Feel me - Digital touch and new channels for bit-intimacy.


Feel me, a project from Marco (an interactive designer at IDEO), explores the synchronous and asynchronous relationships we have with technology (and people through technology.) Big thanks to my colleague Darren for sharing this. 

Source creativeapplications.net

Photos from space show ‘squashed’ supermoon.   I meant to go moon watching on Saturday night, but I forgot. Thankfully, a Dutch astronaut (Andre Kuipers) photographed the supermoon of 2012 from a window within the International Space Station. And let’s be honest, his pictures are much cooler than what I would have seen anyway.  High-res

Photos from space show ‘squashed’ supermoon.  


I meant to go moon watching on Saturday night, but I forgot. Thankfully, a Dutch astronaut (Andre Kuipers) photographed the supermoon of 2012 from a window within the International Space Station. And let’s be honest, his pictures are much cooler than what I would have seen anyway. 

Source The Huffington Post

Disney tech presents Touché.

I, for one, had no idea Disney was doing so much with technology. The video of Disney researchers explaining their new touch sensor is interesting, but the implications are even more so. For example, “everyday objects, once connected to a sensor controller, become multi-responsive touch devices: Sit on a sofa and the TV turns on, recline in the sofa and the lights dim. Close a door with one finger on the doorknob and a message displays on the door, ‘back in 5 minuts,’ close a door with two fingers on a doorknob, and a message displays on the door, ‘gone for the day,’ while the door locks.” I’m so ready to pimp out my apartment with this stuff ;)

Source psfk.com

Introducing Livehoods.  Using data like tweets and check-ins, a research team from Carnegie Mellon discovered hidden structures of cities. In their own words, “our techniques reveal a snap-shot of the dynamic areas that comprise the city, which we call Livehoods.” While they’ve only mapped New York, San Fran and Pittsburgh thus far, they’re taking requests for new cities.  High-res

Introducing Livehoods. 


Using data like tweets and check-ins, a research team from Carnegie Mellon discovered hidden structures of cities. In their own words, “our techniques reveal a snap-shot of the dynamic areas that comprise the city, which we call Livehoods.” While they’ve only mapped New York, San Fran and Pittsburgh thus far, they’re taking requests for new cities. 

Kickstarter of doom.  Kickstriker is a newly launched parody of Kickstarter, the crowd-sourced funding site, built by ITP students in Clay Shirky’s class. After discussing KONY 2012, one student “mused as a reductio ad absurdum about doing a Kickstarter campaign so Blackwater could get the cash to hunt war criminal Joseph Kony.” Have a read of the Wired article and then check out Kickstriker.  High-res

Kickstarter of doom. 


Kickstriker is a newly launched parody of Kickstarter, the crowd-sourced funding site, built by ITP students in Clay Shirky’s class. After discussing KONY 2012, one student “mused as a reductio ad absurdum about doing a Kickstarter campaign so Blackwater could get the cash to hunt war criminal Joseph Kony.” Have a read of the Wired article and then check out Kickstriker. 

Why storytelling is the ultimate weapon. 


In this article, Jonathan Gottschall (author of The Storytelling animal) gives an example of how Peter Guber likens stories to the trojan horses: “The audience accepts the story because, for a human, a good story always seems like a gift. But the story is actually just a delivery system for the teller’s agenda. A story is a trick for sneaking a message into the fortified citadel of the human mind.”

Source fastcocreate.com

In tech, some bemoan the rise of ‘brogrammer’ culture. When the opening line of any article includes, “a 28-year-old executive talks about landing a tech job by sending a CEO ‘bikini shots’ from a ‘nudie calendar’ he created,” you know it’s going to be good. How to spot (or learn how to become) a brogrammer? A thread on Quora suggests, “lots of red meat, push-ups on one hand, while coding on the other, sunglasses at all times, a tan is important, popped collar is a must. It’s important that you can squash anyone who might call you ‘geek’ or ‘nerd’ and that you can pick up girls, but also equally important that you know the ‘Star Wars’ movies by heart. and understand programming ideas like recursion and inheritance.” Read more on the rise of brogrammers with this CNN article. High-res

In tech, some bemoan the rise of ‘brogrammer’ culture.


When the opening line of any article includes, “a 28-year-old executive talks about landing a tech job by sending a CEO ‘bikini shots’ from a ‘nudie calendar’ he created,” you know it’s going to be good. How to spot (or learn how to become) a brogrammer? A thread on Quora suggests, “lots of red meat, push-ups on one hand, while coding on the other, sunglasses at all times, a tan is important, popped collar is a must. It’s important that you can squash anyone who might call you ‘geek’ or ‘nerd’ and that you can pick up girls, but also equally important that you know the ‘Star Wars’ movies by heart. and understand programming ideas like recursion and inheritance.” Read more on the rise of brogrammers with this CNN article.

Source CNN