Polymaps by SimpleGeo and Stamen is a free Javascript framework for making dynamic, interactive maps in modern web browsers. It provides speedy display of multi-zoom datasets over maps, and supports a variety of visual presentations for tiled vector data, in addition to the usual cartography from image-based web maps.
Glitches Turn Video Games Into Sublime Art via Gizmodo
Most people throw their controllers when a glitch ruins a perfectly good game of Half Life or Grand Theft Auto. Robert Overweg loves it; he turns it into art.
Overweg is a self-proclaimed “photographer in the virtual world.” In his “Glitches” series, he captures whacked-out characters and snafued buildings in screenshots that look like what René Magritte might’ve produced had he been a big ol’ gaming nerd.
The “What is a switch?” classroom project is a Tellart favorite – it is meant to demystify electronics for design students and artists by using low-cost materials and familiar design tools to explore the concept of an electrical connection. By abstracting electronics to the simple concept of “connected” or “not connected”, the project helps to expand their conception of designing with embedded electronics. What happens when you take the switch away from the wall, out of the plastic casing?
“In just a few years, every door lock, card reader, video camera, vehicle, power meter, and light switch will have an IP address - at least in the business world. Therefore, from a security standpoint, it will become increasingly important - within the enterprise and within our homes (since many of us are now mobile or remote workers, too) - to segment and firewall different classes of devices in a network.”
Happylife by Auger Loizeau is the result of an ongoing collaboration with Reyer Zwiggelaar and Bashar Al-Rjoub of Aberystwyth University Computer Science Department. It uses the data it passively collects about you and your partner to forecast changes in mood - a bit like a barometer.
“What would it mean when an electronic device knows more about your partners state than you do or can predict an incoming bout of misery through statistical analysis of accumulated data? When can technology become too invasive?”
A bit late to the game I know but I’ve been busy, so nur. Here’s five things I’ve been thinking about recently. Don’t expect me to have fully formed ideas or opinions about any of this yet - it’s just stuff I’ve been mulling over for a while.
The cockpit of a Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” spy plane
As it screams through the air at three times the speed of sound, this jet needs to keep the air flowing through the engines down around 500 mph. The solution: a retractable cone plus a series of doors and bypasses. Pilots monitor this system on a sub-panel of indicators (lower left) while making sure they hit specific speeds at precise altitudes during ascent and descent. This Cold War-era spy jet, retired in 1998, also collected intelligence on itself, with a sort of proto-black box that captured 200-plus data points every three seconds. “If a pilot screwed up, we could download the tapes and say, ‘OK, buddy, here’s what you did wrong,’” says Rich Graham, a flight instructor and retired SR-71 pilot.
From “From Spy Plane to Monster Truck — a Photo Gallery of Awesome Cockpits” (Wired)
I wonder how the data was visualised.
Pallette and UT Pallette are $50,000 Japanese mannequins that change their pose when they “sense” people looking at them. It’s all based on motion capture with proximity sensors at the moment but their designer Tatsuya Matsu, boss of Flower Robotics says that future versions will feature face recognition.
”It makes the product the mannequin wears look more attractive, increasing consumers’ appetite to buy”. He also says “Consumer attention would be diverted to the face if there were one.” which explains why they look the way they do. They’re avoiding the uncanny valley.
Via Inventorspot.
