Law enforcement is an extremely complex line of work, as police officers have to keep up-to-date with events and people in the community, but usually from the sidelines or through second-hand information. Tools that can augment police officers' mental models of the communities they serve, especially in an ever increasing information-rich world, are critical to the future of policing.
And that's where graph theory comes in. Graph theory looks at objects (nodes) and the relationships (edges) between them. These objects could be people, computers, or buildings, while the corresponding relationships could be family ties, Internet connections, and roads. As Facebook and other social networking tools continue to bring our world closer together each day, social network applications of graph theory are becoming a hot topic. Ever hear of "six degrees of separation?" Thanks to Facebook, it's now closer to four or five.
Criminal networks are really just a specific example of social networks. Currently, law enforcement agencies use link analysis, a basic application of graph theory, to attempt to understand these networks. Link analysis produces a visual output of relationships between nodes, but "people tend to believe that actors in the center or at the top of a graph are crucially and most important." Instead, Renee van der Hulst describes a framework for using social network analysis (SNA) for crime analysis. Beyond just outputing a visual graph, SNA provides a mathematical approach to quantify the "characteristics of network activity, social roles, positions and associated social mechanisms."
A simple graph of a social network, including nodes and edges.
In 2011, researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University implemented a pilot program of SNA in the Richmond, VA Police Department to test its effectiveness. The Richmond City Police Department asked the researchers to identify the reason behind why "two groups of previously friendly males" were now engaging in a "rash of violence" against each other. The researchers mined a police informational database for details concerning twenty-four persons of interest, as well as any connections four people out.
A meetup for hardware startups brought 200 people to a warehouse in San Francisco's Dogpatch. All around were jellyfish tanks, a business started by Alex Andon, and featured in Make Magazine last year. The meetup was organized by Nick Pinkston, the founder of CloudFab, who thought that people designing hardware products wanted to find each other more easily. I found new startups doing e-textiles, robots, medical diagnostic adaptors for the iPhone, a new kind of coffee maker and others, including a foldable kayak.
Orukayak by Anton Willis
Over on Kickstarter, hardware products such as Pebble, Twine and PrintrBot are raising the bar on raising money via crowdfunding. While hardware projects are raising millions, traditional sources of investment such as venture capitalists don't seem to be interested in hardware. One exception is Brad Feld of the Foundry Group who has invested in MakerBot, the 3D printer startup headed by Bre Pettis and located in Brooklyn.
A large chip company is now hiring makers in its research and development organization. Another software company is looking for "maker advocates" who can help them understand how to connect with the maker community and develop products that meet their needs. Others are starting to look at makers as extension of their own R&D efforts.
There's something new happening in hardware, and we're seeing a new wave of innovation from new sources, inspired by the maker movement. The combination of open hardware, collaborative design practices and personal fabrication tools are making it possible for a whole new group of creatives to develop physical things, reconnecting to the world around us. It's a prototyping revolution that allows almost anyone to take an idea from sketch to functional prototype.
Glass has two key properties, one good, one bad. The good one is that it's transparent, so we don't have to drive around in cars using periscopes to see. The bad one is that it's reflective, which can cause glare and other problems. If you've ever driven around with a white envelope or piece of paper on top of your dashboard, you know how annoying the reflection is.
The reflectivity issue is a problem with solar panels, where a percentage of that precious sunlight they're trying to soak up is uselessly bounced away. In an effort to solve this, a team of MIT researchers have found a way to etch the surface of glass in such a way that it "virtually eliminates reflections, producing glass that is almost unrecognizable because of its absence of glare." A nice side benefit of this is that water and dust will also not stick to the glass.
What the researchers have done is etched a "nanotexture"—essentially a forest of cones—into the surface of the glass, and the scale of this forest is so tiny that water droplets and dust particles cannot get any purchase. They bounce right off of the surface, as you can see in the video below. It also solves the original goal of preventing glare, as the sharp angle of the cones simply obviates the angles of incidence that a ray of light would bounce off of on a perfectly flat surface.
Led by professor Roel Vertegaal, a research team at the Human Media Lab of Canada's Queen's University has created a fascinating 360-degree display called the Telepod. It consists of a human-being-sized acrylic cylinder, six Microsoft Kinect sensors and a 3D projector, and as you'll see in the video below, affords the viewer an experience similar to interacting with a hologram. The cylinder displays a live, three-dimensional image of the person with whom you're interacting, and you can circumnavigate the cylinder to get a completely wraparound view.
