Welcome to

Originally from New Art on September 1, 2006, 2:49pm

Originally from New Art on August 22, 2006, 12:31am

Originally from New Art on August 22, 2006, 12:31am

So apparently those crafty cats up at BarCampVancouver were chattin’ up an open source alternative to YouTube, smartly backed by Amazon’s S3 mass-storage service.

Serve the files with Drupal, passing the media files into the open source Flow Player or aptly-named Flash Video Player, and you’re nine-tenths to bein’ illegal (as they say).

Now, that’s pretty hawt, if I do say so myself.

But, here’s what I pitched to the Flock guys last night at their SF meetup: why isn’t there an extension for browsers that takes any media file (I’m primarily referring to video, but audio support tends to be flakey too), sends it off to some server-side transcoding service and re-embeds a Flash file in place of the original media — that’ll play no matter what system you’re on?

I mean, this would be better than just distributing a player with the browsers… it would actually solve the cross-platform issue entirely (okay, so the Linux folks still need an up-to-date Flash player).

I’ve never been a big fan of Flash (for a number of reasons) but as it’s clearly the most cross-platform compatible format for sending out video and it’s not always possible for producers to generate Flash video, this solution would reside on the client-side, perhaps as a subscription-based service (owing the costs of licensing the all the codecs and so on).

I mean, until we get wide-spread adoption of open source video codecs and formats that are as good as the proprietary ones, this seems like a good stop gap solution. Don’t it?

Originally from unmediated on August 31, 2006, 11:09am

“Essentially everyone, when they first build a distributed information system, makes the following eight assumptions about the data. All prove to be false in the long run and all cause big trouble and painful learning experiences.”

Originally from unmediated on August 31, 2006, 11:02am

Motion DSP is creating a simple web based interface that will significantly enhance low resolution camera phone video into surprisingly high quality stuff. It started off in 1998 as a U.S. military funded project at UC Santa Cruz. In January 2005, Professor Peyman Milanfar, the primary researcher behind the technology, co-founded Motion DSP.

The company compares multiple frames in a video to find and replace lost pixels in a given frame, significantly enhancing the experience with little increase in overall file size after compression. The service works best when a video is not moving rapidly or in a jerking fashion, but tends to improve just about any low quality video. To see a demonstration, check out this page on the site that contains three different before and after video shots.

The service will go into consumer beta sometime this year, CEO and co-founder Sean Varah told us. The service will be free and will allow users to upload a video and download an enhanced version. But he also stressed that the focus will be on getting deals done with the large online video sites, such as YouTube, to enhance user-uploaded videos.

Motion DSP is headquartered in San Mateo, California and outsource large parts of software development to Serbia. They’ve raised a $500,000 angel round and are currently pitching a Series A round of financing.

Tags: military, video, youtube, techcrunch, web2.0, web_2.0

Originally from unmediated on August 31, 2006, 11:01am

[Early morning smoke rises in southern Beirut after a night of bombing.]

Photos of Lebanon’s devestated infrastructure by Simon Norfolk in the
New York Times Magazine
, Sunday August 20, 2006.

[An oil storage depot for the power plant at Jiyeh, on fire from being bombed in the first few days of the war.]

[Bombed buildings in the Dahiya district of southern Beirut.]

[Oil storage tanks at Beirut international airport.]

[In Rmeileh, the bridge on the main road to the south of Lebanon was destroyed in an Israeli air attack. 10 people were killed.]

[The remains of the Halat-Fidar bridge in Lebanon, on Aug. 4, hours after Israeli air strikes destroyed it.]

[Refugees from the bombings slept in Sanayeh Park in central Beirut.]

[The storage depot for the power station at Jiyeh, as seen from the Sand's Rock resort.]

Originally from Subtopia on August 22, 2006, 3:51pm

The idea of invisibility has fascinated people for millennia and has been an inspiration or ingredient of myths, novels and films, from the Greek legend of Perseus versus Medusa to H.G. Well’s Invisible Man. Dr. Ulf Leonhardt at Scotland’s St. Andrews University has recently published two papers concerning the potential realization of invisibility using modern MetaMaterials.

