Google - Through The Dark

Lumen tries to explore a new paradigm for interactivity and immersion. Imagine using Lumen inside a museum, an otherwise static/one sided experiences turns into an interactive experience that immerses you into the story. A visitor uses this enchanted flashlight to bring the exhibits to life, and they get to hear the story directly from the exhibit.

Stories play an intrinsic part of our lives, society, and culture. We all make and tell stories to connect to others, share our emotions and express ourselves. Storytelling fosters positive role in a child’s physical and cognitive development from the small age. Children use simple media like pen/paper or wooden blocks to sophisticated online software like Scratch or electronic toys like Lego Mindstorms to imagine and create stories. Stic Stac (pronounced as Stick Stack) is a new way of making stories. It is a storymaking tool that allows children in the age group 9-14 years to create unique stories using tangible blocks and augmented reality.

Patient Data Explorer is a new, real-time analytics software that improves the efficiency of cancer research. Doctors and researchers can now securely and instantly access clinical data from multiple sources in a unified interface.

The project “Everyday Sounds of Dementia” aims to research the potential of sound and soundscapes in design of technology and services for people living with dementia. Research has demonstrated the cognitive and psychological benefits of music for people with dementia. In the Everyday Sounds of Dementia project, we further expand this body of knowledge by exploring the role of everyday sounds or non-musical ordinary sounds in evoking memories and conversations to provide meaningful social activity for people with dementia and their relatives. However, most audio-based technologies are inaccessible or difficult to use for people with dementia due to cognitive and physical disabilities. This project contributes to the positive well-being and quality of life of people living with dementia, and their caregivers, by supporting day-to-day functioning in their homes, and during times of transition to higher levels of care. It uses design-research and participatory approaches to develop interactive soundscapes (collages of everyday ambient sounds ) to calm, reduce agitation, stimulate, excite and engage people living with dementia in times of anxiety, stress or boredom, and promote meaningful activity in high-risk situations. The insights of this project have resulted in the Tumbler prototype, which is an accessible sound player for people with dementia to play everyday sounds and provide meaningful sound-based activity at home.

Feeling Climate Crisis is a series of kinetic data sculptures that visualize the ongoing climate crisis. These sculptures are made with natural plant parts juxtaposed with electromechanical elements. Together they create movement patterns that express climate data. The project creates an experience that allows viewers to ‘feel climate data’. Each sculpture expresses a specific data parameter from the list of planetary vital signs. These parameters include surface temperature change, per capita CO2 emissions, global tree cover loss, etc. Each parameter has historical data starting from 1978 to 2018. Data is referenced from a paper titled World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency.

Children love to solve mysteries and to play detective by tracking down hidden objects. PIIQ is an interactive DIY scavenger hunt kit that encourages children (6-8 years) to work together. It contains detective tools for role play, set of themes to build up on and design their own scavenger hunt and blank clue cards to add curiosity. Each child plays a different role in one team and they need to use their respective tools for unlocking the boxes to get to the next clue. By working together, children not only learn how to solve problems and communicate but also work on rebuilding their confidence around social skills and restoring their sense of community through meaningful and collaborative moments.

We are a development team from an Estonian government organization (IT and Development Centre of the Ministry of the Interior). Our team is specialized in police systems which are used outside in the street in police cars. The development team consists of 15 members. We are entering this project into the disrupting category as the developed system is playing role in our security and the more officers want to use it the more secured our society becomes. Since 2004 Estonian police has been using a query system in their cars. 10 years is a long period for an IT system. In 2015 we started to develop a product called APOLLO, which would replace the old system. Currently our team is working on the new ePolice product which helps police officers to get information they need “in the field” without using walkie-talkies.

B-cycle is a next-generation bike-sharing program. It is a zero-hassle, zero-emissions way to get around town. It’s a bike-sharing program that meets the transportation, health, and environmental needs of our communities. One that adapts to any size city, corporation, or campus. It’s free and spontaneous, but also practical. Imagine a network of bike stations located within a few blocks of one another throughout your community. As a member, you can unlock any of the specially designed bikes at any station and ride it to any other bike station. Fast, simple, and inexpensive. B-cycle is also the only bike-sharing program that measures the actual distance traveled on each ride and keeps track of the calories you’ve burned and the carbon emissions you’ve prevented. All this information is available on your personal B-cycle web page. Sustainable design that frees you from your car and is optimized for the needs of urban living, B-cycle is a new transportation future and it’s available now.

Across the globe, User Experience (UX) Research teams invest months in user interviews and weeks in crafting a set of Personas. A User Persona, is a detailed and semi-fictional representation of a target user, based on research and insights. Yet, these Personas often fall short of their intended impact on UX and products. We embarked on a mission to enhance Personas, ensuring they deliver their true value in understanding users and facilitating exceptional user experiences. After numerous iterations, we developed the Persona Mapper—a tool designed to revitalize Personas.

Mimica believes in better freshness through intelligence that can help reduce waste throughout a product’s lifecycle. In countries like the UK, 60% of wasted food is still perfectly safe to consume. By creating accessible, affordable freshness indicators for all types of perishable products, from food to pharmaceuticals, Mimica aims to become the globally recognized mark of freshness.