Saturday 27 February 2010

A wireless future of medicine with Eric Topol


As the American government is currently seeking to institute a better and fairer Health Care Administration, Eric Topol says we'll soon use our smartphones to monitor our vital signs and chronic conditions. In this video he highlights several of the most important uses wireless mobile devices will have in medicine's future, all helping to keep more of us out of hospital beds.

Although Eric Topol uses an iPhone in his lecture, one has to think more broadly the phone doesn't matter. All smartphones are as good as long as they are capable of running the programs needed.

I was gobsmacked to hear about the huge numbers of the  American population that have life threatening diseases and serious medical conditions. if everyone had this, maybe one day we could predict where and when someone will have heart failure - and prevent it.

Friday 26 February 2010

Ever tried taking a cat for a walk ?





Although this video clip is curiously entertaining, the owners behavior is verging on animal cruelty !

Nevertheless, I have a friend that takes her cat for a walk on a leash, and as she has explained, Burmese cats would be the closest type of cat to a dog in that they have a kind of barking sound in their vocabulary and are the pedigree that can be more readily trained to walk on a leash.

Wednesday 24 February 2010

Jazari : A robotic percussive ensemble


Patrick Flanagan has invented a new genre of robotic musical instrument he calls Jazari. The robust construction of the instrument as can be seen in the video employs the use of solenoids, actuators, and a couple of controllers from the Nintendo Wii.

He refers to his system as Jazari Music, in which he controls a suite of djembe drums, bongos, and other percussive instruments by pressing buttons and tilting the angle of the Wiimotes. To see a more definitive appreciation of how his robotic percussive instrument works, go here.

The Jazari Music robot system is driven by his own software, Factor Oracle and his research involvement with AI has helped him make his system auto responsive. This essentially means that he can jam with his instrument, on the fly, as it were, and quickly switch back to his control. Alternatively he can also loop rhythms or even have the robots improvise on their own.

In case your wondering Al-Jazari was a 12th century Arabic scholar who was said to have created the first mechanical musicians.

Tuesday 23 February 2010

How many oranges does it take to charge an iphone?


Who ever would have thought this possible but marketing and social media firm Imperial Leisure, created an advertisement using an iPhone, to promote the sale of Jaffa oranges. They discovered that with a lot of rods and cable you can use orange power, or rather the power of 595 Jaffa oranges sliced into 2380 quarters, to power an iPhone.

If you think that this story ought to be examined by the Mythbusters, then you ought to check this out first.

Nevertheless in case your looking for an alternative method for powering your iphone or similar hand held gadget other than the one shown in the video, you might like to try this one.

Monday 22 February 2010

Thrill seeker cat and a tragedy







This kitty cat was lucky but no so lucky were 3 teenage girls in Florida.

Sunday 21 February 2010

Flyfire: swarm bots to create huge airspace displays


MIT is looking to launch swarms of robotic LED-equipped micro-helicopters, they call Firefly and coordinate them synchronously to create massive free floating 2D or 3D displays in which each bot serves as a single pixel. Each bot is to be endowed with enough smarts and positional awareness to organize themselves into an airborne canvas.

The Flyfire canvas can transform itself from one shape to another or morph a two-dimensional photographic image into an articulated shape. The pixels are physically engaged in transitioning images from one state to another, which allows the Flyfire canvas to demonstrate a spatially animated viewing experience.

If they succeed in doing this, its likely Flyfire may only be practical within large indoor stadiums, since its almost impossible to maintain a stationary position in the open air by even the most successful hover piloting let alone thousands of almost weightless helicopter robots ? Or just how would they cope in almost any change in the atmosphere ?

Source

Saturday 20 February 2010

College Student Speaks Backwards ?




ABC News reporter introduces us to Meghan Shea, a college student in North Carolina, who can easily speak "backwards. Meghan is majoring in biology, but I imagine she can't get a degree for her most unusual skill !

It's hard to imagine to be able to speak everything backwards. It seems impossible to read backwards. Try reading the following sentence out loud:
noinipo ym tsuj

Friday 19 February 2010

Dinner Time With The Dog-Man





Amusing video of a "Dog-Man" tucking into his dinner.

Thursday 18 February 2010

Bill Dan: Unreal Rock Balance Master




Appearing to defy the laws of equilibrium, rock bakancer fine artist Bill Dan  creates amazing rock sculptures at the beaches along the Sausalito water front, California.

Amazingly at the end of the video birds take up standing positions on his art works notwithstanding his dog carefully steps rather candidly within his maze of balancing sea coast rocks.

Wednesday 17 February 2010

Zheng Ensemble performing 999 Rose



To my mind the Mandarin characters are as poignant as the music piece.

The Zheng has been likened to the Zither, but I believe I've seen a similar instrument somewhere in India, perhaps you can help me ?

