[ Industrial Luxury ]

This is the last post I plan to write on this blog. This experimental idea has answered all the questions I have asked up to this point. Posterous was a decent platform (although, not ideal) to use for what I wanted to do here.
 
I now have a new concept that I want to explore and will be concentrating my efforts there for awhile. Although I have not finalized how I will approach this new project yet, it will be similar to some of my other Social Media experiments that I have been doing over the past two or three years: transitory, time-based, nomad-ish.
 
I have always had a fascination with the semantic web, new-genre ideas, and Identity in a digital world. I focus a lot of my energy in this area, both my artwork as well as my design work. For me, the web represents a medium of temporary connections; never a permanent stopping place.
 
I try to compartmentalize certain experiments from others by maintaining indirect links to an overall identity between these various pieces. However, I never purposefully obfuscate the direct connections to my other projects or experiments, choosing instead to capitalize on the web's strength for interconnectivity. Although I will no longer be using this or the corresponding Twitter account that ties into this site, I will leave them up for as long as Posterous and Twitter exist. Should one or both go offline in the future, then, so will the content generated and stored here.
 
I am looking forward to the new ideas I have been thinking about and am excited to get them underway.
 
Thanks for reading.

The Denver Office of Cultural Affairs (DOCA) seeks to commission a Colorado artist or team of artists to create site-specific artwork for a new segment of the Cherry Creek Trail, a multi-use bike/pedestrian corridor, between Holly and Oneida Streets.

This project has been made possible through the collaborative support of, and funding from, the City and County of Denver, Great Outdoors Colorado, Urban Drainage and Flood Control District and the Greenway Foundation.

The anticipated total public art project budget is $28,000 including design, fabrication and installation. The project is open to Colorado artists working in all media and materials. Applications must be submitted on www.callforentry.org by 5:00 pm on May 22, 2009.

LG Mobile Phones is partnering with crowdSPRING and Autodesk to host a competition to define the future of personal mobile communication.

The official entry details are here.

With US$80,000 in prize money on the line, it may be worth a few moments of brainstorming. Entry into the competition is free and, of course, LG will own your revolutionary idea outright but as I always say, where there's one idea, there are one hundred more. According to their official rules, the barriers to entry in this competition should not prevent anyone from presenting something truly innovative. I like mental challenges like this. We do it all day long in many ways. As engineers and geeks, "What's next?" is something we never shy away from asking ourselves.

Ehtisham Rabbani, V.P. of product strategy and marketing for LG Electronics MobileComm, U.S.A, Inc. in LG's official press release for the competition says, “We’re very excited about this competition because it gives consumers, professionals, students and design enthusiasts all a chance to exercise their creative imaginations and have their ideas be heard. You don’t have to work for LG to make an impact on the future of mobile phones.”

Obviously, there will be thousands of entries of which 98% will be unfeasible. However, if you think about it, LG may hit the creative jackpot as the economy has many talented engineers and industrial designers sitting around with nothing to do all day. The timing of this thing is perfect and if LG finds something they can develop further, 80K is a small price to pay for that idea.

The competition closes June 7, 2009.

How do you feel about health?  Are you healthy?

DDB Worldwide Communications Group conducted a research project where they interviewed 1831 consumers and physicians in eleven countries to identify how people feel about their own attitudes towards health.  This report is available on BrandChannel.

Not surprisingly, "believing we are healthy is to believe we are in control."

Click here to download:

001_473_Health_final.pdf (1127 KB)

Now, more than ever, we are seeing artistic, experimental media (video,
projections, embedded system control, lighting technologies, etc.) weigh
in with a heavy emphasis on the tech. Artists, like engineers, are
enamored by technology. Technology is the crowd-pleaser. Because of
that, some poetry can be lost.
 
In a piece of technological work, consider one word: sensuality.

Then, begin displacing the top-heaviness of the tech until you reach a
point of visceral sensation.
 
The infatuation becomes desire.

You will never be able to see this star
 as I saw it. You don't understand:
 it is like the heart of a heartless flower.
 
 
                                        ~ André Breton

In a post by Andrew Keen, he addresses a question that our "always-on" Internet culture has been asking: 

"What is the point of instantaneous global communication?" 

In this short post, Keen posits the notion that, instead of ideas moving around the globe at light speed, and in doing so, delivering these ideas and insight so much more efficiently, that this may not be the case.

