Hasta La Gadget!

These lumpy, interconnected tubes of concrete, like wet rolls of old newspaper, are from a series of speculative architectural images by artist Dionisio Gonzalez, on display at Gallery Yusto in Malaga, Spain, until March 20th. Gonzalez claims the designs offer "disaster-resistance," something that—with no structural testing, no wind-load assessment, and an awful lot of plate glass—should be taken purely as an artist’s statement. Let’s just enjoy these houses for their futuristic aesthetics, instead. [designboom]

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Little can actually be guaranteed to survive the high-velocity wave walls and pummeling winds of a tsunami—but this house will at least put up a damn good showing.

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We know, we know, Google has the whole hot air balloon thing covered. But this idea is a bit different. It consists of a group of “helikites,” or small load-bearing balloon-kite hybrids, which can quickly be launched to form a network of LTE or WLAN masts up to an altitude of 2.5 miles, providing data coverage following an earthquake or tsunami. A standalone rugged suitcase, or “Portable Land Rapid Deployment Unit,” contains everything needed for activation in tough conditions. Researchers behind the project, including German R&D firm TriaGnoSys, have even found a way to integrate the temporary network with existing cell towers that remain in tact on the ground — a feature that makes the system suitable not only for emergencies, but also for expanding mobile coverage during planned events in remote locations. Of course, the helikites would eventually drift apart and lose connectivity, probably after around four days depending on the wind, but these things never travel quite as far as you’d expect.

Filed under: Cellphones, Science, Internet, Alt

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Via: Technology Review

Source: EAI PSATS (PDF download)

When trouble looms, most people turn to the internet before anything else. As such, the search giant is ensuring that it’s offering public alerts to those in disaster-prone regions. Following a rollout in the US last year, Google is also adding disaster warnings to its local versions of Search, Maps and Now — using data from the Japan Meteorological Agency. At the same time, Google is teaming up with 14 Japanese prefectures and cities to make governmental data online during crises and that troubling period afterward.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Source: Google

This is the subway tunnel that brings the L line under the East River, connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn. It looks like a set from a movie. More »