The new book, Masters of Deception, features the work of several illusionists, including the sculptor Shigeo Fukuda. Fukuda's mastery is in creating physical forms that take on a second identity when the viewing angle changes or a light is introduced. In the Lunch with a Helmet On (above), the shadow of a motorcycle is built entirely out of welded forks, knives and spoons. Movies of this piece, and several others, are available here.

i'm telling you, man, the french just have it all figured out.... -- AP

YES!! our powers are now recognized -- AP

Not that we ve ever actually been able to bring ourselves to throw out or recycle any of our old useless gadgets, which are piling up around the house (it s so hard to part with them, anyone else have this problem?), but we might not feel so bad about it in the future. Researchers at the University of Warwick in Britain have been working with PVACC Research & Development on biodegradable cellphone casings that disintegrate when composted. They also embed a little surprise into each casing a seed that won t germinate until you recycle the phone. Damn hippies.

[Via textually.org]

Swedish ecologist Susanne Wiigh-Masak has developed Promessa, a method for recycling human corpses into fertilizer.

While cremation burns fossil fuels and releases pollutants, burials require that the corpse be filled with embalming fluids which can pollute the groundwater as the body decays.

Wiigh-Masak's solution has bodies immersed in liquid nitrogen to remove water, causing them to crumble into fine organic dust. This is then placed in a container that biodegrades within six months.

Having tested the method with pig and cow carcasses, she planted roses above the containers with excellent results.

Elsewhere in Europe, Arteus sells eco-friendly coffins made of cellulose fibre. It usually takes a whole tree to make a traditional coffin, but a hundred of Arteus products can be manufactured out of the equivalent of a recycled tree.

A bit more on the artistic side, but very thought-provoking: Biopresence, by London-based Shiho Fukuhara and Georg Tremmel, uses a specially developed coding method to encode human DNA underneath the DNA of a plant cell, without affecting the resulting tree in any way. So, the person's DNA will live on as an integral part of the tree. These new kind of trees can be seen as "Memorials for Life" or as "Transgenic Tombstones" and could offer an alternative to traditional graves and headstones.

(Posted by Regine Debatty in Plausibly Surreal Scenarios and Anticipations at 12:48 PM)

warning - big and take-time-to-load flash site, but it is well worth it, if you have that kind of attention span -- AP

At the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan, neurobiologist Kenji Doya is using "cyber rodents" to probe how rewarding individuals when they achieve simple goals can give rise to intelligent group behaviors. Two of the critters circle each other in a mating dance. Others forage for fresh batteries on the floor. Another one just sits there. "That one is lazy," says the scientist. "It doesn t expend energy to get a reward."

Doya's work could help designers build machines that collaborate to carry out complex tasks, paving the way for self-sufficient swarms of robots that explore hostile environments, gather surveillance data, and repair equipment remotely.

The key is teaching the robots to do the right thing. Each rodent is equipped with a processor chip, a camera, sensors, wheels, and infrared data ports that allow it to communicate with others. If a robot approaches a battery pack or orients itself to mate, it receives a digital "reward" a snippet of software code that reinforces that behaviour in the future. Over time, the robots compete for power and may even develop territories and alliances.

Via Technology Review.

"This is a lovely pamphlet that artist Packard Jennings distributed at his local mall. Packard is the human who brought us the 'fallen rapper' pez dispensers."

Link to art-pamphlet, and Link to other past work from Jennings.

happy holidays! -- AP

Remember the iDuck, that little duck-shaped USB flash memory drive? Well this is just like that. Except, uh, only without the flash memory drive part or anything else potentially. No, this time around the iDuck has dropped all pretense of utility and is back as pure ornamentation. For bonus fun, find someone who actually has an iDuck drive and swap theirs with one of these storage-less ones.

yes!!! totally useless light things, i want one, i want one!! -- AP

"The equipment consists of two machines, almost identical in construction, the first being called the " transmitter," the second the " receiver." Each is provided with an eight-inch cylinder, which may be made to revolve by a delicate system of clockwork so finely regulated that both instruments work together to a nicety.

