Recently, retail clothing chain H&M has caught a great deal of flack for using computer generated bodies in their online catalog. And while there is something to be said for looking critically at the introduction of computer-generated “perfection” into an industry already psychotically obsessed with unattainable standards of physical beauty, Coilhouse’s Nadya Lev has some relevant re-contextualization to share:

Also, this foray into the uncanny valley brings us one step closer to the age of the idoru. With teenage pop idol Aimi Eguchi, whose face is a composite of six different singers, and vocaloids (singing synthesizers) such as pigtailed holographic superstar, we’re almost there — in The Future.  And even though H&M’s online catalogue conforms to the same beauty standard as any other big fashion retailer, this technology actually has potential to subvert the paradigm altogether.

See the rest over at Coilhouse.

[See also: Building a Better Pop Star, and Building a Better Pop Star II]

Now this is WAY better than MSFT’s CorporateFuturist video:

via @th0ma5 | zenbullets

Here’s your menu for today’s FuturePresent news round-up:

• MSFT’s “Productivity Vision 2011″ video:
  
  via GeekWire who give this nice description:

  As the new video opens, special eyeglasses translate audio into English in real-time for a business traveler in Johannesburg. A thin screen on a car window highlights a passing building to show where her meeting will be the next day, based on information from her calendar. Office workers gesture effortlessly to control and reroute text and charts as the screens around them morph and pulse with new information.

  And on and on from there, making our modern-day digital breakthroughs seem like mere baby steps on the road to a far more spectacular future.

  Now I want my fucking spex now as much as the next cyberpunk, BUT… actual world problems solved here? ZERO. When the current estimate is that 80 Million new jobs need to be created to replace the ones lost during this recent period of disaster capitalism, building a shinier operating system hardly seems likely to help.

• In better cyberpunky news, from the very same Microsoft, there’s OMNITOUCH:
  
  via Design Taxi, who give us this succinct description:

  OmniTouch is depth-sensing projection system worn on the shoulder.

  With the system, hands, legs, arms, walls, books and tabletops, become interactive touch-screen surfaces—without any need for calibration.

  If only they didn’t look so terrible. Get ya mod on there future-dwellers!

• It may have over 5Million views, but let’s take a look at the QUANTUM LEVITATION video again
  
  via Gizmodo. Advances in basic science and engineering, now we’re talking!

• If you like SCIENCE! you’ll love simulated pocket universes:
  

  Some of these universes would collapse instants after forming; in others, the forces between particles would be so weak they could not give rise to atoms or molecules. However, if conditions were suitable, matter would coalesce into galaxies and planets, and if the right elements were present in those worlds, intelligent life could evolve.

  Some physicists have theorized that only universes in which the laws of physics are “just so” could support life, and that if things were even a little bit different from our world, intelligent life would be impossible. In that case, our physical laws might be explained “anthropically,” meaning that they are as they are because if they were otherwise, no one would be around to notice them.

  MIT physics professor Robert Jaffe and his collaborators felt that this proposed anthropic explanation should be subjected to more careful scrutiny, and decided to explore whether universes with different physical laws could support life.

  The MIT physicists have showed that universes quite different from ours still have elements similar to carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and could therefore evolve life forms quite similar to us, even when the masses of elementary particles called quarks are dramatically altered.

  Jaffe and his collaborators felt that this proposed anthropic explanation should be subjected to more careful scrutiny, so they decided to explore whether universes with different physical laws could support life. Unlike most other studies, in which varying only one constant usually produces an inhospitable universe, they examined more than one constant.

  Whether life exists elsewhere in our universe is a longstanding mystery. But for some scientists, there’s another interesting question: could there be life in a universe significantly different from our own?

  In work recently featured in a cover story in Scientific American, Jaffe, former MIT postdoc, Alejandro Jenkins, and recent MIT graduate Itamar Kimchi showed that universes quite different from ours still have elements similar to carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and could therefore evolve life forms quite similar to us. Even when the masses of the elementary particles are dramatically altered, life may find a way.

  “You could change them by significant amounts without eliminating the possibility of organic chemistry in the universe,” says Jenkins.

