiate themselves in a crowded market by appealing to demographics with features that celebrated their individuality.
  • In the early 1990s, the challenge was about color, not features. In the mid-90s, it was about size.
  • There were four groups within most mobile phone customers fell: low-end (new users, prepaid phones), mid-range (mature users, replacement phones), high-end (wealthy professionals, early adopters) and smart phones.
  • Microsoft struggled in the 90s with its Smart Phone development, and really lost to Symbian, which was a conglomerate of other handset manufactuers.
  • Adding camera functionality sent everyone into a tailspin. Camera manufacturers were priced out of the lower end of the market, and had to strike partnerships to thrive in the new economy.
  • Finally, I had no idea that Motorola has been around as long as it has. There’s a great history on page 188 worth reading. Apparently in the 1930s, Motorola founder Paul Galvin believed that wireless technology would play a huge role in World War II and the board almost threw him out. I’m actually surprised that they’ve been around for over 75 years.
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Posted in Mobile Media and tagged , , ,