Only Dead Fish

Black Rain

Sourced from images collected by NASA's STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) mission.Two nearly identical space-based observatories - one ahead of Earth in its orbit, the other trailing behind. Composed from raw satellite data, which has not been cleaned and processed for public consumption. 

Black Rain from Semiconductor on Vimeo.

Scarlett

Warning: self-indulgent post coming up. I could write something about animated gifs becoming an art form, but really it's just an excuse to post a pic of Scarlett. Sorry. Just had to.

Via

56 Leonard St, Tribeca

Liking this from 'A Daily Dose of Architecture'. A lot. A new development by Herzog & de Meuron (them of the bird's nest) in Tribeca, NY.

Just look at that. Most skyscrapers are all smooth lines. This is, well, it's almost pixelated. Like the sort of towers you'd build out of lego as a kid. Or the biggest game of Jenga you ever saw.

The architects describe it as "houses stacked in the sky".

I want me one of those apartments. Now.

Oh, what's that you say? The prices range from $3.5m to $33m? Maybe next year.

Seasteading

"Buy land. They've stopped making it."
Mark Twain

Here's an interesting diversion. If all the news about the current turmoil in financial markets is getting you down, perhaps you might consider really getting away from it all and going and living out at sea. The idea might not be as far removed from reality as we might think. According to the New York Times, Google has just filed a patent for "mobile data center platforms out at sea". The idea is for servers and data center modules to be housed on sea-borne floating platforms that are powered by the motion of the sea around them.

Whilst Google's idea might not be quite in the realm of James Bond, there are other related ideas that are not so far off. A few months back BLDGBLOG (my favourite architecture blog) posted about a Wired feature about "a small team of Silicon Valley millionaires" who hope to develop "a new option for global citizenship: A permanent, quasi-sovereign nation floating in international waters."

They call this 'Seasteading' (creating "permanent dwellings on the ocean - homesteading the high seas") and have launched The Seasteading Institute backed by $500,000 from PayPal founder Peter Thiel, and run by a Google engineer and a former Sun Microsystems programmer. The institute is dedicated to creating experimental ocean communities "with diverse social, political, and legal systems."

Why? "Because the world needs a new frontier, a place where those who are dissatisfied with our current civilization can go to build a different (and hopefully better) one":

"Currently, it is very difficult to experiment with alternative social systems on a small scale. Countries are so enormous that no individual can make much difference in how they work, and the powers-that-be are deeply entrenched. Seasteaders believe that government shouldn't be like the cellphone or operating system industries, with few choices and high customer-lock-in. Instead, they envision something more like web 2.0, where many small governments serve many niche markets, a dynamic system where small groups experiment, and everyone copies what works, discards what doesn't, and remixes the remainder to try again."

The institute speaks of bringing an "entrepreneurial, DIY mentality" to creating oceanic city-states. Sounds a bit like Society 2.0. Said Joe Lonsdale, the institute's chairman (and a principal at a multibillion-dollar hedge fund):

"There's a history of a lot of crazy people trying this sort of thing, and the idea is to do it in a way that's not crazy."

You can decide for yourself here.

Northern Lights From Space

For no other reason than it's just a wonderful image.

Clay Shirky And Me

Just had an e-mail from Clay Shirky about my presentation on the impact of social media:

"Your 'what's next in media' slideshow is so good -- i hope it is getting viewed one million times, it should be."

I'm a big fan of Clay's work so that means a lot. Thanks Clay.

Voiceless "Telepathic" Communication

New Scientist has just featured a demonstration of some incredible new technology that allows for "voiceless" communication and has enabled the world's first public voiceless phone call. 

Michael Callahan, co-founder of Ambient, demonstrates a specially developed neckband at the TI Developer Conference which intercepts nerve signals sent from his brain to his vocal chords and relays them wirelessly to a computer which then converts them into words spoken by a computerised voice.

Using the technology, Michael makes a phone call without emitting a sound. Users of the device have to specifically think about voicing words in order for it to pick them up, but it is possible to speak verbally at the same time. If this sounds incredible, just consider the future application of this technology currently being developed which could allow users to transmit "active thought" wirelessly to interrogate search engines on the internet and have information delivered right back to them. They believe this could "augment human intelligence". Pub quizzes would never be the same again.

What Happens When You Post

The secret life of a blog post according to Wired. Larger version here. 
Via

The Bionic Contact Lense

University of Washington researchers have just  managed to embed LED's and an electronic circuit board into contact  lenses. Quite an acheivement given the size of the components involved and the need to marry inflexible metallic elements with the flexible organic matter of the lense. The circuits were built from layers of metal which were only a few nanometers thick (about one thousandth the width of a human hair), and in such a way that they do not obstruct the wearer's vision.

Although not yet a fully functional prototype, it is a significant step towards making direct video-to-eye applications possible. The researchers believe that it can be developed to carry wireless communication capabilities and be powered by tiny solar cells placed on the lens meaning that the technique could have multiple applications. Imagine your very own head-up display that gave you information about your environment as you moved through it. Imagine being completely immersed in a virtual world game without any restriction on movement. Imagine being able to view the internet without the need for a separate screen.

A lot of speculation on the future of media focuses on the ubiquity of screen media - on PC's, mobile devices, even whole walls - media which remains detached from the individual. But what about the screen that you wear?

Hat tip to

Ad Age

I've just been listed in the Ad Age Power 150 list, which is nice. Straight in at number 275, which I guess means that strictly speaking I'm in the Power 300 list, but I'm just happy to be in the company of some fellow brit blogs that I admire...John, Amelia, Giles, Jon, Iain, Faris...amongst others.