These are the books I'm reading (not in any order):

Malcolm Gladwell, Blink
Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point
Adam Greenfield, Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing
Clifford Nass and Scott Brave, Wired for Speech: How Voice Activates and Advances the Human-Computer Relationship
James L. Adams, Conceptual Blockbusting
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
Marshall McLuhan and Lewis H. Lapham, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By
Ellen Lupton, Design Writing Research
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Naomi Klein, No Logo
Tom Standage, Victorian Internet
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Jane Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations
Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
Peter Shankman, Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work--And Why Your Company Needs Them
Marjane Satrapi, Embroideries

and listening to an audio book by David Sedaris (he's really sarcastic).

Many of you asked for my research in wearables and soft materials...

Some Links:

Material Connexion, www.materialconnexion.com
Material Research Society, www.mrs.org
NY Times on Chalayan, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/style/tmagazine/04talk.waldemeyer.t.html?ex=1176523200&en=b47c75afe9152ac2&ei=5070
Swift Textile Metalizing LLC, tel. 860 243 1122
Sauquoit Industries, tel. 800 858 5552, http://www.sauquoit.com/
Shieldex, tel. 315 597 6687, http://www.shieldextrading.com/
Lumitex, fiber optic textiles that are woven, www.lumitex.com
Electric Plaid, ifmachines.com)
Emfit, Plastic film that converts motion into electricity, www.emfit.com
Flexinol, with shape memory material, www.dynaalloy.com
Integrated Circuit, metal yarns and woven circuits, www.ris.averydennison.com Sensitive Carpet, multilayer conductive fabric, www.lab-leas.fr
Softswitch, flexible fabrics, www.softswitck.co.uk
Blowprint, relief printing, www.imprimerie-laville.com

Other materials to explore: Tyvek (the stuff the FEDEX envelopes are made of), conductive velcro, metal snaps, magnets, reed switches, conductive fabric, conductive ink (looks like nail polish), different folds, conductive film

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PROJECTS

Blushing Dress – Phillips
http://www.design.philips.com/about/design/section-13599/article-14931.html
http://www.design.philips.com/about/design/section-13983/index.html

Ames laboratory research on metamaterial and magnesium-diboride wire segments

Electronic paper or E-paper, I saw this at Wired Nextfest. On the sleeve of a military uniform is a screen made out of this paper. To navigate between interfaces, you press soft switches, which are located in the sleeve of the uniform. Conductive ink is printed on paper.

Conductive Film, produced by General Electric

Suzanne Tick, Inc.

Kennedy & Violich Architecture
Sheila Kennedy and Frano Violich

DDCLAB (acronym for design, development and concepts)
Robert Crivello and Savania Davies-Keiller

http://www.stylefuture.com/index.php

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NYU PROJECTS on Wearables [All of these prototypes work]:

1) Andrew Schneider – Solar Cell Bikini

2) Terence Arjo -
YoTaxi! Video - http://itp.nyu.edu/~tra225/wearables/yoVideo_1.5.mov
[By waving your arm vigorously via persistence of vision, you can hail a taxi visually]

Personal Space Suit - http://taswearables.blogspot.com/ [coat that has porcupine-like quills embedded]

3) Carolina Pino – http://www.carolinapino.net/jacketjacketson.htm This is a wearable for kids, a kind of musical instrument jacket. When a child presses buttons on the jacket, it plays the sound of an animal or music]

4) Doria Fan - http://itp.nyu.edu/~df785/wearables/bracelet3.html
http://itp.nyu.edu/~df785/wearables/ [I really liked the RFID medical alert bracelets and the inflatables breasts dress [low-tech]

5) Jenny Chowdhury – intimate controllers
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennylc/sets/72157594549073284
[http://www.jennylc.com/intimate_controllers/blog/] –The user plays pong with intimate wearables.

6) Grace Kim's The Soft Electric --http://www.iamgracie.com/thesis/

7) Joshua Dickens – http://flickr.com/photos/schwa23/sets/72057594108725619/ - Glowscarf – a scarf that lets you know when your cellphone rings

8) Britta Riley - Rapid prototyping fabric sculpture usin MAYA

9) Fiona Carswell, Nanna Halinen, Kate Hartman, Kati London, Megan MacMurray, and Alice Tseng-Planas
http://www.fionacarswell.com/QQuilt.html

10) Joo Youn Paek, Zoonori, origami musical instruments using Tyvek

11) My own experimentations with soft circuits using conductive thread and conductive fabric (bluetooth bracelet with phototransmitter), [1], [2]

