November 8, 2009
September 29, 2009
Apple Granted Patent on iGlasses
Apple today received a patent on a head-mounted laser video display… Apple’s innovation over previous head mounted displays is, in part, to separate the laser engine from the headgear, stowing the engine in a separate unit connected to the frames via fiber optic cable. Such an “iGlasses” setup … would allow a more immersive television, gaming or conferencing experience when using, say, an iPhone.
from gawker.com.
July 21, 2009
Crowdsourced Music Video
Naimark here. Remember (oldsters) that I had been lobbying for a class project which enables online cinéastes to contribute to a group thing where cinematic continuity was the glue? My (purely academic) example was passing a "red ball" in and out of the frame, from different people in different locations.
That was then. Some unevenly cool examples have happened since, like the Google Gmail video released in August 2007, ostensibly made from 1,110 submissions, and most recently the Eternal Moonwalk tribute to Michael Jackson.
Here's the coolest, released this month:
and the story behind it, which came out yesterday. Kevin Kelly writes "More proof that the hive can make art, when directed."
September 29, 2008
Call for Proposals: "Live Bits” - Art Exploring Real-Time Connectedness
Ars Electronica invites artists and scientists to submit proposals for new and novel ways to connect, in real time, people to people and people to environments in different physical locations. The goal is to expand and explore meaningful exchanges between remote groups of people.
The one essential requirement for all proposals is “live bits:” real-time digital information via any network, of any viable quantity, and in any modality. In addition to symmetrical two-way communication, asymmetrical two-way communication and even one-way communication will be considered as long as a live component is present. “Fresh” and “canned” bits, as well as physically transported objects, may also be incorporated.
We will award up to 20 commissions of 10,000 EUR each. But you must act quickly and we will reciprocate.
Deadline for submission is 31 October 2008 and notification of recipients will be 30 November 2008.
The commissions must be completed by June 2009, for inclusion in “80+1: A Journey Around the World,” an 80(+1) day event in the Linz Main Square and the Ars Electronica Centre, 18 June - 6 September 2009, for Linz09, European Capital of Culture.
Full details can be found here.
August 26, 2008
Death Star Over San Francisco!
Filmmaker Michael Horn: "I shot everything on my junkie DV camera, did motion-tracking and comping in After Effects, and basic sound design in Final Cut." More in an interview in StarWarsBlog.
Motion tracking, which uses computer vision techniques to track objects in the image, has virtually replaced motion control, which uses expensive mechanical and robotic cameras, for many kinds of composite shots in the past few years. The implications for independent production, new interactive techniques, and general hacking are huge.
By way of Kevin Kelly's blog, in a post called The End of Video as Evidence of Anything, a must read.
August 5, 2008
MIT researchers to herd headset-wearing cows from afar
This undated photo provided by Daniela Rus shows research technician Roy Libeau steadying a cow wearing an early prototype of the "Ear-A-Round" device at the USDA's Jornada Experimental Range in Las Cruces, N.M. The device, created by researchers at the experimental range and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, can funnel voice commands and sounds directly into a cow's ear to guide them while out on the range. The device is part of a project to remotely command cattle using satellite and computer science technology. (AP Photo/Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Iuliu Vasilescu)
"It has the potential to give farmers a much finer control of pastures, finer management of where animals are and a better use of the land," said Rus, a robotics expert. "With this technology we can also find out what the animals do all day."
Full story from today's Boston Globe, continued - - ->
Continue reading "MIT researchers to herd headset-wearing cows from afar" »
June 10, 2008
Art Imitates Life
Leonardo DiCaprio to star in 'Atari'
Tale about the godfather of video game industry
By Borys Kit and Jay A. Fernandez
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i1751753614c1db77744a34deae6cb78b
June 6, 2008, 09:19 PM
Leonardo DiCaprio has more fake IDs than Fletch.
The ubiquitous actor-producer has just become attached to star in "Atari," a pitch that writers Brian Hecker and Craig Sherman sold to Paramount on Friday about the godfather of the video game industry, Nolan Bushnell. DiCaprio's Appian Way shingle is producing the biopic, which the filmmakers hope will play with elements from "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and "Tucker."
