Monthly Archives: February 2015

Drone Programmer

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One notable hybrid interface device, with both physical and digital aspects, is the Drone Programmer. It is used to encode key tasks or functions into the drone. Note that it is seen only briefly—so we’re going off very little information. It facilitates a crucial low-level reprogramming of Drone 172.

This device is a handheld item, grasped on the left, approximately 3 times as wide as it is tall. Several physical buttons are present, but are unused in the film: aside from grasping, all interaction is done through use of a small touchscreen with enough sensitivity to capture fingertip taps on very small elements.

Jack uses the Programmer while the drone is disabled. When he pulls the cord out of the drone, the drone restarts and immediately begins to try and move/understand its surroundings.

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When Drone 172 is released from the Programmer cable, it is in a docile and inert state…

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The Drone

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Each drone is a semi-autonomous flying robot armed with large cannons, heavy armor, and a wide array of sensor systems. When in flight mode, the weapon arms retract. The arms extend when the drone senses a threat.

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Each drone is identical in make and temperament, distinguishable only by large white numbers on its “face”. The armored shell is about a meter in diameter (just smaller than Jack). Internal power is supplied by a small battery-like device that contains enough energy to start a nuclear explosion inside of a sky-scraper-sized hydrogen distiller. It is not obvious whether the weapons are energy or projectile-based.

The HUD

The Drone Interface is a HUD that shows the drone’s vision and secondary information about its decision making process. The HUD appears on all video from the Drone’s primary camera. Labels appear in legible human English.

Video feeds from the drone can be in one of several modes that vary according to what kind of searching the drone is doing. We never see the drone use more than one mode at once. These modes include visual spectrum, thermal imaging, and a special ‘tracking’ mode used to follow Jack’s bio signature.

Occasionally, we also see the Drone’s primary objective on the HUD. These include an overlay on the main view that says “TERMINATE” or “CLEAR”.

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Scifiinterfaces.com presents the 20th anniversary of Ghost in the Shell at the New Parkway

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UPDATE (21 MAR): Owing to some licensing complications, the event can not be held publicly. But we’re nerds. That doesn’t need to stop us.

Let’s celebrate the 20th anniversary of this awesome, hand-drawn anime title that features some amazingly foresightful wearable tech. The show will be at the New Parkway cinema in Oakland, California on Thursday March 26th at 7PM. As usual there will be an awesome preshow with an analysis of one of the interfaces, a mobile-phone trivia contest to win GitS t-shirts, a possible 30-finger race (if we get enough people and I can make the apparatus), and your ticket includes you in a raffle for one of the year-long Creative Cloud subscriptions (a $600 value) provided from my in-kind sponsor Adobe. Join Major Motoko Kusanagi in her mind expanding search for the Puppet Master, and please spread the word to your friends and mid-1990s anime fans!

Contact!

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Jack lands in a ruined stadium to do some repairs on a fallen drone. After he’s done, the drone takes a while to reboot, so while he waits, Jack’s mind drifts to the stadium and the memories he has of it.

Present information as it might be shared

Vika was in comms with Jack when she notices the alarm signal from the desktop interface. Her screen displays an all-caps red overlay reading ALERT, and a diamond overlaying the unidentified object careening toward him. She yells, “Contact! Left contact!” at Jack.

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As Jack hears Vika’s warning, he turns to look drawing his pistol reflexively as he crouches. While the weapon is loading he notices that the cause of the warning was just a small, not-so-hostile dog. Continue reading →

Entrevista Maximiliano Pena

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Hi there. Tell us a bit about yourself. What’s your name, where are you from, how do you spend your time?

Hi! I´m Maximiliano Pena and right now I live in La Plata, Argentina. I graduated in Multimedia Design not so long ago, and I usually spent my time doing some freelance work as a web designer. Besides that I like to practice drawing, learning new stuff—currently I’m teaching myself Portuguese—and I like to work on some DIY electronic projects now and then too.

I’ve always thought that I ended up into interaction design thanks to my flying lessons, it always surprised me how the controls on the plane somehow were always available, always at reach but never getting in the way of the task you were doing.

What are some of your favorite sci-fi interfaces (Other than in Oblivion)? (And, of course, why?)

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5 Sci-fi U.S. Presidents not using interfaces (and 1 that is)

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It was my intention to simply show you some images of fictional United States Presidents using interfaces in science fiction movies for Presidents’ Day. But alas. They don’t.

I’m not going to claim this is exhaustive, but I looked at five Presidents:

  1. President Merkin Muffley from Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
  2. President Beck from Deep Impact (1998)
  3. President James Dale from Mars Attacks! (1996)
  4. President Thomas J. Whitmore from Independence Day (1996)
  5. President McKenna from X2 (2003)

Over these movies, Presidents can be seen reading displays and teleprompters,…

President Beck explains meteors to the public.
President Beck explains dire asteroids to the public.
President X prepares to read some bad news for mutants.
President McKenna prepares to read some dire news for mutants.

…speaking into public address systems,…

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Bike interfaces

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There is one display on the bike to discuss, some audio features, and a whole lot of things missing.

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The bike display is a small screen near the front of the handlebars that displays a limited set of information to Jack as he’s riding.  It is seen used as a radar system.  The display is circular, with main content in the middle, a turquoise sweep, and a turquoise ring just inside the bezel. We never see Jack touch the screen, but we do see him work a small, unlabeled knob at the bottom left of the bike’s plates.  It is not obvious what this knob does, but Jack does fiddle with it. Continue reading →

Jack’s Bike

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Jack’s Bike is a compact, moto-cross-like motorcycle. It’s stored folded up in a rear cargo area of the Bubbleship when not in use. To get it ready to ride Jack:

  1. Unlocks the cargo pod from a button on his wrist
  2. Pulls it out of the Bubbleship
  3. Unfolds its components (which lock automatically into place)
  4. Rides off.

When Jack mounts the bike it automatically powers on and is ready to ride.

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A Deadly Pattern

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The Drones’ primary task is to patrol the surface for threats, then eliminate those threats. The drones are always on guard, responding swiftly and violently against anything they do perceive as a threat.

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During his day-to-day maintenance, Jack often encounters active drones. Initially, the drones always regard him as a threat, and offer him a brief window of time speak his name and tech number (for example, “Jack, Tech 49”) to authenticate. The drone then compares this speech against some database, shown on their HUD as a zoomed-in image of Jack’s mouth and a vocal frequency.

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Occasionally, we see that Jack’s identification doesn’t immediately work. In those cases, he’s given a second chance by the drone to confirm his identity. Continue reading →

Introducing Heath Rezabek

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MLIS—Librarian and Futurist.

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Hi there. Tell us a bit about yourself. What’s your name, where are you from, how do you spend your time?

I’m Heath Rezabek. I live in Austin, Texas, and have been an enthusiast of user interface design for many years. By career and calling I’m a librarian, and am a library services and technology grant manager by day. I have long been interested in how information is portrayed, symbolized, and accessed. I’m also writer of experimental speculative fiction, and have an interest in how the future is seen by creators and audiences. Interfaces play a key role in my fiction series, as well, from holographic to virtual world driven to all-out surrealist.

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What are some of your favorite sci-fi interfaces (Other than in Oblivion)? (And, of course, why.)

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