A month lost to mindlessness

I must aplogize for my absense the past several weeks. Life has given me other fish to fry and a challenge in prioritizing my frypan real estate.

Term Assignments and Exams
So, I had only two assignments to get through this semester; one chemistry and one in psychology. I'm happy to report that despite being unsure with how well I had done, the markers all concede I'm an A student. It took four years, and three bachelor degree programs, but I have finally earned a University-level A.

Mass Ex
The final production on the Ryerson Theatre main stage has, for the past couple decades, been the eclectic display of fashion created by the fourth year students in fashion.
I was very excited to see what these creative islands came up with, but I actually came to witness the effort of my divorced alumnus at the Theatre School. The set was more complex than I think was the vision. The main set peice was a branching skeleton resembling a tree - maybe a silver maple.
The wire frame, covered in translucent fabric somewhat stuck out past the edges. This interfered with the contrast the design was trying to acheive, but I feel that this wasn't lost on the team. Surrounding the tree's immediate base were large fabric colored flowers which would later open or 'bloom' during a blackout. Finally, the set integrated several paper globes suspended from the flys. Each element contained a color-changing LED element. This combined with the flying scenery allowed many combinations using the same elements.

Moving
Yes. I have succesfully packed up my studio. It has been compressed into a storage locker until sometime in August. It took several trips, but we're finally out of 50 Alexander.

pCubee! It's that thing you want!

By using head-tracking hardware/software UBC's Human Communications Technologies Lab has produced a very unique invention that's receiving alot of attention from consumer whores everywhere. The device, known as pCubee is a slightly larger than first-sized cube and has the ability to render what is observed as a 3Dimensional object. Five sides of the device are recessed LCD modules and as the the pCubee is rotated or tilted (or both) the images on the screens are shifted in a way so that the observer perceives dimensionality. This is done by having software track both the position of the cube and the observers head. The software then corrects for perspective; the whole assembly uses a technique known as motion parallax in which the position of the observer has an effect on the location of objects relative to one another. It is unexpectedly convincing.

This technique for producing 3D seems much more 'feesable' than the reemergence of stereoscopy as seen in films such as Avatar. It also does away with those pesky polarized glasses used in the next generation of 3D TVs from companies like Sony and Panasonic (review). What the video omits is the position tracking headgear. I have high hopes this can be resolved by using a network of low resolution cameras and eye-tracking software.

-via wired

Cyborg Anthropology

A very interesting keynote from last years Gnomedex Conference featuring Amber Case - a name similar to mine in that we both feel strongly towards a certain Mann; Steve Mann. Aside from the UofT feedback loop, Case illuminated some evidence in social trends. She compares tools like knives to the invention of the computer, but clarifies a distinction between our physical tools (bones, knives and spacesuits) to our mental tools (internet, social networking). In a related interview for Technoccult, there is elaboration on how exactly she focuses her observations and the methods of induction used to make - what appear to me - sound conclusions. From this track record she has established a career as a tech consultant and has a pretty remarkable CV which makes me a little jealous and a lot inspired. Actually, as an undeclaredian I've taken some interesting lessons from the advice she gives at the end of the article.

I feel like I've got a burlap sack and I'm just stuffing it full of inspiration. Full of names and places. Of ideas.

Maybe this is sparked by Lena Dunham winning SXSW Best Trailer Award for her biopic shot on a DSLR or maybe it's all the Phillip Blooms out there egging me on, but I really want to capture this movement. I want to put all these burlap sack people together in the same documentary and reach out. An army of aware cyborgs.

"It's all changing. It's changing radically."

A very interesting interview with Peter Molyneux about the future of his videogame company. Where AI will lead developers is something that particularly resonated with me - what happens when characters feel empathy with you? This is brand new.

Vehicular AR from GM

Interesting video from the HumanMachineInterface labs at GM.
Coming straight out of Detroit.

Interesting MS Surface Demo

Here is an interesting demo of how Surface-powered displays in public areas can interact with your own personal devices.
The best thing about this is there really is no more hardware to develop or infastructure to implement. This is here. Right now. The only thing slowing this down is the past and all the netbooks lacking tablet functionality that were sold in the past 8 months.

