From a Flickr set of Soviet arcade game posters. The image of the Russian pinball table Ну, погоди! is interesting to look at from a pinball design history perspective, much better looking than this scary clown table (though still very utilitarian)!
(Via GameSetWatch and countless other blogs)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkl782OqqmA&feature=player_embedded
FluidPaint: An Interactive Digital Painting System using Real Wet Brushes. An experimental project by Tom Van Laerhoven of the Hasselt University Expertise Centre for Digital Media in Belgium. Unlike previous digital painting applications, this one uses actual water (detected by a surface-level IR emitter) to record strokes on the surface and more correctly models the tip of the brush being used, whether rounded or fanned, and it can even simulate a sponge. Looks like it makes some convincing watercolor-like images.
More info: Brush Design for Interactive Painting Applications (PDF)
(Via John Nack at Adobe)
Magician Marco Tempest demonstrates a portable “magic” augmented reality screen. The system uses a laptop, small projector, a PlayStation Eye camera (presumably with the IR filter popped out?), some IR markers to make the canvas frame corner detection possible, Arduino (?), and openFrameworks-based software developed by Zachary Lieberman. I really love this kind of demo – people on the street (especially kids) intuitively understand what’s going on. This work reminds me a lot of Zack Simpson’s Mine-Control projects, especially with the use of cheap commodity hardware for creating a fun spectacle.
(Via Make)
Pinwall, by Germany’s art/marketing group URBANSCREEN. Fabulous concept, but wow that’s garish! Would be fun to see some other urban architecture re-envisioned by actual pinball playfield designers. Tilt the Reichstag?
(Via Make)
The American Society of Media Photographers has a new resource up for people working with digital images: dpBestflow rounds up the best practices and workflows for digital photography, in neat, easy-to-digest pieces, with tips on subjects ranging from camera file formats to desktop hardware to room lighting. If you look at their handy Quick Reference overview, be sure to note that each bullet point links to a more in-depth piece if you’re interesting in drilling down for more info…
(Via John Nack)
To help further the field of computational photography, a team at Stanford is working on a homebrewed, open source digital camera that they can sell at-cost to other academics in the field. Right now it’s pretty big and clunky-looking, but a camera that can be extended with the latest image processing techniques coming out of the labs would be very sexy indeed. There’s a recent press release that’s worth reading about the team, along with a video and an animation or two to explain the project.
Those that want to tinker with their existing store-bought cameras might want to check out the firmware hacks that are floating around out there, like the excellent CHDK software (GPL’ed, I think) that runs on most modern Canon digital point-and-shoot and dSLR cameras. With a little bit of elbow grease and some free tools you can add a lot of professional(ish) features and scripting support to your low-end camera.
(Via John Nack)
Typophile user Miha is doing some awesome sub-pixel typography experimentation for making tiny text sharper (at least on LCD screens with RGB ordering – sorry CRT holdouts!). It’s this kind of hand-rendering and tailoring that makes this work craft, in the best sense of the word. Drawing out a legible, full alphabet with an x-height of 3 pixels? Impressive.
The Xerox Star 8010 OS, an early GUI from 1981. I wish my desktop looked a bit more like this today. More interface awesomeness from this system on the DigiBarn Computer Museum site.
(Via)
“Touchable Holography”, a hardware demo by researchers from the University of Tokyo at this year’s SIGGRAPH conference. This mostly builds on the work they presented last year involving their “Airborne Ultrasound Tactile Display” (PDF), a device that shoots out directional ultrasound to simulate haptic pressure, like the impact rain has when it hits your skin. I don’t think this current display counts as holography exactly (the image is made with a refracting mirror, just like Sega’s 1991 arcade game Time Traveler!), but being able to reinforce the illusion with the sensation of touch is a cool idea. Hopefully they can expand it to use more than one of their ultrasound boards so they can simulate a feeling that’s more than one-dimensional. Also good to see that researchers are using the inexpensive, off-the-shelf Wiimotes for projects like this.
(Via Make)
(video no longer available)
Rhonda. It’s a nifty 3D drawing/sketching app that’s been making the rounds for a few years, and now the video of its creator sketching with it has finally been posted on the web. Even better: it’s been ported to openFrameworks and is being actively maintained on a number of platforms.