Saturday 31 May 2008

Warning Warning: HTML Art





Perhaps you find the image to the right pleasantly interesting,
its possible that you maybe able to rediscover the image here.





Source

Cheb i Sabbah's 'Devotion' to Organic Electronica




In the '60s Cheb i Sabbah moved from his native Algeria to Paris, where he became a successful club DJ. These days, Sabbah is better known for producing albums that blend traditional ethnic sounds with electronica. His seventh release, Devotion, draws on religious music from the Indian subcontinent.


Tria, Angie, Amanda, Sarah and Utesha are dancing to "Esh `Dani Alash Mshit" by Cheb I Sabbah at The Loons Arabian Nights Show


Source

Friday 30 May 2008

First Carbon Neutral Solar Powered Speedboat


Its about 10 meter (30 feet) long and can reach 30 knots or 55km/h and is totally powered by the solar/photovoltaic panels that covers the top front of the craft

While there appears to be no information about the drive mechanism, watch how this sleek speedboat handles in the tub.


Source

Marisa Olson Presents Real Pain


Ladies and gentleman most people record music about love, heartbreak, lonleiness, being broke. But nobody has actually gone out and wrote a song about Real Pain
(Kraak & Smaak)

This video by performance installation artist Marisa Olson is about,

pain as a medium, the breakup album genre, and the notion of a demo--something that shows what an artist may (or may not) have to offer or be capable of... in hopes of getting "picked up."

Thursday 29 May 2008

Flocking Murmuring Starlings





Mesmerizing flocks of flocking starlings


Demonstrating the motions of life.


The science of flocking.

Wednesday 28 May 2008

Doug Selsam Invents Sky Serpent, A Carbon Fiiber Wind Turbine Belt

Rather than a single giant rotor with 50-foot-long blades, Doug Selsam has invented an new approach to capturing wind energy that is based on the principle of less is more. His idea is to capture more power with less material; Sky Serpent is a high-power wind turbine that can generate enough energy to power a house .

It uses several small rotors attached to a single shaft. By placing the rotors in precise positions and angles, each rotor can harvest its own wind, and avoid stealing the wake from the adjacent rotor. The entire turbine is hooked up to a single generator, which produces about the same amount of power as a turbine that uses 10 times as much blade material.

The shaft that holds the rotors can vary in length, and use any number and size of rotors, depending on its application. The rotors can even be mounted on poles that are light enough to be hand-held or attached to the roof of a house.

Among Selsam's proliferating number of tangential designs, he has built a 3,000-watt prototype that uses 25 rotors, where the shaft is attached to the ground at one end and held in the sky by a balloon at the other. In another concept, the turbine can float near the surface of water, its shaft and propellers extended in the air over the open ocean.



Sources: One and Two

Tuesday 27 May 2008

Erik Nordenankar:The World's Biggest Self Portrait, Drawn Using GPS


Artist Erik Nordenankar claims to have created the Biggest Drawing In The World. He utilized a GPS data tracker withn a briefcase that he took via DHL for 110,664 Km, 6 continents and 62 countries for 55 days. The "self portrait" started and ended in Stockholm, Sweden.

It could be a hoax, of course, but if so, it’s a very good one. Nordenankar has documentation on his web site, including the video preparations for the biggest drawing in the world and a video sketching the world.



Source

Monday 26 May 2008

The Phoenix Lander Has Touched Down on Mars

The Phoenix Lander has set down near the North Pole of Mars, and, over the next three months, sample martian soil and ice and look for conditions conducive for ancient microbial life.

Here is an artistic animation of what it might look like to see Phoenix land on Mars. In the animated sequence, the Phoenix spacecraft arrives at Mars, deploys its breaking parachute, jettisons its heat shield, fires it thrusters, lands, unfurls its solar panels, deploys its instruments, scoops up some of Mars, and begins its analysis.

The probe is equipped with a robotic arm to dig for water-ice thought to be buried beneath the surface.

