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Samstag, 20. November 2004 |
Living Data & The Momentum of Webfeeds. I'm exploring the Design for Data thread and later in this post I'm going to get arty
on ya'll. I think tomorrow I'll begin to investigate Atomflow, but for now
let me give you an informal overview of my thoughts so far:
- it's about movement of data/content (in time); not places where
data/content resides. A word that I've been noticing lately, which I think sums
this up nicely, is momentum. Portability is another word I like: not tied to one
place.
- Design for Data is about the user being in control of their webfeeds (RSS and
Atom). Whereas the reality circa 2004 is that it's still mostly the content producer that
has control over feeds.
Think about it - blogging is currently more people-centric than
topic-centric, because you're subscribing to a person and you generally can't filter out
the content that you don't want to read from that person. What if you, the user,
could aggregate feeds from people but only view the topics you want, or automatically
filter content according to your tastes? This is something developers are
beginning to explore now and it's basically all about giving control of data/content
back to the user.
- Design for Data is about DYI websites for the users. If you can aggregate
your own content from a variety of sources, then does that mean a complete overhaul of
what a "website" is? Traditionally
a website is a "place", but increasingly it's about taking bits of content from movable
webfeeds and making your own "place" to consume them. You and I have RSS Aggregators and
our weblogs for this purpose, but Yahoo! sees this as an opportunity to be 'the
place' where ordinary people aggregate their content. And they're going to mix in
music and other multimedia too.
- It's all about Information
Flow. And it's going to affect a lot of content creation industries.
- And it's also about Rip, Mix n' Burn. Re-using content is going to be where a lot of
current "consumers" find their value in the webfeed system. Whether it be music, podcasts,
other audio, multimedia, or just plain old text - it's all there to be re-mixed (putting
the painful legal stuff aside for now!).
- Web of Ideas. That's a
phrase I've long been attracted to and Design for Data is bringing us closer. As Joshua Porter commented recently:
"The more we rip content away from visual style and present it in different contexts, the
more we get closer to pure ideas. That is the goal, isn't it?" Indeed! p.s. I must read
Nova Spivack's The Physics of Ideas - that's
sort of what Joshua and I have been rapping about (found via The Grandmaster Flash of
Meme Rapping, Marc
Canter).
Visual design is a package for our data/content, but we want to make it
easier for users to get at the kernels of truth via webfeeds!
There's much more, but I'm still exploring... now for an artsy-fartsy segue.
The red shed
I was feeling a bit down today. Being so far away from all the conferences and other Web events makes me feel
sorry for myself sometimes. Which is why I can't understand all these disaffected
US liberals who want to move to New Zealand - are you crazy? Webfeeds and ideas may
be free to roam about the world, but the people who matter in the Web industry are
still by and large in one place: America. You can't get anywhere in this world
without F2F with your peers.
Anyways, at lunchtime I walked over to Te Papa, the national museum of New Zealand, to
draw some inspiration from an exhibition of New Zealand artists (some pxts here).
 This one painting, by Toss
Woollaston, caught my eye because in a way it expressed what I'm thinking about with Design for Data. Here's the blurb which accompanied it:
"This orchard near Nelson was where Woollaston worked during the early 1940s. His
landscapes are more a response to his surroundings than a literal depiction of them. He
said he wanted to 'invent new strategies for reproducing not nature, but the emotions
felt before nature.'"
I'm not sure if there is a connection... however one phrase I read later that was
applied to this kind of painting (a form of expressionism I think, but I'm no art
historian) is 'living paint'. There's a fusion between the oil paint and nature - and so the paint becomes
'alive'.
So
too data (words, music, whatever is your preferred format) becomes
'alive' in webfeeds, in the sense that it moves, interacts with the
world and is malleable...and produces ideas. So I think what I mean
when I talk about Design for Data is 'living data'. Webfeeds (RSS
and Atom primarily) are making content come alive to us. [Read/Write Web]
9:28:08 PM 
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Music Thing: There's a studio in your pocket.  Each week, Tom Whitwell of
Music Thing highlights the best of the new music gear that[base ']s coming out,
as well as noteworthy vintage equipment. Last Saturday, he was building a complete
digital studio for £27. This week, he explains how
to turn cellphones, PDAs and Game Boys into music workstations:
It sounds like an urban myth, but there really is a version of Cubase - the ubiquitous pro music software - that
runs on a mobile phone.
