The MAYAsign (side note: MAYA is always capitalized as it is an acronym for Most Advanced Yet Acceptable) is an experiment in pervasive computing. It not only represents their brand and mission (the aforementioned acronym) but also their connection to the community. For over 18 years they’ve been on the Southside, slowly growing and prospering as the world has gotten more and more complex. Their extended community of thinkers (MAYA and their offspring) now numbers over 150 strong on the Southside. But many people don’t even realize they’re in Pittsburgh, let alone a long standing member of the community. For MAYA, it seemed like time to change that misperception and have a little fun along the way. Many MAYA employees remembered fondly growing up with the Gulf Tower beaming down a colored light based on the weather, visible from just about any neighborhood in Pittsburgh. They thought they’d take this simple idea of “ambient” information that you can understand at a glance and take it one step further. Could they make our sign a window into any number of bits of information gathered from sensors or off of the web?
Well, they’re just starting the experiment but they’ve already got a few things working and more to come in the coming weeks and months ahead.
So how does it work?
The background of the sign (only visible at night because they’d like to conserve energy) is actually comprised of a low resolution grid of 3 color LEDs that are addressable via a built in web server. Each letter is also backlit with addressable LEDs, and the whole sign has a wireless hotspot and Web page to control the action.
Currently its only visible to our the MAYA community of designers as they run it through its paces (they want to create a set of possible features that will be inspire people about pervasive computing but that will also be appropriate for the neighborhood… i.e. no blinking vegas style over the top stuff). Soon it will be visible to one and all if you’re standing anywhere near the corner of Carson and 27th streets (or really anywhere that you have access to the Web but its more fun if you can see what you’re doing).
So what can it do so far?
MAYA designers can send it pictures via e-mail with commands in the body of the e-mail like “crop,” and “scroll left slowly” and within a few seconds the background will display the picture. This is a fun way to use a camera phone to set patterns and colors (they wandered through Urban Outfitters the other day and snapped abstract patterns and posted them to the sign instantly for example). This is a nice way to demonstrate what the world will be like in the future if we have anything to say about it. Currently setting colors in physical environments “I’d like to change my walls to red today…” isn’t even possible unless you’re hobbyist but they think you will be able to in the future. It would be a pretty sad world if you had to use some sort of complicated program to access this sort of power. Instead they look for clever ways to use technology to let you do things that seem like magic. In this example, just point and shoot your camera phone and think of it as a paint brush and the world as your palette.
Of course MAYA has a bunch of computer scientists around there so they can also send e-mails that are more geeky like “RGB 0 0 0″ which would turn the background all black, or “RGB 255 0 0″ which would turn it all red (RGB stands for the standard Red Green Blue pixels used to define pictures on a computer screen). Aside from colors, patterns and imagery.
They’ve also been experimenting with visualizations, many of which will be selectable from a drop down menu from the Web site by anyone with a smart phone or laptop.
Sample visualizations will include:
- Weather: a 24 hour look into the future gathered from an RSS feed from local weather websites (is snow coming? is the pollen count high?, etc.)
- Power Usage: they’ve been playing with ways to show how much energy is being used in their office, their building, their block, and their town at any given moment (they may need some help with this one so its under their wishlist right now)
- Activity at MAYA: have they had a bunch of people in the offices today, do they expect a bunch tomorrow?, how much bandwidth are they using?, how many linear feet of whiteboard ink have they made today coming up with new ideas for their customers?, etc.)
- Sound: There is always something going on at the Southside Works in the evenings and on the weekends. In August American Eagle is having a music festival, their sign will show a graphic representation of the music to go along with the performances.
They’re also writing some multi-user games to play on the sign. Imagine if you and a bunch of friends could use your iphones as an aggregated set of “paddles” in a distributed game of pong that requires teamwork and coordination to play.
How do I try it out?
By the end of August the public version of the MAYAsign Web site and hotspot will be visible. Stop by some evening and take it for a spin. If you’ve got ideas for fun things to visualize drop they a line, they’d love to hear suggestions.
This just MAYA’s first visible foray into thinking about what happens when the world shifts from information being “in” computers to us being “in” the information.
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