Kinetic Vox
My idea in the Knight News Challenge has made it to the second round — along with 260 others of the original 2,300 — and I've just turned in my full app. I'm taking a no-frills approach because the concept, Kinetic Vox, is a little ridiculous. But I'm happy with it. I think it would be cool.
Demonstrators shake their fists in protest. Concertgoers pump theirs with the beat. The petitioner knocks on the door. The concerned citizen stays still for a moment in prayer.
These experiences drive social activism and spirit, and we want to extend them deeper into the digital world. Our "Kinetic Vox" iPhone application would combine accelerometer, GPS and other sensory technology with the crowd's real-time physical reactions to news.
The result would be a broadly social means of expression, resonating strongest on a local level. Your experience in the application would build off the news and your actions, all immediately meshing with the actions of others and physically tipping the scales of opinion.
If you wanted to shake a fist at your senator, how strongly would you shake your fist and for how long? If a story inspired you to pray, how long would you pause? These aspects of the moment would become the data of your experience. The experiential data would leap back to the application, coupled with comments, photos, video, or other content you offered in the instant.
Joining the crowd, your real-world actions would affect the digital crowd — moving a needle (or other indicators) and going social through ties to friends and online networks. Whether the news was national or local, you could zoom the view into your neighborhood or city, where your opinion would have the greatest effect on the crowd and the actions of others would matter most to you.
Kinetic Vox would succeed as much as the crowd became involved. For other developers, an API would open the data and invite new methods of physical expression on news. For users, every story or issue would be encouragement to move, make themselves heard and respond to those acting on the world already.
I could use your votes for Kinetic Vox. Votes don't affect the judging, but they make me smile. See my full application here, and hit the star ratings up top. You may need to register, but the process is free and quick. And if you already ranked this idea in the first round, you can now vote again. This round is a new application and a new ballgame.
September 30th, 2010 at 8:21 AM
[...] Previously in this blog on virtual-meets-physical tech: Kinetic Vox. [...]
April 19th, 2011 at 12:55 AM
[...] what inspired my Knight News Challenge entry two years ago. I entered the idea into the contest and blogged about it here as "Kinetic Vox." But the original name was "Hater Vox." Various editors [...]