May 9, 2008
yep, i am getting into rapid prototyping as well. there are so many promising and inspiring works, attempts and examples out there that i would like to compile a list of possible techniques and machines in this post. this will be an ongoing task.
February 13, 2008
it seems that more research and projects are emerging that use nature or human body motion as a source for micro energy. As Tracy Staedter states in here article vibrating raindrops may power our homes, “Energy is everywhere. In the sun, wind and now rain. Researchers have developed a technique that harvests energy from rain showers and converts it into electricity. The technology could work in industrial air conditioning systems, where water condenses and drops like rain.”
a knee gadget developed by scientists and researchers at the university of michigan yet looks very bulky, but is another step to generate power from motion, in this from human motion. this kinetic energy can be useful when going for a walk, hiking, or for soldiers when not having access to electricity.but this might not be the only application for such a “gadget”, lets see how inventive its users will become.
as part of itp’s kinetic energy project, shoe power implements an electro-mechanical setup into a shoe to harvest energy while walking. these kinetic shoes use a stepper motor build into the sole to generate power which is then used to charge batteries.
more information about Energy harvesting for mobile systems, in pdf format.
scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a fabric that generates power. nanowires from zinc oxide crystals have been woven into the textile and by body motions like the heartbeat, wind, or any movement or vibrations they generate power. the nanowires are star-shaped and grow on textile fibers. when two fibers then get caught up and move, they produce mechanical energy through piezo-electrical semiconductor processes.
January 16, 2008
Dieter Rams, product designer for Braun in the 50s and 60s, seems to have been very influential and inspirational in the current apple design. follow this link to gizmodo to make comparisons.
and here is Rams’ list of principles for good design.
Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design helps us to understand a product.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is durable.
Good design is consequent to the last detail.
Good design is concerned with the environment.
Good design is as little design as possible.
who is next?
November 18, 2007
we may know what barcodes are but what is a shotecode or semacode? basically these are codes for the real world that are intended to be read by mobile phones. read by a mobile phone build-in camera, an image processing application can translate the code into machine readable bits and bytes. making a request over a network to a server where these bits or data pointers can be interpreted and linked to its initial human readable information, the reply will then reveal detailed informations about a location, an object, a building, etc.
one now must feel like a cursor in the real world where a click with a mobile phone build-in camera can be associated with the so internalized virtual mouseclick.
unfortunately we still have to click a button, cant our eyes just do the job?
so shotcode, semacode, qr code putting their hands onto the realworld coding and create an alternative or competition to the not yet widely distributed technology of nearfield communication. and how is rfid doing by the way?
and how will the mobile marketing look like? and why does it always have to be marketing? post “inspired” by this post on bruce sterling’s beyond the beyond blog.
a how to make QRcode using php or java can be found here.
October 15, 2007
technically, this is for mac users only.
summary
(1) realtime sound input
(2) soundflower
(3) jack os x
(4) recommendations
(5) freebies
(6) realtime recordings
realtime sound input
when you work with sound and you need to do realtime analysis like fft or measuring sound levels, sometimes you just wish to be able to pick up internal sounds that are coming from internal sound sources like itunes. usually what i do is, i use the build in microphone of my macbook to feed the sound input back into my machine, which i would then use with one of the sound libraries like sonia, minim, or ess to process the incoming sound. the big fall down with this solution, using the mic input, is that sound is hard to calibrate and you also have all the surround noise in the input stream.
soundflower
a better solution is to use soundflower from cycling74, the makers of max/msp. soundflower is free software, an inter-application audio routing utility for mac osx. “Soundflower is a virtual audio device that provides an easy and simple way for Max/MSP and other applications to send and receive audio to and from any other application. Running with very low latency and cpu usage, Soundflower allows each client application to use its usual buffer size.”
the installation is pretty much straight forward. download the package, read the readme till the end. to use soundflower, choose soundflower as the output in the system preferences and also choose soundflower as the input. if you have done so, you wont hear any sound coming out of your speakers anymore when playing. therefore cycling74 comes with soundflowerbed, a menubar extension (double-click and see the little flower in the menu bar). from the pulldown menu of soundflowerbed choose build-in output to route the sound to both, the speakers and the soundflower channel.
downer. soundflower and processing sound libraries. so far i only got sonia to work with soundflower. minim and ess however still pick up the input from the microphone, although the sound input is set to soundflower 2ch in the system preferences.
jack os x
jack osx is an OS X implementation of Jack, and it installs everything necessary to take full advantage of Jack on OS X. the jack server, the jack audio router, the jack audio plugins, the jackPilot application.
i didnt have the time to figure things out with jack os x, i basically got the same results as with soundflower in regard to the processing libraries.
recommendations
when it comes to routing internal sound sources to applications e.g. processing, i recommend to use soundflower. use soundflower 2ch as input and output, with soundflowerbed route the output to the build-in output so you can hear what is playing. in processing use the sonia library for analysis like fft.
if you feel comfortable with sound-synthesis applications like supercollider or chuck then you may write your own realtime analyzer and route the raw values over to processing via osc, use the oscP5 library for osc support in processing.
freebies
other freebies apps to look into would be soundsource and linein from rogueamoeba.
