Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 647

Spime Watch: Object 2.0

*Rolling-pins autonomously swapping video…. This is very disturbing. We need a lot more apparently-nightmarish design-fiction thesis projects like this. We might learn something useful before these gizmos show up with logos on them.

http://www.yookyoungnoh.com/thesis2010/project1.html

SHARING EXPERIENCES AND CULTURE WITH PEOPLE THROUGH EVERYDAY OBJECTS, GESTURES, AND USER CONTRIBUTION

"OBJECT 2.0" is a concept proposal for the system of the near future, where the Internet is integrated into ...

Augmented Reality: Verizon Droid ad

*Hollywood-up for Layar by cooking up some o' those big-time sci-fi production values.

All magic, all the time, Mr. Roboto.

Common Wealth for Common People

*Hmmm. I'd be guessing Greece was a great choice for this.

http://www.digicult.it/en/2010/EsseNossePosseCommonWealthForCommonPeople.asp

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART - ATHENS

UNTIL 30 AUGUST 2010

The online exhibition Esse, Nosse, Posse: Common Wealth for Common People has the form of an open platform aiming to be continuously enriched and updated with proposals, works, initiatives and texts.

The network society and especially the internet culture of the last twenty years has changed our...

Kolelinia, an urban transport design fiction

*Kind of an urban personalized ski-lift.

*It looks cheap, and, uh, "not even impossible."

http://inhabitat.com/2010/05/11/electric-transit-backpack-lets-you-fly-through-city-streets/

kolelinio from kolelinia.com on Vimeo.

Showtime: Instancing, Another Glacier

(hmm) Instancing, Another Glacier from Victor Martins on Vimeo.

http://www.pixelnerve.com/v/2010/04/03/mass-cube-rendering/

Showtime: Recursion by Maxim Zhestkov

RECURSION / Zhestkov.com from Maxim Zhestkov on Vimeo.

via @lennyjpg

The NASA Planetary Data System

*Good lord, it's all just sort of sitting there publicly available on the Internet as an actual no-kidding "planetary data system." Y'know, what the planetary instruments actually and factually showed about actual planets.

*I like how they tactfully urge civilian gawkers to avoid the dry scientific data sets, and go look at the pretty pictures. Sounds like a hot job for infoviz guys.

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/

http://pds.nasa.gov/about/faq.shtml

What data are available?

All data managed i...

Medieval British African guy, 1190 AD

*So many mute Marco Polos.

*A little freaky, though, how talkative isotope analysis is getting. Tunisian

guy in Ipswich. What TOWN in Tunisia, one wonders.

http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/medieval-african-england.html

(…)

"It's not clear how the man would have made his way from Tunisia to Ipswich, the southeast England town where his skeleton was unearthed in the 1990s. The BBC's "History Cold Case" program, which is publicizing the finding, suggested that he may have been brought back...

Augmented Reality: travelling with Tagwhat

*I travel all the time, and, yes, there probably is some nifty way that my data shadow could help other people. For instance, I could have Facebook spy on me and all my friends. I could have Google track my every online move. Or I could be all public-spirited like this Tagwhat guy, and do an incredible amount of free labor for what often seems rather minimal personal benefit.

*Probably there was also some missing, utopian Jaron Lanier / Xanadu model where I somehow micropay this guy five ...

Showtime: that volcano in Iceland

Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull - May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

"So I saw all of these mediocre pictures of that volcano in Iceland nobody can pronounce the name of, so I figured I should go and do better."