The research team foresees at least two applications of the technology. The first, called TeleHuman, is basic teleconferencing. The second application, called BodiPod, could revolutionize the medical industry. It provides the viewer with a "peelable" X-ray scan of the subject's body, meaning a patient on one continent could receive a diagnosis from a specialist on another (assuming the resolution was high enough). Have a look:
As you prepare your entries for the HEINEKEN Sustainability Challenge, we thought we'd take a moment to look at one of HEINEKEN's most recent innovations in packaging design: the STR Bottle. Leveraging some of the key components of the Sustainability Challenge, the STR Bottle uses recyclable aluminum cans and pushes forth new packaging innovation in the market. Core77 had an opportunity to chat with Mark van Iterson, Global Head of Design at Heineken, and John McGuire, Project Manager Packaging Innovation Heineken International, about the design and innovations introduced in the STR bottle. The aluminum can was introduced to high end nightclub environments around the world and the UV-sensitive ink illuminates under black lights to reveal a surprise graphic on the bottle.
* * *
Core77: HEINEKEN has a long history of innovation for both on-premise and off-premise packaging and design. How does HEINEKEN define innovation? Why is it important for your category?
Mark van Iterson (MvI): We define innovation as everything that adds value to the consumer experience. That could be packaging, but also the way we serve the beer, for example extra cold. Or merchandise items like the perfect glass or tray.
Innovation sets us apart from our competitors. Heineken is progressive and inventive, while the category is relatively traditional. In the end innovations will create added value and differentiation.
What were some of the key cultural and design considerations you were trying to address when you started work on the STR Bottle? How does the final packaging design look towards the next phase in packaging?
MvI: STR is for specific types of outlets and occasions; night, dance, top end. These outlets and its consumers are very design minded, and sensitive for the looks of things. STR bottle is a typical progressive and outspoken design statement; very stylish, minimalistic in a way, but also iconic. Subtly branded, and with a hidden surprise in the UV inks that only flair up under black-lights.
The progressive nature of the STR design could also be considered as a scout for the Heineken brand. It's exploring new territories.
New bottle holders introduced last week at HEINEKEN's "Club of the Future" in Milan
The most exciting design innovation for the STR bottle is the technique used to affix a UV-sensitive ink to the aluminum bottle. What are some of the processes behind this technique?
John McGuire (JMcG): UV or Invisible ink as it is also called, has its origins in anti-counterfeiting. The ultraviolet ink becomes visible when exposed to the black light. It's this ability look different in different light sources which we were after. Careful consideration for how the print is constructed and placed on the non-printed areas of the bottle ensure that it has the signature purple tone that is now synonymous with image of the STR bottle in bars and clubs.
MvI: The beauty of the UV inks is that it is designed as a surprise. The technology in itself was not revolutionary, this way applying it is. It creates excitement and talkability.
There's more than one way to skin a cat, and recently we've seen this maxim holds true for creators looking to produce a video of their object rotating in space.
With 3D software, it's not difficult to create a video like this of a virtual object you've modeled. And with Autodesk's 123D Catch software, you can use a point-and-shoot to photograph real-life objects, giving you the data you need to achieve the same. But Comp Sci professors Jason Lawrence and Abhi Shelat are attempting to Kickstart the Arqball Spin, a sort of hi-tech/low-tech hybrid that combines software with a physical, rotating platform:
I'm not convinced a physical turntable will trump Autodesk's 123D Catch solution, which requires just the camera; but at press time it seemed Arqball Spin could go either way, with 25 days left and about $14,500 of $40,000 in the bag.
In the few weeks since Google announced their Project Glass, you've undoubtedly seen the spoof videos that popped up cynically assuming the product would be overtaken by ads. What you probably haven't seen is this rather unexpected (and entirely speculative) take on what Project Glass could bring. (Warning: If you have never played Battlefield, and/or are not a 16-to-40-year-old male, you may find this video a tad violent for your tastes.)
Join us Tonight at Hand-Eye Supply, in lovely downtown Portland, Oregon, as fine metalworker Joe Diemer leads us in an examination of the beguiling history and material facts of Stainless Steel!
