Website

The website is going to showcase or display the content captured by the user. These are going to be in four different formats. video, sound , photos and chunks of video that are going to be continuously recorded.

The attributes the website has to fulfill are.

1) To view

2) To edit

3) To store and archive

4) To edit

these are some screen shots to give you a better idea

so where are we going with this-Big picture thinking

At this point it is important to outline the model that the timesaver is going to be working on.

timesaver software prototype-1

3d model dirty prototyping

Hardware thinking

Now with the first software prototype done. I have begun to both think and worry about the hardware for the timesaver. These are the attributes that it must have.

Least disruptive to ones reality, whilst capturing it.

Sticky camera- the ability to capture things from different angles and perspectives,

Spontaneity- capturing things immediatley by the click of one button only.

timesaver logo

The logo for the timesaver had to be synchronous with the ideology of the  device, to record, remember and reflect. I thought this image of a guy with a camera on his head was perfect symbol for this. 

final interface

Now i had finally found something that i liked and was simple and functional aesthetic and different. Although to find this simplicity i decided to not work with colours. Now with these constraints in place it was even more challenging, to design something only in gray scale withou making it look boring.

Also i had to make sure that this look and feel was expandable and, i could use it to display all the buttons that were required of the timesaver.

These are the final buttons and the main menu screen with them applied.

 

more button iteratons

Recently there has been a trend of glossy buttons that has dominated the fields of web and interface design. i wanted to make my interface look simple, aesthetic, functional and different. So i did some web research on what is already being done. 

However this journey of making an interface that had all the above qualities wasnt simple, it went from iteration to iteration to....

prototyping on a phone

After the information architecture, we had a clear picture of what is required of the application and how this is going to happen. Now it was just the question of doing it.

These are pictures of the protoype being tested on a symbian phone emulator.

buttons

information architecture and navigation

i worked on the workflow of the software. How many screens and modes it would have. My aim was to make something that allowed the user easy access and an ability to record things spontaneously.

Found

Many phone calls, meetings and emails later, i found a company that was developing applications on symbian phones, and had been doing it for a while. They seemed trustworthy and earnest about the project, and therefore i decided to make my first prototype with them.

I met sandeep -business development, alok- owner of thinkways and arahanth- ceo thinkways. Who all seemed happy to collaborate with me, in exchange i would redesign their website for them. They were also close to yelahanka so i could afford to be there everyday and simaltaneously work on the front end of the software while they did the backend.

Finding a collaborator

As i am quite a novice when it comes to writing software i had to do a lot of research and certain amount of immersion in this field to find people who i would like to work with.

These were some of my initial attempts to find a collaborator.



1) S.P road or city market in bangalore is the electronic consumerables hub in the city. There are a few people who work with cellphones- installing new apps, making tweaks and repairing them . I found one such person called ali who could help me pull out the cellphone camera to make it something wearable. Ali owns his own cell repair shop called cell world in sp road.




2) CITL- Chip integrated technologies limited is a company in Vijaynagar Bangalore, that is a outsourcing company that works with embedded technologies, However this attempt of mine failed miserably, as it turned out that this company did not have any experience in developing for cellphones. After a one and a half weeks of chasing them around i gave up hope.




3) Monster.com - My one and a half weeks spent at CITL were however not a complete waste. I had learnt about different mobile operating systems and which one was appropriate for the time saver. Therefore with these things in place i ran specific searches for each on monster. com. I sent out some 50 emails, and ended up on the brighter better side of the bridge. Thinkways technologies private limited

timesaver idea presentation

timesaver idea presentation from siddharth jayswal on Vimeo.

a music video i created using my footage from prototype2

prototype2

.My aim was to test what it would look like if i captured my life from my perspective. I used this beanie created with a pocket to hold a camera to record my life periodically for 7 days

prototype 1

My aim was to create a low-tech  wearable means to capture a scene or an object simaltaneously from many vantage points. This product use pliable rods and a rotating action to help the user set the frame.

design brief

OVERARCHING INTENT

 

To create an opportunity for users to revisit their daily lives, through continuous candid video recording, enabling them to view, save and reflect on past moments that they find value in

 

How many times do you wish you had a camera on standby to capture certain moments? How many times have you felt that you are inside a moment that is fleeting and un-capturable?  

 

Time is continuous it does not stop for anybody. Human beings are animals that are living in or with this dimension of time. Everyday things happen, some of them special some, not so special. What demarcates these special moments from the rest of the day is dependant on the user experiencing these moments. Below I am going to try to talk about different moments by differentiating them according to the value that the user attaches to them.

 

INFORMATION VALUE

 

Lets say you are attending a conference or a lecture. The lecturer is talking about a certain topic of interest to you. You are really intrigued by the speech and spend rest of your time listening attentively to what is being said. A few days later you have a conversation with someone and you bring up what the lecturer was talking about, however you cant seem to remember all the points that he spoke about. It would be of value to have recorded that talk so that you can revisit it.

 

EMOTIONAL/PERSONAL VALUE.

 

You are sitting at a table across the person you love. It’s a beautiful evening and you both are having interesting conversation. Since you have been planning this evening for a long time and it a surprise for her, you are glad that she is so happy. You are thinking that you can’t stop thinking how beautiful she looks as the candlelight reflects in her eyes. It’s a feeling when you feel happy and overwhelmed at the same time, and wish you could hold on this forever.