Bushnell was an engineering student, puzzle-lover and game enthusiast (chess, Go, early computer games) who went from fixing broken pinball machines to launching Atari Corp., a video game manufacturer, in the early '70s. Its first product was a little game called Pong that transfixed kids in suburban rec rooms across the country and led to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of video game sales. Within a few years, he sold the company to Warner Communications for $28 million.
April 3, 2008
Viewfinder: How to Seamlessly 'Flickrize' Google Earth
"Viewfinder: How to Seamlessly 'Flickrize' Google Earth"
progress report and video went online today.
March 13, 2008
Sufficient Latitude: Interactive Wood Machines by Bernie Lubell
March 1 — May 11, 2008
Williamson Gallery, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena
Opening reception: Friday, March 14, 6 to 10pm (coincides with ArtNight Pasadena)
Bernie's work, the surprise hit of the 2007 Ars Electronica Festival, ranks #1 on Google searches for interactive wood machines. -M
San Francisco artist Bernie Lubell makes interactive installations that focus on the intersection of science and the arts — but which at the same time are adamantly low-tech. His incredibly complex machine environments are made of wood, use no computers or video or motors and are entirely human-powered.
The use of wood and ancient technologies to examine 21st century issues adds a disarming historical perspective to Lubell's enterprise. The pieces are witty, friendly and personal even as they tackle serious issues such as the nature of consciousness or the origins of life.
More here.
March 7, 2008
Fishualization 2008! Tomorrow!
Fish "painting" in real time via live video camera and image processing
When the IMD Class of 2007 was in its second year, the students made a group project for the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach called Fishualization. The idea was to have visitors and fish "collaborate" on making visuals. A camera caught the fish swimming while visitors interacted with menu options using DDR-style foot switches. The resulting imagery was projected next to the fish tank. Fishualization was installed during the Aquarium's Ocean Tech Day and was a hit, particularly with young visitors.
Class of 2007 grad Doo-Yul (Doox) Park, the principle designer of the Fishualization software, will be installing "Fishualization 2008" for this year's Ocean Tech Day, Saturday March 8, tomorrow. We're all pleased and proud that Doox has continued with this innovative and lively experience. Check it out!
November 1, 2007
Monday Workshops @ IMD — "Viewfinder"
registered photo overlaid on 3D model of USC campus by Perry Hoberman, summer 2006
November 5 - Viewfinder (a new project in collaboration with ICT and a research award from Google)
Instructor: Professor Michael Naimark, with the Viewfinder team and a special guest from Google
Viewfinder is an easy-to-use way for a community of users to find the pose of their photographs with respect to Google Earth as well as to neighboring photographs. These photos can be then viewed as perfectly aligned overlays in front of Google Earth and can be used to help make better, faster models in Google SketchUp. Our approach is to combine state-of-the-art computer vision algorithms with a little bit of human help. We're specifying that pose finding in Viewfinder can be done by ten year olds. Our plan is to build a first-pass version in the next four months. Some background can be found here.
This workshop is working session to specify technology, design, schedule and milestone. We welcome student participation. Limited to 6 students. Please email me to sign up.
Monday November 5, 1:00-5:00pm, ZML
October 18, 2007
Nintendo Wii Fit named in Popular Mechanics 2007 Ten Best
"The Nintendo Wii is many things—a motion-sensing video-game console, a retail success story, possibly even a cultural touchstone. What it isn’t, despite its players’ controller-waving antics and media hype about gamers finally getting off the couch, is an exercise machine. Until now. The Wii Fit, a soon-to-be-released suite of games that uses a $70 weight- and balance-sensing Balance Board, does everything from analyzing posture to revealing how bad you actually are at yoga. It turns fitness into a game, instead of a chore." - Popular Mechanics
See also the Nintendo video here. Hoola hoops is awesome.
June 14, 2007
Vivoleum
If you want to see interactive art-as-activism at its finest, set up a Google Alert for Vivoleum RIGHT NOW.