Scientists say the mission should give the clearest indication yet of whether the planet could once have harboured primitive life.

Update
Now that the solar panels have been deployed, the Mars Phoenix Lander has begun sending back pictures of the red planet (see the latest images here). In just a few weeks the claw will deploy and they’ll start digging a hole. The scientists expect to maybe find water and/or bacteria.

Update 2

While the Mars Phoenix Lander does not have a true video camera, NASA scientists can pan around a very high resolution image to create a video like this one of the Martian arctic plain.

More photographs here.


Source

Sunday 25 May 2008

Aquaroids, Aquadroids or Underwater Robots


Here are a few Aquaroids Swimming in Fish Tank


Alternatively a very sedate scene of interacting aquadroids


Among 80 robots, at the 2007 Underwater Robot Convention at Tatsumi International swimming pool,Tokyo, were Robotic snake- II, Robotic Flipper, Robotic Snake, Q Diver and Robotic Submarine, (see them here).


Extreme life found at record seafloor depth
Microbes that endure searing heat live a mile below the ocean floor.

Friday 23 May 2008

Cooked Air, Earthquake Lights or plasma discharge ?


"Earthquake Lights", a phenomenon never recorded before this are seen here as striking colorful (luminous/glowing) cloud phenomenon in the sky was observed about 30 mins before the May 12, 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China took place. This was recorded in Tianshui, Gansu province ~450kmnortheast of epicenter, by someone using a cell phone.


The precise mechanism, if such a phenomenon exists—as opposed to being coincidence with aurora or mistaken recall after a traumatic event such as an earthquake—is unknown. One theory suggests that earthquake lights are a form of plasma discharge caused by the release of gases from within the Earth and are electrically charged in the air.


A map of the locations with sightings of very similar phenomenon.



Here is a more in depth analysis by two scientists studying the phenomena.

Thursday 22 May 2008

Perfectly Preserved Baby Mammoth


Russian scientists claim that they have taken the most detailed pictures ever of the insides of a prehistoric animal: specifically a baby woolly mammoth called Lyuba found perfectly preserved in the frigid Russian Arctic. The cold and the skin of the baby protected it from decay caused by modern microbes, bacteria, and pathogens. This video reveals that there is an opportunity for scientists to genetically map a long extinct animal.


Source

Wednesday 21 May 2008

A "champion" Photonic Crystal Discovered in beetle, for Future Optical Computers

It appears that a simple creature like a beetle provides scientists with one of the technologically most sought-after structures for the next generation of computing. University of Utah chemists determined that an inch-long beetle from Brazil that glows iridescent green because it evolved a crystal structure in its scales that is like the crystal structure of diamonds. Such a structure is considered an ideal architecture for "photonic crystals" that will be needed to manipulate visible light in ultrafast optical computers of the future.

The microscopic image to the right shows individual scales attached to the exoskeleton of the beetle Lamprocyphus augustus, and how the scales glow iridescent green because the fingernail-like material in the scales has a diamond-like crystal structure that reflects green light.

The beetle’s shiny, sparkling green color is produced by the crystal structure of its scales, not by any pigment. The scales are made of chitin, which forms the external skeleton, or exoskeleton, of most insects and is similar to fingernail material. The scales are affixed to the beetle’s exoskeleton. Each measures 200 microns (millionths of a meter) long by 100 microns wide. A human hair is about 100 microns thick.

Researchers are now trying to design a synthetic version of the beetle's photonic crystals, using scale material as a mold to make the crystals from a transparent semiconductor.

Read further and or reflect on this video of a similar type of green iridescent beetle.

Tuesday 20 May 2008

5 Million-Piece LEGO Boulder Chases Indy, Crashes Into Car






Cool video of a giant boulder (as big as in the movie) made out of five million LEGO pieces, chasing Indiana Jones down a hill in San Francisco.

Monday 19 May 2008

VideoSong 4: Radiohead/Chopin Mashup, Jack Conte


A VideoSong is a new medium with two rules:

What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice).
and
If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds).