[base ']Cubasis
Mobile[base '] was developed by Steinberg, but - tragically - was nothing more than a cruddy Java ringtone composer that
shipped with Siemens[base '] nondescript M55 phone last year. Fortunately, there are numerous euro-hackers building sequencers
and samplers for handheld devices, so there[base ']s no excuse to sit on the bus listening to other people[base ']s music when you
could be making your own. Read on for a roundup of music software programs for the Game Boy as well as for Palm, Pocket
PC, and Symbian handhelds:
Palm OS: Bhajis Loops is an astonishing all-in-one studio, including a sequencer, sampler, drum machine and a synth,
created by French programmer Oliver Gillet. You even download a set of Fairlight CMI sounds to use. The full version is
$26.99 from http://www.chocopoolp.com/bhajis/
Game Boy: Game Boy music hasn[base ']t really recovered since Malcolm McLaren (the Sex Pistols svengali) claimed it was the
future of pop a few years back. But now there[base ']s Nanoloop 2.0, a very stylish, abstract-looking synth and sequencer for
the Game Boy Advance, built by German musician Oliver Wittchow, who gets cartridges made in China and sells them for
o80 from his website http://www.nanoloop.de/
Pocket PC: Planet Griff is a British-made sequencer which can play samples, effects and run various virtual
instruments. It[base ']s surprisingly expensive, with the basic package costing £39.99 and add-on instruments costing up to
£15 each. Details at http://www.planetgriff.com/ For a cheaper alternative, try PhoenixStudio at
http://www.meloditronic.com/
Symbian: Syntrax is an 8-channel sequencer from Holland, again with a synth, a sampler and various filters and effects.
It was created by Reinier van Vliet, a Dutch programmer who[base ']s been doing this kind of thing since the Amiga. It[base ']s just
$20 (there[base ']s also a Pocket PC version) from http://www.klaar.com/ (their site is
currently down, but will be back),
[Engadget]
9:22:58 PM
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Asymmetrical Analytics. Interesting line of thought inspired by Ross Mayfield's post Blog-based Research
Model, where he talks about research services shifting "from the end analysis product
(.pdf) to the open process of research". That is, instead of relying upon bulky and
expensive PDFs from the traditional analyst companies (Gartner and so forth), we are
seeing blogs form a new open and 'on-flowing' (to coin a phrase) research model. Open
because so-called amateurs can contribute to this research model, not just the elite
analysts, and 'on-flowing' because it is an ongoing process of information flow. But what
makes a good "open research" analyst? Ross points to James Enck's
post, which lists 3 examples:
"I select these three [Andy (http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/),
Om (www.gigaom.com), and Martin (www.telepocalypse.net)] because they, to my mind,
demonstrate the highly individual qualities of blogs which collectively deliver what
brokers' research typically lacks. All three have very sensitive BS meters, and are not
afraid to court controversy. All three possess wide expertise and that rare quality of
360-degree, joined-up thinking, which allows them to consider the broader implications of
what Company A is saying/doing [...]"
James goes on to describe a potential business model for a "cross-sector investment
research platform incorporating realtime tools (I mean blogging, IM, video conferencing
and collaboration) rather than .pdfs and spam." So he sees this as a business model and
so does Ross. For my purposes, I see it as an opportunity and also a validation of my
approach to blogging (longer, analytical posts).
I then clicked through to Andy Abramson's blog (one of the 3 referenced by James) and
scrolled down to find a reference to Asymmetrical
thinking, which caught my eye. In that post, Andy described two of his business
mentors and he says of one of them:
"Ken, who was the master of controversy for the sake of change for the
better, was my first mentor in what I now call Asymmetrical thinking. This started when I
was 16 and the discussions about how things were, what they meant and how the
implications impacted a set group were what Ken's daily interactions gave me. More
important was the reading of Ken's writing on issues and matters. Long, page after page
discussions that often put people in the proverbial box because Ken presented facts, line
by line, word by word, and often to the chagrin of the offending party.
It clearly explains to me now why I blog the way I do."
