Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 752

The Top Six Augmented Reality Mobile Apps

http://mashable.com/2009/08/19/augmented-reality-apps/

*Never seen #5 before. Number five lookin' plenty spooky. Way to go there,

"Rene Descartes." I augment, therefore I not really am.

Lazy Journalists Love Pictures of Abandoned Stuff

*I told you stuff like this would get popular.

http://www.viceland.com/int/v16n8/htdocs/something-something-something-detroit-994.php

*Detroit "ruin porn." That's a nice formulation, "ruin porn."

*A lot of potentially hot pullquotes out of this article but I'm too lazy to cut and paste them. Besides, right now, I'm in London. Time to go take the population's moral temperature.

Eccerobot

*Liking his shirt, especially.

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/blog/robotics/robotics-software/automaton/eccerobot-anthropomimetic-humanoid-robot

Augmented Reality: RjDj

*"Very similar to the effect of drugs." It composes a private ambient soundtrack for you as you walk around, based on the noise level in your environment.

*This is especially funny because I am now in an Amsterdam coffeeshop. I mean, one of the ones that actually sells some coffee. And wifi, of course.

*Augmented sound design, under-rated. Maybe someday "silent augmentation" will be classified like silent cinema.

MEMS augmented contact lenses

*Tiny electromechanical MEMS hardware stuck to the surface of my eyeballs …

but the man's right, that IS feasible. It doesn't violate any laws of physics (except that you have to *beam some wireless power into them* — ouch…)

*So much for that cornball geeky plastic "heads-up display* problem. In fact, why not dig that useless Shakespearian jelly out of your eyes and fill the whole socket with gelatinous MEMS?

CRISTAL Control of Remotely Interfaced Systems USING Touch-BASED Actions IN Living SPACES

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/08/coffee-table-remote/

*Kind of a US Navy-style "acronym" there, guys.

*Liking the "convenient" yet deeply monstrous aspects of this chimeric mashup of screens, augment popups, and everyday home appliances. Watch the boys from the lab turn a formerly-simple coffee table into a remote control for the remote controls!

Dubai as Detroit

*Gothic, Gothic, Gothic High Tech. In FAST COMPANY, no less.

http://www.fastcompany.com/multimedia/slideshows/content/dubai.html

*Squelettes galore. Look at that top-end debtor's car covered with dust. Those who live by burning fossils will perish of their necromancy…. In the Victorian era, when the term was invented, guys and gals "in fast company" were semi-criminal swells and demimondaines, likely to perish of syphilis. Not that anybody *said* they had syphilis, in so many words; they j

Wiremap by Albert Hwang

*It's a video-projection augment installation. It blasts video onto simple white strings so that they look like a wireframe. Except they're not inside a screen, they're, like, standing there in the middle of the actual room.

*Young Mr Hwang made this all himself: it's clamps, plywood, twine and hexnuts. It's a one-guy open-source hackerly art project. It's not gonna be "bigger than the Web," but that would look gorgeous in the foyer of some Favela Chic speakeasy. It's exciting to see parame

Bollywood's globalized actresses

*Interesting to learn that Kalki Koechlin is a French national despite her Indian birth. Maybe Kalki's bi-national. There must be some tri-national people someplace; one wonders what the limit is.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4885174.cms

"BT rounds up the international models and actresses who have said yes to B-town.

"Florence Brudenell-Bruce and Giselle Monteiro : Florence, a British model and the ex-girlfriend of F1 racer, Jenson Button, debuted in Love Aaj Kal as Jo, Saif A

Augmented Reality: Cannonballz

*I don't run a lot of press releases on the ol' blog here, but it's a novelty to get Augmented Reality press releases.

*I have a feeling I'm gonna get a lot more of these. This one may have to stand in for an entire genre.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

contact: press@zugara.com

Zugara's First Webcam Based Augmented Reality Flash Game Utilizes Its Proprietary Motion Capture Technology

Integrates Facebook Connect To Put Casual Gamers And Their Friends In The Same Game.

August 12, 2009, Los Angeles – Today we'