USEUM, the latest innovation out of CASA and Digital Humanities here at UCL, participated in Athens Startup Weekend hosted by Microsoft Hellas last weekend and won 1st prize.
“1st place – USEUM – A brilliantly executed and presented platform that will disrupt the way we buy art. They describe it best as “A bridge between art lovers and artists. It’s a web platform where art enthusiasts can discover emerging artists based on their artistic preferences. ” This team will be visiting Berlin in March to pitch at HackFwd at the Pitch in Berlin V2 event”
Foteini and the winning team handed the mic for the winners’ speech
USEUM was represented by a team of 3 developers (Georgia Kalyva, George Manoltzas, Michalis Nikolaidis) and a businessman (Nikolaos Soulitzis), led by USEUM’s founder Foteini Valeonti. Foteini is currently taking a PhD programme in CASA with joint supervision at UCL DH. Within a few short months she has the backing of UCL Advances and won a mentorship from Rapid Innovation Group. In short its everything a University research lab should be about, innovation, research with the addition of support and a push to get research into the wild.
USEUM aspires to become the no-brainer network for the arts and is potentially a game changer, a beta will be released in late March.
USEUM, the latest innovation out of CASA and Digital Humanities here at UCL, participated in Athens Startup Weekend hosted by Microsoft Hellas last weekend and won 1st prize.
“1st place – USEUM – A brilliantly executed and presented platform that will disrupt the way we buy art. They describe it best as “A bridge between art lovers and artists. It’s a web platform where art enthusiasts can discover emerging artists based on their artistic preferences. ” This team will be visiting Berlin in March to pitch at HackFwd at the Pitch in Berlin V2 event”
Foteini and the winning team handed the mic for the winners’ speech
USEUM was represented by a team of 3 developers (Georgia Kalyva, George Manoltzas, Michalis Nikolaidis) and a businessman (Nikolaos Soulitzis), led by USEUM’s founder Foteini Valeonti. Foteini is currently taking a PhD programme in CASA with joint supervision at UCL DH. Within a few short months she has the backing of UCL Advances and won a mentorship from Rapid Innovation Group. In short its everything a University research lab should be about, innovation, research with the addition of support and a push to get research into the wild.
USEUM aspires to become the no-brainer network for the arts and is potentially a game changer, a beta will be released in late March.
As reported on today’s BBC Technology, Oxfam has launched its new Shelflife system linking goods with the past using QRCodes.
Ever wished an object could tell its story? That’s the idea behind Oxfam’s unique pilot scheme, Oxfam Shelflife. Powered and based on the idea behind Tales of Things, the Oxfam Shelflife app uses QR codes to enable the public to discover the stories behind Oxfam’s donated, ethical and Unwrapped products, and even share their own stories for the items they donate.
The project is the latest innovation from Oxfam which promotes sustainability by encouraging people to look beyond disposable consumerism. The stories behind vintage and second-hand items are all part of their desirability. At the moment these stories can be lost when an item is acquired by a new owner but Oxfam Shelflife enables the stories to stay with the items in a more long-lasting way.
Oxfam’s Sarah Farquhar, Head of Retail Brand said: “Every item has a story to tell and Oxfam Shelflife enables people to share these stories. We’ve found that items with an interesting story behind them are instantly more appealing to our customers so we hope Oxfam Shelflife will encourage people to love items for longer. This commitment to sustainability is an important part of what Oxfam shops bring to the high street.”
The scheme allows donors to ‘tag’ a QR code to their donated object, using the free Oxfam Shelflife app on their iPhone and share the story behind the item for the next owner to discover.Shoppers who visit the participating Oxfam stores can then scan the QR code on the item, via the app, which will take them to the unique story behind the object. Usually QR codes direct users to a website or URL but the Oxfam Shelflife app enables users to engage and interact with the technology, taking QR codes on to a new level.
The concept behind Oxfam Shelflife is based on an original idea developed by the Tales of Things initiative (TOTeM: Tales of Things and Electronic Memory), a collaboration between five British universities: University College London, The University of Edinburgh/Edinburgh College of Art, Brunel University, the University of Dundee and the University of Salford. The TOTeM initiative was funded by a £1.4m grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
How does it work? Take a look at the Oxfam Shelflife intro:
It is hard to put into the words the pride we have in the project, from an idea and technology born in a research Sandpit funded by the Digital Economy Research Councils UK through to a refined and redesigned concept running in Oxfam Shops. The whole system went through a complete series of user testing and design stages to produce an app and system as simple as possible while still building on the concept of read/write Internet of Things tagging. Oxfam now has its first every smart phone app and its based on the Internet of Things, making every shop a social museum. Although the best part is helping Oxfam in its mission to help transform lives via attaching stories and memories to second hand goods.
We will have more on Shelflife in coming days/weeks as well a news on a new ‘Powered by Tales of Things’ site coming soon, created via the new API.
As part of the MRes in Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation, here in CASA, we are exploring various concepts relating to urban visualisation. These include both traditional urban based modelling approaches and more abstract visualisations and simulation techniques.
Currently we are exploring applications for physics engines in urban modelling, the first step of which is a series of techniques to introduce gravity and mass to urban models. We produced a tutorial back in 2009 using ‘Reactor’, Autodesk no longer use this engine and have now moved onto MassFX. MassFX adds a number of new options and tweaks to the simulation which took some time to work out. The concept however is the same, create a city using ‘Greeble’ and drop 200+ balls into the urban realm, using Lumion is it possible to view the simulation in realtime:
Understanding MassFX is a first step towards mixing procedural cities, agent based modelling and physics simulations within a 3D urban environment, we will have more soon….
About Salient
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur elit porta. Vestibulum ante justo, volutpat quis porta non, vulputate id diam. Lorem et ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi vitae sem in massa sagittis.
Foteini and the winning team handed the mic for the winners’ speech