  Keep reading… And if that’s not heavy enough for you, how about a paper on the Mass of the universe in a black hole (via reddit)

• From the macro to the micro – Scientists create computing building blocks from bacteria and DNA [PhysOrg]:
  

  The scientists constructed a type of logic gate called an “AND Gate” from bacteria called Escherichia coli (E.Coli), which is normally found in the lower intestine. The team altered the E.Coli with modified DNA, which reprogrammed it to perform the same switching on and off process as its electronic equivalent when stimulated by chemicals.

  The researchers were also able to demonstrate that the biological logic gates could be connected together to form more complex components in a similar way that electronic components are made. In another experiment, the researchers created a “NOT gate” and combined it with the AND gate to produce the more complex “NAND gate”.

  The next stage of the research will see the team trying to develop more complex circuitry that comprises multiple logic gates. One of challenges faced by the team is finding a way to link multiple biological logic gates together, similar to the way in which electronic logic gates are linked together, to enable complex processing to be carried out.

Needless to say, the ability to photograph barcode-less items in the real world and get instant information on them could be huge, a sort of away-from-a-home-computer Google. What remains to be seen is if Sony can bring it to the masses in a palatable format and, of course, what Google will counteroffer if SmartAR takes off.

Video and words from core77.com.

Song of the Machine is my favourite kind of design fiction, combining multiple forms of extrapolation from the present into the future.

Unlike the implants and electrodes used to achieve bionic vision, this science modifies the human body genetically from within. First, a virus is used to infect the degenerate eye with a light-sensitive protein, altering the biological capabilities of the subject. Then, the new biological capabilities are augmented with wearable (opto)electronics, which, by mimicking the eye’s neural song, establish a direct optical link to the brain. It’s as if the virus gives the body ears to hear the song of the machine, allowing it to sing the world into being.

So we’ve got advances in genetic engineering combined with electronic ones to overcome a biological disability through continuing man’s progress, it’s ongoing co-evolution with the tools he creates. Except this marks a Rubicon Moment, the crossing of a threshold into a merger between man and his technology and the result is something far more, a step toward the posthuman.

Get used to this. Better living through upgrades.

For more details see this article in the Guardian by the consultant to this project, Dr Patrick Degenaar, optogenetics researcher at Newcastle University and leader of the OptoNeuro project.

I’ll just let BERGLondon do most of the talking for this one:

Dentsu London are developing an original product called Suwappu. Suwappu are woodland creatures that swap pants, toys that come to life in augmented reality. BERG have been brought in as consultant inventors, and we’ve made this film. Have a look!

This is where it starts to get interesting:

We wanted to picture a toy world that was part-physical, part-digital and that acts as a platform for media. We imagine toys developing as connected products, pulling from and leaking into familiar media like Twitter and Youtube. Toys already have a long and tenuous relationship with media, as film or television tie-ins and merchandise. It hasn’t been an easy relationship. AR seems like a very apt way of giving cheap, small, non-interactive plastic objects an identity and set of behaviours in new and existing media worlds.

Then it gets really interesting, quoting directly from BERG’s Jack Schulze:

In the film, one of the characters makes a reference to dreams. I love the idea that the toys in their physical form, dream their animated televised adventures in video. When they awake, into their plastic prisons, they half remember the super rendered full motion freedoms and adventures from the world of TV.

For me, this marks an entry into the territory explored in the anime Dennō Coil. But it’s a little Tachikoma that I’d like to see running around my desk, giving me messages, through AR magics.

Via a whole bunch of people, who are justifiably equal parts excited and terrified about what this might lead to:

My first question, how does it handle CV Dazzle? Find out yourself! More details, including the code itself, are available on developer Zdenek Kalal’s website.

Today on yetAnotherAwesomeKinectDemo:

Easy to envisage future interactions with architects being via something like this.

From The Future Digital Life, via Chris Arkenberg.

Immaterials: Light painting WiFi from Timo on Vimeo.

This project explores the invisible terrain of WiFi networks in urban spaces by light painting signal strength in long-exposure photographs.

A four-metre long measuring rod with 80 points of light reveals cross-sections through WiFi networks using a photographic technique called light-painting.

