Cyborg Flying Rats Invade China

from Wired magazine's Danger Room: (read it there)
"
The People's Daily Online reports that scientists in China have successfully used brain implants in pigeons to control the birds' movement:

Pigeon_spy

Scientists with the Robot Engineering Technology Research Center of east China's Shandong University of Science and Technology say they implanted micro electrodes in the brain of a pigeon so they can command it to fly right or left or up or down.

The implants stimulated different areas of the pigeon's brain according to signals sent by the scientists via computer, and forced the bird to comply with their commands.

"It's the first such successful experiment on a pigeon in the world," said the lead researcher, who hopes the work will have "practical use" in the future.

In the United States, similar work on animals has been of interest to the military. For example, the pigeon news follows the equally amusing animal tale about the Pentagon's attempts at creating remote controlled shark spies. Like the Chinese pigeon experiment, the sharks had brain implants used to control their movements.

But don't hold your breath waiting for animal spies to roam the world anytime soon. One of the most infamous would-be animal espionage projects, dubbed Acoustic Kitty, dates back to the 1960s, when the CIA wired a furry feline to eavesdrop. On its trial run, the cat was run over by a car.

-- Sharon Weinberger
"

thanks to lia for the informative link.

Great resource for artists and galleries

if you missed the NY Art Show like I did (again!), you can at least catch up on what's happening where by clicking on the galleries listed in this great resource: http://www.artdealers.org/members.last.html

it's the members list of the Art Dealers Association of America.

Origami Tesselations

wow. I luuuuuuv this blog: http://www.origamitessellations.com/
It's full of amazing things made of paper, like these origami star formations:



and these crazy things called sliceforms:




someone made those with their actual hands, with actual paper, people!

Kids' Tetris Furniture

Play+Soft 3-D Forms:







from their site:
"
PLAY+SOFT is a line of sort furnishings for children, consisting of 250 new products, developed from an idea by Maurizio Fontanilli, with the pedagogical consultancy of Reggio Children, a team of twenty-eight innovative international designers, and the art direction of ZPZ Partners.

The products are the result of a four-year research project and are manufactured in Italy by PLAY+

The dialogue between pedagogy and design and the theoretical reflections that were developed have created a unique range of soft play furnishings and play equipment that is open to interpretations, but is founded in a celebration of imaginative play and the idea that furnishings can be a protagonist in the construction of identity and ideas. PLAY+SOFT provides a foundation for creative environments that are multisensory, enjoyable and beautiful.

The PLAY+SOFT furnishings comprise a wide range of product types including soft three-dimenional "landscapes", micro-places, transformable seating, play structures, mats, modular forms, burrows and shelters. They are made of eco-friendly materials, fire-resistant but soft to the touch, in a broad range of colors and textures. They are designed for use in any place inhabited by children, not only infant-toddler centers and preschools but also shopping centres, restaurants, airports, waiting areas, and other public places.
"

Play+Soft is distributed by studiouk.net

here's a link to designer Harri Koskinen

found on daddytypes.com
go there for a ton of more info and photos

Twingly screensaver visualizing the blogosphere

a beautiful visualization!

Museum of Lost Interaction-- I love it!

This is a poetic and beautiful project of the Interactive Media Design Program at University of Dundee.

Check it out here >

It's a museum and a website that showcases recreated "lost" technology and interactions. It's really technologically interesting, because they've recreated all these inventions that no longer exist, or in fact, never actually existed because they never made it past the diagramming stage, and yet that (sometimes) mimic modern things in a strange way.

In their words:
"Welcome to the museum of lost interaction; a timeline of innovation. Nine exhibits ranging from 1900 to 1979, comprising audio recording machines, wireless morse communicators, portable video to the precurser behind iTunes. The museum holds an inspirational array of invention, guaranteed never to have been found, documented or exhibited ever before."

Here's an example: The Richophone.



