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Technology

Future fashion takes shape

Fashion, Internet, Technology, Want by
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The Fits.me mannequin may be the most cleverly futuristic piece of hardware I have ever seen.  It is a torso equipped with motorized panels that can approximate a wide range of male body shapes.  Clothing retailers can use this to create a database of photos of their garments and when a customer enters in their measurements, the correct photos is culled up.  It works like this:

See?  Genius.  Never wonder what size is going to look best on you again!  As someone who is often let down by unnecessarily boxy menswear, this could save my ass while internet shopping.

(From my work blog, via Engadget)

Watch: Gary Numan sells car batteries

Cars, Technology by
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I commend Diehard for choosing the first person I’d have thought of when picking out the right artist to promote an(y) automotive product. This doesn’t take away from the surprise of seeing Gary Numan in this ad…equally for me or Gary himself by the looks of it.

(Wired)

Interviewed: me

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As promised, the eCampus News article on iPad pilot programs across the country has posted.  It seems to come from a place of comparing the iPad to eReaders that have already been piloted, but it’s still an informative piece.  And I got a few paragraphs in about our Washington College pilot specifically.

Pixels in the round

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Pixels didn’t have to be square.  Like Frankenstein’s monster, it’s just how their creator made them.  In digital imaging’s fetal years, Russell Kirsch decided to choose an arbitrary shape for a unit of visual media.  And thus the pixel we know and love was born.

“Squares was the logical thing to do,” Kirsch says. “Of course, the logical thing was not the only possibility … but we used squares. It was something very foolish that everyone in the world has been suffering from ever since.”

As was Kirsch’s regret.  Regret that he is now rectifying with software that can minimize the shape of square pixels by resampling them into more complex shapes.

Don’t fret too hard, Russell.  We’d never have Diesel Sweeties without your mistake.

RootsxDouglasCoupland

Art, Books, Fashion, Technology, Want by

I love Douglas Coupland, having read Microserfs more times than I can count since middle school. I love Canada, having visited Toronto all throughout college (how I miss being just a few hours from Canada!) And, of course, I love both telecommunications and fashion in equal measure. So reading the following in an article on Alt.Engadget was like watching worlds collide:

Douglas Coupland may be best known as the author that popularized the term “Generation X,” but he’s also an artist, a designer, and a Canadian, so it makes a bit of sense that he would team up with that most iconically Canadian clothing retailer, Roots, for a new clothing line […] inspired in part by Canada’s history in telecommunications, and by Coupland’s idea that “what really links Canadians together is that we’re all far apart.”

Brilliant! The collection can be preordered via Facebook and features lots of tech-prints like television test patterns and matrices. There are also wireframe beavers on t-shirts and more than a few shopping totes in loud neon colors. My favorite item of all, the motherboard scarf, doesn’t seem to be available online (I hope just “yet.”) Prices for everything else are reasonable – gift, anyone?

Focusing on…Focus

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A few days ago, I posted briefly on a New York Times article talking about the remapping of our brains that occurs when we multitask heavily or even just use computers in general. Echoing this article’s view that more media = less focus is a piece by Nicholas Carr from the June issue of Wired (which I was reading on paper, thank you very much) which discusses the distracting nature of hypertext hyperactive content.

A 2007 scholarly review of hypertext experiments concluded that jumping between digital documents impedes understanding. And if links are bad for concentration and comprehension, it shouldn’t be surprising that more recent research suggests that links surrounded by images, videos, and advertisements could be even worse.

The takeaway seems to be that we are causing our brains to remake themselves in order to deal with a wide breadth of stuff – that never goes very deep.  Bad, computers!  Shame on you, technology! Or maybe not.  Because in the exact same issue, Wired, asked two researchers of personal motivation, Clay Shirky and Daniel Pink, to discuss what is being termed (by Shirky) “the cognitive surplus.”  Their argument goes a little something like this: with more options for putting our time to use than ever before, free time pursuits will become more varied, taking forms never seen before.  Though not precisely related to the idea of focus, this statement did get me thinking:

When someone buys a TV, the number of consumers goes up by one, but the number of producers stays the same. When someone buys a computer or mobile phone, the number of consumers and producers both increase by one.

