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Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards

  

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About the Competition in 2009

There were 30 entrants in the Ubimedia competition and according to the internationally distinguished jury, the contest was on the whole quite tight. “The third international competition with its 30 entries shows us, how ubiquitous technology increases the quality of our lives and starts to become commercial mainstream. Ubimedia assist us in daily activities such as helping disabled to ‘see traffic lights’, assist in recycling, or simply just for fun”, says Prof. Dr. Artur Lugmayr (Tampere Univ. of Technology, founder of the competition). “This year’s nominees have clearly answered the question, if ubimedia are dividing, including, entertaining, essential, individual, or social”, says Björn Stockleben (Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg Innovation Projects, head of jury). After a long and hard elimination process the international jury determined the three winners:

1st Donkeypedia (3.000 Euros), by Frank Alsema & Joost van Eeden, 4xM – Mixed Media Match Makers, The Netherlands
Donkeypedia is an appealing idea that mixes both low-tech and high-tech components with the help of a real live donkey. A man and the donkey travels by foot through cities gathering information that tourists are interested in. The information comes from interested children that come and say hello to the donkey. The info stored on a computer on the donkey`s back and is available via the Internet. This is a brave foray into a new way of thinking. 

2nd PING: The Smart Trash Bin (2.500 Euros) by Katrina Bekessy, interaction designer, USA
Ping is a trash bin that by using embedded technology gives its own input into intelligent recycling. This is a good example of how we can relate to and record our everyday life in a non-obtrusive way in order to make us act better and understand our surroundings. The trashcan serves as an example of the possibilities of the technology at hand, and other similar possibly interactive objects that we do not daily reflect upon would benefit from a development of this kind. 

3rd Traffic Light Detector (1.500 Euros), by Jan Roters, elumo, Germany
What if ubimedia is not used to extend our senses, but to replace a sense lost due to a disability? Translating stimuli from one sense to another may also have implications on the usability of services outside the area of assisted living technologies. The traffic light detector is a simple, application of that concept and is an example of encouraging research in this area. 

Special mentions went to: Ubi Hotspot (UrBan Interactions Oulu, Finland) for versatile ubiquitous devices, Aulura (Eidhoven Univ. of Technology, The Netherlands) for ubiquitous home design, and Pediluma (Carnegie Mellon Univ., USA) for ubiquitous health concepts.

About the competition

The Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Award is a worldwide unique competition to award the best ubimedia products. The competition takes place on a yearly basis during the MindTrek Conference. The main aim of the competition is to motivate creative thinking of makers of digital media to generate new ideas for services, products, and media in the ubiqutious world. The Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards is arranged by MindTrek, Nokia, EMMi Lab. – Tampere University of Technology (TUT) (previously NAMU Lab.), Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK), and the Tampere Region Centre of Expertise in Ubiquitous Computing.  The purpose of the competition is encourage makers of digital media to generate ideas and develop new and innovative ubiquitous media products & services. The entries are expected to take a stand on the question, how ubiquitous computing affects intelligent media environments and what the future of location-and context aware media services might look like.

The entries are expected to take a stand on the following questions, for example:

  • How does ubiquitous computing affect media environments?
  • What are intelligent media environments like?
  • What will the location- and context-aware media services of the future be like?

A few other examples are:

  • Pervasive and ubiquitous games
  • Ambient installations
  • Artistic works related to ubiquitous media and computation
  • Business models
  • Ambient and ubiquitous media technology
  • Ubiquitous and ambient media services, devices, and environments
  • Context aware, sensing, and interfaces for ubiquitous computation
  • Ergonomics, human-computer interaction designs, and product prototypes
  • Software, hardware and middleware framework demonstrations
  • Ambient television
  • etc.

The total award sum for the Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek competition is 7 000€. The sum can be awarded to one entry, divided between several entries or not awarded at all if the award criteria set by the jury are not fulfilled.