An interactive billboard placed above crowded Amsterdam and Rotterdam thoroughfares displays, in real time, a view of the street below. Passers-by can see themselves live on the massive screen, but though the curb space in front of them is empty, on the screen there’s a tense confrontation unfolding as they stand there and gawk.
At this year’s DICE 2010 Expo, Carnegie Mellon’s Jesse Schell gave a fantastic presentation that starts with why Facebook *shouldn’t* work in the way that it does and extrapolates forward into a half-creepy and half-inspiring vision for the embodied internet, the network of things, the culture of games and the SPIMEworld to come.
24000 full color LEDs, measuring a mere 2 by 2 mm in size, were used to create this mesmerizing dress. The circuitry itself is hand embroidered on a layer of silk in a fashion that permits it to stretch, allowing the LED bedazzled fabric to drape with fluidity over the body.
To fuel the LED fabric, a few iPOD batteries illuminate the silhouette for 30 minutes to an hour.
Additional layers of silk chiffon diffuse the light, giving the gown a colorful jellyfish-like transparency .
When the digital patterns fade and the silhouette grows dark, more than 4000 hand-applied Swarovski crystals add sparkle and glitter to the gown.
Take a look at the dress in action:
Link and video from Syuzi at fashioningtech.com. Besides a very pretty pattern to display, a person could run a personalized message or potentially sell advertising space.
Closed, a jean brand that provides designer styles based in Hamburg, has launched a denim vending prototype machine in Florence, Italy to see how people embrace jeans-on-the-go. If the concept seems to take off, the idea is that it will be setup in train stations, bus stations and airports around Europe so those jet-lagged and unclean can find themselves in a new and clean pair of jeans.
The ubiquitous barcodes found on product packaging provide information to the scanner at the checkout counter, but that’s about all they do. Now, researchers at the Media Lab have come up with a new kind of very tiny barcode that could provide a variety of useful information to shoppers as they scan the shelves — and could even lead to new devices for classroom presentations, business meetings, videogames or motion-capture systems.
The new system, called Bokode, is based on a new way of encoding visual information, explains Media Lab Associate Professor Ramesh Raskar, who leads the lab’s Camera Culture group. Until now, there have been three approaches to communicating data optically: through ordinary imaging (using two-dimensional space), through temporal variations such as a flashing light or moving image (using the time dimension), or through variations in the wavelength of light (used in fiber-optic systems to provide multiple channels of information simultaneously through a single fiber).
Spotted at the International Stationery and Office Supply Fair, this eye-catching digital signage system consists of a 0.3-millimeter-thick high-luminance rear-projection film (Vikuiti Rear Projection Film developed by 3M) applied to a 3-millimeter-thick glass substrate cut into the shape of a woman. A rear projector beams video onto the film, whose microbead-arrayed surface produces a crisp, brilliant image viewable from any angle, even in brightly lit environments.
Of course there’s a focus on marketing and conversation as marketing to both the blog entry (and the book itself) but as much as I sometimes get grumpy in the presence of a marketing-based approach to communications, the same rules that help you sell yourself and your ideas to others can also create better and more stable lines of communication — maximizing the bandwith of your “Friend” connections on various social networks.
Also? I want “It’s 140 characters, not a debate club” on a goddamned t-shirt.
Win People to Your Way of Thinking
10.The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
11.Show respect for the other person’s opinion. Never say, “You’re wrong.”
12.If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
13.Begin in a friendly way.
14.Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.
15.Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
16.Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
17.Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
18.Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.
19.Appeal to the nobler motives.
20.Dramatize your ideas.
21.Throw down a challenge.
Actions to Win: LinkedIn & Facebook
Create a group to engage thought leaders, interesting parties. Ask their opinions.
If logic/position is not factual, ask them how they came to that position.
Don’t say they’re wrong, yet state your facts. Ask them what they think.
Socratic method is a great way to engage. Sometimes writing out logic in an online group helps expose and address weaknesses.
Admit & amend wrongs
Challenge people to come up with answers.
Acknowledge and seriously weigh responses on any of these issues.
In areas of conflicting opinion, ask people to find a compromise.
Give credit to anyone who contributes to ideas used.
Actions to Win on Twitter
Engage in a dialogue on meaningful issues.
Remember, Twitter is public. Let folks save face.
Admit and amend wrongs.
Don’t flame, rather ask and state your dialogue.
Give people an out. It’s 140 characters, not a debate club.
Look for the positive result, and celebrate it. Laud your conversation partners
This past Saturday over 120 illegal billboards were white-washed and covered with art in New York City by a team of volunteers and artists. The guerrilla operation was organized by The Public Ad Campaign over the past four months.
Messing with ads in subways is becoming an artform, but this “Photoshopping” of ads in Berlin takes things to the next level by creating a Photoshop interface with stickers. This is pitch-perfect adbusting right here.
They call “Esozone: the other tomorrow” a festival, but don’t expect corn dogs and Ferris wheels. Fringe thinkers, visionary artists and occult musicians from around the world will gather at Watershed, a rambling, ramshackle building near Sellwood for a weekend of … well … the inexplicable.
Noah Mickens, who will take part in the festivities, defines it this way: “Esozone is an exhibition of scientists, philosophers, magicians and performance artists, gathered together by a subculture of young radicals who don’t recognize the distinction between the four.”
Esozone: the Other Tomorrow opens Friday in Portland, Oregon. Where else can you participate in a “show and tell” of Mad Science and Occult Technology one day and discuss 2012 or hear Hecate perform the next? It promises to be an interesting event.
Also: I note because people keep asking me, I won’t be there to cover the event, sadly. But I’m sure there will be at least a few of our readers there.