That extract led me to google on the phrase "Asymmetrical thinking", which linked me
to an article entitled When
Uncertain Try Asymmetry, by a fellow called Watts Wacker. Mr Wacker said:
"The strategic approach that is the first that we have embraced is an
asymmetrical strategic orientation. When you design a strategy with an asymmetrical
framework you look at the strengths of an adversary[sigma] not their weaknesses."
NB: asymmetric means
"having no balance or symmetry".
Watts Wacker finishes his article with this gem:
"We used to count on the mainstream defining where the fringe would
reside. Now, it[base ']s the fringe that dictates the mainstream."
The fringe dictates the mainstream...I love it! That's a feature of all original
thinking - how could it be original otherwise? There's a great Kierkegaard quote that I've blogged before, which
starts: "Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than
the majority..."
All this reminds me of the recent Wired article The Long Tail. Well, the
Wired article was more saying that the fringe (or the edges) is just as viable a market
as the mainstream. But the concepts are not that far apart in tone... a lot of our
thinking or business or marketing is increasingly at the edges. Blogging opens up that
edge thinking to potentially a worldwide audience. I like to come up with catchy new
terms :-), so I'll call this type of blogging Asymmetrical Analytics.
So after all this hyperlink travelling, where have I ended up? Well I've also been
browsing Dave Pollard's series of posts on
how to build a Natural Enterprise. I got onto that via one of his recent posts -
which was a call for IT people to build products or services that address fundamental
human needs, instead of building more geeky toys. Dave put it like this:
"If KM people are the most creative in the company, IT people are the
sharpest analytical thinkers. [...] Here's my point: For restless and dissatisfied IT
people, unlike their KM counterparts, there is an alternative, a career path that could
really make a difference: Science-Based Enterprises. Your bright, disciplined analytical
minds are desperately needed to develop practical new technologies that can solve the
global problems of our world.
I think I'm half KM / half IT, but in any case it's clear to me that open research
models and natural enterprises both require thinking at the edges (asymmetrically) in
order to succeed. I see my blog as an ongoing research flow - perhaps even the foundation
for my own natural enterprise! [Read/Write Web]
9:20:55 PM
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How to build a Web 2.0 company. Jeremy Zawodny has
written a terrific post about what makes a successful Web 2.0 company. It all comes
down to ubiquity, according to Jeremy. The themes he covers dovetails with my next Web
2.0 interview (coming soon!), so I'll review his main points here in anticipation of
that.
Jeremy starts by noting that the main computing platform in the 80's and 90's was the
desktop PC - which of course Microsoft went on to dominate. In the early 21st century,
the new platform is the Internet - which Jeremy says "has the effect of leveling the
playing field." He divides this specifically into 2 parts:
"1. The web enables infinite distribution of content without any special
effort or infrastructure.
2. The web extends the reach of our apps and services as far as we're
willing to let them go.
Both notions come back to ubiquity. If your stuff (and your brand) is
everywhere, you win. The money will follow. It always does."
And by ubiquity, he means "every Internet-enabled device: cell phone, desktop, laptop,
tablet, palmtop, PDA, Tivo, set-top box, game console, and so on."
He goes on to tell us how and why Amazon, Google, EBay, Flickr and others have set
about attaining ubiquity on the Web. Jeremy identifies 3 key factors for these and other Web 2.0
companies:
"1. do something useful really really well
2. put the user in control by allowing access to your data and services
in an easy and unrestricted way
3. share the wealth"
Numbers 1 and 2 are pretty self-explanatory. Number 3 perhaps needs some further
explanation - he's talking mainly about affiliate Programs such as Google's AdSense.
btw I'm quoting so much from Jeremy's piece because he said it so darned well! Here
are some more takeaways from Jeremy's post:
On web services (including RSS) and syndication: "Giving users the ability to access
your data and services on their own terms makes ubiquity possible."
On User Generated Content: "The more your service can be affected by user input, the
more users are likely to come back again and get involved. This is personalization taken
to the next level."