ORGANic Evolution III

This past Saturday I decided that staying cooped up in my studio apartment for months was enough.
A unique video on the Toronto Star website regarding Dr. Steve Mann and his recently invented Andantephone was the primary reason I wandered out into the rain to the St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church - to see what weird and wonderful creations my long time ubergeek hero has bestowed upon an unsuspecting public. 


To my delight, I was in store for much, much more than simply a century-old pipe organ controlled from a system of midi-enabled floor tiles. The evening centered around encouraging new and creative approaches to the idea of music and how we experience it, and a surprisingly large number of performers came out to demonstrate exactly what technological evolution meant to their respective art forms. One could make the argument the evening was just as much for them and their collaboration as it was for the audience - a unique twist indeed. 


The evening began with Canadian native Brenda MacIntyre, who  introduced the audience to the concept of channeling music through spiritual means. Although she was focused - during her song several patrons entered and shuffled to their pews in a manner most obtrusive. The organizers of the event no doubt anticipated this, as it did appear to be one of the less relevant performances of the night. 


Following Brenda was Heiki Sillaste, a young musician with a long list of accomplishments who performed an electronic piece - the first of the evening to take advantage of the pipe organ. Sadly, his performance was severely lacking in the 'electronic department' which would later be explained my our emcee as a technical folly. Regardless, the champion stood his ground and finished. 


Dr. Maria Karam, a PhD from Ryerson's Psychology department introduced the Emoti-Chair which was present in a trio the entire evening. The unexpected element of this presentation was that my Psych 308 professor, Dr. Frank Russo, had key involvement with the project. I was happy to experience this novel approach to human/machine interfaced pioneered by someone whom I have a personal connection. However, this did not bias my experience of what was essentially a frequency-tuned vibrating chair. I have no doubt the researched gleaned from the experiment is more valuable than the tool itself, but as far as a revolutionary method for helping the hearing impaired - like my step-mum - it seemed to fall short.


Notable electronic artist Stephane Vera took the stage after this short presentation and played an electronic piece using a grand piano, a midi keyboard and a laptop. The piece was composed to take full advantage of the Emoti-Chair and its narrow frequency band. Regardless of how it felt, it sounded quite amazing. So much so it prompted a search on iTunes for Vera and the subsequent purchase of one of his singles. 

Leif Bloomquist was another electronic specific artist who focuses on cyberpunk-industrialism and electro-ambient. He performed a piece from his newest album which I sorely regret not purchasing after the concert. 
Regardless, I am now a fan of his current album on Facebook and have my fingers crossed he will make his next show public. I highly recommend checking out this engineer-turned-musician.  


Finally, Dr. Mann and Ryan Janzen spoke briefly on the andantephone and what its possible uses are.

Here you can see the whimsical instrument being used by Dr. Mann during the intermission. It appears this would also be useful in preventing vertigo. 

Glogger Video

Ryan came out and performed a unique piece on the andantephone after intermission and it was pretty well received. I enjoyed much of it, though hoping along these tiles seemed to take a rather alarming amount of balance. 


The second half of the performance drifted from the technological evolution realm of the show and focused on the existence of Solfeggio tones which are somewhat unique in their frequency responses. 
Vera performed once more with these tones in mind, followed by a rather complicated audio/video performance my an artist who goes by the Latvian moniker Dzintars Skrapjuvilis. I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt, but this was arguably the least focused showcase of the evening.


The evening trailed off after this and the show ran a complete hour and a half longer than anticipated. This was mostly due to technical issues as a few bands in the second half realized most unfortunately. For example when Fearful Symmetry performed and lacked the volume they expected the lead guitarist finished by dropping the rather lustrous instrument to the ground. 


My conclusive remark is that I'm happy I was able to experience the show and see what Toronto has been working on. Before last night I had not expected such an event, but I am pleased I was able to experience it. 

Google's New Dog, New Trick

When Google releases something from the lab into the wild, it's usually a whole new breed...

Capatalizing on information in the information age has always been the Googliath's game plan.
In the past year, a new contender has entered the ring named Kid Wolfram (Read: Wolfram Alpha).

The job of Wolfram's invention has always been to quantify data in a way that streamlines the way it's presented to the user.