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Other Links:

http://www.talk2myshirt.com/blog/archives/category/technologies/display/

Signal Propagation and Multiplexing Challenges in Electronic Textiles
http://www.mrs.org/s_mrs/sec_subscribe.aspCID=2553&DID=117683&action=detail

http://www.thefeaturearchives.com/100939.html

http://www.xslabs.net/

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Books
Transmaterial
Material World 2
Folding Architecture: Spatial, Structural And Organization Diagrams
Supersurfaces
Design Life Now: National Design Triennial 2006 (catalog), Suzanne Tick
Spoon, Issey Miyake, A-POC, process of fabrication
Skin
Paper Fashions (from More Paperwork) – paper as textiles
Rei Kawakubo, Kyote Costume Institute (exhibition), Japanese stencil paper
Rachel Sleight, The Sun, News Group Newspapers, beautiful dress made out of recycled paper, and skirt for Fabriano Spa, Hussein Chalayan – dress made of Tyvek, look like air mail stationary, Kei Ito – vest made of handmade linen paper, and dress made of Tyvek, performance costume

Others:
Hella Jongerius
Droog

Urban Center Books, The Municipal Art Society of New York

I found this design bookstore that covers just about every design book or magazine, even if you're searching for something so obscure. This reminds me of Hennessy and Ingalls (design/architecture/art/photography bookstore in Los Angeles, located at one of the cross streets of Third Street Promenade). I stumbled upon this bookstore, while I visited the Jane Jacobs exhibition (457 Madison Avenue at 51st Street). Clay Shirky's Network Effects class introduced Jane Jacob's book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. The exhibit is amazing, which I'll probably post later, but to give you a hint, Jane Jacobs is the New York version of Eleanor Roosevelt.

This store has books on different materials (glass, metal, concrete, building structure, lightweight/mobile), typologies (medical, offices, healthcare, restaurants, retail, pools/spas, sports/leisure, high rise), construction (concrete, wood, facades), sustainability, architecture, photography, typography, urban planning, foreign (books from Japan, Germany, etc). I asked if this store is permanent, and it is. They just have longer hours during the Jane Jacobs exhibition.

Here are some sample books:

If you are interested in social computing, collective action by groups, sociology of groups, and group dynamic, then this is the book for you. Download his podcast from BusinessWeek.com.

This book is clearly written, succinct, and relevant and current of the technologies we use today. Each chapter is composed of a story to demonstrate the psychological theories, but the difference, these aren't controlled experiments from the 60's (residue from my undergrad studies in psychology). Reading the first chapter reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point, basically comprehendable to lay people like me.

Anyway, I'm a little biased because I had Clay Shirky as a professor twice.

Lately I have been trying to find new ways for finding books that aren't mainstream or related to "how to do... design" books, and I think I may have found my answer. Typically, I've use Amazon's "Friends that like this book may also like this book..." but it's great for books about technology (i.e. you're friend might recommend a book about that type of technology you're looking for). I read in Utne that people tend to search for new books by attending readings at indie book stores, but how to get onto a mailing list of that sort is always skeptical. I found a solution, which is attending some events to NYPL LIVE. I've been to three so far, and they've always been excellent. The first event I attended presented Chris Anderson and Lawrence Lessig, which featured Anderson's book The Long Tail: Future. Last year, I attended "Part 1: Propaganda Then and Now: What Orwell did and didn't know" which featured George Soros and Orville Schell. In both cases, I knew at least one of the speakers (Lessig and Soros), which drew me in. Yesterday, I signed up to attend event based on the title of the program, Against The Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob(which is the title of the book being promoted) and really didn't know what to expect. The speakers were Lee Siegel (the author of the book and former journalist), Nicholson Baker (author of various books about libraries), and Heidi Julavits (editor of Believer magazine). All three had great points on the differences between bloggers and journalists, user-created/user-generated media, echo effect and internet culture. I wondered where Mr. Baker was when I was doing my thesis last year. Mr. Siegel also mentioned futurists Stephen Johnson (seen him speak in Red Burn's class) and Malcolm Gladwell (author of Tipping Point and Blink). I ended up picking two books from this talk.

The next event I bought tickets for is in June, where Salman Rushdie is going to promote his new book The Enchantress of Florence. NYPL LIVE sells tickets first-come-first-serve basis, so I was able to get a ticket today.

A couple of ITPers showed me this new tagging feature on Amazon (I'm not sure if it's new or if I'm just late), but I will probably investigate a little further for Hypershelf and Smart Shelf (thesis and collaborative projects), which use tagging. I just bought this book about Processing (Casey Reas and Ben Fry) authored by Dan Shiffman, a professor at ITP.

This book is suppose to be for beginners. Link to Amazon.