I recommend you go and read the whole article. Oh and
check back here at Read/Write Web in a few days
for an interview with a Web 2.0 visionary that will extend on these very themes. [Read/Write Web]
9:20:03 PM
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Design for Data: Thoughts. Nearly a month ago I left a comment on Jason Kottke's weblog, in
response to a post about his upcoming Web 2.0 conference workshop called Design for Web
2.0. He had listed 15 questions that were to be discussed in that workshop and one in
particular caught my eye. It was:
"Right now, Web design feels like talking to the del.icio.us API and
blending Flickr RSS with Upcoming iCal subscriptions. What happens when design(ers) has
little to do with what's on the page?"
My comment on that
question was:
"This is a fascinating question and it reminds me of a recent Tim
Berners-Lee interview, where he talked about how the Semantic Web is all about re-using
information. Yes I know TBL always talks about SemWeb, but there were some gem quotes in
this one. eg:
"The Semantic Web is just the application of weblike design to
data; it will be many more decades before we will be able to say we have really
implemented the Web idea in the full, if ever we can."
(emphasis mine)
As I wrote a
week or so ago about that: Nowadays it's not just about designing a beautiful
website, it's about designing for re-use of information. In a way, that's what people are
already doing with RSS - designing with data."
A few days after that, I submitted an article proposal to Digital Web Magazine on this topic of Design
for Data. The proposal ended up getting lost due to the email woes Digital Web were
having at the time, but I re-submitted it a couple of weeks later. In any case, I
still haven't quite put my finger on what my approach would be with the
article.
Then tonight I read a new Digital Web article by Joshua Porter called Home Alone?
How Content Aggregators Change Navigation and Control of Content. This excellent
article got me thinking about Data Design again. So I thought I'd note down some
highlights from Joshua's article, then post some of my notes about Data Design - and
maybe people can give me some feedback or pitch in with ideas for us all to
explore.
Distributed Navigation and Death of the Homepage
Firstly, Joshua makes a distinction between human-aggregated content (e.g. blogs)
and machine aggregators (e.g. search engines). He says:
"Aggregation hinges on gathering content from other domains. This
dramatically affects the search for content. Users no longer need to start their search
in the domain where the content lies. In fact, they almost never do."
...and then he asks the logical next question: "With all these aggregators providing
new places to start our searches for content, what will become of the home page?"
So we're getting into 'death of the homepage' territory, which I think is currently
one of Steve Gillmor's hobby horses (but
I couldn't find a link tonight). Joshua notes that the homepage is traditionally the top
page in a website information hierarchy, but content aggregators often bypass this:
"...users navigate completely outside the site containing the target
content. The only page they see is the one that the aggregator links to. So the IA that
ends up getting users to the target content page isn[base ']t the one on the site they end
up on, it[base ']s the aggregator[base ']s site[base ']s IA."
Nicely put! I think this is one of the reasons I've gone off the boil in regards to weblog ontologies and
taxonomies - it's because RSS and syndication technologies have completely changed the
rules. It's now less about the website as a "place" to organize information - it's more
about how information flows, is aggregated and re-used.
I like how Joshua has put the 'death of the homepage' syndrome into the context of
traditional IA (information architecture) - that ontologies are now just as important, if
not more so, on the "aggregator's site" rather than the content producer's site. Joshua
calls this "distributed navigation".
He goes on to say that it's a user-centered IA - the user makes your content work for
them. Which is how it should be on the Web. Further, aggregators are "promoting a shift
in the control of content" from the producer to the consumer. Again, a user-centered
paradigm. Joshua lists some ways that web designers can tackle this issue - but it's at
that point that I'll tack away to a different perspective.
Joshua's focus in his article
is on the web designer and how distributed navigation is "bypassing much of what
we[base ']ve built for them [users]". My interest is more in the underlying technologies -
RSS, Atom, syndication - and their affect on web publishing (...which makes me wonder if
my article will be suited to Digital Web's audience?).
My initial notes on Design for Data
So what should I look at in my quest to understand Design for Data? I've noted down
these things to explore:
- Atomflow -
Matt Webb and others (see also: 1, 2)
- Atom API (see also)
- Attention.xml -
Steve Gillmor and Dave Sifry
- Matt Mower and Paolo's experiments with "RSS
Archive"
- The latest features in Blogdigger and other
content aggregators
- Sir Tim Berners-Lee's "semantic web is a program"
theory
- The results of Jason Kottke's Design for Web 2.0 session at the Web 2.0 conference
(does anyone know if that workshop was blogged? I haven't been able to find anything on
the Web about it and I even emailed Jason himself, who said he wasn't aware of any
coverage)
- Probably get back into XML - e.g. Jon Udell's XPath
experiments.