Stainless steel is now 100 years old, and has many industrial accomplishments under its belt due to its strength, beauty, and stainlessness. Yet it remains an elusive medium to many artisans because of perceived challenges (such as the cost and skill of TIG welding). This is a shame since it pairs so well with glass, wood, and textiles - and is truly beautiful on its own.
Many of these challenges have simple but hard to find answers, and I will share what I have found. We'll look at simpler pre-WW2 welding methods, discuss local suppliers, and have a demo on electropolishing: a fast method of polishing involving electricity running through acid. There will also be trivia prizes of my household wire goods.
Not in the greater Portland area? No problem! Join us live on our broadcast channel - the show begins at 6pm Pacific.
Pebble is a fully customizable e-paper watch that interacts with your smartphone.
It's hard to remember, but there was once a time, at least according to Dick Tracy, when we thought we might be speaking into our watches to communicate with each other. That vision of the future seemed to be a distant memory when cell phones came along.
Pebble, an e-paper watch, might just get us talking into our watches again. Brought to us by the same folks who developed the Blackberry-ready inPulse watch, Pebble is a fully customizable interface that syncs up with an iPhone or Android phone via Bluetooth. The 144×168 pixel display may be small but the device can stream plenty of data, with features to rival its smartphone 'host organism.' The developers suggest apps for exercise, among other things, where the e-paper provides a lighter display that is easier to read in bright sunlight. The watch can even interact with your phone's caller ID or an mp3 player to control music over Bluetooth.
But the killer app is that anyone can make an app, and that's where the potential lies. Aside from what you can download from their watchapp store, you can create your own functions using if this then that or tap into the full SDK, using a familiar structure from Arduino and simple C. That means savvy developers can customize the four buttons, motor and accelerometer for any number of uses.
"We're a little different than your typical Bay Area start-up," says BRD Motorcycles CEO Marc Fenigstein. Right down the street from some of the most innovative companies in America, Marc and the rest of the BRD team are busy changing the face of the motocross industry through their pioneering electric bikes. The Redshift, BRD's flagship motorcycle, is 250 pounds of power and handling all wrapped up in a drop-dead gorgeous custom frame that charges in a wall socket. "Nobody needs electric motorcycles," says Marc, "but we found a way to make everyone want electric: by making them go faster."
On the test track, the RedShift is four seconds faster on a 1:10 lap than the KTM 250, a comparable gas-powered bike. "That's the difference between classes!" says Marc. "Motocross has two full-size classes, 250cc and 450cc. The 250cc is the larger market segment and the more appropriate size/power bike for most mortal humans." Where a gas-powered bike can generate 40 horsepower at its peak, the RedShift "can put down 40 horsepower anywhere."
Moreover, pro riders heavily train their arms in order to endure "forearm pump," the debilitating strain generated from shifting with the clutch with the left hand and cutting the throttle with the right hand. Using an electric motor helps to eliminates this strain, since the rider remains in the same gear the entire ride and only needs to "finely tune" the throttle. For average riders, this is a "huge advantage."
While BRD's motorcycles hold their own on the track, "We own the street," says Marc. Although the gas-powered competition "would never be street legal," the RedShift is built for riders to enjoy both on the dirt track and for trips around the city. Although you may not be able to hear the RedShift "going down the street from inside your house," BRD's motorcycles are "definitely not silent." Marc described the sound as something "like a podracer," with the pitch of the noise "always tied to your speed." In Marc's opinion, this is the "perfect product feedback for the user."
Hot on the heels of LG announcing their forthcoming flexible displays, a company called Atmel has begun flogging XSense, their new ultra-thin touchscreen technology that's capable of bending and going just about full-bleed.
While comparing the two technologies is admittedly a bit apples-to-oranges—LG's black-and-white device is user-malleable, whereas XSense's color display seems intended to hold a fixed contour—the display promises to "open new dimensions for industrial designers," says Atmel Marketing Director Mariel Van Tetenhove. And unlike LG's device, XSense is touch-capacitive. Take a look at the video after the jump:
High-Low Tech is the name of an MIT Media Lab research group led by Assistant Professor Leah Buechley, and when I saw their work I immediately thought of Becky Stern. As their name suggests, the group creates objects by blending technologically-sophisticated items with traditionally craftsy materials. While their projects wouldn't look out of place in an ID program, the researchers here are not bound by our more pragmatic profession's demands for real-world applicability; they are free to create purely for the sake of creation in the hopes that they'll stumble on something wondrous.
