randform

The current buzz about Brazil sueing google for obtaining user data (see e.g. washington post or AP) or this years message about China give an even more stale flavour to a technology which was discussed in a rather recent article in MITs Technology Review .

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addendum to last post: according to Heise the offer of a free version of the software Poser by e-frontier, which was limited from Sept. 1 -Sept. 4 is extended to Sept. 8 due to the unavailability of the offer on their selling site contentparadise (which was due to too many requests). However the site seems still to be blocked (I tried already about a day ago) …I hope this is not just another form of viral marketing. Poser is a kind of library of 3D human models together with an application to dress them, animate them a bit etc. It is a smaller kind of application – means it has no modeller etc.

daytars project “d-room” was originally a proposal for a rhizome commission – however it didnt make it to the rhizome commisson‘s top ten. The proposal URL was only made public for rhizome members and since january the proposal is rotting on our server. So, I thought to make it public now.
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Usually I try to keep away from gadgets (:)) but I was really waiting for the above image to come. Tinky winky the telechumby holds a socalled chumby inside its belly – a product to be expected march 2007 for the price of approx. 150 $ according to gizmodo. Chumby seems to have a linux kernel , a WiFi hook to the internet and may thus be an alternative to Nintendo DS, who has also a linux kernel. Another interesting feature of chumby is the hookup to Adobes Flash lite, which is interesting for Flash programmers. The rumors are that the Nintendo browser (to be released Oct 6 in Europe) won’t support Flash (sofar) and the new Flash for Linux…well…needs some time.

via etienne mineur and gizmodo

short addendum to my recent post about the pianosociety: The pianosciety has since yesterday a very improved website, which displays their structure and goals much clearer than last week, when I set a link to their site.

youtube link
Every architectural student has to pilgrim to Falling water. For european architecture students this is a rather expensive architectural initiation rite. A cheaper possibility is to visit it with the game engine Half-life II, where an architectural student named Kasperg did a model of it. Students at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (what a name!!!) at University College London did a fast machinima of it, using the standard sounds of Half-life so that in fact – as Pierre pointed out – one expects the grenades coming every second. Lets see when some US students do the same with Haus Wittgenstein.

via dr0p.net

trees in the urbanforest.

via slanted.

Did the tarsier eat the simple apple because there was a worm inside?

— a celtic moddyfying case modding of apple power book logo design on this video.
—nintendo DS modding
–PC case modding in the upcoming part II of the games convention report…if I find time to upload the images.

The VVR berek – a subsidiary company of the Berlin public transport company BVG which is in charge for selling advertisement spaces in Berlin public transport is going to be sold. Unexpectedly…
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Here comes a little post in between – I haven’t yet found the time to upload the rest of the games convention images. However it is now – after the GC is over – clear that there are anyways no big news from the GC: Despite a record of 183 000 visitors the battle over new game consoles is postponed to the Tokyo game show. Probably even without feeling ridiculous Sony showed at the GC just a dummy PS3 under glas and trailers in wmv format. But also Nintendo didn’t show the wii console to the public (but only to showmasters) and found it funny to make riddles about the wii release date, which seems to be Oct. 2. Somehow I missed the joke probably.

Most interesting for us were the game controllers. Both consoles seem to have sensors for measuring rotation and acceleration. See e.g. STMicroelectronics and Analog Devices.(as an intro: wikipedia on MEMS). However the wii seem to need also infrared contact.

Whatsoever another 3D controller which might be even more interesting – especially if the specifications of the game controllers are not openly usable is the Novint Falcon (see image above from wikipedia) – announced on the E3 to be available for under 100$.

Meanwhile the math TU group/jReality group lost patience and bought this nice little gadget.