I'm sure there are a bunch of other things to consider. What else do you suggest
I/we explore for Data Design? [Read/Write Web]
9:18:36 PM
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Blog Aid Successful. To wrap up what has been a busy week, yesterday I finally got some momentum
going in the blogosphere with the O'Reilly interview. Thanks to Jason Kottke, Robert Scoble, Phil Pearson (btw welcome
back Phil!), Lucas Gonze and all
the others who kindly linked to it.
What happened was, I published Part 1 of the interview first thing Monday morning (US
time). But it was slow to take off and by mid-week I was a bit concerned that no web
connectors would notice it. So I launched a Band Aid-like appeal for
links and eventually some blog stars kindly donated their attention.
Wouldn't it be cool to have a regular "Blog Aid" thing, where A-Listers devoted
say 1 day a month to feed link-hungry C-Listers? It's the least they could do.
I'm joking!
Next week I will take it easy and blog in my pyjamas, as per Robert's suggestion :-)
Just as well I'm not a videoblogger. [Read/Write Web]
9:16:08 PM
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Generation Tech goes home for the holidays. 
Next week, millions of college students and young professionals will
head home for the Thanksgiving holidays. We ll sit with our families in
warm, candle-lit dining rooms eating stuffed turkey, reminiscing over
old photographs, preparing holiday shopping lists and Please. Let s be
frank. We are going home to fix our parent s computers.Forget the
generational tags you ve already heard, like Gen X and Gen Y. We are
the Tech-Support Generation. Our job is to troubleshoot the complex but
imperfect technology that befuddle mom and dad, veterans of the rotary
phone, the record player and the black-and-white cabinet television
set. Next week, on our annual pilgrimage home, we ll turn our
Web-trained minds and joystick-conditioned fingers to the task of
rescuing our parents from bleeding-edge technology on the blink. (MSNBC)
[Eyebeam reBlog]
4:36:19 PM
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Engadget Podcast.15 11.19.2004. 
Shake it, shake it, one two[~]On this show we talk about [base "]mash ups[per thou], hunting and shooting animals via the web, how
TiVo sold us out, EPIC[~]the Googlezon future, movie theaters that will take your picture, Amazon[base ']s [base "]used[per thou] sale, Oakley
MP3 glasses, and if Wal-Mart is good for America.
Hosts: Lenn Pryor &
Phillip Torrone.
Format: 1 hour, 14MB,
MP3.
Click here to listen to the show
(MP3) or add the
Engadget Podcast Feed to your Podcasting application and
have the show delivered automatically. This show as created with iChat, LineIn, GarageBand and Audacity.
We[base ']ve added time codes in the following list and links to the stories or references.
Minutia[sigma]
00:00- Intro.
02:15- Comments about Palm[sigma] Lenn still says Palm[base ']s CCO knows kung fu.
05:00- Mash the Planet, we need your help, mashing
it.
13:30- Hunt via the web, um,
yikes.
21:00- Tivo sells your fast-forward button, How-to
get rid of your TiVo coming next week[sigma]
31:40- EPIC, the future with the google grid, wild.
44:30- Amazon sells used condoms, or sell your
own.
46:40- Oakley MP3 sunglasses,
iPodlounge reviews them.
50:00- Movies to take your pictures, how
we[base ']re fighting back.
52:50- Walmart, not good for
America[~]beat them.
LISTEN
[Engadget]
4:30:41 PM
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The Qoolqee Mystery Device. 
 One look at the cool Qoolqee and we said
[base "]Oh, that[base ']s a Samsung.[per thou] A little digging into WhoIs proved us right, as www.qoolqee.com is hosted on Samsung[base ']s servers.
But that still doesn[base ']t answer the question of what the heck this is. It looks a bit like a standard Samsung clamshell
cell phone, but the text across the top clearly says [base "]digital audio player.[per thou] Is Samsung rebranding the Yepp? are they
coming out with music player/phone combo designed to compete with new offering[base ']s like T-Mobile[base ']s SDA music? Ohhhh, what
if it has a 1.5GB hard drive like the phone Samsung makes for the Korean market? We[base ']d buy that for a dollar.