High-Low Tech, a research group at the MIT Media Lab, integrates high and low technological materials, processes, and cultures. Our primary aim is to engage diverse audiences in designing and building their own technologies by situating computation in new cultural and material contexts, and by developing tools that democratize engineering. We believe that the future of technology will be largely determined by end-users who will design, build, and hack their own devices, and our goal is to inspire, shape, support, and study these communities. To this end, we explore the intersection of computation, physical materials, manufacturing processes, traditional crafts, and design.
Did you ever wonder why hearing someone talking loudly on their cell phone is more annoying than hearing two people have a conversation? My theory is that hearing just one half of a conversation triggers some kind of dissonant "does not compute" vibe in your brain, and the result is irritation.
I find engaging in video chats similarly irritating, as I hunch down and attempt to interact with a shrunken version of one of my friends on a laptop screen, sans eye contact. All nonverbal nuance is lost (not to mention timing, if you have a crappy connection).
A research lab at Japanese telecommunications giant NTT is working on a better way to present videoconferences, at least as far as the nonverbal communication goes, by implementing such basic physical changes to the interface that you almost wonder why no one thought of this earlier. For one, they're using a large screen with a blown-up image, so you're talking to a human-sized face rather than a postcard. Secondly, a small servo motor has been installed at the bottom of the screen. As the offsite camera tracks the offsite speaker's head, the screen rotates accordingly, providing a small but important visual cue and making the experience just a smidgen more human. This is difficult to understand by reading about, so check out the video:
Get off your phone and remember what it's like to smell the Roses. The Google[x] team just released a video about a speculative project tentatively called Project Glass that challenges users to imagine a world that not only brings information to you, but encourages you to continue interacting and living in it. Although the mockup of the actual "Glass" is not that impressive, the possibilities that augmented reality could bring to product and UX designers are infinite. Although it reminds us a bit of the Microsoft "Productivity Future Visions" video we shared late last year, it doesn't stop us from getting excited. What would you design if Project Glass was a reality? How would it shape your day-to-day reality? (See more images of Project Glass after the jump)
From Google[x]:
We think technology should work for you—to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don't.
A group of us from Google[x] started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment. We're sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input. So we took a few design photos to show what this technology could look like and created a video to demonstrate what it might enable you to do.
Please follow along as we share some of our ideas and stories. We'd love to hear yours, too. What would you like to see from Project Glass?
Here's a great example of what can happen when experimental research is documented and posted on the web with plenty of explanation and resources. RISD student Sarah Pease, a junior in Furniture Design, took part in an independent study with the High-Low Tech Group at MIT's Media Lab this past Fall. spotted a project on MIT Media Lab's High-Low Tech page.
The original design of "Fab Speaker," an open-source project for creating portable speakers compatible with a standard audio jack, was by project leader David A. Mellis and was made from veneer wrapped and hot-glued around laser-cut wooden struts encircling the electronics, then topped with fabric.
But he provided downloadable files so that anyone could whack up their own design. Mellis asked Pease to take the kit and design some alternative housings for it. Pease's beautiful take, "Audio Jar," consists of glass jars and bases whittled out of cork.
The problem of how to get a robot from point A to point B has many solutions, and by far the most interesting (and creepy) ones are animal-based. You probably remember Boston Dynamics' doglike robot that scared the crap out of me and Carnegie Mellon's snakebot, which also gave me nightmares. (Ed. note: Likewise, the gallop of the former company's most recent critter is still echoing in my head). But a new robot produced in collaboration between aforementioned Boston Dynamics and the US Army's Rapid Equipping Force—a robot based on the sand flea—has a rather amazing means of obstacle navigation:
Sand Flea is an 11-lb robot with one trick up its sleeve: Normally it drives like an RC car, but when it needs to it can jump 30 feet into the air. An onboard stabilization system keeps it oriented during flight to improve the view from the video uplink and to control landings.
I've said this before of a wall-climbing robot from Disney Research, and I'm only half-joking: I want to see these things adapted to urban food and package delivery. It'd be worth the occasional destroyed burrito to see these little guys hop into your window every day at lunchtime.
Buses are great. Buses offer a clean alternative to driving. And you never know when they're coming.