May 30, 2007
Google Street View (+ MS Live Search +)
Wednesday Update: The Google v MS faceoff is about two fundamentally different approaches to place representation today. Google Street Views is using “movie maps” while MS Live Search is using 3D maps.
Moviemaps are 2D movies, insofar as an illusion of movement is created through visual similarity of adjacent 2D images. You can only “travel” around what was pre-recorded (!) and you can’t change anything.
3D maps are 3D databases (like most video games) and allow unconstrained travel and manipulability.
These approaches are fundamentally incompatible today, and involve such challenges to overcome as camera pose and geometry determination, scene interpolation, transient object and shadow removal, and reflectance modeling (“BRDF”s). There’s also the deeper question about what to do when no data exists (fake it or constrain POV?).
3D will win over 2D, if only because it compresses the massive redundancy of so many images which look so much alike, but not the day after tomorrow. There's plenty of room for creative hybrids. But for now, brace yourself for a lot of hype pitting one approach against the other.
Today Google is launching a new feature on Google Maps called Street View, by far the best of the MS/A9 style "moviemaps." Several cities are mapped so far, including NY and SF. Particularly nice are the graphic overlays, the dissolves from view to view (simulating forward/backward motion) and the cinematic "pans" when going through intersections (doable since everything was filmed panoramically).
Street View is integrated into Google Maps as a stand-alone feature and is entirely 2D, made up of thousands of panoramic 2D photos. Dimensionalizing 2D into 3D to seamlessly integrate into Google Earth presents several challenges.
An noteworthy feature, which may present additional challenges, is here:
UPDATE: Today Microsoft also announced an upgrade on its Live Search Maps of "photo-realistic 3-D imagery" of several cities including NY, "Superman" perspective not street level.
BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE: Today, EveryScape Inc., a Massachusetts-based startup which has been working in stealth mode, also announced photo-based street level mapping, which includes user participation.
Part of the madness is because Where 2.0 began today. But as of noon various blogs are reporting some but not all 3 announcements. Crazy!
April 23, 2007
The Latest Massively Multiplayer Online Game? Birdwatching.
Today UC Berkeley professor Ken (Telegarden) Goldberg launched the coolest new webcam from the deck of Craig (Craigslist) Newmark's San Francisco deck overlooking Sutro Forest. 30 second signup. Lots of rich backstory.
April 3, 2007
SUMMER IN classes in NYu
NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program offers a dozen summer classes May 14 - June 22 and June 25 - August 6.
Info on the summer sessions can be found here.
Info on ITP can be found here.
Any questions, feel free to contact George Agudow.
Brief descriptions of the classes are here ------------>
February 27, 2007
IMD Thesis Presentations, Part II, Tuesday eve
This year's IMD Third Year Thesis Presentations, Part II, is tomorrow evening as follows:
Tuesday Feb 27 (Please note change from earlier schedule)
6:30pm - Noah Keating
The Lambent Reactive: An Audiovisual Environment for Kinesthetic Playforms
7:00pm - Herb Yang
Kingpin: A PvP (Player-vs-Player), MMO (massively multiplayer online) Mafia Strategy Game
7:30pm - Aaron Meyers
Torrent Raiders: An Arcade-style Video Game and Dynamic Network Visualization
8:00pm - Doo Yul Park
iVM: Interactive Visual Music
8:30pm - Yuechuan Ke
MultiCam Narrative: Interactivity and Cinematic Control
9:00pm - Erik Nelson
Sonorous: An Experiment in Interactive Audio as Real Time Strategy Game
The presentations will be 10 minutes each followed by 15 minutes of Q&A. 5 minute breaks between each.
Ron Howard Theater
Robert Zemeckis Center for the Digital Arts
More healthy snacks will be served.
All are welcome!
February 20, 2007
IMD Thesis Presentations, Part I Tonight
This year's IMD Third Year Thesis Presentations will be held the next 2 Tuesday nights as follows:
Tuesday Feb 20 (Big kudos for thesis paper drafts up!)