蘭音教室:陳莛羽'孫郁雯'沈瑀潔
Blue tone Classroom: Chen stalk of grass plume 'Sun Yuwen' Shen Yu Jie

蘭音教室*陳莛羽古箏教學
Lan Yin Chen stalk of grass-yu zheng Classroom * Teaching

奇摩~陳莛羽部落格
Canada ~ Chen stalk of grass-yu blog

Monday 15 February 2010

Ecosia, An eco-friendly search engine ?

>

is a search engine, which works just like Google or Yahoo except that it donates at least 80% of its search revenue to a rain-forest protection program run by the WWF.

They claim in the video that Ecosia  users can save about 2m² of rain-forest for free with every search they do!

"If only one percent of global internet users accessed Ecosia for their web searches, we could conserve a rain-forest area as big as Switzerland every year."

This is all very cute but apparently the site is
powered by bing and yahoo ?


Saturday 13 February 2010

Ultra Slow Motion of water drops


According to the videographer this entertaining video is a compilation of video clips placed end to end.

This ultra slow motion macro shoot shows absolutely stunning detail of the action of a water drop like you just don't see anywhere else and alludes to look more like liquid metal .

The video was shot at 7000 FPS and in case your wondering, you may like to shoot video at this extreme speed and greater, than expect to have to fork out between 7 and 250 grand for a camera.

Thursday 11 February 2010

Nuit Blanche


(from Spy Films) explores a fleeting moment between two strangers, revealing their brief connection in a hyper real fantasy.

Nuit Blanche is a visually enthralling slow motion short surreal film by Arev Manoukian, who basically utilized the liquid dynamics of computer graphic animations and chroma key.

Shadow and light are the tools of the trade, in the art of cinematography,  The ability to creatively manipulate those two elements is what separates the great cinematographers from the ones who pop a Sony cam on a tripod and start rolling.

Tuesday 9 February 2010

Weird Al Yankovic's Craigslist



This video is from pop culture satirist "Weird Al” Yankovic performing Craigslist, a song he penned as a homage to The Doors and features Ray Manzarek (himself) on Keyboards. The song is one of a 5-song digital-only EP entitled Internet Leaks. The video was directed by Liam Lynch.

Read a review of the album here

or perhaps you'd prefer to check out the real Craigslist or Crazedlist 
.

Monday 8 February 2010

Strangest sounds from a tabby cat, yet ?






is this entertaining animal a nom nom nom cat or what ?

Friday 5 February 2010

Logitech’s new Touch Mouse


is a free app that transforms your iPhone/iPod Touch or iPad into a full fledged mouse and keyboard which works on a Mac, PC or Linux systems.

The video here demonstrates how this amazingly polished wireless mouse and keyboard app from Logitech is set up and works.

The app comes with all the settings that accompany a regular mouse, including cursor speed, customization of the mouse’s buttons, and switching between orientations if you  are left handed.

With Touch Mouse, you can use two fingers on your iPhone and scroll down the page on your computer.

Its maybe worth noting, for non iPhone/iPod Touch users, that the app's keyboard component is not a fully fledged keyboard layout, that is, a qwerty layout only. But who knows some genius might some day hack the app into a fully fledged keyboard layout ?

Source

Thursday 4 February 2010

iPad: the third way to tech life savivness


..mememolly via rocketboom cleverly navigates us through the mayhem of iPad assets and functions....she helps us build a clearer idea of the stories emerging of Apple's new footprint into life-savvy history ....

Although it's not a major release from Apple, it's still a useful gadget. Hey its apparently possible to listen to music through iTunes whilst doing something else, like reading, browsing or emailing, photographs, video's, the internet and in some models use it as an iphone !

Together with 140,000 and counting apps available to use on the iPad, I personally think it looks to be the best e-book reader about to hit the hands of clever readers. However if it weren't for the early adopters price tag 10's of millions, more world get one. Hey relax Apple has only produced 10 mill !

(Authors note: Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.)

Wednesday 3 February 2010

Dreamy trippy video: Drift



dissolves the dream-air-space morphing imagery of Theo Tagholm's media art piece. creating  a mysterious and original style of movement perhaps best described as stop-motion animation.

Nevertheless, I found myself paying full attention to the nihilistic sound bed, but  moreso liked the exaggerated wavering motion dissolves near the end of the video.

Monday 1 February 2010

Vellum: Robert Seidel’s slices of a virtual sculpture


is a large scale architectural video installation:

In a time of complete virtualization of knowledge, science and monetary flows the virtual sculpture “vellum” transfers the memory of one specific urban rhythm to another locality. The multiple LED screens of the COMO at SKT Tower (Seoul, South Korea) provide several thinly sliced views into this gigantic translucent formation, revealing time and space within the otherwise invisible as well as impossible structure.

The perceived interpenetration of skeletal architecture and unrolled landscapes reveal textures of the man-made restructuring of nature. Their different granular perspectives create a fibrous volume of possibilities fusing past, present and future. In their flatness the visible sculptural slices are reminiscent to our accelerated life, shifting into technology and transcending the physical body. The perceived transformation is based on the sculpture wandering through the building seen from a fixed point of view. In vellum motion is form and form is motion... by Robert Seidel  

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