The nominees of the 2nd international NOKIA Ubimedia MindTrek Award are:

• Babbage Cabbage Empathetic Living Media: Adrian David Cheok, National University of Singapore, Singapore and Keio University, Japan;
• Point-to-Discover: Peter Frohlich, Rainer Simon, Erwin Wittowetz, Gerhard Obernberger, Matthias Baldauf, Telecommunication Research Centre, Austria;
• TreasureHunter: Remco Magielse, Iris Soute, Panos Markopoulos, Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands;


The winners will be announced during the MindTrek Conference on the 8th of October.

The international jury justifyes the nominations:

Babagge Cabagge stands out as a project that might have come ten years too early. Nevertheless we were impressed by the vision of computers interacting with plants, as this project showed influencing the color of red cabbages by changing the soil pH-value. Thus they could be used as slow displays that are coupled to slowly changing information, e.g. air pollution or similar environmental data. The jury believed that Babagge Cabagge has paved the (long) way to a truly ubiquitous media environment beyond the screen.

Point-To-Discover lets us discover any place at a fingertip. By pointing a mobile phone device towards any point of interest the respective information would be instantly shown on the screen. This way the project has overcome the keyboard to develop a very natural and less obtrusive interface. The jury was fully convinced by this sophisticated combination of localization, motion capturing and a solid business case.

Treasure Hunter excels with an elaborated social gaming concept. Kids can play capture-the-flag style games with a set of simple Bluetooth devices offering proximity sensoring and the passing on of virtual items. The devices do not have a screen and add seamlessly to the traditional form of outdoor game play, making the kids concentrate on each other instead of on the device.

TAMK University of Applied Sciences Media Programme had the role of the Nokia Ubimedia Awards producer within the MindTrek organisation. The Media Programme is represented in the jury by Cai Melakoski. Artur Lugmayr, Tampere University of Technology is the competition chair, and Bjoern Stockleben, Rundfunk Berlin Brandenburg (RBB), is the Head of Jury.

MindTrek

Babbage Cabbage
Point to Discover
Treasure Hunter