don’t blame me, this is actually a fact
I accidentally deleted a bunch of stuff from last week due to sleep deprivation. Good news is that they were online long enough to be cached by Google (which is awesome/scary), and were easy to recover. Bad news is that the text formatting is shot to shit for some reason and my color/content rhythm is similarly affected. But it’s better than a complete loss I suppose…..wordpress recovery tips were easy to find here.
Sure, this was all over the interwebs a few weeks ago but it has taken me time to re-post because I needed to process it a bit. There are some obvious limitations, first of which being the large scale required in order to make this effective, secondly the battery life in order to make it feasible for long enough to create discernible formations, and third, environmental variables such as wind complicate things. Computing power (insert cloud pun here) wouldn’t really be an issue since the signals would include not much more than: x/y/z coordinates, light intensity/color, battery life, and motor strength/speed.
http://www.vimeo.com/9681874So what about the Flyfire project bothers me? It’s the limitations, at least in the near future, for this display system to be used for anything other than entertainment purposes. Each LED enabled helicopter acting as an independent pixel is remarkable, although it requires precision and synchronization. I did see the perfect application in the next 3-5 years; fireworks which require little precision and can be viewed at a distance which allows the helicopters to be much larger in size which affords greater control. Still a sweet little concept project from SENSEable City Laboratory, as seen on various sites including Giz and Cpluv.
I want a set of these without having to make the trip to Japan. Why does this happen to me for products like once a month? IIDA, please find a state-side vendor already!
Oh, if only you could apply ellipses and draw items like they were vector art…then you would have ‘Rhino Lite,‘ which isn’t such a bad idea with all the underpowered tablets that will be on the market this time next year. Via Zockey’s Twitter Feed.
Celebrities can be morons too. What I find to be remarkable is that in this case it transcends generations and genres. I look forward to seeing more of this tomfoolery on Twitter in the future. Via TheDailyWhat.
I worked with a guy (currently a reformed Human Factors researcher) that conducted a similar study with almost identical results; when it comes to progress meters it’s better that they are somewhat animated in nature as opposed to being relatively static (one color or limited to a soft gradient). Anything that tricks users into thinking that time is elapsing faster than reality works to the advantage of the system’s perceived response time. This study takes things one step further in granularity, looking at specific animations. I do have reservations about the design of the study but at a high level the results are consistent so it’s good enough for me. Via Gizmodo.
Much better than his last appearance at TED, Dean Kamen makes the story behind his process more personal.
At $2,800 items like this define ‘Limited Edition.’ Not sure what this actually does but still kind of want one? Me too…..Check out the video below for how a lower-end model functions. I assume the higher end would follow suit in terms of the input/response relationship.
http://www.vimeo.com/8301567Either way it’s stuff like this that convinces me I need a machine shop, or at least access to a laser-cutter+cnc. That being said I still wouldn’t be able to play one like it’s an instrument due to my painful lack of rhythm. Via IA’s killer twitter stream.
I wondered if fledgling brand Lenovo was going to survive without the help of it’s former namesake, IMB. If the s10-3t is any indication it would appear that (barring reviews about performance issues) as a manufacturer they will be just fine. In a bit of a mash-up this netbook has iPad style functionality and some decent styling. A steel-hinged touchscreen display pivots 180 degrees and also folds down over the keyboard into a tablet. Seems like you can type or swipe just as easily at netbook prices, but since multitouch isn’t supported until Windows 7 and most netbooks can barely handle XP I’m not sure how well it will actually work. ….Seen between $490 and $550 here.
MIT alum, Brett Camper overlays a pixelated skin onto on a Google Map of NYC and causes flashbacks to the NES days. I do want to see someone use this for a Zelda underlay somehow. Isn’t there always a potential 2.0? Just click on the map above and link to the retro-hawtness. Via Kronicle.