Grasshopper

brian — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:19:19 +0000

I have been experimenting with the Grasshopper plug-in for Rhino for the pass few days, and I have to say I am quite excited by this application. Grasshopper creates a graphical interface to Rhino scripting. After just a few hours of use, I found that scripts I had previously spent a few days devlopiong in Visual Basic can be created using the graphical interface in a matter of hours. Although the increase in productivity is nice, the real source of my interest in Grasshopper is the ability to create a real-time interface to the manipulate the generated components.

Check back soon for a demo video.

Phillips Ambient Experience

brian — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:17:01 +0000

Ambient Experience by Philips focuses on the values and needs of both patients and medical staff, addressing the total experience of the environment. They integrate architecture and technology (e.g. lighting, sound, vision, RFID) to create spaces that the patient can personalize, wrapping the patient in a relaxing ambience. This puts patients at ease and so it helps calming during the procedures.

The “Translate server error” restaurant

brian — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:51:09 +0000

AdFreak points to the best example of automated-translation-gone-wrong ever seen. As you can see in the image above, this Chinese restaurant appears to have used an online translation service (e.g. Babel Fish or Google Translate) to provide its customers with an English translation of its name. A noble intention. It’s just a shame that the online translation service returned a “Translate server error”! mmm..I’ll have the 404.

Surface Computing

brian — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:51:29 +0000

Researchers at the Human Media Laboratory, Queen’s University in Canada are developing prototypes of new “non-planar” devices, which are virtually computers that have a flexible shape. Computers are nifty, but too bulky to be carried around. Even a laptop is too big to put in your pocket, but imagine if your computer looked and worked like a magazine or a piece of paper to be tucked away into your pockets. Not only will they take on flexible forms we’ve never imagined – like pop cans with browsers displaying RSS feeds and movie trailers – computers of the future will respond to our direct touch and even change their own shape to better accommodate data. ”We want to reduce the computer’s stranglehold on cognitive processing by imbedding it and making it work more and more like the natural environment,” says Dr. Vertegaal -Im thinking about the possibilities this can have on an architectural scale.

City of Shadows

brian — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:06:33 +0000

I admire the great photographic series by Alexey Titarenko using long exposure shots to describe the masses moving through St. Petersburg Russia. The crowd appears to become a machine in motion. This is a visual explanation of some of the world that produces pure residual data.

Terra Nova The Antartica Suite

brian — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:26:04 +0000

DJ Spooky/Paul D. Miller’s next large scale multimedia performance work will be an acoustic portrait of a rapidly changing continent. The Antarctic Suite transforms Miller’s first person encounter with the harsh, dynamic landscape into multimedia portraits with music composed from the different geographies that make up the land mass. Miller’s field recordings from a portable studio, set up to capture the acoustic qualities of Antarctic ice forms, reflect a changing and even vanishing environment under duress. Coupled with visual material from Getty Images’ vast collection, The Antarctic Suite is a seventy minute performance, creating a unique and powerful moment around man’s relationship with nature.

Project Page with a great explanatory video.

“The Sound of Melting Ice” on NPR

CitySense

brian — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:15:59 +0000

I just came across the Citysense application for Blackberry which allows participating users to monitor active areas of the city (only San Francisco at this time) through real time network monitoring. Citysense is powered by Sense Networks application over the GSM networks. There also appears to allow personalization of the system to attribute personal tastes to the city search, creating an opportunity to find like minded people. I blogged this because because I think this is a very exciting way to bring impromptu social interaction to the streets.

NY times: Billboards that look back

brian — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:19:09 +0000

There was a very interesting article in the Sunday New York times concerning data collecting billboards currently placed around the city. A company named TruMedia (CEOed by George Murphy previously a marketing Exec at Daimler-Chrysler) use facial recognition techniques to tune the advertisements for the most effective means to grab the attention of their demographic groups.

Headmap Manifesto

brian — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:21:27 +0000

I first read the headmap manifesto back in 2002, and I have picked it up a few times since. I think its an important part of dwelling in digital and would like to offer it here, its an incredible read on location based technologies. The Headmap is a look at both the social and technical potential of spatialized computing, where the world’s “real borders, boundaries, and space become plastic and malleable, statehood becomes fragmented, and global.” Here space can be contextually altered with the placing of data, examples are leaving annotations at specific locations for a your own network of contacts to discover, or room that have accessible histories.

Dunne & Raby Talk

brian — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:43:30 +0000

Anthony Dunne // Dunne & Raby from Innovationsforum on Vimeo.