Posts Tagged ‘Technology’
any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
25 Mar, 2010 • posts i've written • No comments
In this video, Photoshop Product Manager Bryan O’Neil Hughes demonstrates an upcoming feature dubbed Content-Aware Fill which is slated for CS5.
Of course, he is a witch.
And if you don’t know where the title of the post comes from, it’s one of Arthur C. Clarke’s three laws of prediction:
- When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
- The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
creativity in science
08 Dec, 2009 • posts i've written • 2 comments
– a table from Creativity in Science: Chance, Logic, Genius, and Zeitgeist
Lately, I’ve been mulling over why it seems that we no longer recognize creativity when we talk about achievements in science or technology. We’ve come to accept scientific achievement as an expected progression of time, and scientists as nothing more than an extension of their desks or their petri-dishes, machines meant to roll out new discoveries like an assembly line rolls out automobiles (which is also why we assume the solution to every scientific quandary is more money thrown at it).
The answer came to me on a stroll through a Williamsburg art gallery.
We lack the sufficient literacy to recognize creativity.
It takes a basic literacy of science to appreciate Darwin’s leap from the prevailing theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics to natural selection. It’s also true that it takes a basic understanding of art to appreciate the leap from two-dimensional to three-dimensional depictions.
Our national deficiency in science and technology not only hurts our ability to compete with other countries, it diminishes our ability to recognize the creative value of these pursuits.
The mere formulation of a problem is far more often essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.
- Albert Einstein
hold me closer tiny mayer
07 May, 2009 • posts i've written • No comments
I need your help to spread the word and move the world. Well, the world that is, John Mayer.
I’m looking to create an interactive augmented reality experience with John Mayer. The idea is to film John in a surrounded green screen environment, recording a series of bars that will be mixed and mashed by the user. They’ll use an interface to select their desired sequence of riffs, print out a chevron that will be read by their webcam, and a micro-sized John Mayer will appear to play through that sequence. The idea is to leverage the existing musician community on YouTube to record videos of themselves playing along with John. Picture John on someone’s snare drum head as they play along.
John’s a great fit for this idea b/c he’s a heavy tech geek like the rest of us, and he doesn’t mind having a little fun with himself.
How can you help? Tweet @johncmayer and tell him @bud_caddell has an awesome opportunity for him. Point him to my li’l website and help #tinymayer become a trending topic.
How to rob a bank without money?
How can you rob a bank in a world without money? wonders science fiction writer Bruce Sterling, one of the collaborators of the new foresight project KashKlash.
KashKlash is a lively platform where you can debate future scenarios for economic and cultural exchange. Beyond todays financial turmoil, what new systems might appear? Global/local, tangible/intangible, digital/physical? On the KashKlash site, you can explore potential worlds where traditional financial transactions have disappeared, blended, or mutated into unexpected forms. Understand the near future, and help shape it!
Imagine yourself deprived of all of today’s conventional financial resources. Maybe youre a refugee or stateless — or maybe it’s the systems themselves that have gone astray. Yet you still have your laptop, the Internet, and a broadband mobile connection. What would you do to create a new informal economy that would help you get by? What would you live on? E-barter? Rationing? Gadgets? Google juice? Cellphone minutes? Imagine a whole world approaching that condition. Which of today’s major power-players would win and lose, thrive or fail? What strange new roles would tomorrows technology fill?
Besides Bruce Sterling, the initial collaborators are Rgine Debatty (of we-make-money-not-art), Nicolas Nova (LIFT) and Joshua Klein (author and hacker), who have been collaborating on initiating the discussion.
KashKlash is now opening up to you. You can join and follow the debate of our experts or contribute yourself by leaving a comment on the different matters or fill out our KashKlash questionnaire.
This public domain project is conceived and led by Heather Moore of Vodafone’s Global User Experience Team and run by Experientia, an international forward-looking user experience design company based in Turin, Italy.
Check the project description for more info.
B3TA Image Challenge: Macho Products
So much great stuff in the newsletter today, but be sure to check out the results from the Macho Product Challenge over at B3TA. Our favorites (well, at least the ones we dare republish) above.