The website is working pretty well so far, but I don't typically count on it for web search results - more or less it's a tool to reinforce theories I have about social trends.

Enter the new Google tool: The Public Data Explorer.
This new system takes information and superimposes them on maps or graphs. The tool then creates a short animation that shows these trends changing over time.
The tool also lets you embed your research in a more interesting way.

Behold, US Unemployment from 1990 to December 2009.


And this...

Interesting Duracell Ad

This is an interesting television commercial featuring thousands of rendered bunnies. The animation was directed by French talent Pleix, who has established himself by directing videos for both Basement Jaxx and Groove Armada.

Augmented Sculpture

 Lichtfront

Skinput

Interesting experiment and proof of concept for human-computer interface via the acoustic signals coming from simply tapping ones arm.

Something that bugs me...

I guess this is a rant combined with a lesson.

The Rant: Social Networking websites are really excellent tools for exposing talent. Both showing off and being seen, they're really quite ground breaking. Having been involved in a couple of these communities I've got a couple hang ups. I feel like I'm not taking advantage of one of the key features - whore your creations out to different groups. I'm not sure if its something to criticize in other users: submitting a photo or video to 50+ groups to get 40 views. Perhaps it's the opposite: I'm not talented enough to get alot of views. Also, I don't know many intellectuals to converse about my passions. In any case I choose to not whore out my photos like crazy.

The Lesson: I don't spread my photos to more than two, maybe three groups because it reminds me why I do what I do. I take photos because it's something that makes me happy. I enjoy the technical challenge more than the challenge of capturing an emotion.

I value creative dialogue, but I find that's very difficult to find on flickr. I don't know if it's a communal pretentious attitude or my expectations being projected.

I don't want to appear as though view counts matter to me, but I do yearn for educated, positive reinforcement.

 

Above: John + Overabundance of Thought

Tokyo Glow

This is an epic timelapse that I would hang myself for not reblogging.
tokyoglow-low from Nathan Johnston on Vimeo.

The Future of Gaming

Jesse Schell, a former Disney Imagineer currently teaches at the Carnagie Mellon Entertainment and Technology Center. Basically in this keynote, he's rationalizing the progression of 'games' in the real world using advanced technology.

 

Schell Games at Epcot, in the Innovations Pavillion

He outlines the fact that facebook applications have been an unexpected form of revenue generation and are now worth hundereds of millions a peice. He then uses the example of the new Ford dash to exemplify the fact that these games with arbitrary point systems are popping up more and more.

He eventually suggests that these point systems will take over more and more as the SPIMEworld is developed through electronics miniaturization.  Eventually you're entire day will be a game of MafiaWars or Farmville in which the priority goal is to earn as many points as possible. The duality of this concept comes from the fact that doing things better (ie brushing teeth - via touch senstive toothbrush; or reading a certain number of novels - via Kindle with eye-tracking support) will support the companies investing in the technology, but also it will encourage users to live a better life because there will be a more thorough and transparent competition going on between all people.

Very interesting. Very scary.

Kopin Golden i

Chris Pirillo brings us a new video highlighting this exciting new concept from Motorola. It's essentially a hands free wearable computer that gives the user the ability to voice control a complete version of Windows CE 6.0.

The exciting part about this is how it can apply to people working in the field. The device has an integrated digital compass, so as you rotate your orientation realtime and the image from the built in eye-peice adapts.

According to the break in the story from The Inquirer last September the device should be on sale within the year for about $2000.

Missile Defense Shield or "That Thing I've Seen Pictures of all my Life in PopSci"

Hey, this is a pretty cool image.
I hear all these rumors in the blogosphere about Obama and the missile defense shield. Like, it's not feesable, that we can't have it. That the current budget can't afford it.
Well, if you think that wacky program was off the rails for good I've got a picture for you!

This is a infrared imaging photo posted on Engadget, possibly my most frequented techblog.
The blob on the left is a air-based missile being dominated by the blob on the right, a project spanning multiple decades, Boeing's Missile Destroying 747.

Wicked stuff here

Toyota Response

 

This was easier for Toyota than explaining to all the mechanics what to do.