“SoundSource is a tiny tool for OS X enabling you to switch your audio input and output sources with a single click. And with the System setting, you can transfer system beeps to a secondary audio source so you won’t be disturbed.”
“LineIn is a simple application for OS X to enable the soft playthru of audio from input devices. In simpler terms, you can use LineIn to play sound coming in through a microphone or any other device plugged in to your Sound In port.”
realtime recording
to record a live audio stream from your mac machine, there is wiretap (it used to be free, now you would need to invest a few bucks), or audio hijack pro.
September 24, 2007
Tommi Grönlund and Petteri Nisunen, an artist duo from helsinki, finland, work in the area of installation art in both, public space and exhibition space. the duo uses natural inputs as well as randomly generated patterns as a source for their art works. Their outdoor installation piece “Viivain / Liner” for example is constantly reacting to the changing weather conditions and time of the day. the indoor installation piece “Pattern Recognition Setup” consists of a 1875 self-blinking led-lights which create a randomly blinking matrix above a central staircase and escalator of an exhibition pavilion so that the human eye perceives the simultaneously blinking lights as patterns which constantly move across the matrix. their “Outdoor Sound Installation”, 2 parabolic reflectors facing each other, translates the radioactivity of the environment into high frequency sounds that are living in between the 2 dishes as a thin sound beam.
find a lot more works at gronlund\nisunen.
taken from the website. expanding bodies is a 2 day workshop on the theme of “metabolic networks” that brings together 5 researchers working in the area of electronic sensing in art and design, with a special focus on textiles and architectural-scale applications.
expanded bodies will take place in halifax, nova scotia, october 1-7.
Metabolism, in living systems, has two aspects: anabolism (which means building up), and catabolism (or breaking down). These processes, part of all living systems, carry a particular resonance with respect to present-day concerns about sustainable environments.
The metabolic network will serve as a playground to explore the potentials of sensors and actuators hooked up to a responsive architecture.
workshop leaders are Philip Beesley, Carole Collet,Mette Ramsgard Thomsen, Rachel Wingfield and Mathias Gmachl of loop.ph
an evolutionary architecture by john frazer was published in 1995 but has been out of print, therefore it is now made freely available on the internet at aaschool.ac.uk. the book is about architecture in the age of natural and artificial models, generative systems, and its environmental influences. it takes a look at responsive environments, soft architecture, and the role of the computer in the process of creating architecture. how do neural networks, datastructures, generative algorithms, etc. lead to architectural transformations, new shapes, and new meaning?
“The book investigates the fundamental form-generating processes in architecture, considering architecture as a form of artificial life, and proposing a genetic representation in a form of DNA-like code-script, which can then be subject to developmental and evolutionary processes in response to the user and the environment. The aim of an evolutionary architecture is to achieve in the built environment the symbiotic behaviour and metabolic balance found in the natural environment. To do so, it operates like an organism, in a direct analogy with the underlying design process of nature.”
go get your copy.
September 20, 2007
from the design hotels future forum website “design hotels™ presents its fourth annual architecture and design symposium. Take part in this journey into the next decade of hospitality together with the trend analysts from the London-based FUTURE LABORATORY and the Berlin-based DIE GESTALTEN VERLAG. Team up with some of the world’s most innovative designers, creatives, architects and progressive thinkers.
Experience new concepts in hospitality: consistent design is only a minimum requirement for success, but the Forum will look beyond this at holistic concepts that marry the right design, the right art, and the right cuisine in a sustainable environment…this is what will captivate the consumer and fulfill, or even exceed, their expectations.”
August 30, 2007
softspace
Contemporary Interactive Environments
“The physically permanent identity of architecture has helped to define society for centuries. Now some practitioners have disengaged from tectonics as we traditionally understand it and are taking their discipline into the realms of ‘softspace’, a more fluid, ephemeral form of digitally-enabled design based on personalised experiences and responses. Softspace deploys new spatial systems including wearable computing, wifi, RFID and custom-designed digital software incorporating light, heat, sound and electromagnetic fields. These not only rely on people’s individual ways of interacting with them, but are enriched by narratives people contribute, creating new metaphors of use. Responsive environmental strategies of this kind have increasingly colonised museums and galleries like Tate, the Science Museum and the V&A
While the notion of a fantasy world made possible ‘on demand’ by new technologies is the theme of films like Minority Report and ExistenZ, contemporary softspace projects play a more subtle and open-ended influence on contemporary socio-spatial dynamics and our sensing abilities. Architects Usman Haque, Jason Bruges and Daan Roosegaarde and designer Despina Papadopoulos discuss the cultural implications of their work with Tate Modern curator Jane Burton and curator, author and critic Lucy Bullivant, guest editor of 4dsocial: Interactive Design Environments (AD/Wiley, 2007). Lev Manovich, the ground-breaking new media art theorist, is a keynote speaker.”
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