Above each cylinder rests a fine platinum needle, or stylus, not unlike the point in a telegraph key. A sheet of tin-foil, six inches by eight inches, ready to wrap round the transmitter's cylinder, and a sheet of ordinary carbon manifold-copying paper of the same dimensions, which, when placed between two sheets of blank paper, is to be wrapped round the receiver's cylinder--these complete the chief requirements."

"Marey became interested in movement at an early stage of his career: the movement of blood as it circulated, the movements which controlled the beating of the heart, then those of the muscles and nerves. To improve his studies, he developed more and more precise recording instruments. Once had explained the internal movements of the body, Marey extended his investigations to the motion of the body as a whole: a walking human being, a flying dragonfly, a swimming ray, a falling cat..."

a few of ya ll sent this in, and it s handy enough that it deserves a post!

portable firefox is a fully functional package of firefox optimized for use on a usb key drive. it has some specially-selected optimizations to make it perform faster and extend the life of your usb key as well as a specialized launcher that will allow most of your favorite extensions to work as you switch computers.

If cities evolve, what will shape their evolution over the next few decades?

Salon has an interesting article today about the use of wireless technologies as the drivers for urban change. "Urban Renewal, the Wireless Way" (subscription or brief advertisement required) looks at the realization that embedding networked technologies in urban spaces isn't dehumanizing, doesn't "eliminate geography," but can be enriching both socially and economically. Cities have long been home to dense social and information networks -- in the ethnic and artistic subcultures, in the patterns of business and commerce, in the every day communication of millions of people -- and digital tools make these networks both more accessible and more powerful.

The Japan Science and Technology Agency have invented a clear, flexible transistor that can be used to make clear, flexible electronic gadgets. Has anyone seen my cell phone?

Perversely Interactive System, by Lynn Hughes and Simon Laroche, puts the spectator into relation with a virtual other whose image (s)he controls through a biofeedback device.

The system is made of a large scale video projection and a wireless biofeedback handset that monitors galvanic skin resistance (variation in sweat gland activity that measures the level of stress).

The video projection begins with the image of a woman with her back turned. As the participant learns to reduce his or her stress / sweat level, the woman on the screen gradually turns around, and advances towards the participant.

So in this piece, excitation or effort hinders, rather than promotes, successful interaction. If the participant s tension level rises (often due to the excitement of success) then the woman stops.

Till December 12 at the FILE festival in Sao Paulo.

Rebel Prince posted a photo:

28 Nov 2004: "Capitalism is so gay." I found this spray-painted stenciled message on the sidewalk in the MIssion district, somewhere between Guerrero and Dolores, San Francisco.

ha ha ha ha ha...... -- AP

Julian Lwin is a product designer who decided to do something with all those refuse bottles found curbside on recycling day. His lighting pieces creatively repurpose laundry bottles making both a social and an aesthetic impact.

I
Today I hacked Eyebeam's reBlog. It was very easy. Without any passwords or technical expertise, I gained, and by the time of this post, continue to maintain control of their content.

read more at her post, i am glad to have played a crucial part in this mini project/political statement. :-) -- AP

CC French project lead Melanie Dulong de Rosnay and Daniele Bourcier have just published 'International Commons at the Digital Age - la creation en partage', a book with some valuable chapters on our first experiences with the internationalized CC licenses.

The book was written as a contribution to a day-long event in Paris on November 19th to celebrate the launch of the French CC licenses.

For this occasion (photographs and some abstracts to follow in these pages) Melanie had organized several panels at the French National Assembly debating the merits of the CC approach from a variety of different perspectives (academia, the publishing industry, politics, science, the arts). The celebration continued into the wee hours at the Maison de Metallo in downtown Paris with live music acts, poetry readings, website presentations and fair trade drinks.

