Yesterday was the first day of classes at NYU – the streets around Washington Square Park were bustling with students again – what a great (and often pretty) sight 🙂
It was great to see all the familiar faces – the now “old” and “respectable” second years! Even better was to see all the new faces of the first years – the fresh look of excitement, confusion and curiosity!
I went to three classes today – two of which I am already registered for and am going to take for sure – Computers for the Rest of You and Inclusive Game Design and one that will be hard to get into (too many people in the class already) – Sustainable Practices.
“What the hell!?? Are you guys on crack or something!?” – well – that’s the reaction I got yesterday when I went through the name of the classes I was going to take with a friend.
I love the names of these classes here… in any case, here’s the “translation” to the classes mentioned above:
Computers for the Rest of You – Dan O’Sulivan – we interact with computers with out hands nowadays – what happens and what can we use of our body to interact with them – heart rate, body language or movement, subconscious thoughts, and so on… this class is about doing that – tapping into other inputs and creating applications/data/art that reacts/displays/interprets them. Our first assignment is to read “Cognition, Brain, and Consciousness”, “Baars and Gage”, and “Power of Now” – well – at least take a look at the chapters that interest us – as well as looking at previous examples of works done in this class.
Inclusive Game Design – Amit Pitaru – in this class we will be working with people with disabilities and their occupational therapists to create games specially tailored for them. We will look at design techniques, game theory, usability, scoring methods and all other aspects of game design to be able to create effective and entertaining games and input devices catered for the disabled population. A very interesting first class – Amit, our professor is Israeli and a very interesting guy – one of those natural born speakers/teachers.
Sustainable Practices – Tom Igoe – a class that looks at the technical aspects of the “green” movement – environmentally friendly materials, enabling technologies, practices, and methods that can, will be and are being utilized to shift towards a sustainable ecosystem, project planning and execution. I am unfortunately wait-listed for this class and still have to sit into some other classes that I am deciding whether to take or not.
More class reviews coming soon 🙂

Wouldn’t be too hard to do a Google Maps driving directions with Street View sequences for mobile.
Lower end cell phones would page through images of major landmarks or intersections.
Higher end phones (3G & GPS) would have an animated gif (sequence of images).
Google Maps on the iPhone does a step by step that looks very good and similar to what I am suggesting…