6:30pm - Jessica Rosenblatt
Fitting In: Somatic History Education Through Costume and Physical Computing
7:00pm - Vincent Diamante
Project AWOL: Control Surfaces and Visualization for Surround Creation
7:30pm - Mihai Peteu
CityTagz: Collaborative Urban Archive
8:00pm - Josh Green
Barfly: An Exploration into the Effects of Generative Gameplay Elements on Narrative
8:30pm - Justin Hall
Passively Multiplayer Online Games
Tuesday Feb 27 (Paper drafts will be posted next Tuesday)
6:30pm - Erik Nelson
Sonorous: An Experiment in Interactive Audio as Real Time Strategy Game
7:00pm - Herb Yang
Kingpin: A PvP (Player-vs-Player), MMO (massively multiplayer online) Mafia Strategy Game
7:30pm - Doo Yul Park
iVM: Interactive Visual Music
8:00pm - Aaron Meyers
Torrent Raiders: An Arcade-style Video Game and Dynamic Network Visualization
8:30pm - Yuechuan Ke
MultiCam Narrative: Interactivity and Cinematic Control
9:00pm - Noah Keating
The Lambent Reactive: An Audiovisual Environment for Kinesthetic Playforms
The presentations will be 10 minutes each followed by 15 minutes of Q&A. 5 minute breaks between each.
Ron Howard Theater
Robert Zemeckis Center for the Digital Arts
Healthy snacks will be served.
All are welcome!
February 5, 2007
Usman Haque, Thursday 3-4pm, ZML
British artist and architect Usman Haque makes responsive environments, interactive installations, digital interface devices and mass-participation performances. In 2004, he launched Sky Ear in London, a non-rigid carbon-fibre "cloud" embedded with one thousand LED-infused helium balloons, EMF sensors, and several dozen mobile phones. Last year, he launched an even more ambitious interactive megablob called Open Burble at the Singapore Biennale (above). He has created interior immersive installations, visualizations, and various experiments addressing interactivity.
Usman will present his work this Thursday, Feb 8, 3:00 - 4:00pm in the ZML.
Are are welcome.
January 12, 2007
Build your campus in 3D!
From those clever folks at Google Earth:
How would your campus look in 3D? You show us.
This spring, you and your (presumably equally artistic) friends can honor your home turf and hone your 3D design skills by entering Google SketchUp's Build Your Campus in 3D Competition. Simply model your school's campus buildings in Google SketchUp, geo-reference them in Google Earth and submit them through this competition web site to earn lasting online glory and, for the winners, an all-expense-paid visit to Google.
(Fun fact: "Lasting online glory" is currently eligible for a GoogleMark while "all-expense-paid visit to Google" is not.)
August 30, 2006
CREATIVITY & COGNITION 2007: Call for Submissions
Leonardo, as part of its collaboration with the Creativity and
Cognition Studios of the University of Technology of Sydney
(http://www.creativityandcognition.com) is pleased to bring to your
attention:
***********************************************
CREATIVITY & COGNITION 2007
Seeding Creativity: Tools, Media, and Environments
June 13-15, 2007
Washington DC, USA
http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/CC2007/
Sponsored by ACM SIGCHI
***********************************************
IMPORTANT DATES
Submission deadline: December 15, 2006
Author notification: February 19, 2007
Final formatted papers due: March 19, 2007
We cordially invite submissions focusing on creativity support tools
for individual and group creativity, bridging among technology,
science and arts to find common themes for user interface and new
media design, and producing rigorous research with innovative designs
and carefully conceived evaluations.
Continue reading "CREATIVITY & COGNITION 2007: Call for Submissions" »
July 11, 2006
How to seamlessly "Flickrize" "Google Earth"
"A novel approach to seamlessly integrate arbitrary images into pre-existing 3D models"
Michael Naimark
Interactive Media Division, USC School of Cinema
Informal Presentation Friday, July 14, 11am-1pm
Institute for Creative Technologies, USC, in Marina del Rey
Abstract
Real-world geographical modeling is undergoing a rapid transformation from graphic to photographic and from 2D to 3D. Up until recently, building photographic 3D geographical models has been closed and centralized. Google’s recent launch of SketchUp begins to open up this building process, but it still remains tedious and reserved for the committed.