We’re 11 days into 2011 and I’m watching the north of my country drown on live-television, as they in turn switch between exhausted officals giving press conferences, to reports straight from social media. In fact, they’re just sending viewers straight to #qldfloods. But, look.. SHINY!

Let’s face it, we’re going to need ever better methods to record disaster pr0n and navigate our way through it. OK, we don’t need them, but some kind of distraction is needed now and again. What have we got so far this year?

Augmented reality HUDS? Check. This was just released for skiers:

Introducing  Transcend, Recon Instruments’ collaboration with Colorado’s Zeal Optics. Transcend is the world’s first GPS-enabled goggles with a head-mounted display system.

Minimum interaction is required during use, sleek graphics and smart optics are completely unobtrusive for front and peripheral vision making it the ultimate solution for use in fast-paced environments.

Transcend provides real-time feedback including speed, latitude/longitude, altitude, vertical distance travelled, total distance travelled, chrono/stopwatch mode, a run-counter, temperature and time. It is also the only pair of goggles in the world that boasts GPS capabilities, USB charging and data transfer, and free post-processing software all with a user-friendly, addictive interface.

Just like the dashboard of a sports car or the instruments of a fighter jet, Transcend’s display provides performance-enhancing data, but only when you choose to view it. Safe, smart, fun…all wrapped up in the hottest goggle frame of 2010/11.

Now, of course you ask, but how will I best show my friends a panoramic, interactive recording of that sick black run (or train for the next one)? Sony has just the thing:

Besides looking über futuristic, Sony’s “virtual 3D cinematic experience” head mounted display (aka ‘Headman’) sports some fairly impressive specs. The tiny OLED screens inside are head HD resolution (1280 x 720), and the headphones integrated into the sides of the goggles are outputting high quality simulated 5.1 channel surround sound.

OK, that’s just a prototype. But something like it will be coming soon, so leave some space for it in your underground bunker.

But m1k3y, you say.. “those are great and all, but WHERE’S MY CLATTER?!” Well, I saved the best for last:

In 2008, as a proof of concept, Babak Parviz at the University of Washington in Seattle created a prototype contact lens containing a single red LED. Using the same technology, he has now created a lens capable of monitoring glucose levels in people with diabetes.

It works because glucose levels in tear fluid correspond directly to those found in the blood, making continuous measurement possible without the need for thumb pricks, he says. Parviz’s design calls for the contact lens to send this information wirelessly to a portable device worn by diabetics, allowing them to manage their diet and medication more accurately.

Lenses that also contain arrays of tiny LEDs may allow this or other types of digital information to be displayed directly to the wearer through the lens. This kind of augmented reality has already taken off in cellphones, with countless software apps superimposing digital data onto images of our surroundings, effectively blending the physical and online worlds.

Making it work on a contact lens won’t be easy, but the technology has begun to take shape. Last September, Sensimed, a Swiss spin-off from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, launched the very first commercial smart contact lens, designed to improve treatment for people with glaucoma.

The disease puts pressure on the optic nerve through fluid build-up, and can irreversibly damage vision if not properly treated. Highly sensitive platinum strain gauges embedded in Sensimed’s Triggerfish lens record changes in the curvature of the cornea, which correspond directly to the pressure inside the eye, says CEO Jean-Marc Wismer. The lens transmits this information wirelessly at regular intervals to a portable recording device worn by the patient, he says.

Like an RFID tag or London’s Oyster travel cards, the lens gets its power from a nearby loop antenna – in this case taped to the patient’s face. The powered antenna transmits electricity to the contact lens, which is used to interrogate the sensors, process the signals and transmit the readings back.

Each disposable contact lens is designed to be worn just once for 24 hours, and the patient repeats the process once or twice a year. This allows researchers to look for peaks in eye pressure which vary from patient to patient during the course of a day. This information is then used to schedule the timings of medication.

…

Parviz, however, has taken a different approach. His glucose sensor uses sets of electrodes to run tiny currents through the tear fluid and measures them to detect very small quantities of dissolved sugar. These electrodes, along with a computer chip that contains a radio frequency antenna, are fabricated on a flat substrate made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a transparent polymer commonly found in plastic bottles. This is then moulded into the shape of a contact lens to fit the eye.