"In 1900, the Richophone was a multi-player based game found in prestigious hotels and cafe's in and around London. The game was played from special Richophone booths, where players connected to the game through a system of telephones. The prizes to be won were very generous.
"

there is a post about them on we make money not art.

Bad usability calendar: not usable at all (just kidding) but full of good advice!

Check out the Bad Usability Calendar site!

Before you start pointing out the bad usability mistakes in my blog (which I am well aware of, thankyouverymuch) take a look at this calendar-- it's really good, though its purpose is not to actually be a calendar, but to demonstrate one interaction design mistake for every month of the year. Plus they provide the "source" files so you can make your own.

Nice.

Also, funny.

Yahoo! Pipes is a pretty cool way to play with RSS feeds

http://pipes.yahoo.com

still in uber-beta but a good example of what you can do with it is "Apartment Near Something". (not sure if that link will work for you or if you have to be logged in to Yahoo)

It reminds me of Max/MSP with its logic modules and patchcords.

it'll be interesting to see if this takes off!

Black is the new Green: does screen color affect energy usage?

Interesting conversation happening on Mentalfloss.com (and elsewhere)about whether a white screen uses more or less energy than a black one. They say that if Google was black, it would save $75K / year in energy bills.


Although apparently it doesn't save electricity, but actually uses more, on LCDs (and CRT usage is going down...)

Still I really liked the idea of a website being "green". For an installation I'm working on, which had to feature a laptop but was for a green-conscious organization, I had to try to find a way to make it more "green": green hosting providers? green laptops? (no such thing! even the greenest is not very green right now... though Toshiba makes one that it sells at Walmart (the Satellite) that gets great ratings.

green is just not a word you can use for the web, yet.

I'd love to hear peoples' ideas of how to make the web more green...

By the way, i checked out one of the links someone posted to Mentalfloss: hilarious:
http://www.ninja.com/

it's a Google Co-op project (Google Co-op is a platform that enables you to customize the web search experience for users of both Google and your own website.)

TRYSUMERS - interesting Trend Watching report

http://www.trendwatching.com/briefing/

They mention GPS devices, Nike Trial vans, "Tryvertising", the use of samples to create a "brand connection". They even have some good stats about the Apple store. Interesting stuff to think about. Advertisers are getting cleverer and sneakier, but I find it fascinating how they really manage to work with peoples' psychology.

Their report has a ton of examples and photos, so it's better to read it on their site, but here's a sample of the text:

- Living in a world of abundance means there’s loads to try out, and it doesn’t hurt that millions of members of GENERATION C(ONTENT) are adding to the pile of unique, original niche content and products. Niche of course being the new mass, as consumer societies are now about standing out, not conformity. Which in turn means an encouragement to explore one’s often broader-than-assumed taste, aided by recommendations from TWINSUMER sites like thisnext.com.

- As saturated, experienced consumers can draw on plenty of past experiences, and know that many more experiences will follow, it's easier to cope with possible disappointment stemming from trying out the unknown. For example, a weekend spoilt by bad weather is more acceptable knowing another three or four are planned for the rest of the year.

Cute Products

http://stores.ebay.com/Zakkabox

Batteries you can charge through USB

pretty cool: http://www.usbcell.com/

thanks to Gilad for the link.

iV 2007: 11th International Conference on Information Visualization

iV, CGIV 2007 - Deadline Extended - February 15, 2007
Call for Paper, Tutorials, Poster, Video and Digital Art

iV 2007: 11th International Conference on Information Visualization -
For the first time in 10 years, has been relocated to Zurich,
Switzerland--to be held 4-6 July 2007

CGIV 2007 4th International Conference on Computer Graphics, Image
and Visualization: Bangkok, Thailand--to be held 13-16 August 2007
(this is the one that i'm reeeeeeeally excited about, because of the location!) (but of course I probably won't be able to go)

More info at:

http://www.graphicslink.co.uk/
http://www.graphicslink.co.uk/IV07/
http://www.graphicslink.co.uk/cgiv07/
Questions: ursyn@unco.edu