 

RANDOM/AESTHETIC VALUE:

 

You are standing at a tea shop by the side of the road. It has been a taxing day and since you are quite tired taking the metro back home alone, you sit down, and are looking around aimlessly. You see people engrossed in conversation, waiters taking orders from new customers, the cashier yelling at somebody who accidently spilt tea while taking it out. Then suddenly you r eye goes to this spider suspended from nowhere trying to make his way to the ceiling. This is trivial yet so beautiful in the middle of all this chaos.

 

There are a zillion moments in our lives that we experience that are more special to us than the rest of the ordinary day. If only there was a way of capturing what you see and experience everyday, you would be able to save and share you thoughts.

 

THE NEED?

 

Photographic technology has given man the ability to capture his reality. With the invention of the phone camera

 

There are currently 296,080,000 cellular phones in India ₁ . People make videos and photos everyday. This technology enables them to choose what part of their realities they want to capture through a process of doing. By doing I mean the actual act of taking the photograph.

 

This time that a photographic is taken at, has been spoken about by French photographer Henri Cartier Bresson, who talks about the concept of the decisive moment. He talks about how an ideal photograph just happens and you need to be behind a camera to capture it.

 

Through a process of continuous capturing you will be able to capture those precious moments that we miss on a daily basis. This artifact creates an opportunity to capture through watching rather than doing.

 

This works rather well with our generation of watchers. 

 

This artifact also in some sense addresses the notion of time travel or revisiting past moments. This is an idea that has been of great interest for sci-fi writers, filmmaker’s and science in general.

 

 

_{1  NATIONMASTER, 2008.}

 

 

IN CONTEXT TO ART, DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT.

 

LIFECASTING OR LIFELOGGING

 

Video recording of a persons private space is not a new concept, it was first done by Steve Mann who is professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, in the early 1980`s. Starting in 1994 he transmitted his everyday life 24/7 to people via his website wearcam.org.

 

This process of transmitting your personal life has been given many names now. It is called life casting, lifelogging, lifeblogging or glogging. There are many other movements that started after this like We Live In Public, JenniCam and collegeboyslive.tv.

 

Another project in the area of personal surveillance done at Microsoft research was Gordon Bells –MyLifeBits (2004).

 

Since personal surveillance is relates back to the concept of surveillance in general. There are terms that have originated since then they are

 

Sousveillance – recording of an activity by a person involved in the activity

 

Equiveillance- A state of balance between surveillance and sousveillance.

 

WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY

 

Wearable technology dates back to the invention of the pocket watch or spectacles. It extends from the watch to wearable computers and wireless webcams used for life casting. There is a lot of work being done in the field of techno textiles to integrate technology with fabric.

 

 

FORGET-ME-NOT

Intimate computing in support of human memory by Mik Lamming & Mike Flynn

 

The forget me not is a device that assists users track their belongings and important documents by keeping a record of their actions; archived by date.

 

 

MY BELIEFS

 

My education as an artist and designer has taught me to be aware/ beware of myself. To know strengths and weaknesses, my biases and beliefs. To unlearn to learn, by self-reflection and awareness.

 

Using the technology around us I wanted to create an artifact that is fun and creates personal value for the user by creating an opportunity to revisit his life. To watch, save, share, learn and change.  

 

 

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

 

PRIVACY/ VOYUERISM.

 

PERSONAL VALUE.

 

SELF-ACTUALISATION.

 

PSYCHOLOGY OF PHOTOGRAPHY.

 

 

APPROACH & PROCESS

 

Address research questions

 

Ideation

 

Creating architecture for the software.

 

Hardware tweaks for the phone camera.

 

Interface design.

 

Implementation - Working in collaboration with software engineers to create a prototype.

 

Testing.

Sousveillance

Sousveillance as well as inverse surveillance are terms coined by Steve Mann to describe the recording of an activity from the perspective of a participant in the activity, typically by way of small portable or wearable recording devices that often stream continuous live video to the Internet.

Life casting

Lifecasting is a continual broadcast of events in a person's life through digital media. Typically, lifecasting is transmitted through the medium of the Internet and can involve wearable technology. ^[1] Lifecasting reverses the concept of surveillance, giving rise to sousveillance through portability, personal experience capture, daily routines and interactive communication with viewers.

Maslow

By continuous recording the product creates an opportunity for the user to view his/her daily life as he leads it. This act of watching and listening to yourself and the interactions that you have with people will lead to some amount of self reflection.

this product therefore in function falls in the self actualization category on maslows pyramid.

Technoculture

We live in a time where we have technology in abundance. Cellphones, televisions, remote controls, the radio, metro railways, buttons, switches are things that we have to interact with on a daily basis. Being born now, creates an oppurtunity for me to use this exisiting technnology to create a product or an artifact that creates some personal value.

Technoculture - Bruce Sterling, Shaping things

surveillance cameras

CCTVs or closed circuit televisions are being used widely to monitor public spaces. There is a big debate on how much this technology is inundating our lives and our privacy. Currently the function of this product extends only to the public realm or space.

What if we extracted it from its original function and used it in a private or personal space.