Parviz plans to use a higher-powered antenna to get a better range, allowing patients to carry a single external device in their breast pocket or on their belt. Preliminary tests show that his sensors can accurately detect even very low glucose levels. Parvis is due to present his results later this month at the IEEE MEMS 2011 conference in Cancún, Mexico.

“There’s still a lot more testing we have to do,” says Parviz. In the meantime, his lab has made progress with contact lens displays. They have developed both red and blue miniature LEDs – leaving only green for full colour – and have separately built lenses with 3D optics that resemble the head-up visors used to view movies in 3D.

Parviz has yet to combine both the optics and the LEDs in the same contact lens, but he is confident that even images so close to the eye can be brought into focus. “You won’t necessarily have to shift your focus to see the image generated by the contact lens,” says Parviz. It will just appear in front of you, he says. The LEDs will be arranged in a grid pattern, and should not interfere with normal vision when the display is off.

For Sensimed, the circuitry is entirely around the edge of the lens (see photo). However, both have yet to address the fact that wearing these lenses might make you look like the robots in the Terminator movies. False irises could eventually solve this problem, says Parviz. “But that’s not something at the top of our priority list,” he says.

So close… And Terminator eyes? That’s a feature, not a bug. YES PLEASE!

A little while ago, I was describing virtual pop star, Hatsune Miku, as a “prosthetic identity“.

Now, thanks to Kinect hackers in Japan, you could slide even further into her virtual identity if you wanted.

via Chris Arkenberg

How about an onboard, dynamic AR language translation app for your iPhone?

(Insert obligatory: just needs Spex to be perfect cyberpunk future present app).

Comrade-in-arms, grinder, and occasional Science Fictional overlord M1k3y recently penned a very insightful, spoiler-laden and topical overview of William Gibson’s new novel ZERO HISTORY over at the Tech Gonzo Diary.

ATEMPORALITY!  There, I said it again.  It’s been an obsession of mine recently and much of my excitement on the release of this book stemmed from videos of Bruce Sterling’s lectures on the subject, which he kept speaking of as a back’n’forth between him and Gibson, as they fleshed-out this idea.  That Zero History would be the bible of Atemporality. That this would be the case was furthered by twitter exchanges between these two, and thusly hashtagged tweets by them on the subject.

So is Zero History a manifesto of Atemporality.. a guidebook to a new understanding of progress, a new way of viewing the present, the defining of a new historical epoch?

[Via: The Tech Gonzo Diary]

Just in time for Cyborg Month!  (Well, every day is Cyborg Month around here, but you get the idea.)   Recently, M1k3y and I had the chance to have a talk with our favourite Cyborg Anthropologist, Amber Case.  We covered the history of cyborgs, the impact of her accident and subsequent surgeries, games, anthropology, the past present and future of CyborgCamp and a few other things.

You recently came close to what most people think of a Cyborg as a
result of your accident at SXSW, correct?   How has recovery been, and
has actually having implants – of a fairly mundane but important kind
- refined your ideas regarding Cyborgs?

On March 17, 2010, I slipped on a slippery deck in Austin, Texas on the last day of the SXSW conference.

The image above is an X-ray of what the orthopedic surgeon put into my ankle. The surgery was originally supposed to take 45 minutes, but when they opened up the sides of my ankle, they realized that all the bones had splintered into tiny pieces. The surgery ended up taking 4 hours. A lot of hardware was required to stabilize the bones while they healed back into place.

When I woke up from the surgery I was on so much pain killer that I couldn’t think or speak straight. I realized, as I lay in bed for the next 2 weeks, sleeping 20 hours a day, that there is a very important piece of time that is lost in the digital world. This piece of time is the time of nothingness. Of being alone with thoughts. Today, a lot of the space between moments is often filled with mobile devices. If you’re waiting in line for something, chances are, you might pull out your phone to distract yourself. This instant fix of connectivity happens all the time, so much so that your brain becomes used to non-stop stimulus and craves it when information turns off.