If you[base ']re crafty you might think the tiny text below the Qoolqee logo is some sort of clue, but we[base ']ve transcribed it
and can[base ']t find anything useful in there. It says [base "]The representative piece for drinking, eating and shopping in Meju
Resort is the carnival store placed in front of hotel.[per thou] Maybe some of you can find a hidden message in there.
[Thanks, Josh]
UPDATE: Reader Justin just sent in a link to another URL that has a blurrier, but more complete, pic of the
Qoolqee, as well as more details. We[base ']re pretty sure it[base ']s an MP3 player, and the rest of the details (256MB of RAM, 3D
Dolby surround sound, an equalizer visual mode, and direct recording) seem to support that hypothesis.
[Engadget]
4:29:27 PM
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Internet Porn: Worse than Crack?.
Researchers tell a Senate hearing that internet porn is more addictive
and harmful than street drugs. One calls for government-funded research
into the 'erototoxins.' By Ryan Singel. [Wired News]
4:28:34 PM
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Movie Gadget Friday: The Orgasmatron from Sleeper. 
Last week Josie Fraser checked out the
cursed video tape from The Ring films, for this week[base ']s
installment of Movie Gadget Friday she writes about the orgasmatron from Sleeper:
I[base ']m not a great fan of slapstick or of Woody Allen, but no movie gadget series would be complete without the
inclusion of the orgasmatron [^] the made-up gadget which has caught the publics imagination like no other, and continues
to represent an imaginary benchmark for [OE]marital aids[base ']. Sleeper, released in 1973, and typically loaded with
the obsessions and neurosis of the time, is not such a bad film when you consider the competition in Comedy Sci-Fi [^] a
genre that contains some of the worst excrement ever committed to celluloid.
Allen plays Miles Monro, independent health-food shop owner, who is cryogenically frozen (with the help of tin foil)
following a hashed operation on an ulcer. He is revived in 2173 to find himself the only untagged citizen in a
totalitarian state, filled with robot dogs and gigantic fruit. Escaping from both the police and the resistance, he
ends up posing as a robotic servant in the home of middle class conformist Luna Schlosser (played by Diane Keaton).
Luna introduces us to the technologies keeping the nation in a content obedience: The orb, basically a round ball that
you stroke to feel like you[base ']re on heroin, and the orgasmatron. The orgasmatron has a fairly self-explanatory title, but
for those of you who haven[base ']t seen the film, it[base ']s like a white sarcophagus version of those automated public toilets,
and can [OE]accommodate[base '] multiple partners. Sexual ecstasy is only a click away without the need for any messy physical
contact.
It could be argued that the real world response to the challenge of the orgasmatron has been the internet. Aside from
that vibrators have one of the longest and most interesting development
histories of any technology, and are becoming
ever more sophisticated.
Those of you following the creepiest computer voice
debate will be interested to know that Douglas Rain, who played HAL in 2001, also plays the voice of the
operation-assisting computer in Sleeper.
[Eyebeam reBlog]
4:25:57 PM
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SITEspecific. Alison Sant and Elizabeth Goodman have been teaching a course on wireless networks and site-specific art at the San Francisco Art Institute - and it looks great!
"SITEspecific
is a class that will examine the notion of site as a space that is
practiced or performed. Digital networks and wireless technologies are
shifting the contemporary notion of urban place. As public and private,
local and global are collapsed by the infiltration of portable
electronics and the invisible boundaries of wireless connectivity, the
mapping of the urban environment is increasingly complex. The class
will examine the changing notions of urban space as an opportunity for
intervention.
Through a series of readings, guest lectures,
discussions, and experiments we will examine the interface between
technology, site-specific art, and the urban landscape. We will also
draw upon analog and digital examples exploring the ways in which
artists have explored and mapped notions of site ranging from the
Situationists, Robert Smithson, and Gordon Matta Clark to contemporary
new media projects including Locative Media and Ground Control. In
addition, we will investigate ways in which the strategies of the
Happening or the Situationist D rive can inform projects utilizing
portable technologies including the camera phone, GPS, and WiFi
networks."