DARPA states that “MetaMaterials are a new class of ordered nanocomposites that exhibit exceptional properties not readily observed in nature. These properties arise from qualitatively new response functions that are: (1) not observed in the constituent materials and (2) result from the inclusion of artificially fabricated, extrinsic, low dimensional inhomogeneities.”

According to Dr. Leonhardt, the key to achieving invisibility lies in creating transparent materials capable of bending light around objects hidden behind them. While seemingly far-fetched, light-bending phenomena such as hot road mirages or water refractions occur naturally. Leonhardt claims that these phenomena are possible “because light will always take the shortest route, which is not always a straight line. All you need is a transparent material that bends light around an object like water moving around a stone.”

Theoretically, MetaMaterials created using nanotechnology, which is a necessary tool due to the small scale of light waves, will soon channel waves of specific frequencies. Leonhardt claims that “there will be advances on both the technological and theoretical sides which will make invisibility happen in the not too distant future. This is not completely beyond the range of present technology and theoretical ideas.” [via Dr. Ulf Leonhardt; suggested by Bill Auld, Seattle.]

Originally from Transmaterial on August 17, 2006, 9:32pm

Scientists at BAE Systems have created an artificial surface that grips incredibly tightly without glue or pressure. A sheet of this material just over 1 square meter could be used to suspend the weight of an average family car.

Called Synthetic Gecko, the new adhesive is inspired by the gecko lizard, whose ability to scurry up vertical walls and windows has intrigued people for centuries and inspired comic book characters like Spiderman.

“We wanted to mimic this ability,” said Jeff Sargent, research physicist at BAE Systems’ Advanced Technology Centre. “We recognized that a synthetic material could have tremendous engineering potential not only in our own aerospace and defense businesses, but also in other commercial applications.”

The gecko gets its ability to stick without glue from the soles of its feet which are patterned with millions of tiny hairs with split ends. At the tip of each split is a mushroom shaped cap less than one-thousandth of a millimeter across. These ensure the gecko’s toes are always in very close contact with the surface beneath – so close that molecular forces of attraction create the grip. The grip is released by a peeling action when the animal lifts its foot to break the bond.

Using their micro-engineering clean room facilities, BAE Systems’ scientists, led by Jeff Sargent and Sajad Haq, created layers comprising thousands of microscopic polyimide stalks with splayed tips, closely resembling the mushroom headed hairs on a gecko’s feet.

The next step in the development program comprises further research into the influence of surface roughness and water on the adhesive properties of the material, to ensure that it is effective on a wide range of surface roughness.

A number of potential business applications for Gecko have been identified, ranging from instant repair patches for holed structures such as fuel tanks and aircraft skins, access panels without fasteners or even the rapid attachment of armor panels.

Synthetic Gecko could also be used for new building materials, personal safety harnesses and for super grip tires and training shoes. [via BAE Systems; suggested by Andrew Zolli, Brooklyn.]

Originally from Transmaterial on August 4, 2006, 8:58pm

Apparently, two Egyptians flew to Belarus with the intention of sneaking in to Europe. So, they headed on down to the border, where else, where barbed wire fences were the only things that separated them from their dreams of wandering Polish pastures and sniffing European soil. But, to get across the two figured they’d dig their way under the fence, making sure not to be seen of course. They even avoided buying a spade nearby, they said, so as to not give themselves away. Instead, our clever border crossers used a good old fashioned shoehorn. And it worked. Not sure how long it took them but they tunneled themselves a nice passage underneath the barbed wire into Poland. Sounds absurd, like Checkov waiting for Godot, or something. But, it gets better. Once surfaced in Poland, and wandering around the country side, they stumbled upon another border fence. Yup, barbed wire, just like the first one. Thinking they had now reached Germany, they whipped out their trusty shoehorn and furiously fashioned themselves yet another secret tunnel. Though, this time, while merrily skipping along to what they thought was the good beat of a new life in Europe, they were quickly picked up by some border patrol agents, who informed them - hey, guess what, this aint Germnany, welcome to Belarus. Doh!