Whoa!  And it’s true – I often find myself cursing the lack of hours in the day to get caught up on my favorite TV shows when I fill my evenings with blogging, online reading or freelance design.  If it weren’t for these infernal computers stuffing my free time with their distractions, I could take part in the much more honorable 200 billion hours of television that I should be watching with my fellow Americans this year!

(As originally posted on my Instructional Technology work blog.)

Moon art? Yes.

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During the 1960s, Bell Labs asked six artists – including Warhol – to submit drawings that were shrunken and printed on a tiny tile that was then shipped off to the moon in secret. This is the awesomest story I have ever read.

Thanks to io9 for reporting on this – and the upcoming PBS documentary on it!

Magazine computing

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I had a bit of an epiphany this morning while reading a paper copy of Wired in bed.  After finishing an article on the history of hacking and its future in the world of entrepreneurs, a subscription card spiraled its way out onto the comforter.  This left me pondering the fact that, due to the advertising within, this huge collection of words and pictures representing days of work could be sold for $1 per subscribed issue.  And further considering the reality that I am, in truth, more willing to look at ads in Wired from companies that I’d otherwise ignore because I have a real respect for this particular magazine and its writers, editors and creative directors.  I also read every issue cover to cover, even if I’m not particularly interested in, say, a feature on the future of insulin pumps.  I don’t do this with Wired online content, as proven by the fact that I merely skimmed it on my iPhone moments after putting the paper magazine down to hop over to wired.com.

I also started thinking in parallel about an article from Ars Technica entitled Curated computing: what’s next for devices in a post-iPad world, an article which I really liked but didn’t entirely grasp the scope of until just a few minutes ago.

The iPad is computing as a magazine.

There has been a lot of talk about reading magazines and other print media on the iPad and how this will save these dead tree industries.  I think it might.  But I’m now thinking more broadly than that.

Just like how Wired can curate the best of the geek world each month, surrounding it in a shell of hard-fought credibility, respect and cool, the iPad does the same for computing experiences.  They are curated, as Ars suggests but they are also an experience unto themselves by virtue of being presented on the iPad.  Just like I’m willing to delve more deeply into Wired’s content when its in front of me in paper form than on a website, I’m more willing to pursue any content on the iPad because I like engaging with the iPad.

And, thus, magazine computing.  (I’m coining it now.)

(From Case for the iPad)

Re-imagining Apple’s website

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Want to learn about the hot Newton MessagePad that Apple just released?  Or order a pack of System 7 installation floppies (High Density!) for your LC II+?  Well, friend, Cult of Mac has created an Apple website circa 1993 just for you.

And if you are feeling even more archaic, be sure to check out their 1983 mockup as well.  Project Macintosh sure does look promising…

Making a magazine in 48 hours

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Gizmodo has tipped me off to the upcoming 48 Hour Magazine project.  To say that this looks like perhaps the best idea I’ve seen in a long time would be a gross (in all senses of the word) understatement.  Basically, a bunch of passionate magazine and publishing people are getting together for a weekend and hammering out a creative, insightful, current collection of submissions from writers, photographers, etc around the world.  No bullshit, no un-fun pieces – just a magazine for the sake of making one.

Like a beautiful summer day in the Pacific Northwest that you can carry around in your heart through the dreary-ass winter. Or maybe a hip flask is a better metaphor.

(Alex Madrigal on what this project is like for those in the business of magazines)

With all the talk of digital texts and magazines I’ve been rifling through as a result of the iPad’s launch, it’s refreshing to see a new take on producing a print product come together.  As a lover of the magazine, especially in its most experimental forms, this will be exceptional.  As one project founder, Mat Honan, basically pulls from my own childhood:

I grew up reading Rolling Stone, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Spy, and Spin. Magazines let me drop into a world without rednecks, and then hang out there for hours on end. While the Internet has largely taken over that cultural delivery vehicle role, I still find the experience of immersion you get from a paper magazine unequaled.

You can get involved, watch it live via UStream and, theoretically, buy the finished product when it’s all done.  I know I’m excited for this to kick off in two days!