Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 634

The Czech Cafe' Newspaper Model

*Well, since newspapers started out in coffeehouses, maybe it makes sense to go back there now that all media hell has broken loose.

*I mean, at least you get coffee. And a roof. A bathroom, even.

http://www.wieninternational.at/en/node/20191

"Czech Republic: local news from the coffee house

"A new young generation of media makers has set out to transform the Czech market with pioneering and innovative projects like the so-called Newsroom Cafés. There, local newspapers are produced jointly by e...

Web Semantics: Code Obfuscation

*Hey, that postmodern gobbledygook out of the humanities has got nothing on modern computer science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obfuscated_code

"Obfuscated code is source or machine code that has been made difficult to understand. Programmers may deliberately obfuscate code to conceal its purpose or its logic to prevent tampering, deter reverse engineering or as a puzzle or recreational challenge for readers. It is a form of security through obscurity.

"Programs known...

The Continuing Climate Crisis: Pakistan

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/07/pakistan-energy-policy-proving-deadly

"From the whitewashed mansions of Clifton, Karachi, to the dusty village shacks in Gujar, Punjab, the two words heard most regularly on the lips of Pakistanis right now? Load-shedding, the political euphemism that is used by everyone – be they state official, liberal intellectual or housemaid – to discuss the country's long, daily blackouts. Power cuts and energy shortage are nothing new for the...

Spime Watch: The Internet of Old Things

*I'm keenly interested in these suggestions that a network society inherently transforms our understanding of futurity and history.

*There are suggestions here that Ruskinian sentiment about artsy old objects can use the Internet to fight back against planned obsolescence. That's got to be part of it — but that's not even half of it.

http://fields.eca.ac.uk/

(…)

Looking backwards whilst walking forward

Whilst the consumer landscape is kept 'fresh' with information about the new, the network...

Augmented Reality: Augmented Italian Reality, Milano, June 18

*Ha ha ha! That totally made my day!

http://www.iar2010.joinpad.net/

Italian Augmented Reality 2010 from IAR2010 on Vimeo.

*I'd go to this thing in a hot second if I didn't have a schedule conflict…. Tragically, I've yet to master the augmented feat of being in three places at the same time.

Augmented Reality: Solar Equation by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

http://www.domusweb.it/upd_art/article.cfm?idtipo=3&id=1671

*Five mapped projectors hitting a huge spherical balloon in realtime and simulating the surface of the sun. Imagine walking in on this awesome installation when you're innocently strolling the streets in Melbourne. And you can control the sun animations in realtime with an iPod Touch.

*Man, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is the electronic-art avant-garde. He has got the chops to really make it happen.

'At the 9 AM of the Augmented Reality Industry'

*My opening address at Augmented Reality Event 2010.

The Augmented Reality Event: Bruce Sterling's keynote from Ori Inbar on Vimeo.

Like-jacking

*Via SANS.

*Every time darkside hackers make up a new exploit, somebody's got to make up and promulgate a new name to the security community. "Like-jacking." You 'like' something on Facebook, you get hijacked.

*Did the malefactors who made this scheme up have a name for it? I mean, there must have been more than one of them, right? It had to be a collaborative effort. So what did they say to each other when they referred to that work? "Hey Kevin! How are things going on our...

Augmented Reality: Augmatic

*Nice piece of work. Augmented Surreality, almost.

Fractal'10 AR Ident from James Alliban on Vimeo.

Web Semantics: where to put hyperlinks

http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2010/05/experiments_in.php

*Here's Nicholas Carr suggesting that links should be weeded out of texts on blogs, and segregated in a heap of footnotes at the bottom of the post, where they can do less harm to our attention. In other words, Carr has a cogent suggestion for web semantics.

*Of course, Carr is the guy whose new book claims, without much in the way of physical evidence, that the Internet corrodes our brains. I'm okay with that speculation, actually. ...