the digital dip

Alice

cybliminal — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 14:33:38 +0000

Alice is an open source modern programming environment designed to be a student’s first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn basic computer science while creating animated movies, simple video games, where students control the behavior of 3D objects and characters in a virtual world.

Alice v2.0 is the next major version of the Alice 3D Authoring system completely rewritten from scratch over the past few years. The focus of the Alice project is now to provide the best possible first exposure to programming for students ranging from middle schoolers to college students.

You can find information, tutorials and download at www.alice.org.

Alice is available for:

Windows
MacOS X (10.3 +)
Linux

Acoustic Location (Sound Mirror Devices)

cybliminal — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 13:45:47 +0000

Acoustic location was originally applied to determining the presence and position of ships in fog.
Such devices (as well as sound mirros) were used from mid-WW1 to the early years of WW2 for the passive detection of aircraft by picking up the noise of the engines.

Of course this technologies were rendered obsolete before and during WW2 by the introduction of radar, which was far more effective. More of those strange devices can be found here , and focusing on the german ones is this site.

There is a strange beauty in such images depicting technological achievements of the past, and although they might seem funny nowadays, there’s a lesson there too I believe, concerning our notions of greatness and achievement (as a race) when put to the test of time.

Google Fingers

cybliminal — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 12:24:08 +0000

While Dan Cohen was looking at nineteenth-century books in Google’s massive digitization project realised that despite our perception of Google as a collection of computer geniuses, and despite their use of advanced scanning technology, their library project involves an almost unfathomable amount of physical labor. And witness to that stand some screenshots of his encounters while browsing the pages of a Victorian edition of Plato’s Euthyphron, a dialogue about the origin and nature of piety.

The good professor concluded “I’m glad that here and there, the people doing this difficult work (or at least their fingers) are being immortalized”. After all the root of the word “digitization” is “digit,” which is from the Latin word “digitus,” meaning finger.

And I would agree with him, but this next one I think actually contradicts the very goal of the project altogether if this is the preservation and accessibility of the original texts.

You be the judge! There are plenty more examples in Plato’s Euthyphron and in others.
And if you are curious (as I were) on how an actual book scanner works here’s a video of one in action.

Teddy: A simpy unique 3D Drawing System

cybliminal — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 10:44:58 +0000

Teddy is a sketch-based modeling system to quickly and easily design freeform models such as stuffed animals and other rotund objects. The user draws several 2D freeform strokes interactively on the screen and the system automatically constructs plausible 3D polygonal surfaces.

The system supports several modeling operations, including the operation to construct a 3D polygonal surface from a 2D silhouette drawn by the user: it inflates the region surrounded by the silhouette making wide area fat, and narrow area thin. Teddy was developed as a research project by Takeo Igarashi and is implemented as a Java program.

Watch the above video demostrating the use of the applet, and then try it yourself at the creator’s site! A free download is also available there, although I would suggest to visit the SmoothTeddy the new enhanced version of the program to experiment.

Ms. Dewey – search slow but with style

cybliminal — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 09:47:10 +0000

Why make a search engine that loads in just a second or two like Google, when you can make a really annoying search engine designed completely in flash with lots of video animations. Arm yourself with patience and check out this unusual search engine called Ms. Dewey.

Annoyingly slow and pointless – but not without style (if you’re a web designer) & powered by LiveSearch, MS. Dewey is not surprisingly another MicroSoft footle.

Visit http://www.msdewey.com (if you don’t have a DSL or faster connection don’t even think about it).

Mechanical Tiger in Brugge

cybliminal — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 20:41:11 +0000

A truly amazing, although somewhat handicapped (!), custom-built mechanical tiger created by a local artist and taken out for its first ride, in Brugge, Belgium.

You can check out the artist’s site at www.kezanti.com and see some photos of his special creature here.

The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth

cybliminal — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 20:10:58 +0000

BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots. It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system.

Now with that noise and all I’d run like mad if anything like this ever aproached me! And if this is “The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth” as they so proudly claim, well it definately tells something about our stature as “creator-like” entities. Just take a look at all the rest quadruped beings that already walk this planet, they all seem way more advanced than this to me!

Light-emitting textile

cybliminal — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:53:08 +0000

A new technology Philips showcased at IFA 2006 in Berlin. It’s Luma live technology which can add as stated a totally new dimension to fabric, and sadly enough the very first suggestion from the video narator for possible applications is “dynamic advertising” – but of-course what else is there to do with it…. well I could think of a few (and I believe you can to)

Lumalive fabrics feature flexible arrays of colored light-emitting diodes (LEDs) fully integrated into the fabric – without compromising the softness or flexibility of the cloth. The jackets and furniture shown here represent versions that are ready to go into commercial production, and include integrated power sources and control electronics… You can read more here.

LED Throwies – meta graffiti?

cybliminal — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:32:36 +0000

LED Throwies are an inexpensive way to add color to any ferromagnetic surface in your neighborhood. A Throwie consists of a lithium battery, a 10mm diffused LED and a rare-earth magnet taped together. Throw it up high and in quantity to impress your friends, city officials(!), express your creativity or your own special message!

LED Throwies are an open source graffiti technology developed at the Graffiti Research Lab, a division of the Eyebeam OpenLab.

Click here for instructions on how to make your own Throwies (and loads of other useful,.. or not so, but still interesting things).

Open HDD while booting

cybliminal — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:18:43 +0000

Ever wondered what all that ticking and clicking you hear during the booting of your PC is all about? what is making those noises and what’s actually going on in there?

Well here’s the answers to these questions (and a few others too… watch closely).

Do not attempt to imitate this with a drive containing data you don’t want to lose permanently (sorry for stating the obvious… or where you really ready to give it a go?)