I couldn’t use a computer for a month after my surgery. Except for a few tweets here and there, and some E-mail on my iPhone, the rest of the day was spent in silence. Instead of living one moment to the next, I used the time to understand and plan for long term things, not just short term things. In short, getting injured provided me with a break and a completely different view on the world. I highly suggest it.

Another thing I discovered was that moving around in a wheelchair is an amazing experience. It’s slower and puts things at a completely different eye-level than usual. I found myself noticing the world around me, not just the digital world. I also gained a greater appreciation of Twitter. Even though I could barely move, I was still connected. From the 18th-20th centuries, advances in transportation were concerned with the physical self. Planes, trains and automobiles became faster and more efficient. The computer age advanced the ability for one to transport the mental self. Geography is annihilated.

How does it feel to be the name – besides Donna Haraway – that most people think of when they hear “Cyborg Anthropologist?”

In the early 90′s Donna Haraway proposed what she termed a “cyborg anthropology” to study the relation between the machine and the human, and she adds that it should proceed by “provocatively” reconceiving “the border relations among specific humans, other organisms, and machines. But Haraway wasn’t the first to discuss Cyborg Anthropology. In fact, concepts of human and technological interaction have been seriously examined by anthropologists since 1942, with the initial focus being the use and effects of feedback. These discussions led to the Macy Conferences in the 1940′s and 50′s. These were no ordinary conferences. They were attended by academic and technological luminaries such as Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, John von Neumann and Norbert Weiner, inventor of the field of Cybernetics.

Though Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” was published in 1991, it wasn’t until 1993 that the idea of a “Cyborg Anthropology” was formally proposed at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) by Joeseph Dumit and Robbie Davis-Floyd. Robbie’s interests were in human reproduction, which is one of the first fields that the study of cyborg anthropology was seriously applied to. If you think about it, the modern birthing process is extremely cybernetic. There are all sorts of machines that allow a doctor  see what a baby looks like inside the womb. If a baby has a difficult time being born, a Caesarean section can be preformed with minimal risk to the mother. If a baby is premature, it can be hooked up to an incubator, the equivalent of an external cybernetic womb.

I studied the anthropology of Internet marketing when I first left college. I knew that if I didn’t quickly make a career for myself, or be findable, I’d never survive. I wrote my thesis early and spent the last semester of college inventing courses for myself to take with titles like “Corporate Information and Power”. Then I went to conferences on marketing and business and met people. It was that networking that brought my degree to life, and it was the title cyborg anthropologist that made people stop and ask me what that meant, vs. simply being a marketer or consultant. I expected the field of Cyborg Anthropology to develop over time, and was surprised that there were not more cyborg anthropologists out there. Technically, anthropologist danah boyd’s research on teenagers and social networks falls into the field of cyborg anthropology. I’d also recommend the work of Sadie Plant (specifically her essay “On the Mobile”, and MIT’s Sherry Turkle, who wrote and edited dozens of books about humans and technology far before technology was ubiquitous as it is now.

Do you have any thoughts on on recreational cyborg-ery; the move of home gaming systems towards more physically interactive designs and the nascent field of AR gaming?

The Internet as Playground and factory is the best phrase I’ve found to describe what’s going on in the virtual and physical worlds. Foursquare makes it so that every venue in real life has a point value. Yelp makes it so that every place is an experience that can be reported on and shared. Facebook and Twitter turn everyday interactions into historical text.

But each moment of play is also a moment of work. Each additional review, each status update, and every Foursquare check-in is work. Because it is fun, there is no friction to contributing. But it is still work. The Facebook database is updated by millions of unpaid workers every day, voluntarily contributing their content in order to receive responses and content and the release of oxytocin that comes with a community’s response to their contribution. The more one contributes to Facebook, the more information Facebook has on human interests and behavior. And the more information Facebook has on human interests and behavior, the more advertiser on Facebook pay for access to demographic data.