[Read more about it in Mosnews and the BBC. This little story was spotted at the omnipresent Phronesisaical.]

Originally from Subtopia on August 23, 2006, 10:53pm

Photographer Jason Orton wrote a little piece for
OpenDemocracy
to go with these shots of his return to an infamous British nuclear bunker: the “Turnstile”.

Apparently, it was built in the 1950s as a replica of Whitehall, a road in Westminster in London and the main artery running north from Parliament Square, the centre of national government, towards Trafalgar Square. The bunker was intended to be the government’s very own emergency hideaway in the event of nuclear war.

Orton writes, “My photography often focuses on traces within a landscape that hint at something that has happened, or might happen in the future. […] I am concerned with the evidence and remains of human occupation within a landscape. “Turnstile” was never occupied, but wandering these labyrinthine tunnels and bunkers it is possible to imagine what life would have been like underground in the aftermath of a nuclear attack.”

He also notes that the underground city has been declassified and put up for sale, as part of a wider initiative called the Corsham Development Project. “Several uses for the tunnels have already been considered. These include a massive data store for city firms, and – because of its almost perfect temperature – a huge wine cellar, possibly the largest in Europe.”

Well, needless to say, officials there could certainly use a bit more imagination. So why not keep it open to the public, either as an avant garde performance venue, an art installation graveyard or museum-like tomb, or, maybe just as some architectural acoustic freak show with orchesatral music belting out below the surface through a series of listening manholes punctured through the stone quarries of north Wiltshire above - the bunker turned in to a glorious Berlozian topomusical landscape instrument: a D-Flat Range, of sorts. How about a spooky real life game space, GWAR running around chasing kids armed with toy rocket launchers, or let it be the next site for the reality TV show
Survivor
: who will be the last to endure the subterranean challenges of a total sim apocalypse? At the very least, let it be some underground park space with a network of portals to the outdoors above with suprisingly romantic excursion tunnels, sound installations, an odd psuedo ecology, breezy biking hollows, a sublime underground graffiti city.
I don’t know, those aren’t the greatest ideas in the world but anything more poetic than a wine cellar.

[See these earlier posts: Touring the Greenbrier; Secret Cities of the A-Bomb; Area 71; Washington's New 'Survival City'; A Silo Full of Cash; Secret Soviet Submarine Base; Fortress Baghdad; The 'Long War' enters its capsule; Subterranean Urbanism; Tokyo Secret City; Bunker Archaeology; Smugglers' Paradise Uprooted; [Re] improvising sub_Base landscapes; Secret Synagogue; Mt. Seemore and the watchful gaze; from Leftover-Bunkers to Tourist-Traps…; A “Closed Atomic City”: Open for Business]

Originally from Subtopia on August 30, 2006, 3:52pm

A cruel joke, perhaps? Atypyk’s tshirt has the word “See You” written in braille.

The latest subversive products by Atypyk.

A popsicle that looks like a screwdriver where you like the handle bar of the screwdriver.

A ruler shaped like a gun

related links

Atypyk

Originally by adnan from sensoryimpact.com on August 30, 2006, 5:18pm

(Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/MITI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team)

“There are too many Grand Canyons,” declared Lucy Lippard. “There is the place itself and its staggering geography—the rims, the river in the Inner Gorge, the maze of side canyons, mesas, plateaus, forests, arroyos, vegetation and wildlife, and all those hoodoos, columns and spires (so-called by 19th-century devotees of the Church of the Wilderness). There is the no-nonsense (and topographically nonsensical) governmental gridding of ungriddable lands as the frontier fell away. There are the variously perceived canyons through which flow the never-ending verbiage that attempts but never succeeds in seeing, let alone describing, this sight of sights. And at a deeper level, there are the interpreted canyons, the contested canyons. From these emerge our individual and collective psyches, reflected in the geographies of national history and personal experience. The abysses are epitomized by fundamentally divergent views of place and nature expressed by the Canyon’s Native peoples and by the ruling ethics of the National Park and Forest Services, themselves often at loggerheads.” And now, to add to its “macro-microcosmic multiplicity” that “staggers retina and rhetoric,” this gorgeous spectrally lit 3D view from the South Rim. Georgia O’Keefe spaceborne with an Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer.

