Soo-Mi Park’s LED Eyelashes are just the thing the every fashionista at Tyrell corporate events, the Game Grid, and The Sprawl will be wearing.
Echos of Diana Eng’s (see also) Fairytale Fashion, only some how much less geeky.
Video after the jump.
The Astonishing Tribe (TAT), using software from Polar Rose, has created a mobile application that uses facial recognition to perform social search. Users submit photos of their faces to the Recognizr website, along with what web links they want associated with them (e.g. blogs, Flickr, or YouTube). Then by downloading an app to their mobile phone, they can take a photo of a stranger, submit it to the website, and if that stranger is a Recognizr user, find out all about him/her.
This work reminds me of Bradley Rhodes’s old wearable/AR emacs plugin, the Remembrance Agent. The idea behind that application was that, while wearing a PC-104 based Lizzy wearable computer, you’d type in names into emacs, and then bring up whatever notes you had about them. I don’t remember if it integrated with the Insidious Big Brother Database or not.
I’ll admit it. This post is just here to look at pictures of police cars. I kind of like police cars. I like the flashing lights. I like that they go fast. The first time I sat in a police car, I was maybe five years old. An Illinois State POlice trooper, having lunch/dinner at the DuQuoin Pizza Hut, let me sit on his lap and turn the lights on. I remember leaning out of the car and expclaiming, “The Woo-woos! They WORK!,” and that he had a broken thumb. I imagined that he got shot in it. The last time I sat in a police car, it was getting a speeding ticket after I blew past another Illinois State Police car going about 90 on I-57. I sat in the front, because the back was full of cardboard boxes containing files. (I’m sure Andrew Tanenbaum would have something to say about that.) I noticed there was a lot of crap in a cop car. A laptop and two CB radios. (WTF?)
Now with disclaimer out of the way…
New police cars!
Ford is eliminating the Crown Victoria police cruiser, and replacing it with the 2011 Taurus Police Interceptor (based on the 2010 Taurus). What makes this different from the Crown Vics? This one has unibody construction (which makes repairs more expensive), and a 25% more fuel efficient V6 engines (263 HP and 365 HP available, with either front-wheel or all-wheel transmissions).
Not to be left behind, GM is releasing a new 2011 Chevrolet Caprice Police Interceptor which comes in both a V8 (355 HP) and V6 FlexFuel (i.e. E85 or gasoline) engines.
Dodge is staying with their Charger that released in 2006.
However, the coolest police car out there is not the lame-o police Lamborghini, or the from-the-mind-of-a-seven-year-old-boy Caparo T1 Rapid Response Vehicle, but Carbon Motors purpose built (as opposed to a normal conversion) police car, the E7. It comes with night vision, a heads up display,an automatic license plate recognizer, voice control, and suicide doors! (More photos from Jalopnik.)
Photos of all cars mentioned after the jump.
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Next Wednesday and Thursday, (Feb 17-18), at the DNA Lounge (“A disorderly house injurious to the public welfare and morals”) (375 Eleventh St; SF) is BarBot 2010. Tickets are $10 advance, $15 day of show.
Come out and have iZac pour you a fuzzy navel, and the girliest drink in the house!
NC State industrial design grad student, Joe Harmon is building a car by hand. Not just any car. A sports car that can reach 240 MPH. Not just any 700 HP, 240 MPH sports car. A 700 HP, 240 MPH sports car made almost entirely of wood. The body? Wood. The dash? Wood. The seats? Well, they’re wicker. The wheels? Oh, they’re wood too. The suspension? Yes, it’s wood too.
Because he wants strength, but also a reduced weight (wood has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than steel or aluminum), he is creating the body out of custom made plywood that consists of layers of eighth inch wide cherry veneer strips that are then weaved together, and glued on top of a weaved birch veneer, a core of balsa wood, and then another woven layer of birch. The panels are then vacuumed formed into shape, using the same technique that’s used for carbon-fiber composites. All told, about 30 species of wood are used to make up the car.
According to the last update, which was about a year ago, the outer shell was complete, but the internal components such as the V8 Cadillac Northstar engine and six speed Corvette transmission were yet to be installed. However, the car has drawn industrial sponsors like Delta/Porter-Cable, and has been making the rounds at different car shows.
Thanks Dad!
I’ve been thinking more about solar plants recently. I like how these projects combine both form and function. I’ve been thinking about what I’d like in one of these, and how one would be made. First, the power being collected by the solar cells needs to go somewhere. It could just feed back into the device, which is exactly what happens with plants, but part of me likes the idea of having the sculpture(?) have a practical use as well. If I want practicality, then USB ports for charging an iPod or a phone that I don’t have would be nice. At least one port, but four would be more than plenty. I’m leaning towards the solar cells charging some li-ion or nicad battery coupled with something like a Minty Boost.
The second feature I’ve been hammering the previous electronic plants I’ve looked at is the movement, specifically heliotropism (i.e. sun tracking). It’s an interesting feature, and it would increase the power to the photovoltaics. I don’t like the idea of the hearing servos move, so that means nitinol wires, which also have the quality of more closely resembling natural motion by simply expanding and contracting. The next question then becomes, what form would the motion would take?
If rigid photovoltaics are used, then panel could be mounted to a universal joint with the two outside corners independently controlled by nitinol. The other idea is to use flexible photovoltaics and hopefully no hinges and joints.
Another interesting idea is to think about deployable structures, which would seem to imply the use of flexible photovoltaics. It’s not exactly the heliotropism I was thinking of, but it would be cool if the “leaves” opened up in the day, tracked the light, and then closed at night.
Doing all of this nitinol might be kind of difficult. Heating nitinol causes it to contract in the 3 – 5 % range, doesn’t seem like much. This also means that for a deployable structure, it needs to collapse when the wires are extended,
Will I actually build this? Probably not, but it is something I’ve been thinking about. Perhaps it would give me an excuse to visit Noisebridge.
Taking a commission from Seoul’s City Gallery Project, The Living created Living Light, a vaguely forest-like structure that features a map of Seoul across the canopy. Each of the 27 panels in the canopy represents a particular neighborhood in the city. At night, each panel is illuminated based on air quality data as measured by various sensors throughout the city. Every 15 minutes, the panels turn on in the order of best quality to the worst.
Make highlights Phil Clandillon and Steve Milbourne of Sony Music UK, latest project Football Hero. (Behind the scenes video after the jump.) Football Hero is a a copy of the open source clone of Guitar Hero, Frets on Fire, and series of pressure sensors. Soccer players kick balls against the sensors in time with the music.
Yeah, it’s a viral video to promote Kasabian’s new single, but this is pretty cool.
Besides jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, one of my other unquenchable fascinations is number stations. Why? They’re terribly creepy. Then you learn they’re for honest to god spies.
If you’re not familiar with number stations, they’re shortwave radio stations that regularly broadcast literally cryptic sequences of numbers or letters. Triangulation indicates that some of these stations are typically located on air force bases and other military installations around the world. The number sequences are believed to be one-time-pad messages sending instructions to clandestine agents somewhere in the world. By using shortwave, not only can you broadcast halfway around the world, but building a receiver in-situ is very easy.
When I listen to recordings of these stations, with all the pops, whistles, distortions, and the mechanized voice repeating cryptic sequences I get unsettled. I don’t know why. It’s just bizarre.
Radio Free Berkeley is selling radio transmitters (Brand new obsolete NTSC tv transmitters are also available.) Ruggedized, and small enough to be concealed, the 40W version can transmit 8 – 10 miles.
With one of these and Yuri Suzuki’s QR codes you could create a pretty cool number station.
Video after the jump.
