Thursday 31 March 2011

Flex-image Touch-screen display technology


A group of researchers from Osaka University, Japan recently demonstrated a new software interface in which a user fluidly scrolls and crunches up an image as the user manipulates the surface of a touch screen computer display.

The demonstration in the video below shows a researcher sweeping and swiping his fingers across a google map. Usually a map on a screen has an edge or border, but in this instance parts of the content are distorted to keep them within the screen. This allows the user to navigate within a seemingly endless or edgeless map while keeping in mind the parts of the map that were originally on the screen.



I have to admit to being somewhat confused by this new advance since it would seem to me to be a software invention rather than a whole new type of display technology. But the demonstrator says in the video:

"Because this interface can be easily added to any software, it can be used on all kinds of devices. You can use it on the iPhone and the iPod touch, and it could also be used with larger screens."

Friday 25 March 2011

Apt iPhone controlled retractable kitchen storage island


is a terrific IKEA hack, or a motorized kitchen island that essentially hides beneath the floor when not needed and, conveniently remote controlled with his iPhone!

Tim Thaler created his magic with found IKEA boxes and hardware with custom walnut fronts built by Scherrs.

"This is my kitchen island, below is an unfinished utility/storage room. A hydraulic scissor lift is at bolted to the cement, and then a small frame is built on top of the scissor lift table. On top of that is a sub-floor, flooring, and then the island. The cabinet doors are on the other side, and have safety push button switches that kill the electricity from the Smart Home Insteon switches, and prevent it from moving when the doors are not fully closed. This lift can easily lift over 1,500lbs, so it was an important safety feature!"

The video here shows how Thaler's motorized kitchen island operates so salubriously smooth.



Its important to note, that there's no "How to do" documents since the inventor's motorized kitchen island was used with found parts, and was remarkably made for less than $1,000.

Saturday 19 March 2011

Robot elephants: (Notes on) Biology

This unreal stop-motion animation takes a while to get going, but suddenly the robot elephant powers along with glistening haste.

Nevertheless, I think you will end up agreeing that this amazingly cool doodling animation is so much more entertaining than etoecology!



The entire video is largely created as a stop-motion animation, including the actors who themselves were moving at half speed. Among the host of cast and crew the work was produced and directed by Will Madden and Danny together with the apt music track by Robo Ellies.

In case you were wondering, etoecology "is the study of the ecological and evolutionary basis for animal behavior". Read more.

Monday 14 March 2011

WaveRider's Music Video, Double Trouble

Freelance graphic, web and motion designer, Serge Tardif has created this remarkably entertaining computer animation, for the music group WaveRider.

Serge purposely wanted to keep everything “hard edge” as possible, and effectively added texture to his piece by utilizing bands of color.



The speed and pace of the video together with WaveRider's music track, Double Trouble is somewhat reminiscent of the audio and visual fx of Tron !

Thursday 10 March 2011

Preserving Rubber; A Giant Bike Commercial

is a delightfully light and entertaining commercial video animation by Jacob Gilbreath for the Giant Bike Company. Its use of typography and line graphics makes it, all up, educational on the uses of rubber, an interesting marketing ploy and easy to absorb.

The concept focuses on the conservation of rubber. A particularly fresh idea for selling bicycles perhaps ! But the commercial demonstrates that if interurban commuters rode a bicycle to work every day instead of driving, trillions of pounds of rubber could be saved every year.



While fulfilling many conveniences, plastic is undoubtedly one of the most horrific pollutants of our waterways and life world, but is often only used once, rubber on the other hand can be used and reused an almost infinite number of times.

But I wonder, is rubber economically and ecologically sustainable ?

Sunday 6 March 2011

Future of Artificial Organ manufacture technology


Sci-fi writers have been introducing concepts of harvesting and or creating human organs either artificially and or via cloning technologies, in movies like Frankenstein or the Stepford Wives, (cloning perfect wives in suburbia), Gattaca (a futuristic look at genetic engineering) or The Fifth Element (where scientists recreate the whole body of a very beautiful young woman from just the remains of a hand).

Just like the communicator in Star Trek, (now our mobile phone), genetic scientists are on the brink of making real the manufacture of artificial human organs and replaceable body parts and  limbs.

The quest for achieving this feat has developed from years of stem cell research and cloning and the recent invention of a rubberized scaffolding material on which organs and or body parts can be grown.

In the video documentary below Neil Tyson narrates a fascinating look at advances in artificial organ generation and fabrication based on harvesting each persons own cells, from building a human ear inside a mouse, to fully working heart and lungs grown in jars.



This absolutely amazing technology looks likely to be able in the very near future replace amputees body parts, hearts, lungs, ears maybe even eyes!

Who knows perhaps sometime in the future people suffering coma may one day reawaken with a newly implanted brain ?

Wednesday 2 March 2011

The Big Ship


is by Carlton Bright a freelance videographer, who reflected upon a composition by Brian Eno from the late 1970's of the same name.

According to Carlton, the video;
"slowly evolved, and it lent itself to some kind of "evolving" thing.. in this case an evolving thing going through space.. but a natural thing, not a man made thing.."

and

"The video was made on a shoestring budget, using household materials, such as aluminum foil with holes poked in it for the stars, carved Styrofoam, clay, a floodlight, a clothesline and a sliding door frame, talcum powder, and a few other things.. I had just lost my lease to my studio, so I had to make it in my 10"x 13" bedroom, and ironically, I think the limitations kept the thing from getting too complicated. ."



The gliding panoramic motion of the media art work, tends to captivate and entertain (like many an interesting video), wishing it were longer, not unlike, many of the cool ambient works of Brian Eno.

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