Dienstag, 7. Dezember 2004

Tuscan Tutors. It's a common Florentine fantasy for travellers of every culinary persuasion: take off for Tuscany and learn to cook in this most tasteful of styles. And here is a guide to help you do just that: a review of three culinary divas who open their kitchens and their skills to visitors for a day or a week. Read on for the short version... [Wanda Lust] 2:53:15 PM    comment []

Chalet Delivery Service. Chalet Food is a service that lets you order groceries online up to 72 hours before you arrive in any of the resorts in their extensive list. Your groceries are delivered to your chalet or apartment door the hour you arrive, and these angels of self-catering mercy don't even charge a delivery fee. The prices are worked into their website inventory, which is surprisingly very reasonable when compared to shopping in a resort. In addition to a good range of groceries, they'll also deliver weer, wine and spirits, plus the holiday essentials everyone always forgets, like bin liners! [Wanda Lust] 2:50:59 PM    comment []

Life in the Slow Lane. One of my favourite websites is Slow Travel, a resource for people who prefer to land in one place and stay there for a while, trying out the local life rather than rushing around to squeeze in all the tourist attractions. For one thing, it frees you from the tedious pressure of tourism. For another, there's no better way to find out what rural Tuscan life or urban Parisian living is like than to simply live it, visiting local shops and markets each day and dining in local restuarants not found in the Michelin Guide. [Wanda Lust] 2:50:25 PM    comment []

superfuture Travel Guides. Branded as "urban cartography for global shopping experts," superfuture is not so much a travel guide as a lifestyle guide. The site has unique maps for Tokyo, New York, and Sydney, with the chicest food, clothing, art and bars conveniently dotted around town. Click any dot for a review, or search the site to find anything from exclusive labels to emerging street fashion. The site also has masses of reviews for other, unmapped cities, so if you want to know where in the world to grab a bite or a drink in between shopping expeditions, this one's for you. [Wanda Lust] 2:49:52 PM    comment []

AAA Five Diamond Awards 2005. While European travellers mostly look for star ratings, tourists and business travellers in the USA have trusted the American Automobile Association's diamond rating system for more than 30 years. And the AAA has just released the list of 2005 5 Diamond Award winners, which basically forms a guide to "the best hotels in the US, Canada, Mexico and the Carribean if you've got a lot of dosh." Although having said that, the five-diamondRitz Carlton New Orleans is having a Christmas sale, with rooms starting at a mere $159 a night for 5-diamond luxury. [Hat Tip: Hotel Chatter] [Wanda Lust] 2:49:04 PM    comment []

Second Career for Old Robot: Art. A German art group reprograms old assembly-line robots to become autonomous artists. The machines draw, spin tunes and dance in public. The group wants to show that the industrial beasts can create beauty. By David Cohn. [Wired News] 2:47:56 PM    comment []

Pantech & Curitel Shows Off First Zigbee-Capable Phone. As if we needed any more hints that Korean phone manufacturer Pantech & Curitel is one to watch, they've announced a prototype version of their P1 phone that can communicate over the upcoming Zigbee wireless home automation protocol. At their press showing today, P&C showed off the capabilities of the concept, which can communicate with Zigbee-standard sensors to control home appliances, check your mail, monitor your alarm system for trespassers[~]basically anything you'd expect home automation to be able to do, but controlled by a phone. It's not that I think Zigbee is going to take over or anything[~]it's too early to tell and I'm not an expert on the subject, besides[~]but it pleases me to see a relatively small company trying out things that aren't just new for newness sake, but instead smart ideas that could actually be useful extensions of our normal phone use. [Gizmodo] 2:46:44 PM    comment []

Shimmering white duplex. Tokyo-based architect Masaki Endoh teamed up with Masahiro Ikeda to design a double apartment on a site at the edge of Shibuya, Tokyo. As the "Natural Ellipse" building is surrounded by "love hotels", its design is vaguely phallic in shape. Clad in fiber-reinforced plastic, the duplex seems almost impermeable. As views were bad, inhabitants only get glimpses of the exterior through the few openings cut into the building skin. But a secret terrace, open to the sky, is contained within (and concealed by) the convex walls of the deeply indented apex. Floored with glass, the terrace is also a skylight shedding luminance into the building and down the stairwell. Via Architectural Record and Architectural Review. [we make money not art] 2:45:07 PM    comment []