Reality is boring. Waiting in line at the DMV suck. Real life takes time. Digital life is more instantaneous. In real life, the time and space between goals and accomplishments is often large. For some, it is physically impossible to achieve certain things, like purchasing a Ferrari or rising above middle management in their career path. Online gaming, especially sites like Farmville step in to take care of that void. Whereas one doesn’t have the money, time or room for a real garden, Farmville provides one without the back aching labor. All reality is replaced by small icons, and time is compressed so that goals and accomplishments are right next to one another. Everything has a point value and a reward. When real life takes so long to reward someone, online gaming is often a better and more enjoyable alternative.

In the future, hybrid reality, or life which is both a game and real, might blot out the mild dystopia that we all live in. Or it will make us more intolerable of the space between reality. And for those who spend a lot of time in reality, Foursquare is a good add-on for making the mundane exciting. To be crass, one might say that Foursquare is kind of like dogs pissing on fire hydrants and having other dogs come along and sniff them to see who’s been there. The dog with the most potent urine is mayor of the fire hydrant.

Some of the current hybrid reality games involve players getting +1 followers, and  +1 likes. In an RPG, you might battle creatures with similar stats, or team with them. On Twitter, you might talk or argue with those who have similar stats. These stats are not new. They always existed in some form or another in real life. The Internet is not building these stats, but is making visible stats that people already have between each other. (See Paul Adam’s brilliant slides on this subject). The web also offers the opportunity for people in different geographies and times to connect with one another based on stats.  In a reputation economy, one levels up or down after gaining or losing friends or followers. How much one levels up depends on the quality and actual connectedness of a friend or follower.

When I think of reality and mobile technology gaming I often think of the Tamagotchi. The Tamagotchi was one of the first major virtual pets to hit the market. Since its introduction in 1996, over 70 million Tamagotchis have been sold. The toy is simple. Children and teens feed, train and clean up after a virtual pet through a few buttons on the screen. In return, the pet grows older. Teens took to the toys in school and became obsessive about maintaining them. Why? The virtual pet on the device exhibited signs of life – it had needs, grew, and died. Each of these aspects caused toy owners to become mentally attached to them, responding to the stimulus with the correct series of button presses.

Real life relationships are complex. They must be maintained, or they fade away. The cell phone, like the Tamagotchi, is a virtual way to feed relationships. Friends may be fed by button presses, and looked after. A mobile phone cries, and it must be picked up and soothed back to sleep. When it runs out of battery power it must be fed. Because the mobile phone requires attention, it too resembles a living creature. Cell phones now live in our pockets and wake us up in the morning. They are our dashboards for interfacing with friends, family and appointments. They connect us to the database on which we now live.

I think one of the best people in this field is Jane McGonigal. I’d highly suggest watching her talk on “Saving the World Through Game Design” from the 2008 New Yorker conference. or reading the paper she wrote on “i love bees”, an excellent massive alternate reality game with thousands of participants.  Another great resource in this field is Mary Flanigan. She studies games and wrote a wonderful book called Critical Play that combines a view of games from 3,000 years ago, modern use of games in Art movements, and digital games.

Do you see a lot of currently externalized technologies such as cell-phones and portable entertainment platforms becoming internalized in our lifetimes? For that matter what do you think the odds are of viable and substantial life extension in the near future?

One of the risks of internalizing technologies such as cell phones is that human bodies are prone to viruses, and software and hardware devices are just not good enough. They fail all of the time. They’re full of bugs. They’re full of security risks and faultly code. This is not the problem of code, but of the messy conditions in which much of the code that runs mainstream devices is created. Marketers, managers, investors, board members, programmers – those with bad documentation practices – those who leave in the middle of a project, changing protocols, communication between devices, software updates, legacy software, production practices, pricing, cutting corners – all of these things prevent implantable hardware from functioning as well as one might like it to. There’s also a problem with upgrading hardware once it is implanted. The decision to purchase a cell phone is already a difficult one. The decision to have an operation to implant something in your body something a quite a bit more involved than that.

