My friend Chris O’Shea has recently worked with Cinimod Studio to build the amazing art installation ‘Beacon’ - “a kinetic light installation with a mind of its own. An array of emergency beacon lights interacts with visitors, tracking their movement through the space, creating an immersive and playful experience.” More information on Pixelsumo, also check out the video for a better explanation …
So I finished working on iPlayer over the summer, but some of the last things I was working on have now been released which I think are really exciting, the first iPlayer Wii version released in October, in which the interface has been redesigned to work 10ft away with a Wiimote. If you don’t have a Wii you can see what it looks like here www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bigscreen
Then today the big news is that the new Adobe Air-based version of the download manager has been released, it’s not based on Windows Media or using Peer-2-Peer which means no uploading costs from your ISP + IT WORKS ON MAC AND LINUX!! This is really great as it was certainly one of the big criticisms in it’s initial launch … I think it’s still got a few teething problems but it will be really exciting to see how this develops.
Another big release (which I had no involvement in) but looks really great is the children’s version of iPlayer – particularly good if you don’t want your kids watching some of the more edgy BBC Three programmes!
This is amazing! Though surely it can’t be real?! Electric Stimulus to Face: Test 3
Link found on Steven Diffey’s blog
So for the next few weeks I’m working at the Audio & Music Interactive department at the BBC in Regents Street, and on wednesday and thursday I was fortunate to get involved in a two electronics workshop which they run every now and again as part of radiolabs - I guess to try and come up with slightly more off the wall ideas.
It was a wicked two days, lots of people doing clever stuff with Processing, Arduino boards and various sensors - the brief was to create a device which measured how much a rock band ‘rocked’! Which ended up involving accelerometers in hats (to measure headbanging!), motion sensors under the floor etc.
Unfortunately my coding/electronics skills have become a bit non-existent since finishing uni so I tried to help out by putting stuff together on the display side of things, however it’s definitely something I’d like to try and pick up again in the new year! Anyway check out the photos on flickr or a video that I’ve put together of the day!
DANG!! This is amazing! It’s so incredible to see advanced systems and techniques suddenly become very simple and easy to use?
So funny! My favourite bit:
Shop assistant: I see you’re admiring our myCube, fueled by dreams and powered by imagination
Homer: What does it do?
Shop assistant: You should ask yourself what can I do for it?
Homer: Ok, what can I do for you? Please I’m begging you!!
Shop assistant: Sir it’s not even turned on yet
Homer: But it’s glowing
Shop assistant: That light confirms that it’s off
This time by a company called Oblong who apparently were involved in advising for the film!
If I was in New York from the 4th - 7th of December I’d be going to this: BLIP FESTIVAL 2008, a four-day event showcasing nearly 40 musicians and visual artists occupying the international low-res cutting edge … nice!
On Monday I’m off to the latest carsonisfied event - the Future of Mobile conference. I think it should be pretty exciting (though to be honest I’m not quite sure what to expect) … one thing I thought was quite funny is this guy is one of the key speakers:
If like me you are wracking your brains trying to remember where you’ve seen him before, then this should clear it up:
Another nice example of augmented reality
YESSSSS! This is frickin AWESOME!!
There was an interesting demo today in the foyet of the BBC Media Centre, basically it was a showcase of the new SUPER-high-definition TV (yep high def just wasn’t high enough!). Anyway it’s a joint venture between japanese company NHK and the BBC and it was pretty darn impressive! Though it’s quite difficult to describe without seeing it in person I’ve found the below image off Wikipedia, the yellow and the light turquoise rectangles are the current 720p and 1080p resolutions - the large blue one is SHD.
Anyway apparently it’s being aimed at homes rather than cinemas and is due in about 20 years. However apart from needing a mammoth screen and 22 speakers it’s also gonna need a pretty hefty hard drive in your living room as 20 minutes of footage takes up about 3,600 gigabytes!
last week a new version of the mobile version of iplayer for the iphone and nokia n95 was released. the big update this time is that on-demand radio is now included … anyway it’s looking and working really smoothly now and is a massive improvement on the initial version launched a few months ago. more info on the bbc internet blog
I may have to eat my words about ol’ BoJo if this comes to pass:
This is kinda cool, Esquire magazine celebrates it’s 75th anniversary with a limited-edition cover using “e-ink”, check out the video of it in action:
NOTCOT: Esquire’s 75th Anniversary E-Ink Cover from Jean Aw on Vimeo.
wow, just been playing around with the last.fm iphone app, it really is very good - means you can forget saving up to buy that iphone with the biggest hard drive, just get the cheapest one and instead of transferring music from itunes you can just listen to it all online … very nice.
This is kinda interesting (and funny!) - the BigDog Quadruped Robot designed by the engineers at Boston Dynamics, the real interesting thing is how it corrects itself on difficult terrain - check the video of it being kicked by a man and walking on ice, it’s pretty strange!
Found on Cool Hunting