Hylozoic Ground

Hylozoic Groun, espectacular instalación por el arquitecto Philip Beesley, Toronto. Un bosque de hojas acrílicas se mueven a modo de respiración dentro del pabellón de Canadá en la Bienal de Arquitectura de Venecia, que se estrena esta semana. Ver más dentro del post;

English info after the jump;
Hylozoic Groun by architect and sculptor Philip Beesley was selected through a national juried competition to represent Canada at the 2010 Venice Biennale in Architecture.

"Hylozoic Ground, an immersive interactive environment that is part of the Hylozoic Soil Series of works, will be presented by PBAI, a Toronto-based interdisciplinary design collective associated with the University of Waterloo, led by architect and sculptor Philip Beesley.

Hylozoic Ground is a uniquely Canadian experimental architecture that explores qualities of contemporary wilderness. The project will transform the Canada Pavilion into an artificial forest made of an intricate lattice of small transparent acrylic meshwork links, covered with a network of interactive mechanical fronds, filters, and whiskers.

Tens of thousands of lightweight digitally-fabricated components are fitted with microprocessors and proximity sensors that react to human presence. This responsive environment functions like a giant lung that breathes in and out around its occupants. Arrays of touch sensors and shape-memory alloy actuators (a type of non-motorized kinetic mechanism) create waves of empathic motion, luring visitors into the eerie shimmering depths of a mythical landscape, a fragile forest of light."

More info: Hylozoic Ground
via triangulationblog.com
What an outstanding project. Seems like something one would just have to see and experience in person.

If Dr. Seuss Was Actually a Doctor

via trickfist.com

Enjoy!

56-Year-Old Chimp Gives Birth

A 56-year-old chimpanzee gave birth last week to a healthy baby at Sunset Zoo in Manhattan, Kan. Susie, who appears in these photos holding her newborn, is the third oldest chimp in captivity and may be the oldest ever to give birth.
The news came as a surprise to zoo officials, who had recently taken Susie off birth control since zookeepers believed she was too old to get pregnant.

Although the baby still doesn't have a name, Sunset Zoo will host a contest to decide what to call the young chimp.

Zoo officials see this serendipitous event as an opportunity to educate the public about chimpanzee conservation.

"We make every attempt to engage the community in conservation conversations," said Allie Lousch of Sunset Zoo in an e-mail, "and Susie's baby has made that dialogue much more interesting of late."

Photo credit: Zookeeper Regan Slonecker, Sunset Zoo

via news.discovery.com

STICKYBOT III

Professor of mechanical engineering &; co-director, Mark Cutkosky, and his colleagues have been working for the last five years to build climbing robots. Their latest generation of a wall-climber, the Stickybot III, was inspired by the gecko lizard, which has phenomenal capabilities for climbing any vertical surface, including glass. In fact, a gecko can support its entire body weight with one toe.

I LEGO N.Y

During the cold and dark Berlin winter days, I spend a lot of time with my boys in their room. And as I look at the toys scattered on the floor, my mind inevitably wanders back to New York.

via niemann.blogs.nytimes.com

Native New Yorker in the house!

French Engineers Design a Pedal-Powered Submarine | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World

First there was the bicycle, then the pedalo boat, then the pedal-powered aircraft — and now, thanks to a team of French engineers, the world has the pedal-powered submarine. The mini-sub, nicknamed the ‘Scubster’ is entirely human-powered and is designed so that the ‘driver’ only has to pedal to propel it underwater. The craft features a pedal belt connected to a twin-propeller system that, depending on the fitness of the driver, can reach speeds of up to 8km an hour (5mph). The mini-sub can currently reach a depth of 6 meters (20 ft), making it perfect for peddling through rivers, and shallow ocean excursions.

Of course, we’re sure you all want to know how long you can spend underwater in the Scubster. Unfortunately, while the sub’s cockpit is water-sealed, the driver has to wear an oxygen tank and mask to breathe and see. As such, time under the surface is dependent on oxygen supply. However during trials in in the Mediterranean waters off the Cote d’Azur, the submarine was submerged for a full hour.
While the 3.5m-long one-man submarine may look like the type of vehicle prefered by Bond villains, designer Stephane Rousson believes it may “capture the imagination” of high-market yacht owners — those with 60ft super-yachts, a fleet of speed boats and possibly a lair in a hollowed-out volcano.

Pages: 1 2

via inhabitat.com

YouTube - Крутая мебель

It's a shelf! No, it's a table! No, it's all the same piece of furniture! Ron Barth, president of Resource Furniture, shows off design savvy furniture that redefines the typical notion of space efficiency. Desks become beds, closets flip around, and coffee tables become dining tables. Watch him work the product below.