Radiohead's Exit Music for a Film matched with a prelude by Chopin, Op. 28, no. 4

Sunday 18 May 2008

Antivj is a visual label by European Based Artists


Patterns: of projected light bounce all over architectural surfaces.

Clearly stepping away from standard setups & techniques, AntiVJ presents live performances and installations where projection on volume, visual mapping, tracking and augmented reality, stereoscopy and holographic illusion are providing to the audience an experience that challenges the senses.


More

Saturday 17 May 2008

Robotic Exoskeleton Enables Superhuman Strength

Robotic engineering company Sarcos, based in Salt Lake City is under contract with the U.S. Army, to build robotic suits that amplify human strength and endurance up to 20 times (video).

Much as the brain sends signals to tendons to get muscles to move, the computer sends instructions to hydraulic valves. The valves mimic tendons by driving the suit's mechanical limbs, replicating and amplifying the wearer's movements almost instantly.

Chief designer of the robotic suit, Stephen Jacobsen,. says the invention, in essence, provides a way for people to increase their mobility and lift heavy objects with ease.

Although it's still in a beginning stage, the inventor envisages the suit as a valuable contribution to not just the military, but also to factory workers, firemen, and the disabled.


Source

Mechanical centipede crawls ....





.....over dusty Swiss Literature,

to the tune of Strange Bath from the original Soundtrack
of I Heart Huckabees by Jon Brion.

Wednesday 14 May 2008

MUTO is a wow wow stop-action short film animation by Blu


This wow wow ambiguous animation was painted on public walls
within a circular courtyard of downtown
Buenos Aires.



music by Andrea Martignoni
produced by Mercurio Film
assistant: Sibe


Source

Megawhat News Podcast



Another big week in the technology and gadget world.
Katie Scott
provides opinion on some of the top headlines
for the week ending 9th May 2008.

Tuesday 13 May 2008

Kissing Pandas


Video of two endangered red pandas spending an hour a day locking lips in a zoo near Tokyo.






Oh and a video of a
Japanese girl battling with her baby red pandas ?




Source

Roberts Stream 202: World’s first portable DAB, FM & WiFi Internet radio


This DAB (digital audio broadcaster), FM and WiFi allows you to pick up internet radio, and offers you the ability to stream your digital music from your computer to the radio.

All you need to get started is a broadband internet connection with either a wireless router or wired Ethernet connection. Among the many features of this radio are an intuitive menu system, both battery and mains power,
15 presets, two alarm timers and connectivity for your iPod. Available in silver or black, and retails for £149.99.

There is a short intro of the radio within this Megawatt News video.


Source

Monday 12 May 2008

Island Of Trash: An Unfathomable Bummer


Some oceanic travelers recently stumbled upon and reported seeing a Texas-sized "island" of trash floating in the Pacific Ocean, this led to some enterprising dudes organizing a reconnoissance mission to where the trash was drifting which turned out being off the West cost of America where limitless volumes of plastic scraps are dispersed throughout the area, hopelessly entangled with the natural environment.

The picture of the map shows the vortex of currents where the trash apparently accumulates and so its quite likely that most of the other oceanic currents in the world will have similar outcomes.

Check out the 12-part Garbage Island video series. In episode nine they enter the gyre.


Source

Sunday 11 May 2008

Magic Wheel: Foot Scooter ? Or a Modern retake on the Penny Farthing ?


With rising fuel costs on every commuters mind, its only natural for us to look for cheaper methods of transit..

Similarly, inter city con gestation in cahoots with the problems of parking, suggests that some of us may prefer to look for more personable devices like electric bikes, electric scooters or perhaps a Magic Wheel ?

This very compact and easy to use transporter appears to be a bicycle wheel attached to a rollerblade wheel with a couple of footrests.

Watch this video to see how using this Swiss-designed scooter is a no brainer and notice how effortless traversing a few diverse terrains it is, simultaneously grabbing everyones attention !