Many thanks to Melanie for all her enthusiasm and her splendid organization of this event.

the french just really have their stuff figured out, don't they? -- AP

One of the legions of Japanese geeks enamoured of high tech and pop culture but losers at real-life relations, the anonymous hero sought advice on how to pursue the girl of his dreams.

The story unfolded in the three months through May as "Train Man", encouraged by equally anonymous bulletin-board mates, plucked up the courage to phone, date and declare his love for "Miss Hermes", so dubbed for the brand-name of the teacups she gave him as a thank-you gift.

Compiled into book format last month, "Train Man" leapt onto bestseller lists, a reflection, experts say, of how deeply the Internet is seeping into the everyday lives of Japanese youth. (REUTERS)

wow, i never thought this day would come -- AP

Sound Barrier, by Maia Urstad, is a sound installation of some 130 CD-and cassette radios assembled as a wall. They remind us of historical remains of buildings --except that the stones are made of electronics-- and reflect issues related to the technical development and our culture of consumption.

The CD players in the wall are playback units for a composition of electronically treated sounds borrowed from radio waves, Morse code, FM- and satellite radio etc. Sound signals that also will be obsolete and forgotten sooner than we might expect.

The sound barrier installation can be seen from Nov. 27 till Jan 23. 2005 at the Electrohype Biennial in Sweden.

NASA engineers are developing a technology that picks up and translates throat signals into words before they're even spoken.

According to neuroengineer Chuck Jorgensen , when you're reading, sometimes you find that your tongue or your lips are moving but you're not making an audible sound. An electronic signal is being sent to produce that speech but you're intercepting it so it doesn't really say it out loud. That's subvocal speech.

Electrodes cling below Jorgensen's chin picking up electronic signals that the body sends to vocal chords. He amplifies the signals and uses neural network software to decipher word patterns.

Those sounds create waves that electrodes pick up and funnel into a neural net which recognizes the pattern and the label or word that Jorgensen assigns to that pattern. Over time, word repetition and processing enable the introduction of new patterns or words.

During a demo before a wide screen, Jorgensen can direct a simulated Mars rover over Martian terrain. It dips, falls, climbs over craters and turns abruptly to the left and right, all at Jorgensen's prompting, all without him uttering a sound.

Of course, conversational speech is very different from uttering a word and it's unclear how well the system would recognize subvocal speech during conversation.

Still, the expectation that subvocal speech devices might retool communication is high. Applications could include communication in covert operations with military troops, situations where you can't speak normally, underwater or in fire gear, or possibly where there's high noise or you have a respirator. One day, scientists might even develop a silent cell phone.

And, best of all, the technology could improve the life of people suffering from speech ailments.

Via ScienCentral News.
Credit photo: NASA Ames Research Center, Dominic Hart.

I founded a collective french music weblog with a mp3blog page. We made a compilation of musics we discovered on the web, by ourselves or via other mp3blogs. It's called Point D'ecoute (French for Listening post, a reference to a Mark Hansen Installation: Link

. All the tracks are taken from the bands' sites so it's 100% legal, like a mini Wired CD. 23 tracks, a lot from the US, but also Netherlands, France, Belgium, Austria, Sweden... You can download it here: Link We made it free to download, with a cover and all. At an event in Paris celebrating musical webzines, we burned it on demand: Link

There’s probably no better way to indoctrinate your kids into the ways of RFID than with the MagiCook Kitchen from Little Tikes, a toy kitchen where all the fake food comes embedded with RIFD tags. Swipe a plastic waffle over the built-in sensor in the fake stovetop and you’ll hear a variety food and cooking-related phrases. See, RFID really is for more than just the government spying on you!

You knew it would happen. The Nintendo DS has so many features, it’s a hackers dream come true. Sure, Nintendo is notorious for dodging hacks but when they added Wi-Fi to their repertoire, they were just asking for that special attention. The beginning of the process starts here. It’s nothing too sexy; just a method to capture Pictochat sessions. But it will lead to bigger things. Sexy things. The kinds of things that will have you plunking down 200 bucks so you can join the DS frenzy.