Feed by M.T. Anderson is an adolescent fiction book that deals with a lot of these concepts, specifically issues of class status, consumption, and faulty electronics. The premise of the book is quite simple – everyone gets an implant when they are young that allows them to connect to the “Feed” (this book was written before the idea of the Facebook feed, and before the concept of Feeds in general). Those with less money have faultier feeds than others, and this is what I expect might happen when people begin getting implants. They’ll need to be updated every few years, or less. Even today, those who do not update their external prosthetic devices experience those devices turning against them. Hang on to an old computer or car for too long, and it’ll break. If you don’t have enough money to upgrade to the next technology, bad things happen.

I guess while we’re talking about advancing technologies, I’m contractually obligated  to ask about your stance on the Technological Singularity – Where do you fall in regards to Extropianism or the Singularity?

I think the Singularity has happened already – but only three times. The first time was the Earthquake in Haiti. The second was Micheal Jackson’s death, and the third was the World Cup. It’s a snarky reply, but it’s the one I’ve been giving recently. Everyone was with technosocial access was connected in each of those situations, and everyone was following along. A more serious reply is not going to fit in this blog post, as I only barely touched it in my thesis on cell phones and technosocial sites of engagement.

What’s the quick summary of the CyborgCamp concept?

CyborgCamp is an unconference about the future of the relationship between humans and technology. We discuss topics such as social media, design, code, inventions, web 2.0, twitter, the future of communication, cyborg technology, anthropology, psychology, and philosophy. It’s a small conference that attracts around 120 participants, slightly less than Dunbar’s Number. The speakers and sponsors generally come from the local community. In 2008 we had Ward Cunningham, inventor of the first wiki. He gave a fascinating speech on Seeing that left the audience stunned. Ward does not think in the same way that anyone else thinks. His approach to problem solving is an incredible thing to watch.

In my experience with the “unconference” structure, sometimes themes develop organically from the participants – was there a particular theme that struck you as emerging from CyborgCamp Seattle?

CyborgCamp Seattle had varying themes and people from many different backgrounds giving speeches. My favorite one was an extremely in-depth speech on the history of cybernetics. The CEO of a security company demoed his upcoming TED talk on the use of shovels in developing countries, and I gave a talk on non-visual augmented reality with SMS and GPS. At one point, a number of us got into a passionate discussion on the effect of technology on education. That one was the most unexpected and organic, and it was fun to discuss.

Have previous CyborgCamps spawned projects or offshoots of their own?

Yes, the first CyborgCamp in Portland, Oregon and it helped a local videomaker get his business off the ground. There will be one in Brazil in the next year, and there was one in Seattle a few months ago.

CyborgCamp Seattle is now in your rear-view mirror, and with CyborgCamp Portland and Brazil coming up, are there any takeaways from Seattle that you think will inform the next Camps this year?  Any thoughts on Camps further abroad than Brazil?

Each CyborgCamp takes on the unique flavor of the location in which it is planned. There is no way to predict what each one will be like before it occurs.

It’s been fantastic talking with you – is there anything you’d like to leave us with?

Thanks! It’s been a good time. If you’d like to learn more about Cyborg Anthropology, this site is slowly developing http://cyborganthropology.com/, as well as this webcast: http://cyborganthropology.com/O%27Reilly_Webcast. I’m also on Twitter at @caseorganic. There’s also a great project called 50 Posts about Cyborgs that people who like cyborgs will probably enjoy.

Via core77.

From slashgear, a prototype Retinal Imaging Display:

The images projected directly onto your retina simulate a 16-inch screen viewed for about three feet away according to the maker. The tech came from the Brother printer tech for laser and ink jet printers. The AirScouter will be launched in Japan for industrial uses like overlaying manuals on machinery. That is pretty cool and I could see a market for this thing in the DIY realm for folks that like to fix things themselves. Nothing like step-by-step directions clipped to your eyeball.

Thanks and hat tip to @bindychild!

Another great Augmented Reality concept video from Keiichi Matsuda, the maker of Domestic Robocop.

Note: requires old school blue/red 3D glasses for optimal viewing pleasure.

The architecture of the contemporary city is no longer simply about the physical space of buildings and landscape, more and more it is about the synthetic spaces created by the digital information that we collect, consume and organise; an immersive interface may become as much part of the world we inhabit as the buildings around us.

via BLDGBLOG | Chris Arkenberg