Originally from Pruned on July 21, 2006, 11:01pm

Max says, “Today, I was thinking about how I can turn a household bulb into a party light by connecting an embedded computer for my next party in my garage. We will use a SSR (solid state relay) relays to enable common AC household light.” Check out the great video tutorial. Link.

[Read this article] [Comment on this article]

Originally from MAKE Magazine on August 30, 2006, 8:25pm

Joshua says, “Hacking a 35mm still camera lens onto a digital video camera. “ Link.

[Read this article] [Comment on this article]

Originally from MAKE Magazine on August 30, 2006, 6:07pm

While going down the rabbit hole of exploring links, I found this very odd virtual video of a robot that serves drinks. Someone is getting ready to get their robo-drink on for Roboexotica, the worldwide gathering of drink serving robots. - Link to video page - Thanks Kate!

[Read this article] [Comment on this article]

Originally from MAKE Magazine on August 31, 2006, 3:01pm

Mac OS X only: Midnight Inbox is swanky beta personal organizational software that implements the popular Getting Things Done personal productivity method.

Collect, process and organize your projects, tasks and life goals David Allen-style all in one interface. This is the first public beta release, and the developers warn against entering mission-critical data into it in this state. Even so, Midnight Inbox looks like a fabulous option full of potential for folks who don’t want to mod Outlook/Entourage or their PDA to GTD; the system’s already baked in. (Oh, if only there were a Windows version…) The beta Midnight Inbox is currently a free download, Mac OS X only. — Gina Trapani

Originally from Lifehacker on August 30, 2006, 7:00pm

If you’ve got bad cell phone reception at your home, office, or in the car, Popular Science suggests installing a cellular amplifier to boost your signal.

PopSci also gives installation advice for each type of amplifier, as well as tips to make sure your amplifier is working correctly. None of the kits are cheap (they’ll set you back at least a couple hundred bucks), but if you’re frequently dropping calls, you may decide it’s worth it in the long run. If you don’t want to shell out the cash, you should check out one of the other four ways to boost your cell signal. — Adam Pash

Originally from Lifehacker on August 30, 2006, 12:00pm

Mac productivity guru Merlin Mann has posted a great roundup of iCal tips over at the 43 Folders weblog.

I do still spend a lot of my day shaking my hammy fist in impotent rage at iCal’s numerous shortcomings, but I’ve reached a kind of détente with Apple’s stock calendaring app, and along the way I’ve discovered some modest ways to squeeze more drops of Cupertino-y goodness from its moist Jolly Rancher-like pages.

Mann’s love-hate relationship with iCal is always a fun read, but his iCal posts are also jam-packed with several clever roads to productivity. The emphasis, of course, is on using iCal with GTD (specifically kGTD), but even if you haven’t jumped on the Getting Things Done bandwagon, you might still learn something. — Adam Pash

Originally from Lifehacker on August 31, 2006, 2:30pm

Mac OS X only: Freeware program OnyX is a Mac OS X tweaking and optimization program that allows you to do all sorts of Mac customizing, from simple to more advanced.

On the relatively simple end, OnyX provides access to Finder, Dock, Dashboard and Exposé options. On the more advanced end of the spectrum, OnyX lets you tweak maintenance, cleaning, automation, and Unix utilities. I’m new to the Mac, but from a Windows perspective OnyX seems very similar to the TweakUI Powertoy.

If you’ve used OnyX, why not give us your favorite tweaks and optimizations in the comments or at tips at lifehacker.com. — Adam Pash

Originally from Lifehacker on August 31, 2006, 1:30pm