And no, this is a put on by a major corporation, so I'm not worried about protecting these two schmoes privacy.

Now, I know that Toyota has been putting in alot of effort to make sure they resolve the gas peddle issue, but I find a Facebook reachout a little silly. Doug Coleman seriously did not sign up for this.

Red Eyed Robots

I was wondering why is it we commonly associate red eyes with evil. I guess it's from some biblical verse explaining demons in some physical detail. Was it always this way in literature? Where did it start?

I wonder if it was ever attempted on stage?
Anyway, early movies with AI and robots, like Metropolis didn't mainstream the trend.

It seems it wasn't until the heyday of 1980-1990's Hollywood that it was widely adapted and almost seems common.

Anyone can be a Film Maker

Might this be the start of something new where film buffs pay good money to watch something created by the (real life) Gorillaz. I doubt it. One day, we could take advantage of them for financial gain.

Gorillaz single tomorrow, iTablet Wednesday. It should be an exciting week for us consumer whores.


- Posted from my iPhone

A Second Symbol

Here's another idea for a tattoo. Nothing special, just a combination of the World Transhumanist Association moniker combined with Darwin's classic illustration, the final step in the evolution is p-brane suggesting, over time, through technological and exponential evolution we may be able to become pandimensional beings.

Star Trails... Again

Unedited Star Trail. Fine JPEG's stacked using Dr. Russel Brown's famous Scripts for Bridge. Sadly I had to trade up from CS3 to CS4 to make this work... so I'm back to trial-using, poor-student status. Composed of 855 individual frames out of something like 2000 that I took in a single evening over Christmas Holidays. 

Star Trails

My first experimental star trail photograph after adjusting levels and curves. Composed of 147 shots. Three are missing because a plane flew through it.
f/5.6 at 15 second exposures. I plan on eventually cropping out the buildings in the foreground.

Hmmm...

Moon (2009)

Spoiler Alert!!

I just finished watching Duncan Jones' first movie: Moon.
The movie follows the story of an isolated engineer who works in the Helium mines on the far side of the moon. His work seems somewhat typical and our protagonist, Sam Bell, follows a very intense routine of taking a rover to mining vehicles and collecting the fruits of the operation's labor.

The film has a very unique set with tips of the hat to several other science fiction pieces. 

There are also quite a few themes; most notable of them include isolation, artificial intelligence and the ethics of practicing human cloning.


Although one may immediately think back to Kubrick's masterpiece 2001 as to how isolation in space and AI work. This film was a delightfully creative change from what has become a staple for almost 40 years.  The costarring Artificial Intelligence named Gerty (Voiced by Kevin Spacey) is as helpful as can be, and often repeats one of it's primary directives: "I'm only here to help you".  The helpful AI is actually a pretty functional plot device and helps the story progress.
The reversal occurs when we finally learn that Sam (Sam Rockwell) is a clone and that he's is part of a process which is ongoing. With this knowledge he begins to question the surrounding and actually learns from Gerty that he is a clone. He is also given a life expectancy of three years after witnessing recordings from previous missions.

At first it feels like the film will be a schizophrenic thriller a la Fight Club propagated by the theme of isolation, but it evolved to challenge concepts involved with human cloning. Essentially, Lunar - the company running the joint - wants a cheap employment base. They're also the furthest mine located from human civilization. With this trump card they've essentially farmed a population of employees all sharing the same back story, the same interests, the same projects (Sam has a model he works on, which was started before he got there), and even the same family which is long dead.

The clones are suspended in this state of ignorance by a conspiracy that the communications satellite is down.

However, things change once there are two clones on the base simultaneously.
Their teamwork is unique also as neither of them have ever communicated with another human being, only Gerty. When the Lunar company relizes the older Sam has crashed a rover, Gerty wakes up a new clone and a team from Earth is sent to repair the damaged equipment.
The new Sam disobeys Gerty's insistence on not leaving the base and finds the wreck with the old Sam still alive. He brings him back.