His theory is based upon a piece by New York Times writer David Brooks who sees our new-found communication tools as creating a culture of "uniform conformity" as opposed to diversified debate. 

As we take in and process information that is "instantaneous," do we also create a void where that information is processed?  Are we in too much of a hurry to consume and then regurgitate instantaneous content as truth, fact, or norm just because, "we read it here first?"

Recently, I have questioned the long-term effects of this "global immediacy in 140 characters or less" culture we are quickly beginning to master.  I have noticed, within myself, that my eyes are teaching my brain how to process instantaneous information.  I am not so sure this hasn't affected my ability to think deeply about a topic and process alternative ideas or further discussion. 

Maybe we are just evolving.  This is all part of  a new application of thinking.  It is a new way. 

Instantaneous information leads to instantaneous decisions.  And we know the usual outcome of making decisions too quickly don't we?

I still think the media (as well as President Obama) is overlooking a very important technical limitation of this gift; that is, long-term, without the computer and software that was used to create it, the gift fails.  

If, as reported, she already uses an iPod, she obviously uses iTunes to download, save, or backup content. The fact that she now has an iPod created with another instance of iTunes makes the gift almost worthless (regardless of the content) unless she decides to either overwrite her iTunes library or, overwrite the "new" iPod.

She may elect never to sync the iPod in order to back up the content. However, if this is the case, she better hope that this particular iPod does not suffer any technical glitches other iPods the world over tend to do once in awhile.

I suppose she could send it back to the White House for syncing and/or software updates...

Jobs Save the Queen?


[I have no idea where the image above is from.  If you created it, it's awesome. Thanks.]

Here is what I think I should be able to do:
 
I want to be able to control things around me using the date. I think about watering my lawn. That particular task is based on a couple of things. For one, time, and the other, because I live where lawn-watering is restricted, a date. So a calendar is perfect as a user interface for setting up my lawn watering schedule. However, when it is overly windy or raining, I probably should be able to cancel that operation.
 
Another problem: energy usage. I want to control when my heat should come on and go off. Same with lights. Now, before you get all up in my grill about the fact that programmable devices already exist for this purpose, I will remind you that you set those based on parameters that, in reality, change and therefore render the program useless. When I am gone from my office to a job site or meeting, technically, my heat could be turned down upon leaving. When I return, it could come back on. But, if I am here, I want the temperature more constant. See where I am going with this? It is tied to my schedule. I don't want a house full of sensor technology that is monitoring my movements and logins. I live in an old house.

The photo above shows a simple, color-coded interface to a central calendar application (which, preferably, should be open source and allow API interfacing). The "buttons" are events. Each color and/or shape indicates when a device is activated or stopped. This calendar, in turn, could interface with a synchronized control system that uses this calendar data to send signals through a web-enabled controller. The controller ultimately passes the calendar command through the home wiring system to a connected device. Instead of setting up a complex plan on a central computer or home automation panel, I could control my home using my changing schedule (via a mobile phone even!) that more accurately maps to the reality of my lifestyle.

Just a thought.

EMF = Electromotive Force

Looking at ideas for "seeing" power consumption:  From wireless power-metering devices to home automation and remote sensing, using web-enabled technology for visualizing the electrical power we consume is not only fascinating, but critical as we continue to add computational power to every thing we own.

I am interested in how the development of Smart Grid applications, combined with power usage data are being monitored and secured.  To fully understand what your personal usage is, there needs to be a convenient and efficient way to see this data and easily experience its impact.

The idea is not new.  Using the power of social media along with web-enabled and wireless connectivity is.  Using tactile feedback devices to sense usage may be the most effective way of putting real numbers to the costs of wasteful power leaks.

Some companies who are working in this area:

[ http://www.groundedpower.com/ ]

[ http://www.wattzon.com/ ]

[ http://www.tendrilinc.com/ ]

[ http://www.onzo.co.uk/ ]

[ http://www.energyhub.net/Home.html ]

This list is by no means comprehensive but has gotten me down the road to the point of finding answers to some questions.  However, two of my favorite applications so far are these:

[ http://www.ladyada.net/make/tweetawatt/index.html ]
and
[ http://web.media.mit.edu/~rusti/thighmaster/index.html ]

The photo above is from Annina Rüst's site for the Thighmaster Project.  You should read more about Annina.  She has done some very interesting work in addition to the Thighmaster.