You can check out the syllabus and lectures notes, as well as the class blog. And if you ask really nice, Liz will send you the readings.
[Eyebeam reBlog]
4:25:07 PM
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Epson's Electronic Ink + RFID = 21st Century Price Tags.  A
new technology from Epson combines electronic paper with RFID tags to
display the prices of products at stores. According to Nikkei
Electronics, Epson has presented the technology at the "Embedded
Technology 2004" convention, going on since the 17th.
Clearly intended for storefronts, the small displays can show 8
bytes of character data. Through a combination of RFID and some new
fancy electronic paper technology, Epson supposes the displays would be
used to easily change the prices of products; "this would drastically
reduce the personnel expenses required for changing prices at a store,"
says a representative.
So what the hell does Epson have to do with electronic paper? Glad you
asked [~] the company's inkjet printing technology enabled them to join
the wireless tag IC with a flexible substrate. While conventional
methods (wire bonding) would allegedly require some 50 nanometers,
inkjet printing technology requires a mere 5 nanometers. That would be
a helluva paper cut.
ET2004: Epson, new display combines wireless tag and electronic paper [Nikkei Electronics] [Gizmodo]
4:24:26 PM
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EyeToy gets physical. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe 's EyeToy: Kinetic, designed with the NIKE MOTIONWORKS team of fitness training experts, wants develop our reactions, posture, balance and breathing, as well as improve our all-round body toning and conditioning.
Meanwhile, a new wide-angled lens fits over the EyeToy to allow for the greater degree of movement required from you.
Various options: Aero Motion and Combat Zones are inspired by moves
and stances from Tai Kwon Do, modern dance, kickboxing, aerobics and
karate. While the Mind and Body Zone draws on yoga and Tai Chi.
EyeToy: Kinetic is due to arrive early next year in Europe.
Via Playstation UK. [we make money not art]
4:23:52 PM
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Cornerstone Festival of Gardens. The Cornerstone Festival of Gardens, near Sonoma (North of San Francisco), showcases the talents of landscape designers.
This gallery-style garden with walk-through installations by artists
from all around the world, is made of a series of gardens that will
each remain one or two years, like a museum with temporary exhibits.
The ironic "Daisy Border," designed by Ken Smith, features 408
pinwheels arranged in sections of green, blue, lavender and red
spanning 122 feet.
Rios Clement Hales Studios'
"Changing Rooms" is a winding path to a curtain covered round space.
Along the way are stations where you can write a wish on a translucent
disc, and when you enter the inner "room", you can see a changing
scuplture built from the words and wishes of visitors.
Mexican immigrant working in California agriculture are honored in "Small Tribute to Immigrant Workers," by Mario Schjetnan.
Walking among wooden boxes filled with fruit and vegetable plants,
visitors are invited to water, prune and weed the plants to get some
idea of the effort required to maintain them.
"Blue Tree", by Montreal-based paysagist Claude Cormier, is a living Monterey Pine covered in blue plastic balls.
![DSC01362[1].jpg](http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/yyy/DSC01362%5B1%5D.jpg)
There are much much more. Steve Portigal blogged his visit there in Corante, via Core77. [we make money not art]
4:22:37 PM
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Evidence Locker. For the Liverpool Art Biennal, American Jill Magid worked with the operators of the city's CCTV surveillance cameras to teach them the techniques of professional filmmakers.
During one month, Magid wore a red trench coat and boots, ensuring
she could be easily spotted throughout the city. She called the police
on duty with details of where she was and asked them to film her in
particular poses and even guide her through the city with her eyes
closed - all using the public surveilance cameras.
All around Magid, the most innocent passers-by were transformed by
the camera's behaviour into potential bag-snatchers, rapists and serial
killers.
The final work was made of two installations. Evidence Locker at Tate evokes
the space of the CCTV monitoring station, with a soundtrack of the
police log being read aloud, and CCTV footage featuring the artist. Evidence Locker at FACT reveals her evolving relationship with the CCTV staff through a daily diary and video projections.
Till November 28th at the FACT gallery in Liverpool.
Via Neural. [we make money not art]
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© Copyright 2005 Joerg Rheinboldt.
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