I made it to the ITP show at NYU on Tuesday night. I have to admit I was a bit surprised -not exactly in the best of ways – with the show.
Some of the work was pretty good, be it technically or conceptually but in all, most of it was just so so. One of the things that struck me the most, was the fact that a lot of the projects were fairly simple ideas (which is a good thing in itself) yet their actual final presentation seemed incomplete and pretty ad hoc. If the idea isn’t the most complex thing, then at least the production of it should be impeccable.
I’ve just come to discover Flock a new social web browser which is based on the Firefox technology. It allows you to have all those apps you don’t really want to have so easily accesible at hand: Flickr, Facebook, Picassa, RSS feeds, Del.icio.us, Twitter, etc etc etc. The can all be opened within your browser window and, heres the coolest (for me at least) you can post directly to your own blog through the web interface. It has a bunch other cool features that I’m just starting to check out.
This is the Beta release (it’s been very recently launched) but it still handles very well. This will be my first blog post directly through it so I’ll let you know how that worked out.
For those of you out there who want to learn a bit more about the Atom, here is an excellent 1950′s documentary by John Sutherland Productions. Remember kids: ‘Trust us with the control of technology, and we’ll give you progress without end’. General Electric that is.
This was the paradox: I’ve always wanted a Mini Cooper -awesome looks, finding parking in NYC is a breeze, incredible handling, etc etc. Yet how the heck was I going to fit all my family, friends, pets and groceries in there? Fortunately, the guys at Mini (through some otherworldly conduit) have heard my prayers and responded accordingly.
With 4.5 doors (2 Front, clubdoor (?) behind the passenger’s side and barn doors for the back) the new Clubman mini adds a bit more extra space in an already awesome package.
A new substance which negatively refracts light developed by researchers at Princeton, raises the theoretical possibility of bending light around objects and therefore render them invisible, alla Thermo-optic camouflage of Ghost in the Shell. Sweet.
Read the article from Wired here.
Walking down the street earlier today, we got a chance to test drive the new upcoming Volvo C30. A compact car for the big city.
I didn’t wait long enough for the stick shift, but the automatic drove fairly well – for the 6 block set course we could drive… It’s quite a sexy car on the outside with a nice and spacious interior for the size. Starting (according to the Volvo guy who sat next to me) at around 26k and pulling about 19 mpg/city and 24 mpg/highway I think I’ll go for something else.
Google has recently launched Google Sky. Included within Google Earth 4.2, the SKY mode allows you to explore galaxies far-far away, the sky right above your location and perhaps even design flaws on the Death Star.
5 years after the proposal, the laptop for the masses will enter mass production.
“The laptop needs an order of magnitude less power than a typical laptop,” said Professor Bender. “That means you can power it by solar or human power.” Will we see in a few years a whole new class of bicycle-power apparatuses developed around the re-charging of these laptops in the developing countries were they’ll be deployed? You bet.
So among the horrors of war, an American tech company has somehow managed to add a nightmare right out of Akira. Cute helper BEAR-bots, there to assist you when the place you’re in is SO insanely dangerous, your higher-ups decide to send a droid. I’d rather have Cheerbear pick me up and take me over the rainbow.
