High Speed Photography

High-Speed Photography Instructions

Download this article to get all the details and instructions from Make: 04.

manta ray write up in Usability News

The British HCI group newsletter Usability News wrote up an account of the
HCI Engage 2006 conference. We got a a nice mention:

...however, by far the most glorious and elaborate event preceding the main conference [HCI Engage 2006], in London] , was a conference in its own right. (re)Actor: the First International Conference on Digital Live Art, led by Jenn Sheridan of Lancaster University and Alice Bayliss of the University of Leeds, focussed on HCI, computing and club art: 'mobile, avant garde art, the kind not typically put in a theatre'. 22 papers, 12 installations and 10 performances (some impromptu) took over the staid but elegant Octagon at Queen Mary, University of London. It brought in several people from the States, including the designers of a giant ray-like suspended robot that swooped over the hall and was later customised to dance just over the heads of attendees for the evening session. As well as hosting stunning displays, like the jugglers with light, ReActor addressed the serious issue of evaluation of art, and determining value from an HCI perspective. The full line-up can be seen at http://www.digitalliveart.co.uk/....

We expect video and photos soon. Stay tuned.

Liquid sculpture and water art

Liquid sculpture and water art: "

Spluch writes - 'Martin Waugh creates art out of drops of water through the use of high-speed photography. By varying the size, speed and position of drops, as well as the color, viscosity, and surface tension, a panorama of color, movement and intrigue is created.' - Link.

Related:



High speed photography - water figures - Link.
Homemade Strobe Photography - Link.Want to make your own high speed photos? Try our kit... The High Speed Photography Kit: The high speed photography kit enables you to take pictures of popping balloons, breaking glass, and splashing liquids, revealing a hidden world not visible ... - Link.
[Read this article] [Comment on this article]"

A video projector the size of a sugar cube

A video projector the size of a sugar cube:
... both DigiSlide and Light Blue Optics showing miniscule demonstration units in the last week...

TRIKLITS - Color changing LED light strings

TRIKLITS - Color changing LED light strings: "

Pictured here, "Big Round Cubatron" by Trixie Pixie.

Glow-in-the-dark bubble-bath

Glow-in-the-dark bubble-bath: "Cory Doctorow: Make your next romantic bathroom scene a little more post-apocalyptic with this $15 glow-in-the-dark bubble-bath. Link (via Gizmodo)


"

The Fraunhofer Multimedia Dome

The Fraunhofer Multimedia Dome: "September 6, 2006 Making its first public appearance at the IFA international consumer electronics fair in Berlin, the Multimedia Dome is the first digital dome theatre to feature natural spatial sound: it envelops visitors in fascinating universe of video pictures and sound. The Multimedia Dome was developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Architecture and Software Technology FIRST and the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT, the inventors of the MP3 format which has taken over the world in the last decade...(from Gizmag)

"

Simple Drawing Robots

Simple Drawing Robots: " ...the coolest robots ever to be made out of cardboard ...insanely cool mechanisms made out of plastic bits, coathangers, rubber bands, and cardboard.

Google Image Labeler: Collaborative Tagging Game

Sounds interesting but here's what really caught my eye:

SearchEngineWatch dug out this excellent 51-minute presentation by Carnegie Mellon’s Luis von Ahn (also of CAPTCHA fame), who talks about ESP Game, which Google subsequently licensed to create Labeller. If you’re wondering whether the Labeller will help Google catch up on Flickr’s tags, here’s a salient stat from the video (8 minutes in): in one year, 9 billion people-hours are spent playing Solitaire; it took 20 million human-hours to build the entire Panama Canal - no wonder the professor talks about finding ways to optimise human cycles :-).

from Ajaxian

I have 4 new patents!

Searching US Patent Collection...

Results of Search in US Patent Collection db for:
IN/Schull AND IN/Jonathan: 6 patents.

	PAT. NO.		Title
1	7,092,908		System and method for selling protected information in an oem context
2	7,089,212		System and method for controlling access to protected information
3	7,085,743		System and method for creating and running protected information
4	7,065,508		System and method for operating a licensing server
5	6,266,654		Method for tracking software lineage
6	5,509,070		Method for encouraging purchase of executable and non-executable software

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Implementing an embedded Linux web app framework

Foreword -- This article describes a way to build embedded Linux web applications that follow the "Model, View, Controller" (MVC) software architecture popular nowadays among enterprise web application developers, yet are capable of running on a 130MHz ARM processor. The method is based on several popular open source software components. Enjoy . . . !
http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT5550934609.html


Clearsilver is the real gem that was discovered during this exercise. Clearsilver is a language-neutral HTML template system written in C. It is used as the templating system for many high volume sites such as Google Groups 2. Clearsilver also provides CGI handling functions and bindings to several languages including Python.

Environmental Advocacy Program, Keene NH

The Environmental Advocacy Program | Overview | Eight Key Ideas Foundation Areas | Program Requirements | Course Sequence | EAOP Blog Course Descriptions | FAQ | Job Opportunities | The Advocacy Clinic | Contact Us

Ready for the next step in your leadership development and activism?