I just bought this book so I can refresh my skills at coding. The trick with Processing is to find the right instructor, and to practice, practice, practice! Daniel Shiffman was one of the most sought-after Computational Media professors at ITP. He teaches ICM (intro class), Nature of Code, and Programming from A to Z, and the Friday Review Sessions for ICM. So he has a lot of experience teaching non-tech people programming. All of those classes were full, and some had waiting lists of 35 people.

He has just written this book, and Amazon is selling it for only $45 or $50. I think if you pre-order it costs slightly less. I say "just only $45 or $50" because a typical class at ITP is or was approximately $4000.00. Now that's a steal.

So I was contemplating on designing a print version of my portfolio, and just happened to check-out my friend, Pete's new book. He designed it through Blurb, which is affiliated to Flickr. You download Blurb's BookSmart software, and there are a dozen of templates of styles and sizes to choose from. This is great if you don't want to shop for the holidays. I spent Saturday evening creating 3x50 page photo books, and ordered them online.

It is slightly slower than InDesign, however there are many advantages like the templates, and when an image's resolution is questionable, a warning icon appears. I'm not sure if the software automatically converts RGB to CMYK, but who cares? The prints are reasonably priced. You can choose a softcover or a couple of options for hardcovers. For another $3.00, you can print on Premium Paper, which I would recommend (of course, I only saw this option after ordering the first two).

Afterwards, if you do plan on selling your book, you can set the cost of your book, whether you want to sell the printed version on Premium Paper, and to opt for an online-preview for your readers. Within a couple of hours, your book will appear within the first 5 results of a Google Search. Btw, the preview is limited to the first 15 pages, so don't think that your other 35 pages are missing.

Estimate $10-20 for shipping depending on if it's a rush. And as always, check your work (copy and photos) twice.

A slide from Adam Greenfield's Presentation

Adam Greenfield, who taught at ITP, and wrote the book titled Everyware also spoke at Dot Dot Dot, and now head of design direction at Nokia. He researches many ubiquitous computing systems. I can't cover everything he spoke about, but if you want to see some of his presentation slides, visit my Flickr set. Here are some of the highlights that you can look up or read about in his new book The City Is Here For You To Use:

UNStudio with Arup Engineering: Galleria West, Apgujeongdong in S. Korea

u-Cheonggyecheong: Instead of cleaning the stream, they wrapped it in media.

Tom Armitage, Making Bridges Talk: What if the London Bridge could Twitter?

u-City New Songdo: totally networked, and can track everything down to tagging soda bottles with RFID tags that can automatically credit your account even if you throw it in trash. Every action is recorded and mediated. This project is still a work-in-progress.

Massive simultaneity: The 1K Project

MITsenseable city lab/New York Talk Exchange (NYTE)

Mosaic of Singapore mall: A photo that shows a lady moving through a mall physically, but this mosaic also shows a layer of secondary information--who is on the other end of her mobile phone. We should think about cyberspace (Being on phone is like being in cyberspace) when we think about designing the physical space.

Stamen Design: Oakland Crimespotting
Think about constraints in analysis (e.g. Taxonomy of police department is already a constraint (e.g. categorizing rape).

iPhone/Flickr: Geotagging/Search urbanism, browse urbanism, make urban API. If we check the weather before we go out, we are conditioned to that networked information, hence Adam calls this a "network overlay." Contemplate how this "overlay" reflects every decision we make (i.e. real-time info).

I've also added Adam Greenfield's blog to my RSS Feeds and Google Reader.

First of all, MoMA is exhibiting Tim Burton's work.

Aside from that, if you don't live in New York, check out this site I found:
http://www.timburtoncollective.com/multimedia.html

It features episodes of Stain Boy, and some characters from the Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy. There is an edition where the cover is black and purple (beautiful cloth bound). Most of the animations are done in Flash and are beautiful (they are funny, ridden with sarcasm). Tim Burton is a creative genius.

Also, check out his free fonts (which are cool, and not as cheesy as most free fonts):
http://www.timburtoncollective.com/fonts/fonts.html

Just saw two projects that I thought were really interesting with Hallmark. The first is a printed book with a recorder (google: Hallmark recordable book), so the small device captures you reading a story to your kids. Below, if you click on the link, you can watch a video of how this works. I find this a very engaging experience.

http://www.hallmark.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/article%7C10001%7C10051%7C/HallmarkSite/GoldCrownStores/GCS_HOLIDAY_GIFTS_STORYBOOKS

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The second is a voice-recognition stuffed animal. I remembered while I was attending ITP, several students experimented with this type of interaction. There are several types of interactions that are described here:

http://corporate.hallmark.com/Product/Valentines-Day-Gifts