After some of the recent posts here regarding copyright and DRM (reLink 1, reLink 2), I thought it might be worth mentioning that yesterday BusinessWeek contacted me asking if they could include some of my portfolio images in a slideshow that was to run as part of an upcoming article on design education (the Cleveland Institute of Art was one of the schools on which they were reporting, I was told). I assume they were looking for a graduate with a least a modest track record, because a) one look at my profile tells people I’m not a current student, and b) all the images on my portfolio page are of real products and carry short explanations about their development.

Unfortunately, BusinessWeek requested that I assign to them a rather broad set of rights. Here’s what I wrote back: Continue reading →

C|Net writer Michael Kanellos must be thinking the same thing I am while reporting on a material (of sorts) comprised of millions of tiny robots that act in unison to create 3D shapes… among other things. From the article, “Attack of the killer prototype robots” (Link):

Apply the right voltage and software program and the flat piece of fabric turns into a three-dimensional model of a car. Change those parameters and it transforms into a cube.

“Rather than look at a 3D model on a CAD (computer aided design) program, a physical model would be manifested on your desk,” said Babu Pillai, who, along with Jason Campbell, is heading up the project. “The material would change shape under software control.”
Continue reading →

Just caught a piece on C|Net (Link) about Microsoft’s new Zune device. I’ve not paid much attention to this thing, so I don’t know if this is something that was previously released, but I found the whole point system interesting. What a great way to mask the cost of a piece of media. Everytime the newsmedia reports on the cost, what are they going to do – provide a monetary conversion? It’s easy to report the cost of media on iTunes or Google Video, but MS is effectively creating its own currency. Even more interesting is how it’ll dovetail with XBox Live Marketplace which already uses points. Continue reading →

Here’s an interesting heads up from New Scientist (Link): the Aerospace Controls Lab at MIT (Link) is working on autonomous, cooperative aerial vehicles; i.e. robot aircraft that work together. From the MIT Project page:

We are investigating techniques that will enable the execution of continuous (24-7) mission operations using multiple autonomous vehicles (i.e., vehicle SWARMS) in a dynamic environment. We believe that a massively-distributed, intelligent airborne capability with little human supervision has the potential to provide many performance benefits in long-term mission operations.

The video where a pair of these things track a moving ground target, a remote-controlled car, is pretty wild. They each have a quadrant and as the car drives in and out of their zone the robots hand off tracking to each other. I’d call it recommended viewing. And the video showing it landing on a moving target (aircraft carrier) just makes me want to see what the latest designs are for the Littoral Combat Ship I mentioned a while back (reLink). This is some worryingly wicked stuff.

After you check the videos out, stop by to see just how easy it is to get one of the helicopters (Link). They didn’t have those when I was a kid.

I’ve been looking for some time to read the discussion with Julian Dibbell, author of Play Money, over on The WELL (Link), and finally found it. Fortunately it hasn’t progressed as fast as I figured it would, so it didn’t take too long to catch up. At this point they’re on the usual topic of “why do people pay real money for stuff that isn’t real”, about which I’ve posted my own thoughts both here and elsewhere. They haven’t really discussed some of the more interesting social side effects of virtual world technology; just some hints here and there. I’d like to see them address some of the issues I raised in my post on the SL Future Salon blog (Link). Perhaps they’ll be covering those issues soon. Worth keeping an eye on.

via Open the Future