At the same time, building massive photographic databases has enjoyed success as easy, open, and collective endeavors through online services like Flickr. While several such photographic databases have been organized geographically (e.g., Mappr), none have managed to integrate arbitrarily produced images into 3D geographical models in a spatially seamless way.
A novel approach is proposed allowing a community of users to upload arbitrary images of particular locations and integrate them into corresponding 3D models in such a way to appear as perfectly aligned overlays. The images need not be “empty” (what fun is that?). Further, this approach is completely devoid of spatial distortions, occlusions, or artifacts.
How? Come find out Friday!
I’ll present an overview of current work (from last month’s 3DPVT conference), show related exemplars from the photographic and media arts communities (including relevant new work supervised by Perry Hoberman), and discuss this novel approach in detail.
Please RSVP to Tomas Pereira <Pereira@ict.usc.edu>. Lunch will be served.
More background and context can be found here.
May 6, 2006
Amazing Fact about Movie Theater Popcorn
According to today's New York Times, popcorn purchased in a movie theater has a 5,000% markup. In Straight to DVD, an Op-Ed piece by Robert W. Cort.
May 2, 2006
NYU ITP Thesis Presentations LIVE all week
NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program is streaming (with chat) their thesis presentations, 20 minutes each including Q&A, May 2-5, 9am-6pm our time, all NINETY-SEVEN of them.
"Students have been encouraged to undertake projects that bring together the conceptual and design issues that they have engaged in during their two years of study at ITP. Projects will include installation based work, digital video and audio pieces, interactive 3D, games and educational applications, to name only a few."
Excellent snapshots from our comrades in NYC.
May 1, 2006
Annenberg NetPublics symposium comment
While I’ve always been a dedicated advocate of constructionism and of cyberspace, I left the NetPublics symposium fearing that if Karl Rove had attended, he’d conclude that America’s best and brightest were obsessed with living in fantasy worlds of elves and orcs, and ornamenting the urban landscape with colored LEDs. And I fear he’d be quite happy.
April 12, 2006
A Force More Powerful (PC game)
from the website:
A Force More Powerful is the first and only game to teach the waging of conflict using nonviolent methods. A unique collaboration of experts on nonviolent conflict working with veteran game designers has developed a simulation game that teaches the strategy of nonviolent conflict. A dozen scenarios, inspired by recent history, include conflicts against dictators, occupiers, colonizers and corrupt regimes, as well as struggles to secure the political and human rights of ethnic and racial minorities and women.
Anyone know of this? Was apparently designed in part by a guy who was part of Otpor, the group that helped bring down Milosevic.
-M
April 7, 2006
Summer Courses at NYU's ITP
NYU's INTERACTIVE TELECOMMUNICATIONS PROGRAM is offering its summer lineup of classes, open to non ITP students, in two sessions:
May 15 - June 23:
Introduction to Physical Computing
Digital Sound Lab
Systems: Hacking Everyday Objects
SciViz: From Interactive Virtual Spaces to Scientific Visualization
The Memory of Objects
Agile Web Development
June 26 - August 4:
Digital Sound Workshop: MIDI and Synthesis
Code and Me
Live Image Processing and Performance
Producing Participatory Media
Design and Development with Flash
Details and contact info here ---------------->>
April 5, 2006
IMD Final Thesis Presentations next Monday eve
Final Thesis Presentations by the Interactive Media Division's 2006 Graduating Class
Monday April 10
5:55pm - 9:30pm
LUCAS ROOM 207 (please note special room)
We are pleased to present final thesis presentations next week. The nine graduates will each make a 15 minute formal presentation followed by 5 minutes of Q&A. We will begin promptly at 5:55pm and end at 9:30pm.