Many cities have acknowledged this problem and offer open APIs with real-time bus data. This is crucial, as any bus rider knows that buses rarely arrive on time, because, unlike subways, buses are dependent on traffic and delays caused by riders. But it's also a hindrance to taking the bus: who wants to wait at a lonely bus stop, which is subject to the elements and may not be safe? Not to mention boring.
Tapping into London's Countdown service, which displays live bus data, John Graham-Cumming created a simple bus monitor shaped, naturally, like an actual London bus. The bus uses a hacked Linksys wireless router that Graham-Cumming outfitted with a custom Linux setup. The LED then taps into data for the next two buses and adds two minutes for walk time to the actual station.
Complete instructions are available for hacking a Linksys wifi router to interface directly with live bus data and display it on an LED.
Graham-Cumming has made the project open-source, with complete instructions for setting it up, including how to take apart the bus model to fit the LED. If you live in a city with open transportation data, you could create a custom one, with or without the bus model.
I could see this device in a coffee shop or bar near a bus stop, thus encouraging riders to come in and patronize the store without worrying about missing their bus. It could even be customized for, say, a 5 minute walk, if the shop is a bit farther away. More adventurous hackers could create a multi-display unit for different bus lines too.
How are technological advancements shaping or informing the design of Soft Goods? Michael DiTullo, our Jury Captain for this field and Creative Director at frog in San Francisco, shares his observations and predictions on the paths that soft goods designers and manufacturers are taking plus tells us why he picked his jury.
Core77: Tell us a bit about your jury and why you chose these individuals.
Michael DiTullo: All four of us, Greg McNamara, M. Coleman Horn, Chris Gadway and myself, are very experienced in bringing a variety of soft goods, footwear and accessories to production for large corporate brands as well as start-up lifestyle brands. I looked for partners on my jury who are excellent designers, have a firm understanding of brand, a deep passion for craft and experience in factory development.
What qualities will you be considering when evaluating each entry?
We will be looking for products that really represent the full package. Winning entries will have a desirable and unique brand position. They will be meticulously crafted and executed. They will be striking and iconic in their own right. On top of all of that, they will have brought an innovative twist to the industry. One of the amazing things about working in soft goods is that you are building on literally centuries of craft. To be able to pioneer a new technique or put a twist on an old one is an achievement. We are going to be looking for that twist.
What are you most excited about discovering while judging the entries?
There are a couple of global trends occurring right now in soft goods, which, on their surface, seem very disparate. The first is a return to old world craft. We are seeing products made again in the old world traditions with painstakingly hand tanned and tooled leathers, cut and stitched by hand. In some cases, these products are being made in places like the United States. It is exciting to see a broader acceptance of this type of work again!
On the flip side, we continue to see the mass implementation of high tech innovations like laser cutting, stitch less seam welding, and the integration of molded hard and semi-rigid components within soft goods. It is exciting that both of these trends exist at the same time, and are both at their core rooted in craftsmanship. I'm looking forward to see where the bulk of this year's entries land, and if a few of them even blend those trends.
Where do you see the future of the Soft Goods field heading?
An exciting future lies ahead. Some of the most exciting possible innovations have to do with advances outside of the soft good industry. Just-in-time manufacturing technologies and order management are leading to more and more factory side customization that is initiated and determined by the end user. The ever-cheapening and dispersal of processing power is leading to digital components integrating into soft-goods. A digital component in a shoe was almost unimaginable a decade ago, and now every Nike running shoe is compatible with Nike+. The opportunity to integrate technologies that relate to quantifying our actions the way the Philips fitBit does or acting like an input to our other devices, such as some of the Burton coats that have stitched in smartphone controls is amazing.
The challenge for designers in this category will be coming up to speed with all of these new technologies while remaining versed in the techniques of the industry to create soft goods that are innovative and desirable.
Learn more about the Soft Goods category and jury. The deadline for entries is Tuesday April 10.
LG has announced that their new flexible display technology is ready for prime time. With factories humming, the company will be releasing a six-inch black-and-white EPD (Electronic Paper Display) by the beginning of next month, starting with the European market.
The plastic device is bendable up to 40 degrees and utilizes e-ink technology, whereby black/white "pixels" are suspended in a substrate, so no power is drawn when the page is static. Previous attempts at creating flexible displays have resulted in a fragile product, but LG claims that despite being incredibly thin—just 0.7mm!—they've realized an unspecified manufacturing breakthrough that enables "strong durability."
We'll keep you posted as the launch date solidifies.