Want to make a living working for environmental protection, corporate accountability, and social justice? We can provide you with the sustained political education and skill development you need to become an effective social change leader. Our new one-of-a-kind master's program in Environmental Advocacy and Organizing is currently accepting applications for next Fall.

“The Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program is a unique gem in the academic world: a values-based training program for effective, progressive leadership. Its flexibility, its relevance to local, regional, national, and international issues, and its holistic approach to analyzing and helping to solve a wide range of environmental, economic, and social problems have made this program an invaluable undertaking.”

Peter Alexander, M.S. '04

Read more about the inspiration behind this program.

Fish piloted vehicle

Fish piloted vehicle: "
Somewhat like the roach controlled robot from MAKE 02, this fish controlled vehicle navigates around as the fish pilot swims to different locations in the bowl .

‘Month of Sundays’ Real-time Internet Performances.

‘Month of Sundays’ Real-time Internet Performances.: "Archived recordings of ‘Month of Sundays’, ready for viewing of the Real-time, Internet Performances.

Sean McGrath, CTO, Propylon: WIKIs - a tipping point for the Web?

Sean McGrath, CTO, Propylon: WIKIs - a tipping point for the Web?: "'Is the Web just a hyperlink's way of making another hyperlink in the same way that a chicken can be viewed as an egg's way of making another egg?' -- WIKIs - a tipping point for the Web?"

Manta and friends flying to London

We have had an abstract accepted for the (re)Actor: The First International Conference on Digital Live Art September 11, 2006 in London, which looks like great fun.

The conference will include both day time presentations and evening ambient after party.
Performances and presentations were solicited in all areas of Digital Live Art, including but not limited to:

• Creative clubbing and the playful arena
• Space, body, machine
• Inputs and outputs – co-creation and the dialogic exchange within digital live arts practice
• Computing for the experiential and cerebral
• Performance and the design of interactive interfaces
• Experimental music technology
• Creative displays and projections
• Tools for performers, participants and observers
• Networking, open-source clubbing and the free party
• Models and formal methods of interaction
• Her-story and his-story of computing and clubbing

It sounds as if we'll give an academic talk and have our work flying the 3-story vaulted ceiling of a Reading Room at University of London.

Physical Flight through Cyberspace: an Interactive Ultra-Light Cable Array Mobile with Novel Input Methods

Jon Schull
Brian Ballsun-Stanton
Rochester Institute of Technology

Increasingly we all swim through a transparent sea of cyberspace. An important function of both digital Art and HCI design is to help us navigate, perceive and feel at home in this “strange new land”. This spring a graduate class on “Innovation and Invention” at Rochester Institute of Technology deployed an ultra-light cable-array robot, a projection of cyberspace, and a fiberglass mobile of a manta ray, all controlled by a human operator with a data glove (http://www.vrealities.com/P5.html). Made of flexible fiberglass kite rods and suspended by fishing line to 4 computer-controlled motors, this “wireframe” apparition moved with surprising vigor through a 3-story atrium accompanied by projected digital images snatched from the ambient ether of local wifi networks. The project itself taught us some interesting lessons about the role of intuition and muscle memory in computer-mediated tele-operation.

Even in its first rendition, the artistic piece made an interesting artistic statement and was an entertaining accompaniment to a social event. It would fit in perfectly with the after-party but we would also welcome an opportunity to speak more academically about some technical and artistic issues that arise.

A 11 minute video of the manta's debut is at http://jonschull.blogspot.com/2006/06/fanfare-for-common-manta.html

ControllerMate

ControllerMate is a controller programming tool that allows you to customize the behavior of your HID devices — keyboards, keypads, mice, trackballs, joysticks, gamepads, throttles, among others. ControllerMate’s philosophy is to be as flexible as possible, to provide a set of basic programming tools, and to allow the user to combine those tools in an endless variety of ways.

Controller programming — A new approach
In order to program the buttons on a controller, one might expect that a user would be presented with a list of buttons and a list of available functions. Match the button to the desired function. Simple. Effective.

ControllerMate allows you to create virtual mouse, tablet and joystick devices. These are devices that are created entirely by you, but applications will see them just like the devices that you have plugged into your computer. Using ControllerMate’s building blocks and controller configurations, you can control every move that these virtual devices make. Among other uses, you can use a virtual device to turn a joystick into a full-featured mouse.

Beerquad - DIY Wi-Fi antenna

Beerquad - DIY Wi-Fi antenna: "
Here's a directional Wi-Fi antenna made from Labatt's Blue cans

Attractive manta seeks traveling companion for fame and fortune.

Vendors! Be the first micro-projector vendor on the block to illuminate an ultralight flying manta ray cable array biomimetic robotic mobile sculpture installation!


Explay's digital projector to hit the market in 2007.
See also PVPro and Digismart.

Fanfare for the Common Manta.

You'll laugh, you'll cry.

You'll really believe a manta can fly.

high res (155meg) ........................................ low res (25 meg)

kudos, Brian!