Source

Saturday 10 May 2008

Ready-to-Drive Electric Commute Cars: Myers Motors NmG

In case you may missed it,; electric cars are now ready to drive out of the show room

The NmG (No more Gas) car seems to have been designed around the distance (12 miles) that the average consumer performs daily on their journey to and from work each day. The NmG travels at up to 70 mph and each charge of electricity lasts about 30 miles and this works out at 2 cents per mile. See the video on their site here.

Since the vehicle is so small it can fit into almost any narrow or tight parking spaces.

Myer Motors create a whole range of other motor cars and bikes, check them out here.


Source

Thursday 8 May 2008

Moocowmusic:Band ; Play and Record Music with iPhone or iTouch


Here is a band-in-a-box iPhone/Touch all-in-one music application demonstration.

This cool new application makes it possible to listen to your music whilst in transit and play along with your MP3's.

Or if your lucky enough to borrow a couple of more iphones in the office then.


At the Moo-Cow-Music Forum you can post and critique links to videos of your Band compositions or listen to other composers and discuss anything and everything to do with iBand application.


Sources: One Two Three

Wednesday 7 May 2008

Male Jumping Spiders Perform Multimedia Event to get laid

A male jumping spider seems to be trying very hard to excite a female jumping spider. It will be worth turning your volume up !

But In the light of new research though it seems that he does a visual show as well the males are using ultraviolet (UVB) rays to communicate with females. While UVA rays are often used in animal communication, this is the first evidence that UVB light is also being used.

The video of the lightshow on this page however is pre-rolled with an ad.


Source

Tuesday 6 May 2008

Neocube: Hyperawesome 3D Joy Toy


The Neocube is made of 216 spherical magnets that you can pull apart and reattach in whatever design your imagination takes you The movie shows an array of surprising transformations and mesmerizing shifts from one form to another. According to the website its a dual hemisphere brain stimulator all for a mere 40 bucks !

A word of caution though as they're magnets you won't want them anywhere near your watch or phone, huh ?

Source

Monday 5 May 2008

R2-D2 Digital Audio/Video Projector; High Nerd Value


R2-D2, an icon of cinema and a comfortable fixture in any home theater is able to project from a distance of over 16 feet with an 260-inch image, with built-in DVD, iPod dock, all kinds of digital media inputs, and the Millennium Falcon remote control.
R2-D2 has a knack for turning your living room into a deluxe movie theater or gaming-on-the-ceiling arcade. He even plays all the songs on your iPod.
If you haven’t been drooling over the R2-D2 Digital Audio and Video Projector yet, perhaps this video will do the trick.

For all the features,specifications and availability of R2-D2 Digital Audio/Video Projector go here.



Source

Thursday 1 May 2008

Self-erasing, Reusable Paper Invented by Research Scientists @ PARC

PARC (Palo Alto Research Center Inc.) has invented an experimental printing technology (pdf) that can erase and reuse paper up to 100 times and that could someday replace printed pages that are used for just a brief time before being discarded.

The paper contains specially coded molecules that create a print after being exposed to ultraviolet light emitted from a thin bar in a printer. The molecule readjusts itself within 24 hours to its original form to delete the print, or heat can readjust the molecule instantly. Xerox developed the molecule The ultraviolet bar itself is very small, so it can be used in mobile printers. The technology could also be useful for network printing. For now, the technology prints effectively only in black and white. Although good for everyday prints, ink remains a better option for high-quality prints. Shrader couldn't project when reusable paper or UV printers would reach consumers.

Xerox estimates that as many as two out of every five pages printed in the office are for what it calls "daily" use, like e-mails, Web pages and reference materials that have been printed for a single viewing. The scientists are developing compounds that change color when they absorb a certain wavelength of light but then will gradually disappear. In its present version, the paper self-erases in about 16-24 hours and can be used multiple times.

A very worthy invention indeed !


Source

Next Page

 
Google+