A display comprises a plurality of autonomous pixels on a stretchable substrate. Each autonomous pixel comprises a display element and a control element arranged to sense an external stimulus and to generate, entirely within the autonomous pixel, a control signal to drive the display element based, at least in part, on a magnitude of the sensed external stimulus. The stretchable substrate comprises a plurality of less elastic regions separated by stretchable areas, where the less elastic regions are less stretchable than the surrounding stretchable areas and each control element of an autonomous pixel is located in or on a less elastic region of the stretchable substrate.

We present findings from a five-week deployment of voting technologies in a city neighbourhood. Drawing on Marres' (2012) work on material participation and Massey's (2005) conceptualisation of space as dynamic, we designed the deployment such that the technologies (which were situated in residents' homes, on the street, and available online) would work in concert, cutting across the neighbourhood to make visible, juxtapose and draw together the different `small worlds' within it. We demonstrate how the material infrastructure of the voting devices set in motion particular processes and interpretations of participation, putting data in place in a way that had ramifications for the recognition of heterogeneity. We conclude that redistributing participation means not only opening up access, so that everyone can participate, or even providing a multitude of voting channels, so that people can participate in different ways. Rather, it means making visible multiplicity, challenging notions of similarity, and showing how difference may be productive.

For digital displays to become more pervasive, they need to have the properties of materials like textiles and plastic film. Moving away from the row-column addressing architecture that dominates traditional displays, the authors propose an architecture that relies on autonomous pixels - that is, pixels that independently sense input and convert it to a corresponding visual output. Two different prototypes reveal the challenges and potential of autonomous pixels, highlighting how digital displays supplied as a flexible material can help foster the development of various new applications. This department is part of a special issue on pervasive displays.

Within the domain of wearables, our paper explores opportunities for self-expression, learning about the body, and interactions with others that are enabled through the physical and interactive properties of a new kind of digital display. Recent advances in the manufacturing of thin, bendable electronics and a novel architecture for arranging pixels permit the fabrication of a 'display material' that challenges conventional perceptions of this medium. Envisioning digital displays as a material means that their design is no longer limited to rectangular screens, but can be scaled in size; cut, folded or molded; or combined with other materials and devices to create compelling interactions. In this paper, we explore some of this potential in the context of configuring body-worn items such as clothing. As a more concrete use example, we further present and discuss some initial ideas for aesthetic, expressive and functional configurations of body casts as a specific kind of body cover.

We explore the design space of energy-neutral situated displays, which give physical presence to digital information. We investigate three central dimensions: energy sources, display technologies, and wireless communications. Based on the power implications from our analysis, we present a thin, wireless, photovoltaic-powered display that is quick and easy to deploy and capable of indefinite operation in indoor lighting conditions. The display uses a low-resolution e-paper architecture, which is 35 times more energy-efficient than smaller-sized high-resolution displays. We present a detailed analysis on power consumption, photovoltaic energy harvesting performance, and a detailed comparison to other display-driving architectures. Depending on the ambient lighting, the display can trigger an update every 1 - 25 minutes and communicate to a PC or smartphone via Bluetooth Low-Energy.

The humble pie chart, the basic line graph: we are used to these and other forms of basic graphs. These have become commonplace and they can blend into the background, another plot on the screen real estate that accompanies our lives. To stand out, screen based data visualizations have become ever more beautiful, intricate and bespoke, but in so doing their legibility can suffer. In a project on community data, run in collaboration with residents of Tenison Road in Cambridge, we have been exploring how to present data to the community that will be accessible to as many local people as possible. We chose to use our highly visible window-frontage, visible from Tenison Road itself. As a technology company, our street facing window is full of screens, which could easily have been used for our purposes. Instead we have designed and built physical visualizations of a pie chart and a line graph. These are simple in the sense that they are easy to read and make playful use of some readily available material (like retractable tape measures). Their design is sensitive to the need for readability and spectacle.

We present two sets of 'data technologies' that we have designed to collect and display local data, both derived from our engagement with a community. The first, Bull-frog, is a bespoke voting device. The second, a series of physical charts, respond to the increasing sophistication of data visualisations by making playful use of pie charts and bar graphs, reimagining them in mechanical forms that are compelling but easily readable.

We present findings from a year-long engagement with a street and its community. The work explores how the production and use of data is bound up with place, both in terms of physical and social geography. We detail three strands of the project. First, we consider how residents have sought to curate existing data about the street in the form of an archive with physical and digital components. Second, we report endeavours to capture data about the street's environment, especially of vehicle traffic. Third, we draw on the possibilities afforded by technologies for polling opinion. We reflect on how these engagements have: materialised distinctive relations between the community and their data; surfaced flows and contours of data, and spatial, temporal and social boundaries; and enacted a multiplicity of 'small worlds'. We consider how such a conceptualisation of data-in-place is relevant to the design of technology.

What does the abundance of data and proliferation of data-making methods mean for the ordinary person, the person on the street? And, what could they come to mean? In this paper, we present an overview of a year-long project to examine just such questions and complicate, in some ways, what it is to ask them. The project is a collective exercise in which we – a mixture of social scientists, designers and makers – and those living and working on one street in Cambridge (UK), Tenison Road, are working to think through how data might be materialised and come to matter. The project aims to better understand the specificities and contingencies that arise when data is produced and used in place. Mid-way through the project, we use this commentary to give some background to the work and detail one or two of the troubles we have encountered in putting locally relevant data to work. We also touch on a methodological standpoint we are working our way into and through, one that we hope complicates the separations between subject and object in data-making and opens up possibilities for a generative refiguring of the manifold relations.

Current research on 3D body scanning isprimarily concerned with technology development.Personalisation is seen as paramount, while development is influenced more by technology, than design.This research was designed to investigate the 3D body scanning service (BSS) of the current fashion market and to build a framework predicting those factors influencing consumer adoption of 3D body scanner applications for a particular personalisation system.The framework considers acceptance factors, plus user journey factors and their combined effect.Thus, an extensive user experience study was conducted, which was empirically tested through semi-structured focus group interviews and self-reported metrics, to validate results and obtain further insight.This research project offers a major opportunity for innovation in the fashion industry, enhancing understanding of adoption factors and also providing a starting point for further research into branded BSS apps or services, such as m-commerce through branded apps.