As the old Sam gets older and older his health diminishes and the pair decide to leave him in the wreck for the rescue crew to find. At the same time the new Sam convinces Gerty to wake a new clone up.
The new Sam leaves the clone, and reboots Gerty erasing the memory banks and leaves for Earth after he reprograms a mobilized piece of mining equipment to collide with one of the communications jamming towers.
The story ends with everything on the Lunar base being as it was at the onset of the film and radio transmissions over the image of the shuttle carrying the new Sam returning to Earth.

This is an amazing movie which evokes several concepts of the perils of our times, the foremost being energy management on Earth and how far we will go to maintain it. It is also dark in illuminating how we collectively view human life and how a company - a company evidently managing all the planets energy - can so easily make this sacrifice.

The imagery of the dark side of the moon and a lunar base usually containing all but one astronaut is accompanied by a chilling score by Clint Mansell. A truly remarkable first film.

If you live in Toronto and want to view it on BD, good luck because it has literally sold out EVERYWHERE. This just shows you what a meager budget of $5 million can achieve.

NK Remote vs. Nikon's built in Intervalometer

Time Lapse. It's a subject of much interest for me and others. Including my Australian brother who was having some difficulty with the integrated D300 intervalometer last night while shooting some star trails.
Essentially he would like to take 30 second exposures, one sequentially following the other for a duration of one hour. Let's use this example as our benchmark to compare how the two different tools mentioned in the title stack up against eachother and the workflow required. Let's begin...

D300 Intervalometer: 
1) Go into the shooting menu, select interval shooting and select a period between intervals
2) Select a number of intervals
3) Now is where it gets tricky. The camera software will factor in the time it takes to take the exposure against the time you've preselected between shots. I was shooting full manual with a fully open aperture and 30 second expose time. As you can see on the left column when I select 1 second intervals, the number of intervals decrease at a more rapid rate. Over the course of one 30" exposure it goes from 999 to 966.

Instead, choose the approximate time between exposures as the interval time as demonstrated in the right column. This results in going from 999 to 997. The following shot not pictured shows 996 remaining intervals. The varying speed likely relates to noise reduction or the amount of time writing the file to the disk.
Note: editing the number of shots per interval results in the camera taking immediate sequences as fast as possible in the span of a single interval. This is really only useful when you're bracketing exposures because the time between shots is biased a great deal.

NKRemote

The other tool available is a software solution. Albeit this requires having a computer in the field, but laptops are the best selling machines in the market. They also have batteries which will usually last an hour or so.
1) Connect the camera.
2) Go to Camera -> Time Lapse
3) Set up the number of intervals and the time between each interval.

Using this method the software will report that it's 'running late', but it will take the full number of programed shots.


Conclusive Remarks:
Using the integrated intervalometer you can do most of you need while working in the field, but you're limited in the way that you can't rely on how long your project will take. The camera changes this based on:

• How long the exposure will take
• How long it will take to write to the disk.
  

This essentially means shooting in Av mode you can't rely on how much time you have before you have to 'restart' your sequence.

With NKRemote you have a little more control over how long the project will take which works a great deal better when your project is taking more time, or occurring in varying light (ex: Sunset) but of course you'll need extension cords, batteries, and a weatherproof PC in the field.

Floating Xbox

This is what I've been working on. I've suspended all the components of an Xbox 360 equally spaced and balanced. My muse for this project was David Rokeby's recent project displayed in the lobby of the Brookfield Center on Bay street.

I had the luxury of witnessing the installation when I was traveling to one of the early-morning Rogers Plus locations in the summer.
The photograph is the result of hanging the elements with a velour curtain as the backdrop. I illuminated it with one Ellipsoidal lighting instrument with a green gel.
I also used a couple other lights on the floor, also gelled.

This is the result of an HDRI experiment which is not going exactly as I'd like, even though there is some additional contrast provided I've defiantly noticed there is a enormous lack of depth because of the lack of color reflecting off the surface.
The inspiration for the color was from the Xbox marketing campaign which has endured since the beginning of the franchise.

This project took a great deal of effort to design and actually set-up and so I likely wont be immediately repeating it, but I've learned a great deal and the next time I do something similar I will be more conscious of the lighting I use.

The final image is something of my own creation. I placed a small green LED behind the power button of the Xbox, kept it low profile and top-lit with a table lamp I use alot for table top photography. The button is somewhat concave and that's what caused the dark shadow on the front.

