StyleNamics

Target - Condensation
Uploaded by tronicstudio. - Arts and animation videos.

Tronic Studio from New York  can certainly create some funky graphics videos. The Tronic collective videos show remarkable sense of style and imagination. Now I just need to find out where they produce those cool 3d particle emitting spraycans so that I may merrily paint the town red…

Check them out here.

Most people dream of automating their home with useless yet entertaining automation.  One of the first items that jump to mind are obviously robots. There are many different types available to us today, even if the IA is still lightyears away from any human type intelligence. Instead, we can use our own, limited intelligence to operate the robots….

Enter Rovio and Spykee. Both are wifi-enabled robot webcams that also have the ability to stream video and audio.  The bots will connect to any wifi connection allowing them to be controlled via any web-enabled device.  While away from home on vacation you can drive Rovio or Spykee around your house and see the things your ex-wife is moving out in realtime. If she doesn’t destroy the robot you can yell obscenities at her through the on board speaker and chase her out of your house. After the chase, the robots are charged via a special docking station. In case the batteries are almost extinguished, Rovio and Spykee will independently find their way to their docking station and magically recharge themselves.

Though there are more companies out there making these products(probably with even better specifications), Wowwee’s Rovio and Mecano’s Spykee are the best know, and target kids wanting to play spymaster and adults wanting a remote, mobile VOIP phone with cam and/or a gadget-like (upskirt)surveillance unit. I’m not going to compare products in this post. Though I will say that the humanoid style appearance of Spykee seems intended for a younger audience. On the other hand, Rovio has a sleek spaceship style look. It reminds me of the the spaceships from the 1953 War of the Worlds film. I’ll let you be the judge which is better. Don’t forget that both robots are at the lower end of the price range(Spykee and Rovio: ~200-300USD) and you will, off course, find much better though far more expensive and less user friendly wifi enabled robots on the net.

Nowadays, besides you, everything seems to be getting more intelligent. This includes intelligent machines such as the Robot tiles on display at the Tokyo Fiber ‘09 Senseware exhibition in Milan. Basically, as you walk across the tiles covered by a special conductive material, the fabric acts as a sensor for detecting foot positions. Based on that input, the fabric will detect which way you are traveling. As soon as you reach the last tile, the sensor tells another tile to move itself directly into the path you are traveling, thereby creating something similair to an escalator effect as you can see in the video.
Though you can wonder rather vainly about the immediate practical applications of these large block-like robot tiles (besides being treated in the ER for a head fracture after accepting that dare in your drunk & jolly state those few, forgettable nights ago) , its the technology which should really peak you interest. The innovative material Kuralon EC opens up many new avenues of product innovation. Created by the Japanese Kuraray Co., Ltd, the electro-conductive fiber allows electricity to pass through the fabric in a controlled manner, basically creating a new material with which to manufacture all sorts of pricey gadgets. Only your imagination is the limit to what can be produced… …if you have any imagination that is…

Check it out: here

Via: CoolBuzz.com

Ever wonder what its like to fly underwater instead of through the air. Sick of your car filling with water when you drive it into the lake to get a closer look at the life aquatic? Don’t despair, Deep Flight Submersibles can help you realize your dream of a personal 2 seater submarine.

The Deep Flight Super Falcon is a bit different from your average sub. Instead of filling ballasts with water to sink or raise the vessel, the light-weight, winged Falcon ‘flies’ underwater at a cruise speed up to 6 knots. This allows for faster, longer and more maneuverable handling while chasing dolphins, making friends with whales, exploring the magic of an ocean floor or playing chicken with terrified scuba divers.

This production craft, which was in the planning for over 20 years, has seating for two, a maximum depth of 1000 feet, thrust capability of 231kg/508lbs, a descent rate of 200ft/min and ascend rate of 400ft/min which is useful in case you accidentally swallow a kilo of laxatives and your like you sub nice and clean… 1000 feet might not be deep enough to see the Titanic, but there should be enough to keep you busy for a while.

Engineer Graham Hawkes, founder of  Deep Flight Submersibles, unveiled the Super Falcon in San Francisco last week to a public consisting mostly of people that can’t afford a Super Falcon of their own.  However, it is possible to learn to fly the stylish craft by attending their 15000 USD, 3 day Flight School(don’t worry, the food is free!). If you are a VIP then you’re in luck. VIPs get free ride for promotional purposes.

For a mere 1.5 million USD you may also be sleeping ahem… …swimming with the fishes. Though seeing the vessel is only suited for midgets(under 6 foot 2) it looks like I have to spend that non-existent cash someplace else.

Check it out here.

Ceccotti Collezioni produced this very stylish lowrider style bed designed by Vincenzo de Cotiis. The unit consist mostly of leather and some brass & iron parts for support(and style I presume). The smooth lines and flexible curves make it suitable to be positioned in a modern, contemporary interior environment though it would also, undoubtedly, do well in numerous other settings. Besides making your untidy bedroom a lasting conversational piece, the 2.04 meter width and 2.58 meter length allows for just enough room to throw a small party on.

