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The Glass project was started "about three years ago" by an engineer named Babak Parviz as part of Google’s X Lab initiative, the lab also responsible for — amongst other things — self-driving cars and neural networks. Unlike those epic, sci-fi R&D projects at Google, Glass is getting real much sooner than anyone expected. The company offered developers an option to buy into an early adopter strategy called the Explorer Program during its I/O conference last year, and just this week it extended that opportunity to people from around the world in a Twitter campaign which asks potential users to explain how they would put the new technology to use. Think of it as a really aggressive beta — something Google is known for.
Dawn Siff's 6-second Vine resume may be the world's first. Of course, in that time frame, she doesn't get much across. The entire text: "Idea machine Dawn Siff. Journalist. Strategist. Manager. Deadline Jedi." But Siff, who has 15 years experience at such places as Dow Jones and Fox News Radio, makes the most of it by way of illustration. For "strategist" she presents herself with a Rubik's Cube. The "Jedi" title prompts an appearance by a Light Saber.
OK, this is an ad. I can't vouch for it. I'm almost embarrassed to be showing it to you. But you have to take a look. When I saw it yesterday, I had to pick my jaw off the floor. This product, called "Ultra Ever Dry" is a nano-tech coating you can spray on any number of different surfaces, shoes, cinder blocks, coats. (Your hands? Probably not.) It's superhydrophobic (it repels water) and oleophobic (repels hydrocarbons) — but words don't do it justice.
It's hard to read on the web. Your favorite newspaper or magazine probably lets you read articles on its website. It's convenient but there are a couple of draw backs. Compared with print, you're less likely to finish the article, you'll read it slower, you'll skip over sentences and your comprehension will go down.
In 2005, Jonathan Coulton did something most of us only dream about: he left his day job in the name of rock. (Okay, folk rock.) A lifelong musician and computer programmer by trade, Jonathan quickly gained a following with songs about coding, science fiction, and geek culture. (If you need an introduction, check out this acoustic version of his song "Code Monkey.") As a champion of music industry reform, Jonathan makes his music available for free download and use under Creative Commons. According to him, "I give away music because I want to make music, and I can't make music unless I make money, and I won't make any money unless I get heard, and I won't get heard unless I give away music." So far, he's been able to support his career this way (unsigned) for nearly a decade.
FORTUNE -- Some reporters expressed surprise that Apple (AAPL) would choose to hold next week's special event -- the one widely expected to showcase a new, smaller iPad -- at San Jose's California Theater rather than the venues it's been using lately: The Yerba Buena Center for the Performing Arts in San Francisco or the Town Hall auditorium on the company's Cupertino campus.
Bedrocket Media bills itself as a "next generation media company" backed by New York heavyweights from the world's of internet and television. "The old order – with its big, high-cost studios and gatekeepers – is crumbling, and the future belongs to nimble content creators who can take advantage of the seismic changes happening in the industry. We see a unique opportunity to become 'cable in the cloud,'" said Bedrocket CEO Brain Bedol.
Neat!
At the Palais de la Decouverte in Paris, they showed me this experiment where a 1kg aluminium plate is levitated above a large coil of wire that is being supplied with 800A of alternating current at 900Hz. This is by far the best demonstration of electromagnetic induction I have ever seen.
A black & white video created by painting a whole room (including myself) in shades of grey. All footage was captured on camera in colour. *** No Colour Correction was used to alter the footage *** Watch the making of the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9amf0iEK9s Created by Eran Amir. (contact: Eraaaaaan@gmail.com) Music: Bill Callahan - Eid Ma Clack Shaw.
Thanks to Ze!
See how the French capital developed since its Roman conquest in 52 BC until the present day. Witness the construction of the Bastille and Notre Dame, navigate through winding stone streets in the middle ages and visit the 1889 World’s Fair to see the revelation of the Eiffel Tower.
Check out iPod Classic browser demo
Here’s a fitting tribute to Steve Jobs on the one-year anniversary of his death: a working iPod Classic that runs in your browser. It’s a work in progress by Inventika Solutions developer Pritesh Desai, who lovingly crafted this superb browser toy using HTML5, CSS3, and a few other tricks. It’s lovely and brilliant.
When Jana co-founder Nathan Eagle needed to connect to a cell carrier in the developing world, he’d come to meetings with a duffel bag full of cash and say that he wanted to buy airtime. For carriers who were taking on more customers than ever, but struggling with declining revenue per user, it was an irresistible sales pitch. The result, two years later, is that Jana is now the largest payment platform in the world.
Steve Jobs’s life was full of lessons on how to be successful, as well as the pitfalls to avoid when pursuing your dream. Walter Isaacson’s biography on Steve Jobs has had a huge impact on people across the globe, so THNKR sat down with some of the journalists, authors, and tech entrepreneurs to get their thoughts on Steve Jobs one year after his passing. Read more at http://www.cultofmac.com/193974/steve-jobs-life-legacy-reexamined-one-year-later-video/#5T7YZQGoVecOgCri.99
Dominic Randolph can seem a little out of place at Riverdale Country School — which is odd, because he’s the headmaster. Riverdale is one of New York City’s most prestigious private schools, with a 104-year-old campus that looks down grandly on Van Cortlandt Park from the top of a steep hill in the richest part of the Bronx. continued...
Video projection mapping has the capacity to transform any object into a screen. Forget flat projection, as projection mapping has the ability to take a real-world object, such as a building, and project onto its walls without any distortion. Events combine motion graphics, 3D animation, and an occasional dash of video that playfully highlights, deconstructs, rotates, recontextualises and generally manipulates a building's usual geometry.
I just spent a weekend in a resort in Mallorca. I was invited by an IT consultancy from Frankfurt to join them at their off-site and give a two hour (re)introduction to HTML5.
Applying CSS 3D transforms to components can bring some more realism to normally flat web elements. We’ve experimented with some simple concepts for restaurant websites and came up with a 3D folded menu (a real menu, not a “web” menu). The result is a restaurant website template where the menu will open by unfolding. Clicking the linked items will reveal a modal overlay which contains some more info.
The web is a wonderful place. It connects people from across the globe, keeps us updated with our friends and family, and creates revolutions never before seen in our lifetime. It has certainly come a long way since its humble beginnings back in the early 1980′s..