State of the Union

Sometimes I get frustrated with the TTC. Unions are destroying this country. But then I tell myself $22.50/hour in 2010 for a job driving offers zero job security. This job will be automated soon enough.

Enjoy your 5 minutes.


- Posted from my iPhone

Lance's T-Shirt

I just noticed something in Pulp Fiction which has no-doubt been noticed by countless others.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting that Tarantino included this shirt in the wardrobe of Lance, the drug dealer aptly played by Eric Stoltz. What's more neat is that Tarantino was quoted last fall showing interest in the racing genre as a full length picture. Which he sort of did with Death Proof in twenty odd-seven.

Would it not have been super if he challenged the story of Speed Racer instead? When that early trailer came out I was sure there would be some neat brain-Mach 5 interface included in the plot. But oh no. Had to stay PG...
Joel Silver learns from his mistakes though...

High Dynamic Ranger

I keep experimenting with HDR. I like having more control over contrast in a photo beyond simply applying curves and levels. This is image was created from three images I took nearly a year ago facing out of my friends balcony near the York University campus facing North West.
It's pretty difficult to allign images outside of the automatic feature when creating HDR shots like this one. At the time I didn't have a tripod and was instead focused on merely capturing the 'god rays', so a fair portion of the image was unusable after the conversion.
After oodles of brushing and spot healing this is what I came out with. I'm still an uber beginner, but I like sharing.

Animal Observation and Technology

In the centuries past, the development of spherical optics and gallelios astronomical telescope being repurposed as a terrestrial sighting device allowed the development of bird watching and the observation of land mammals.

Photography and its advent inspired the formation of some classical institutions devoted to the act of observation, for instance National Geographic.

Then we invented the submersible. And King James Cameron conquered this technology observing more and more of the wonders hidden hundereds of meters below the surface.

I would like to postulate on one concept available for our future. What if we identify life on other worlds? For instance, what if we find species of animals living in the clouds of Jupiter? Or live below the frozen oceans of Europa? Should we then send teams of either men or remotely operated machine to investigate and record these findings? Would that be the extension of what we're cataloging today?

No! You can't has cheeseburger!

Juxtaposing animal protection and animal exploitation with a crowd that thinks both groups are equally valid.
Part one of eventual hipster-dissection series.

Samsung's OLED ID card

Samsung via Engadget has this interesting video of an ID card which includes a paper-thin OLED display.
In the example the display is used to show a rotating model of the card holders noggin.
It's a little freaky, but I'll be excited to have one once my current passport expires.

Liquid Crystal Tie

This is a project I took the time to design. The principle is simple: Track the owner with a GPRS high-speed radio. The radio tracks location and compares this data to a database built and maintained by an advertising agency.
The agency updates the database using a system of auctions that occur constantly where advertisers compete for the ad-space on the users.
The company then uploads images to the memory on the ties micro controller.
The user then recieves a big fat paycheque for the work they've done.

Potential problems: users may not like having a company which is hardly impartial knowing where they are constantly, however I imagine it will be more acceptable once CCTV in urban areas really starts to ramp up.

Of course the user shouldn't be entitled to a cheque when they just wear the device around their home, so location tracking is a necessity.

Finally, the user could also drop the tie off in a downtown dumpster and rake in the dough so a measure will have to be initiated where every week or so the device needs to communicate with the users personal computer to receive an 'update' that tracks the user as active.

The potential for this kind of marketing scheme is massive and once flexible OLED technology becomes commercially available I hope this will become more realistic. It will also afford the ability to have, say, a full color display surrounding a simple t-shirt, effectively turning our troubled, fashion-centric youth into cheap, reliable full-motion billboards. As it is now, the technology is cumbersome and somewhat delicate, but this will not be the case for much longer.

Google Phone. Yay.

Could I be anymore sarcastic?

 

The worst kept secret - not that Google is one for secrets anways - the Google Phone was revealed at a press event. The Nexus One was finally 'officially released' alongside some new Android stuff. Shareholders are happy, and I guess that's all that matters. Thanks Brian Miller for posting this faboulous still of the keynote.

A long ways away from Jobs in May 2006 - sigh - Nostalgia.