BEAUTIFUL, FUNCTIONAL & SPACE SAVERS. WOOHOO!!!!!!!

The Big Idea - Augmented Reality - National Geographic Magazine

Revealed World

Imagine bubbles floating before your eyes, filled with cool info about stuff you see on the street. Science fiction? Nope. It's augmented reality. And one day it'll be as routine as browsing the Web.

You could call it reality 1.0—the unvarnished world presented to us by our five senses. It's not always the most user-friendly of places. We get lost in unfamiliar cities; we meet people whose language we don't understand. Fortunately there's an upgrade in the works that might eliminate some of the bugs: augmented reality, or AR. This emerging technology superimposes computer-generated images on the real world, courtesy of a cell phone camera or special video glasses.
Early forms of AR have already arrived. After downloading software, owners of smart phones like the iPhone and Droid can use the built-in GPS, compass, and camera to find information about nearby ATMs and restaurants, the closest subway stop, and other points of interest in some cities. With AR you might aim a phone's camera at a restaurant, and on the screen you'll see not just the venue but also a review hovering above it.

The William

Forget everything you know about stovetops and behold the future of kitchen heat, The William. The innovative burner system features 1,500 honeycomb-shaped independently-heated spots, a touchscreen control panel, and customizable cooking spaces. Now that’s hot (pardon the pun).

I want one!

10 Youtube URL Tricks You Should Know About - LIFE is but a STREAM!!

Youtube – You know that site with videos and all. Yeah! It turns out that its quite popular and you happen to visit and use it quite often. Instead of just searching and playing here are some top Youtube URL tricks that you should know about:

1. View high quality videos

Youtube gives you the option to switch to high quality videos for some of the videos, however you can check if a video is available in high quality format by appending ‘&fmt=18′(stereo, 480 x 270 resolution) or ‘&fmt=22′(stereo, 1280 x 720 resolution) for even higher quality.

2. Embed Higher Quality Videos

While the above trick works for playback, if however you want to embed hig quality videos you need to append “&ap=%2526fmt%3D18″ and “&ap=%2526fmt%3D22″ to the embed url.

3. Cut the chase and link to the interesting part

Linking to a video where the real action starts at 3 minutes 22 seconds, wondered if you could make it start at 03:22? You are in luck. All you have to do is add #t=03m22s (#t=XXmYYs for XX mins and YY seconds) to the end of the URL.

4. Hide the search box

The search box appears when you hover over an embedded video. To hide the search box add ‘&showsearch=0′ to the embed url.

5. Embed only a part of Video

Just append ‘&start=30′ to skip first 30s of the video. In general you can modify the value after start= to the number of seconds you want to skip the video for.

6. Autoplay an embedded video

Normally when you embed a Youtube video and load the page, the player is loaded and it sits there waiting for you to hit the play button. You can make the video play automatically by adding ‘&autoplay=1′ to the url part of the embed code.

7. Loop an embedded video

Append ‘&loop=1′ to make the video start again without user intervention after it reaches the end.

8. Disable Related Videos

Publishing your content in the form of Youtube video? Don’t want people to see other people’s content that may be related but may as well be in competition to you? Just add ‘&rel=0′ to the end of the url part of the embed code and you just turned off the related video suggestions!

9. Bypass Youtube Regional Filtering

Some videos are only available in certain parts of the world. Your IP Address is used to determine your location and then allow or deny access to the video. Change the url from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= to http://www.youtube.com/v/

10. Download Video

Although not inherently a youtube trick but useful all the same for downloading videos. Just change youtube to kickyoutube in the url of the video and it will take you to kickyoutube.com with all the options for downloading the video you were watching.

via makeuseof.com

Ex-blocker - Put Your Past Relationships Safely Out Of Sight

Click to view link

Download this gallery (ZIP, undefined KB)

Download full size (114 KB)

Breaking up is hard to do. And with the advent of constant social networking, denying the existence of an old flame is no easy task either these days. Put your past behind you with Ex-blocker, a browser plug-in that allows you to block your former significant other’s online activity, allowing you to move on without digital reminders.

Start by selecting your browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari and IE are all supported) and filling in your former lover's name, Twitter handle and Facebook page info. Then click to download and install the plug-in to your browser. From then on, any information posted by your ex will be blocked from you with a splash warning whenever you’re about to “accidentally” come across news regarding that special someone from your past. And, should you ever back slide, unblocking takes just a few clicks.

Those with a habit of serial dating miscues will appreciate the capability to add up to five exes at once. Unfortunately, it won’t get all your stuff back from that person’s apartment.

Visit Ex-blocker

via us1.campaign-archive.com

If you're going through the pains of breaking up, this should help you avoid that 'someone', at least on-line.