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Posted by Olivier Thereaux on , last updated

These are weekly (well, kind of – we are toying with a fortnightly rhythm now, as the more astute readers may have noticed) notes from the Internet Research & Future Services team in ±«Óãtv R&D where we share what we do. We work in the open, using technology and design to make new things on the internet. You can follow us on Twitter at .

This fortnight: visualising stories, building a magic button, and learning about Reactive Programming

Visualising Narratives

Remember the showing narrative charts for big-scale stories such as the Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, all heavily inspired by ? Michael and team are using a d3.js version of that, to render character timelines for ±«Óãtvfront, Macbeth and the Cazalets - using code (and a lot of help) from University of Waterloo’s .

More on  from Michael, and a link from Tristan about napkin sketches showing the .

Cross-Platform Authentication

Over the last couple of weeks, Michael and Chris N have updated the reference implementations to match the lastest draft protocol spec, while Sean has been writing the spec document. We’ve also added some new features to the reference implementations, and some refactorings. The code number that the user has to input to pair their device now expires after a fixed time limit (which is configurable). The demo CPA client can now create and display tags, using the RadioTag protocol.

Radiodan

The “Magic Button” radio is edging towards a stable version. On Thursday the team demoed how the the web app is shaping up nicely, with Andrew W adding some design finesse so we can support multiple device sizes. The physical UI needs a little more polish and we’ll be very close to ‘done’, for now.

We cut on Thursday, with Victor’s alterations to allow the components inside to be supported better.

Events

Thomas at conf, and also attended a conference on .

Dan & Andrew N exhibited at the on Wednesday, to several hundred interested attendees. Dan’s voice is still suffering but we handed out all the postcards and stickers we had and had some engaging conversations with interested punters. We sadly never got to meet the owners of , who were due to attend the booth adjacent to ours.

Links

  • Tim Harford on
  • , from the NYT Labs’ Creative Director
  • The