Anything that hits the radar – web, architecture, green/renewable design, fashion, toys, etc
Window Socket – Kyuho Song & Boa Oh
So this is an absolutley brilliant idea! Just attach the plug on to a window and it will harness solar energy. A small converter will convert it into electricity which can be freely used as a plug when you are in the car, on a plane or outside.
Love this design and I really think it has a great potential.
I’d love it if they squared off the top so I could put my phone on the unit instead of hanging
then again, who cares what I think – this is pretty awesome
Behind the Scenes at Thalmic Labs – Creator of the Wearable Gesture Control Device “Myo”
The Myo is one of the most anticipated gesture control wearable devices expected to be released to early adopters later this year (my order is already in!).
Based in my hometown of Waterloo, Canada – this video gives a great behind the scenes look at the team, the Thalmic Labs office and some great shots of Myo in action and also provides some more information on the product and their development process which hasn’t been previously released before.
Myo uses the electrical activity from your muscles as your move your hand to detect what you are doing with your fingers as well as the motion of your hand. These gestures control connected devices via bluetooth.
The Myo stretchable cuff has been designed to be one-size fits all (they even considered making sure that arm hair doesn’t get in the way).
The team has confirmed that their developer program in the next few months giving out exclusive access to early versions of the software of the devices.
Thalmic Labs believes that the Myo device could revolutionalize the way we interact with technology – and I agree.
Oblong Industries: Introducing Greenhouse
From the guy (precisely his company), who designed the computer interfaces in the film Minority Report, comes Greenhouse, a creative coding toolkit for spatial interfaces.
The Greenhouse SDK incorporates key elements of the g-speak core platform—for building spatially-aware computing environments—and distills them into an API designed to be approachable, powerful, and concise.
Greenhouse is the only SDK available that enables creative coders and engineers to rapidly prototype spatial interfaces: multi-screen, multi-user, multi-device interfaces with gestural and spatial interaction. Graphics and geometry systems enable pixels to fluidly move and to be accurately rendered across any screen, plus networking and multi-application frameworks, which allow multiple users, applications, and machines to seamlessly interact.
// I can’t wait for my leap motion controller to ship in mid-May.
[read more] [Greenhouse] [via @oblong_news]
Flocations, for those that haven’t used it yet, is a visual-based flight search service that lets users seek and find flights, hotels and prices using a map-based layout. The site automatically detects a user’s location based on their IP address (though this can be changed) and, using its ‘price slider’, it then shows potential routes that can be taken within a designated budget. (via Flocations raises $570,000 to enhance its travel discovery service for Asia with new features – The Next Web)
Working for Gizmodo – quite possibly the greatest job in the world because you can report on things like this –
Everything is neatly tucked away, including cables and compartments for peripherals. Oh, and did I mention it has a fish tank? A fish tank!
Found thanks to the incredible Techmeme and Fortune.com, an article about Second Life opening up its desktop application (not the server) to the Open Source community. As a sometime resident (I dont visit nearly enough – my first life is keeping me away) this is a killer event for the developer community and the user.
Rosedale and other executives say they fully expect there eventually to be multiple virtual worlds that use Linden’s code, or that at least are interoperable with Second Life, so avatars can pass from one world to another. Says Rosedale: “Say IBM builds its own intranet version with our code that’s somewhat different from Second Life. But it’s probably not that different. A user may say ‘Wow, this virtual thing IBM’s built is pretty cool. Now I want to go the mainland.’ And we have another customer.”
Sounds like the kinda thing Marc Canter would dig.
Open source, open standards, open ID, and now… OPEN WORLDS. Taking SL out of one set of servers, distributing it, making a community of second lives – furries in one (or 100), builders in another (or 1000), designers in another, regular folks running through all – different social mores, codes of conduct, experiences, platforms…
Article here.
Found this while surfing at work today (yes, thanks to J O B, I will be working all weekends from now through early November) thanks to Adrants:
Welcome to C-Ville – Where Choices Define You
C-Ville is an all-Flash site that teaches kids/teens about the risks of smoking, why making good choices are important, and why choosing not to smoke is important short and long term.
While I agree with the message, the execution is what really stands out. From the music to the grapihcs, the video shorts used in the production, the overall look and feel just clicks. It is fun and immersive and gives users a reason to explore and click and check things out with a really open and not-intuitive-in-a-good-way navigation. The look and feel brings you in, feels immersive and has a ton of objects on each screen to play with.
From the AdRants post:
Final Cut’s Carlos Arias explains the approach saying, “Kids are so sophisticated these days so we don’t need to make the message obvious. This is a new way of communicating with youth — by not spoon-feeding them.”
Kudos to these guys for coming up with a smart design, solid execution, good message and real appreciation and respect for the user. While the site loads slow on the network here in the bunker, the video encodes are really tight and the payoff is there – it frickin works.
Got the chance to hang out this evening with the crowd for the first meeting of the NYC chapter of the Social Media Club (whose tagline is “if you get it, share it”). Chris Heuer (founder of BrainJams, Media Literacy advocate and Bloggercon/Gnomedex attendee) and Howard Greenstein (ex-member of the WWWAC, NYNMA, and all-around evangelist of the NYC Media scene pre-bubble) led the discussion.
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I showed up late, but got to participate in the discussion of podcasting (“the term podcasting is the biggest thing holding back podcasting”) and a short discussion about microformats as well as XPRL (XML Press Release microcontent format).
All in all, it was a fun event (even though I showed up late). Some of the usual suspects showed up (HI Steve and Annette), and the discussion was fun, if not a little short (will not be showing up late again). It was a lot like one of Isabel’s dinners – not as intimate, but some great conversation with cool people.
I am really looking forward to the next meeting.
Great article in AdAge about Second Life.
http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=110404
What’s special here is us participating in a new phase of the social-networking evolution,” said Mr. Schionning.
boundaries between fans and presentation/music
How do fans interact
how to give power back
2 spaces – stage and audience space – existed since greek times
power of fan, power of audience
participatory culture
REM – SD 2003 – estab norms of space
fans determin the set list
bands control over the audience becomes complicated
audience organzied by another algo – profiles in range of clusters to go see who to go meet
discussion board going on thru sms
henry jenkins – aprticipatory cultuere
where there is no diff fro mthe fan and the band
hier of control breaking – artifacts of culture (Mp3s movies) and discourse (board, blogs) – never happened before
implications of media give more weght to what is being said
settled in their own hierarchies
author subj to the qual or representation in the internet age
onus of authoritative voice – ceases for content providers and now sits with the audience
fleetwood mac – end to end didnt listen to users
now – producers and consumers are a lot closer
headautomatica.com
diff between consume an dproduce has been reduced and the barriers are completely gone