I suppose there's no need to be coy about it now that it's the second (AFD observed, perhaps), but Seoul-based designer Jinyoung Choi recently sent in a submission that is sure to blow up on the Interwebs: a concept for the iPhone PRO, purportedly Apple's answer to the ever-increasing size of new hardware from certain unnamed competitors.
An explanation of the mysterious backside (scandalous, even) and many more lustworthy iRenderings after the jump...
This is version 1.0 of a technology that's a bit clunky now, but has the potential to be awesome at the 2.0 or 3.0 level. The Ubi-Camera is a working concept devised at Japan's Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences which allows you to take photos the way a pretentious art-house movie director frames shots: By framing them with your fingers.
We say it's clunky because the current prototype requires you stick your fingers into that little box, but it's not difficult to imagine where this could go:
1.) Picture the lens being something tiny that attaches to the fingernail of your pointer finger.
2.) Form the frame with your fingers and the camera turns on.
3.) The shutter could be activated by using a finger not involved in the framing—say, your ring finger—to touch your palm.
As a shutter-triggering alternative to step 3, it would be cool if you just made the "Ch-KSHH" noise with your mouth, and an audio sensor in the camera then snapped the photo.
James Cameron has, as it's called in Hollywood, "F.U. money." Enough money to buy sports teams or superyachts or spend the rest of his days on a private island. But the Avatar director has eschewed the idle-rich lifestyle to fund and participate in exploration.
Cameron helped design the Deepsea Challenger craft, a one-man, 24-ton submersible that he himself piloted to the very bottom of the ocean last Sunday. "...The idea is that if you can go to the deepest spot in the ocean, you can go anywhere in the ocean," Cameron told NPR. "There are so many of these extremely deep places that, together, form the last unexplored frontier on our planet."
While the novel craft is stored in a horizontal position before deployment, once in the water it goes vertical, like a seahorse. Here's some pre-dive video featuring Cameron discussing the mission and the craft:
We love what can happen when a disruptive technology is introduced to a creative generation of people, and we still feel we haven't seen all the possibilities engendered by miniaturized cameras. But we're getting closer. Two years ago we wrote about pioneer Eric Austin's RC-helicopter-mounted cameras, predicting he'd become a rich man; since then he's shot for Nike, ABC, Dreamworks, Discovery, and other networks. Last year we showed you some amazing footage shot by an anonymous Polish citizen's similar RoboKopter rig. And this year, a German enthusiast operating under the handle "Crazy Horst" is making the blog rounds for his incredible GoPro-camera-plus-RC-plane, rather than helicopter, footage.
We're not sure if flying an RC plane is easier or more difficult than flying an RC helicopter, but the footage is certainly different. Because the plane is always moving forward the cinematography has an intrinsic flow to it, not to mention the capability of attaining higher altitudes. Here's one of Crazy Horst's demo reels:
Homeless Hotspots features profiles of some of the people carrying wi-fi signals, along with a suggested fee to be paid for the service. Screenshot from http://homelesshotspots.org
We love to be connected. Thanks to wireless 3G networks, it's easier than ever to check email and Twitter, talk on the phone, pay your bills, watch videos and post pictures from virtually anywhere and at any time. But it's not fast enough—wireless internet is still the fastest way to get online with a mobile smartphone or tablet.
Recently at SxSW, a project called Homeless Hotspots sparked a heated debate online. A great post at NPR linked to the flurry of media about the project, such as quotable quotes like Wired declaring it "like something out of a satirical science-fiction dystopia."
The project had more prosaic goals, which was to update the analog practice of street newspapers as a source of revenue for those without homes:
Our hope is to create a modern version of this successful model, offering homeless individuals an opportunity to sell a digital service instead of a material commodity. SxSW Interactive attendees can pay what they like to access 4G networks carried by our homeless collaborators. This service is intended to deliver on the demand for better transit connectivity during the conference.
I started thinking about Liam Young's Electronic Countermeasures project, which has been making the rounds on social media. Young's project reflected on the need for constant connection through a more robotic means. The video feels like a scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. But this time, our alien friends aren't delivering news from outer space: they're bringing us the Internet.
