Leon Grant Bussinger

PixelController – Universal OpenSource Light Control Solution. neophob writes -

Pix­el­Con­troller is a real time video/VJ gen­er­a­tor and mixer soft­ware. Most of the Visu­als are gen­er­ated and mixed in real­time and respond to the envi­ron­ment. I use Pix­el­Con­troller to con­trol my Pix­elIn­vaders Panels.

engaging the body as a canvas through technology-centered art.

Get it? It's a Venn diagram made of actual pies. That's why it's called a Venn piagram. [via]

Designer Ian Obermuller has released, Fontroduction, a series of lessons and games for designs students, or anyone interested in typography. 

Like you and me.

There are lots of interactive demonstrations about anatomy and x-heights and tracking vs. kerning, but the real fun is in the quiz, which, thankfully, doesn't punish you for any incorrect answers. Not that I got any...(yes I did.)

T(ether) is a novel spatially aware display that supports intuitive interaction with volumetric data.

Created by  Matthew Blackshaw (@mblackshaw), Dávid Lakatos (@dogichow), Hiroshi Ishii and Ken Perlin, the display acts as a window offering users a perspective view of three- dimensional data through tracking of head position and orientation. Virtual objects can be created and manipulated through gestures made using the hand. Likewise, multiple people can edit the same virtual environment.

T(ether) creates a 1:1 mapping between real and virtual coordinate space allowing immersive exploration of the joint domain. Our system creates a shared workspace in which co-located or remote users can collaborate in both the real and virtual worlds. The system allows input through capacitive touch on the display and a motion-tracked glove. When placed behind the display, the user’s hand extends into the virtual world, enabling the user to interact with objects directly.

Continue reading.... T(ether) [Cinder]

From Fathom, a copy of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein constructed from found type on the web...as the book goes on, the type gets less legible.

The incomplete fonts found in the PDFs were reassembled into the text of Frankenstein based on their frequency of use. The most common characters are employed at the beginning of the book, and the text devolves into less common, more grotesque shapes and forms toward the end.

Advertise here with BSA

Tony Bamber always wondered what an AT-AT would look like walking around downtown Chicago.

via HAWAIIHEMDEN ROCKEN

Advertise here with BSA

This is a pack of icons that will please webdesigners, over 500 in PSD format to enrich your creations.

Continue Reading.

You've never seen a literally slack jaw until you've seen a four-year-old watching Empire Strikes Back for the first time and learning that Darth Vader is Luke's father.

New research out of Chicago examines how vitamin B12, found in fish, meat, and poultry, affects brain mass and cognitive performance

PROBLEM: Fish, meat, liver, milk, eggs, and poultry are our usual sources of vitamin B12. But how does this nutrient relate to brain size, dead cerebral tissue, and cognitive performance?

RESULTS: Having high levels of four of five markers for vitamin B12 deficiency was associated with having lower scores on the cognitive tests and smaller total brain volume.

CONCLUSION: Poor vitamin B12 status is a potential risk factor for brain atrophy. Older people with low blood levels of vitamin B12 markers may be more likely to have lower brain volumes and problems with their thinking abilities.

CAVEAT: "It's too early to say whether increasing vitamin B12 levels in older people through diet or supplements could prevent these problems," says lead author and Rush University professor Christine Tangney in a news release, "but it is an interesting question to explore."

SOURCE: The full study, "Vitamin B12, Cognition, and Brain MRI Measures: A Cross-Sectional Examination," is published in the journal Neurology.

Image: Associated Press.

Boing Boing reader Brian won the eBay auction for a device touted as the "World's most irritating musical instrument". He finds it not particularly irritating at all: "an incredible waste of $81.95, but I have no regrets!"

You can't just expect to be an instant expert, Brian! Practice is everything: 10,000 hours, according to Mr. Gladwell.

In the future, you may be walking down the street and not know what’s real and what’s not. You see beautiful people that all look like celebrities. But then the light catches his face just right, and you realize it’s just a projection. It’s 3D make up. It’s a digital face tattoo. It’s Cirque de Soleil 2.0. It’s scary, but it’s so cool.

Artist Arturo Castro made this amazingly, freakish video titled “Faces.” He calls it realtime face substitution and writes that it’s made with Kyle McDonald’s ofxFacetracker + Jason Saragih’s facetracker library, a C/C++ API for real time generic non-rigid face alignment and tracking.

Castro also used the image clone code​ of Kevin Atkinson, a coder at Weta Digital. “I imagine you could grab a face from another camera, and hence steal someone else’s face in real time,” says Atkinson. Castro says that idea was the very inspiration for his project. He also says that at this time cartoon faces don’t work so well. Just real people’s faces.

Watch the video here.

via http://www.b0g.org/wsnm/articles/If+this+is+not+a+repost...

Refinery Concrete, you had me at birch tree.

Thanks Jon!

Whew - we were floored just reading the description of all the work done on customizing this dorm room at MIT. The room of a computer engineering student, it's complete with a loft, light wall, Eames lounge, two work stations, custom ceiling panels, metal wall paneling, recessed halogen lights, hardwood flooring. There's lots more but we had to come up for air:

Artist Shepard Fairey was ambushed and physically assaulted in Copenhagen. The attack may have been sparked by false reports in local press that he was hired by the city to produce what amounts to "propaganda."

Fairey's longtime friend Sean Bonner writes, "The paper knew this wasn't the case, but the story spread and pissed off some activists who directed their anger with the city towards Shepard and jumped him outside of the gallery where his show was. He's not mad that he got jumped, he's mad that the media is spreading a false story and trying to make sure his version gets heard too."

During the upcoming IDentity Festival tour, the band will be asking fans to activate the Bluetooth on their phones to instantly receive free songs. Unfortunately, only Android phones will receive the jams, as iPhones don’t allow file transfers via Bluetooth.

“I think we’re unabashedly nerdy and enthusiastic when it comes to new gadgets and innovations in tech,” the band says of the initiative. “We loved this idea and since no band has ever offered this on a tour before, we were sold on the idea right away. While we have nothing against download cards or QR codes, this is a uniquely direct, with no strings attached, instant way to get content to our fans.”

In order to get fans primed for the campaign, the band plans to hang banners at merch booths detailing how to get the free songs, as well as post to Facebook and Twitter before the event. “If people simply activate Bluetooth on their phone, they’ll be able to see the signal and it’s pretty self explanatory from there,” Data Romance tells us.

Cellphones are usually the enemy when it comes to live events, but increasingly we’re seeing bands using them to promote their music and interact with fans during shows (see: Umphrey’s McGee).

What do you think of Data Romance’s Bluetooth-flavored giveaway?

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Bliz

More About: bluetooth, data-romance, MARKETING, Mobile 2.0, music

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It’s now possible to scan and replicate an object with moving parts in a 3D printer. Check out what happens when the physicist reaches into the dust and pulls out a wrench. Truly, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

(FYI, I think some post-scanning information must have been added to the computer representation to fully describe the moving parts.)

Hat tip: Kottke.