Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 746

Austin: the accelerating climate crisis

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/2009/09/01/0901trees.html

(…)

"Arborists and foresters say trees throughout Central Texas, even native species such as live oak and hackberry, have succumbed after being ravaged by the long drought and intense summer heat.

"I have not seen it to this extent in my lifetime," said Jim Houser of the Texas Forest Service. "We're even seeing cedars (Ashe junipers) dying. They can exist on sunbaked, rocky plantscapes. And we're seeing them die all

International Workshop on Ubiquitous Virtual Reality

*Okay, they're calling their workshop "Ubiquitous Virtual Reality," but it's amazing these workshop attendees could settle on a name at all, given that they are from Finland, New Zealand, Korea, India, Germany and Austria.

The fourth International Workshop on
Ubiquitous Virtual Reality
(IWUVR2010)
 
 May. 17, 2010 - Helsinki, Finland
 
We invite you to the fourth International Workshop on Ubiquitous Virtual Reality 2010 in Helsinki, Finland. IWUVR2010 will be held as part of the  Pervasive 2010 confer

Augmented Reality: Total Immersion, quand des objets du quotidien prennent vie

*Pretty standard stuff at first — but wait 'till the second half, with the interactive finger-pressed paper "buttons" and the streaming video embedded on paper.

http://www.clubic.com/article-136092-12-video-reportage-laval-virtual-realite-virtuelle.html

Source de la vidéo : Clubic

*More. Check out those event stand-up installations in the demo reel.

http://www.t-immersion.com/en,video-gallery,36.html

Augmented Reality: Made in Poland

http://www.augmented-reality.pl/case-studies/polska-branza-interaktywna-i-augmented-reality/

"Do tej pory mogliście posłuchać o realizacjach mających miejsce za granicą naszego małego państewka. Raz dalej raz bliżej, ale wciąż z dala od nas. Tym razem będzie coś z naszego rodzimego podwórka. Mało tego. Będzie to z rynku agencji interaktywnych.

"W kwietniu 2009 przed świętami Wielkiej Nocy światło dzienne ujrzała kartka świąteczna firmy Adv.pl S.A. wykonana właśnie w AR. Na trójwymiarowym jajku wie

Augmented Reality vs Mobile Image Recognition and Mobile Tagging

http://wireless.sys-con.com/node/1087364

*Stewart McKie is right, those ARE different. They may not feel much different as a user-experience, but I'd bet good money that they spectacularly fail in different ways. We're gonna see bundling, unbundling, blending, mash-ups, disaggregations, in-device versions, in-cloud versions…

*The time-honored use case of a wine-bottle shows how much hidden spime potential exists in these technologies. If it's about tracking and identifying objects, real-time in

Dead Media Beat: analog NASA tapes

*It's an epic Dead Media tale, and one we have run before, but this one's got pictures of the hardware they improvised to save the data. And the garage tech-favela they did it in.

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/23188/?nlid=2312

Augmented Reality: eyeball-mounted display

*We're deep in vapor-hardware here, but it's nice to see this weird project getting a sudden toehold in the public eye.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/bionics/augmented-reality-in-a-contact-lens/1

(…)

"Conventional contact lenses are polymers formed in specific shapes to correct faulty vision. To turn such a lens into a functional system, we integrate control circuits, communication circuits, and miniature antennas into the lens using custom-built optoelectronic components. Those components wi

Russian hackers as Department of Homeland Security

*Not only do hackers boldly pose as members of the Department of Homeland Security, they do so in order to intimidate people in the Federal government.

*I rather imagine this kind of spearphishing works pretty well. "Hey! Drone from the Commerce Department! Turn over your password right now, or we put you on the Watch List! You'll never fly domestic without relentless harassment again. What? 'Demand your civil rights?' With us, you don't have any!"

–DHS Warns of Malicious Spoofed eMail
(Aug

All-Chinese Space Station, 2020 AD

*What's wrong with the International Space Station? All the cool kids are up there already. Thirteen of 'em, for heaven's sake. It's as crowded as Hong Kong.

*From the "I'll believe this space bluster when I see the fumes from the launchpad" department:

China to start building an orbital space station in 2020

Published By MattOn: 31 August 2009 3:32 PM CEST Source

BEIJING, August 31 – China will begin the construction of its own orbital space station in 2020, the Sina news service said on Monday

British centipede operation

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/aug/31/data-protection-privacy-ico-celebrities

*Well, that sure makes that Matthew Mellon celebrity dust-up look small.

*I wonder how long it's going to take the British to wonder about their ten million

Oyster cards and all that urban video footage.