In his video description, Young expands on the sci-fi nature of his work, which reimagines quadcopters as a pirate network of wi-fi routers that quickly disperse and reconfigure throughout cities:
We have built a flock of GPS enabled quadcopter drones from components that were originally intended for aerial reconnaissance and police surveillance to create this flying pirate file sharing network. The drones are autonomous and drift above the public spaces of the city as a balletic interactive aerial choreography. Part nomadic infrastructure and part robotic swarm we have rebuilt and programmed the drones to broadcast their own local wi-fi network as a form of aerial Napster. They swarm into formation, broadcasting their pirate network, and then disperse, escaping detection, only to reform elsewhere.
It's a stunning image, these magic Golden Snitches that we desperately try to catch with our phones.
A certain famous industrial designer once told me I'd be absolutely amazed if I could see some of the things he'd seen inside Microsoft's skunkworks. I pushed him for specifics, but alas, the design DNA was NDA'd. But this project here just might be one of those things.
Right now we all use computers the same way: Moving from the back of your desk to the front, you've got the screen first, then your hands on the keyboard or mouse, and then your head taking it all in. Now imagine swapping the order so that back-to-front we have your hands first, then the screen, then your head.
Researchers Jinha Lee and Cati Boulanger of the Microsoft Applied Sciences Group have developed a prototype called the See-Through 3D Desktop where the user reaches behind the screen to interact with objects in virtual 3D space. Check it out:
Here's another vid showing a different demo of the same technology. You can skip ahead to 1:00 for the action:
The Vimeo iPad app features a beautiful full screen interface that allows you to view and browse for videos at the same time and even access your site stats. Screenshots by the author.
It's always been the designer's alternative to YouTube. With a cleaner interface and built-in communities, Vimeo may not have the powerhouse reach of YouTube but it hosts its own film festivals and offers a number of "Pro" features tailored for filmmakers, animators and design nerds. It's always pushed boundaries and trends in online video, with early adoption of HD and Creative Commons Licenses.
Which is why I was excited to learn about Vimeo's new iPad app, a much-needed release that builds off the strengths of its original iPhone app. Hot on the heels of the New Vimeo site redesign, the iPad version opens up in full screen glory, an extension of the already great site. The videos play in full screen and make for relaxing viewing on a couch. And if you hook it up with Apple TV (which I didn't get to test out), you can even watch them on the big screen in your living room.
As designer Joseph Schmitt in the company's blog post announcing the new app, "Mobile traffic to Vimeo has exploded (technically speaking, it's tripled) since we first launched our iPhone app in early 2011, so we've renewed our focus to provide the best possible experience for Vimeo users on the move." The new app is sure to drive even more traffic (and reduce eye strain!).
Each video features the standard "Like" and "Later" buttons, and you can login with your standard Vimeo account so it all syncs up. In this regard, the "Watch Later" feature makes a lot more sense--turning Vimeo into an Instapaper-like site for great video (though you still need to be connected to the web to view them). Below the video, you can get more information from the author, share it out with your friends (including an embed feature for Wordpress), and even determine the CC license for viewing. You can even scroll for other videos while watching the current one.
The editing feature is clean and easy to use, with color-coded layers and a bevy of options, including transitions, audio (with easy access to Vimeo's music store), and text.
The most intriguing element, and a vast improvement from the tiny iPhone interface, is the ability to shoot, edit and upload video. Taking advantage of the iPad's built-in video camera, you can quickly shoot clips and either automatically upload them or create a new project.
FRIEZE ART FAIR NEW YORK 2012
MILAN 2012: SALONE INTERNAZIONALE DEL MOBILE
MILAN 2012: SATELLITE EXHIBITIONS
MILAN 2012: BRERA DESIGN DISTRICT
Graph of the Internet.
A simple graph of a social network, including nodes and edges.
Jellyfish Tanks by Alex Andon
Orukayak by Anton Willis
New bottle holders introduced last week at HEINEKEN's "Club of the Future" in Milan
Pebble is a fully customizable e-paper watch that interacts with your smartphone.
Complete instructions are available for hacking a Linksys wifi router to interface directly with live bus data and display it on an LED.
Homeless Hotspots features profiles of some of the people carrying wi-fi signals, along with a suggested fee to be paid for the service. Screenshot from 
The Vimeo iPad app features a beautiful full screen interface that allows you to view and browse for videos at the same time and even access your site stats. Screenshots by the author.
The editing feature is clean and easy to use, with color-coded layers and a bevy of options, including transitions, audio (with easy access to Vimeo's music store), and text.
