Archive for the ‘design’ Category

Japanese Scientists Create Touchable Holograms

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Reverse Sales : ToVieFor

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The Language Construction Kit

This set of webpages (what’s a set of webpages? a webchapter?) is intended for anyone who wants to create artificial languagesa for a fantasy or an alien world, as a hobby, as an interlanguage. It presents linguistically sound methods for creating naturalistic languagesa which can be reversed to create non-naturalistic languages. It suggests further reading for those who want to know more, and shortcuts for those who want to know less.
aMark Rosenfelder

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Get Schooled : Gizmodo University

OK, we’re calling it: Computers are more than a passing fad. We’re so convinced of this, that we’ve teamed up with Sparkle Labs to teach you about electricity and electronics prototyping with series of interactive video classes.

Every Saturday at noon, from October 23rd to November 13th, we’ll post a video lesson that teaches you the basics of what goes on inside a computer chip. From breadboard basics to sophisticated circuits, you’ll gain a greater understanding of how your machines work. And the certified geniuses over at Sparkle Labs will hang around for a while in the comments to answer any questions you might have.

To take part in all the activities you’ll see on the videos, you should probably pick up Sparkle’s Discover Electronics Kit. We’ve convinced them to drop the price to $40 for Giz readers. You’re welcome. And we’ll see you in class!

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Nature Needs Heroes

Timberland’s latest marketing campaign for theirAEarthkeepers footwear collection, which uses recycled rubber and recycled PET (one and a half plastic bottles are used in each pair of Earthkeepers™ boots), asks consumers to consider how they can be "heroes" for the great outdoors-hence it’s name: "Nature Needs Heroes." To kick off the campaign and showcase the Earthkeepers Spring 2011 collection, they asked press to attend an event on Governor’s Island in New York City. I couldn’t make it so I asked for photos from the event and more info on their interactive marketing campaign. They happily acquiesced:

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To Tame Traffic, Go with the Flow

Traffic lights that act locally can improve traffic globally, new research suggests. By minimizing congestion, the approach could save money, reduce emissions and perhaps even quash the road rage of frustrated drivers.

The new approach makes traffic lights go with the flow, rather than enslaving drivers to the tyranny of timed signals. By measuring vehicle inflow and outflow through each intersection as it occurs and coordinating lights with only their nearest neighbors, a systemwide smoothness emerges, scientists report in a September Santa Fe Institute working paper.

"It's very interesting a the approach is adaptive and the system can react," says mechanical engineer Gabor Orosz of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "That's how it should be a that's how we can get the most out of our current system."

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London to Helsinki : Dictaphone Parcel

Animated short film, Royal College of Art, London, 2009

Dictaphone Parcel is an animation based on a sound recorded with a dictaphone travelling secretly inside a parcel. As the hidden recorder travels through the global mail system, from London to Helsinki, it captures the unexpected. We hear a mixture of abstract sounds, various types of transport and even discussions between the mail workers. The animation visualizes this journey by creating an imaginary documentary.

Dictaphone Parcel was awarded the Passion Pictures Prize in London, in February 2010.

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MakerBot and the Rise of Libertarian Tech

Imagine instead of going to the store, simply downloading what you need from the Internet and printing it out on a 3D printer. That future is here.

"The time from a thought to a thing is short. You can just manifest something," explains MakerBot Industries co-founder Bre Pettis of a world for those with one of the stuff printers he helped create. There is much to be MakerBotted: practical stuff (a cup, a cooling fan), replacement stuff (a camera lense cover, a shower curtain hook), novel stuff (a tube squeezer, a clip-on reading LED) and the completely random (a miniature of your own head). We visit the Brooklyn (NY) wherehouse of MakerBot Industries where Bre Pettis shows us a future where we all can be our own manufacturers.

Dinosaur Design vs. Cockroach Design

Dinosaurs used to be kings and queens of the planet. Nothing got in their way except for each other. They came in many shapes and sizes. Some ate plants and others ate meat. They were complex creatures and each of them were unique in their own way.

If you were to look at all of the dinosaurs and were told you could design your own then you would have a ton of cool features to work with. You could get the wings of a pterodactyl, horns of a triceratops, roar of a tyrannosaurus rex and a number of other bits and pieces. You would simply take the best of each species to make one wonderful creature.

Odds are though it wouldn’t work out very well. It would fail just like every other dinosaur. This is how some designers like to design. They look at all the great trends other sites are using and they collect them to try and piece together a perfect design. If someone were to ask you what creature from millions of years ago you would love to replicate today due to its greatness would you even consider the cockroach? The great dinosaurs died off and yet this little, disgusting insect lives on. There is nothing fancy about it and yet it has become the closest thing to timeless we see today.

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