MUNI THE BOSS

July 13th, 2010 by rbanks

mouseless project
“MIT researchers including pranav mistry has developed a computer control system that works just like a mouse, without a physical mouse being present. users place their hand on a flat surface and move it around as they would with a mouse, clicking the table and scrolling. the mouseless system tracks the user’s hand with an infrared laser beam and an infrared camera. customized software tracks the user’s movements and interacts digitally as if a mouse were present.”

DesignBoom

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Anonymous sketching

July 13th, 2010 by rbanks

Multiuser Sketchpad Networks Cyber-Artists
“Similar to how chat-roulette randomly connected anonymous people together through video feeds, Multiuser Sketchpad is an outlet for artists to visually share their ideas through sketching. When users access the site, they are assigned a handle and begin to interact and express their thoughts with others using their digital pencil. Users can then click on “save sketch” to access a png copy of the multi-collaborative drawing, and perhaps print and frame it to create a gallery of anonymously-generated digital art.”

PSFK

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Experiencing sound

July 13th, 2010 by rbanks

Sound not as memory but experience
“Take a Closer Listen is a project by the talented Dutch graphic designerRutger Zuydervelt in which a variety of people have been asked to describe their favorite sound. The results—which range from quick, five-word responses to entire short narratives about found sounds—were collected into an eponymous booklet, Take a Closer Listen, this past winter. Flipping through the pamphlet is like reading a silent soundtrack to a landscape you will never see in full.”

BLDGBLOG

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Eye implants

July 13th, 2010 by rbanks

Telescope Eye Implants Receive FDA Approval
“The US Food and Drug Administration has approved miniature telescope eye implants for people who have eye defects which cause blind spots in their central vision. The device is made by VisionCare and is surgically implanted after removing the eye’s lens. The Implantable Miniature Telescope magnifies the central part of what a person can see onto a healthy portion of the retina, thereby improving their vision.”

PSFK

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Connecting through sleep

July 13th, 2010 by rbanks

alex dodge: generative
“the device monitors the user’s brainwaves, heartbeat and environmental audio. once connected to a PC the ‘sleep talker’ client software identifies the user’s dormant state using the electrodes embedded in the sleep cap. when the software detects synchronous or compatible dream sleep it attempts to pair with either a predesignated user over the internet or automatically to an available user with the sleep talker social network. in group mode, multiple users can form dream clusters defined by specific criteria or a single user can designate their feed as broadcast-only for others to listen to. the various data feeds, including EEG, pulse, galvanic skin response and audio (in the form of actual ‘sleep talking’ or environmental sound) are modulated into a real time audio visual feed and played back via the integrated headphones and sleep mask, forming a reciprocal link or ‘dialog’ between the users.”

Design Boom

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Prototyping for phones

July 13th, 2010 by rbanks

Going with your Flow(ella)
“Tim Brooke at Nokia Design has public launched his tool Flowella for non-coders to explore simple interactions and flows on the phone. It’s beautifully easy, and speeds up the ability to evaluate ideas. These kinds of things are so valuable in getting ideas out faster, and I believe it is being sucked up by anyone who has a use for it. Which is nice.”

Plot

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Camera disguises

July 13th, 2010 by rbanks

Birdcamera by Thomas Valcke
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Scary! Amazing! And oh my goodness, how it could work! You’ve got these birds on the wire, taking photos or video of people committing traffic crimes and wow, the crimes that will be caught. And then, as designer Thomas Valcke notes, there’ll be a collection of people who know that these birds are watching them. Paranoia sets in, as it always does, and these people begin to fear every bird watching them! Big Brother? No way. Big Bird.”

Yanko Design

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Chat production

July 13th, 2010 by rbanks

Wired City: Josh Harris’ Plan To Make Us All Live In Public (Video)
“Wired City is Chatroulette on steroids. It starts with video chat rooms where the audience comes and watches each other. Since anyone can set up a home studio with a webcam, anyon can become a “ChatStar.” These chat rooms are organized in what Harris calls “Net bandstands,” which are divided into different categories such as music, gaming, fashion, news, lifestyle. The Chat rooms are organized in a hierarchy and linked together. A video DJ or director controls what is seen in each chat room, and when something interesting is happening in his chat room, he can signal up the chain to get his live video into more popular chat rooms. Some combination of eyeballs and money will determine which videos get promoted.”

TechCrunch

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Bookless libraries

July 13th, 2010 by rbanks

The Idea Behind Stanford’s New Library: Remove All the Books
“It’s not hard to see the trend: students are checking out fewer books than ever before. When the Stanford staff looked into the Engineering Library’s records, they found that a great number of books hadn’t been checked out in five years. So instead of carrying the physical volumes, the library will offer access to searchable, digitized versions of books and periodicals—especially useful for engineers who often only need to consult the book for a formula or two in the first place. The new library will still hold 10,000 real deal paper books, but that’s compared to the 60,000 that sat on the shelves in the old library.”

Gizmodo

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PCs in the home

July 13th, 2010 by rbanks

Educational Hope vs. Teenage Reality
“Economists are trying to measure a home computer’s educational impact on schoolchildren in low-income households. Taking widely varying routes, they are arriving at similar conclusions: little or no educational benefit is found. Worse, computers seem to have further separated children in low-income households, whose test scores often decline after the machine arrives, from their more privileged counterparts.”

NYTimes.com

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