Soundmesh: Design and OSX version: Mara Helmuth; RTmix Collaboration: Brad Garton; Linux version: Ivica Ico Bukvic. Soundmesh plays uncompressed audio data to remote host ips. It handles 44.1KHz au/sun/next or aiff files. It is a RTcmix-3.1.0 based application. You do not need to install cmix as all binaries are included. Because high bandwidth is required, you must be at an Internet2 site to participate.

SoundWIRE: This project is fundamentally concerned with two areas of research: streaming professional-quality audio to remote destinations using next-generation Internet, and developing practical, intuitive methods for assessment of network reliability. Currently, digital audio streaming across the internet is compromised by restricted bandwidth and buffering of audio data to safeguard against network irregularities. The results are signal compression and potentially long delay times.

Global Visual Music Project: Goals are to: a) develop software for the creation, mediation, and dissemination of real-time multimedia content, including high resolution two and three dimensional graphics, digital audio and video; b) develop a networking capability for this software, so that multimedia data could be shared between users in many locations; c) organize a high profile event to unveil these resources by staging a networked multiple site public performance with accomplished artists in established artistic and technological venues; d) create a web site to disseminate information about our research; e) freely distribute the software we create; and f) develop and publish a communication protocol for networked distribution of high quality real-time multi-media data.

direct quote from the article: "The Chelseafication of the art world has created a consensus of mediocrity and frivolousness." hm, u think? -- AP

We wrote about Fab Labs a few months ago -- the combination of 3D scanners, Linux computers, laser cutters, 3D milling equipment, etc., assembled by the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT for use in the developing world. It's one of the coolest and potentially one the most revolutionary projects going, as it could be the jumping-off point for the biggest developing world leapfrog ever. Now Bruce Sterling (a name mentioned on WorldChanging once or twice) writes about Fab Labs for the latest issue of Wired, doing what he does best: seeing the possibilities.

Now imagine a vast, rising tide of bastardized things, shoddier than the cheapest postwar products of Japan, coming from Congo, Myanmar, Fallujah - a global outbreak of Napster-fabbed mayhem. Fabbing would be the ultimate industry for the perennially unindustrialized; the consumer cornucopia for the antideveloping world; a mushroom patch of recycled decay that pops up whenever the World Trade Organization, World Intellectual Property Organization, or US Patent and Trademark Office turns its back.

(Posted by Jamais Cascio in QuickChanges at 01:05 PM)

Dear Online Family,

It is with great pleasure and a heart thumping with pride, that Sparky and I announce the launch of ModernPooch.com, where the dog obsessed can get their daily fix of cute pics, funny stories and useful tips.

So everyday when you feel that familiar ache for the pooch...you now know where to look - ModernPooch.com!

Sincerely,

Sparky & Andrea Harner

P.S. This site will keep on truckin' with everything but dogs.

hm, so i'm not actually sure what this is, but my first reaction was to reblog this. it actually looks almost like one of my illustrator sketch while trying to design the reblog logo, sans the b/w background. -- AP.

"Opsound is an experimental record label and open sound pool of copyleft music, organized through the website opsound.org. It is a laboratory for looking at how artists can release music in a manner synergistic with the internet's capacity to encourage communication and sharing. Opsound explores the possibilities of developing a gift economy among musicians, borrowing from the model of the free and open source software communities."

Thursday, December 2, CBGB Lounge 8pm - midnight and beyond.
313 Bowery, NYC- between 1st and 2nd streets - F train to Second Ave, or 6 train to Bleecker

Thanks Beth for rocking the reBlog, even over the slow thanksgiving weekend. Starting tonite is Ann Poochareon of miserychick.net.

Ann goes way back with Eyebeam -- she was a member of the Contagious Media Group where Fundrace was born (she did the initial design) and she did the reBlog logo and Eyebeam reBlog page. She's currently working on SeeArtMakeArt, as well as a redesign of this reBlog and some of the content on Eyebeam's home page.

Take it away, Ann.