Communicate with machines via whistles. Universal Whistling Machine, by Canadian artists Marc Böhlen and J.T. Rinker, is an attempt at developing a communication system that computers can understand, a tone-based interpreter of whistles. Using a signal-processing computation system similar to the chips in mobile phones, the U.W.M. can extract whistles from other sounds, and exchange passages with humans, each other, and animals. Over time, it builds a database of every whistle it[base ']s ever heard, increasing its vocabulary and range. What looks at first like a simple process becomes ever more interesting, a technical mocking bird that[base ']s either mimicking or earnestly trying to communicate. Video 1 and 2. The work shared first prize at the Art & Artificial Life International Competition. [we make money not art] 2:44:17 PM    comment []

Wearables for everyday objects. This key-chain radio station broadcasts the sounds you make through regular FM radio and shares them with people hidden from your eye. It works only within a radius of about 20 meters. The sound quality is not very clear, but people can guess what you are doing. In addition, the lower sound quality reduces concerns about privacy issues. The capsule holds a small FM transmitter card with a microphone, antenna, and batteries. The card takes sound inputs from the microphone and wirelessly transmits it within a certain frequency. The key-chain is part of the Smart Skins for Dumb Objects project, by Rikako Sakai (Japan), that aims at stimulating communication among individuals through "wearable" computers for the objects they use. "Chair cover and accessory for busy people" are other prototypes of the research. To monitor a busy person[base ']s whereabouts, you place a cover on his chair and an animal shaped object at your desk. While the busy person is sitting on his chair, the object glows to let you know that he or she is there. Inside the chair cover are a touch sensor, an antenna, a wireless transmitter card and batteries. The animal shaped object contains a small LED in and takes power from a battery box through its metal legs. So, when you need to meet the busy person, you can check his presence easily. [we make money not art] 2:43:23 PM    comment []

Virtual GT Personal Racing Simulator. The Virtual-GT is the luxury version of race simulation games. It is a personal racing simulator that provides the ultimate realistic experience of being behind the wheel of a world class race car. Five channel audio, force feed back steering and strategically placed high energy vibration transducers combine to create an experience that feels and sounds as real as you can get without leaving the comfort of your home. It comes with a custom racing seat and a suspension system that creates the feel of a super-fast responsive vehicle. It is programmed with over 180 cars and 19 different tracks. [Luxist] 9:06:34 AM    comment []

Electrohype Biennial 2004 - Images from the exhibition. Electrohype is one of the most interesting and hard working organizations within the Nordic scene for computer based art. Their current biennial shows electronic pieces, prints, projections, screen works, installations and more. Absolutly a must-see some how it all looks so... old school... -- AP [Eyebeam reBlog] 9:05:24 AM    comment []

Coming to a Mobile Phone Near you. Indian "campus caper" movie Rok Sako To Rok Lo will be premiered on mobile phones. Arindham Chaudhary's film will be broadcast at a fixed time on 9th December to Airtel subscribers before being released in theatres of 10th December. Is this a sign of "straight to mobile" releases or indeed, that we'll see a boom of films available on our mobile phones? Frankly, I doubt it. It's a great PR stunt for the film makers in this instance. And viewing a whole movie on your mobile isn't a great user experience. But I'm sure that movie clips will receive regular exposure over the mobile channel in the years to come. Reported in India FM [The Mobile Technology Weblog] 9:04:00 AM    comment []

Undead Art. The FreeCulture.org undead art contest is over and winners have been announced. Taking first prize is the very well done bit of droll humor How to Survive a Zombie Epidemic. All of the entries and source material are in the public domain or CC-licensed, so you're free to reuse in your own horror spoof, music video, or any other project requiring zombie footage. [Creative Commons Blog - rss] 9:03:00 AM    comment []

Cartoon character skeletons. David Pescovitz: Artist Michael Paulus's series of cartoon characters' skeletal systems is pure brilliance exquisitely rendered. From his artist's statement: "Animation was the format of choice for children's television in the 1960s, a decade in which children's programming became almost entirely animated. Growing up in that period, I tended to take for granted the distortions and strange bodies of these entities. I decided to take a select few of these popular characters and render their skeletal systems as I imagine they might resemble if one truly had eye sockets half the size of its head, or fingerless-hands, or feet comprising 60% of its body mass." Link (via Waxy) UPDATE: It seems that a traffic spike or some other anomaly is causing problems with image loading on this site. [Eyebeam reBlog] 12:32:47 AM    comment []