5:55pm - introduction
6:00pm - Michael Steffen - “Telmahre" the tragic tale of Tobias Rosseau told through interactive cinematics
6:20pm - Ashley York - “Ah-Satan" an immersive live cinema performance
6:40pm - Jenova Chen - “Flow in Games" a methodology to realize player-centric dynamic experiences adjustment in video games
7:00pm - 15 minute break
7:15pm - Kellee Santiago - “I Am More Than My Thumb" a body-based interface experiment
7:35pm - Susana Ruiz - “Darfur: Play your Part" an online game seeking to incite social change
7:55pm - Erin Dinehart - “Journey of Jin" a mobile adventure world
8:15pm - 15 minute break
8:30pm - Julie Dillon - “SECT: Share, Engage, Connect with Television" presented using the television show Veronica Mars
8:50pm - Andrew Sacher - "Technophiles Anonymous" an interactive confessional
9:10pm - Brad Newman - “Communio" an installation in cooperative strangeplay
The presentations are open to the USC community.
Refreshments will be served.
March 28, 2006
Brain Game That Makes You Smarter
from Wired 03/27/06:
"Next month, Nintendo is releasing Brain Age, a DS game based on the research of the Japanese neuroscientist Ryuta Kawashima. Kawashima found that if you measured the brain activity of someone who was concentrating on a single, complex task -- like studying quantum theory -- several parts of that person's brain would light up. But if you asked them to answer a rapid-fire slew of tiny, simple problems -- like basic math questions -- her or his brain would light up everywhere."
March 27, 2006
Museum of the Moving Image Summer Internships, NY
from Carl Goodman, Deputy Director & Director of Digital Media:
It’s that time of the year again, and I’m hoping that you’ll help me get the word out about the Museum’s paid, ten-week, full-time summer internships. A flyer is attached, with text version pasted below.
At present there are two digital media-related positions available. Overall, we’ll have eight to ten people in the program. Most will be graduate-level, and they will be engaged in collaborative projects that play to their individual strengths and interests. We’ve had very good feedback about the program, and many of our interns continue to do work for us, either onsite or remotely, long after the internship ends.
Continue reading "Museum of the Moving Image Summer Internships, NY" »
January 16, 2006
half-day project for Ars Electronica
Ars Electronica is having a big show in Madrid opening in early February, and they'd like to display the 25-year "art, tech, and society" timeline made during my reign as guest curator in 2004. To make it current, we need someone to compile a list of world events relating to art, tech, and society for 2004 and 2005. The timeline has about 30 one-liner items per year, most can be found on Wikipedia. We're looking for someone to spend a few hours doing this. No fortune but fame: you'll get credit on the exhibit and, eventually, on the web posting. If you're interested, and have the time this coming week or so, please email me.
November 21, 2005
Web trends via the Webbys
Nice research. From nettime-l-digest (11/21/05 v01 no1667).
-M
From: olia lialina "olia at profolia dot org"
Subject: "nettime" Webbys reshape the web
To show the web of the 90s and to illustrate the fast growth of the
medium I often use the Webby Awards as an example. To see what sites
were considered to be important and how categories were developing. It
is very interesting to see for example how the category Art/Design in
1997 became net art in 1998, split into arts, broadband and net art in
2001. Then Net Art disappeared in 2005* and reappeared in the list of
the next year. And other interesting transformations.
The most striking were of course the categories of the first year.
The web was still mostly a hobby place. And 15 categories of 1997 were
named like personal interests: Books, Films, Games, Sport, Sex, Money,
others. Web was made by people not corporations.
The webby awards were growing together with appetite of e-businesses,
parallel to authoring tools and the development of plugins. This year
they announced 72 categories. 3 of them have Blog- as prefix (last year
there was category Blog). Many sound really Oscar** like: Best Use of
Animation or Motion Graphics, Best Navigation/Structure or Best Visual
Design. Personal web is dwelling in a Personal Web Site reservate.
November 15, 2005
$100 laptop
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Nicholas Negroponte
Unveil $100 Laptop Prototype
Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - 10AM PST
Watch Live Webcast from Tunisia
August 27, 2005
excellent purple dot illusion
If you stare at the little black cross in the center of this ring of blinking
purple dots, the dots will turn green and eventually disappear. But if you stare
at the purple dots themselves, you'll see that they only blink off momentarily
and are never green. Link (via Random Good Stuff via BoingBoing).
But is this interactive?