The last time I slept on a proper raised bed was more than 10 years ago. Once experiencing the thrill and sheer excitement of sleeping close to the ground, its hard to ever go back to the boring non-adventure mid level height beds.  Furthermore, having a bed with no space underneath means you expectantly sleep well since you don’t need to worry about those anti-social lederhosen wearing gnomes trying to hide under your bed for some perverted youtube-ish reason. Try it, even the air is cooler down there!

Check it out here

Via: Contemporist.

Dutch based Interaction design collective Blendid created an interesting interactive light sculpture. It consists of about 500 light elements suspended above the ground that will swarm and chase whomever dares venture underneath. When not angrily chasing puny humans away, the installation will mesmerize you into its spiderweb with various flocking algorithms that dictate its behavior.  According to Blendid, the interaction is supposed to convey a sense of flocking or swarming in which the whole works together to create a single entity or unit(hence, Swarm?).

Though I would not want to install this in my home(primarily because half of it would be hanging out the window due to the size and possible flashy lights epilepsy concerns), I appreciate seeing interactive art and media in public spaces. Besides providing cool aesthetics, it gently eases the mundane, static appearance of many such locations.

The Swarm is not for sale and there is no indication that it would ever be manufactured for you to hang in your crib…  …though lucky for puny humans, they can visit and interact with it at Re-ACT(an exposition of Interactive Light Art) at the Center for Artificial Light in Art in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, where it is on display until the 25th of January 2009.

Check it out: here

Ok, so this is not particularly new, I keep stumbling on ads marketing Nabaztag. For those that have not seen this little gizmo before, its a …rabbit…. yes, I said rabbit, that does all shorts of things normal rabbits shouldn’t do. You see, Nabaztag has the ability to connect to the big dirty internet and will happily retrieve and inform you about all sorts of useful and not so useful information. You can fully customize your rabbit through its own little website that will configure what it will do on the net. This means it doesn’t have to be connected to your computer since it can directly access the interweb through any local wifi access point. Below you can see the video they present on the main site. Here my only objection to the rabbit becomes apparent. WTF is up with the voices you’ll hear in the video? They don’t sound very original… (though I’m sure you must be able to change the voice…. otherwise I would not consider buying it).

Instead of naming everything the Nabaztag does, I’ll just throw a list at you I found on the official website since people are supposed to like lists. “LIKE IT!”.

* Blinks, moves ears, speaks, plays music
* Reads out loud written texts in 16 languages
* Obeys spoken commands through voice recognition
* Detects and reacts to objects’ presence (RFID reader)
* Feeds on the Internet. Reacts to anything happening on the web
* Gives short news with speech & color-coded lights (weather, stock market…)
* Reads out loud real time news from any web site (RSS)
* Plays Podcasts and Internet radio at user defined schedule
* Reads, sings, and dances messages and e-mails sent by friends
* Chat with other Rabbit owners through voice, music and ear movements
* Ability to create your own content and applications (API)
* Easy to program
* An ever expanding set of free content and services
* Connects to a Wi-Fi network and works even when the computer is turned off
* And much, much more…

So besides the annoying voices in the video and my fear of forgetting to feed starving pets, I might just order one of these. They go for about 99 EUR.

Check it out: here

Interior decoration doesn’t always have to involve spending a fortune on paintings or other art pieces. Vinyl decals allow you to achieve a more minimal atmosphere while keeping your already overloaded budget in check.
Various companies like the stylish french basedDomestic and others likeDali Wall Decals offer a large selection of vinyl decals to saturate your home, office, mistress’ wall with.
Installation is simple… …basically, simply stick the vinyl to your wall… done… If sticking vinyls to your beloved wall is not your cup of tea, you could always check out Domestic’s high quality wallpaper with a selection of a few killer thematic drawings.

Check it out here

She Farted And Created The World
Uploaded by cribble

Here is a stylish little animation for you to contemplate the dynamics of genesis and what really happens when your dog lets a big one rip. You must now forever stand in awe of the power of your dogs’ explosive decompressions. Graphic Communication student Scott Coello created the short out of recycled paper he mostly found while dumpster diving your mothers’ trash. Scott has other interesting media on his site Cribble.net.

Check it out: here

Here is a type of atlas you are unlikely to find in your local library. Ten differently themed maps are included covering a variety of mostly political topics which are discussed in detail in the accompanying essays.

This Atlas is an atlas and not the atlas. Rather, it is one of many possible atlases, given the abundance of artists, architects, and others using maps and mapping in their work. While all maps have an inherent politics that often lies hidden beneath an “objective” surface, the contributions to An Atlas of Radical Cartography wear their politics on their sleeve. This publication includes ten pairs of politically engaged maps and texts from within the growing movement of cultural producers who have parallel or integrated activist practices.

The simplest of radical cartographies, the “upside-down” world map, appears on the cover of this book. More than a neat trick, this picture of the world has a historical basis in medieval world maps that were sometimes oriented with East or South at top. The modern north-oriented map continually reproduces the idea of the global North and the global South. The “inverted” map calls into question our ingrained acceptance of this particular “global order.” The maps and texts in this book also serve this purpose—to unhinge our beliefs about the world, and to provoke new perceptions of the networks, lineages, associations and representations of places, people and power….

INTRODUCTION | Alexis Bhagat & Lize Mogel

For around 30 USD you get can your hands on a copy to satisfy your curiosity about activism.

Check it out: here