An Awesome Interactive 72,000 LED Display Is What Every Children’s Hospital Needs

This is wonderful. Jason Bruges Studio created an interactive installation that can react to touch and reveal digital animals inside a children’s hospital. It’s really clever, there are 70 LED panels with 72,000 LEDs in total hidden behind the wallpaper of the rainforest. When started, the wall makes it seem as if animals are traveling through the forest. More »

Luminogeist 3D iPhone Displays: Prism Power

People love their smartphones, and it’s hard to remember how we actually managed to get anything done in the past with only our dumbphones. Check out this interesting digital art installation from Japan that highlights smartphones.

luminogeist yuri endo art installation smartphone

Japanese designer Yuri Endo developed Luminogeist as the final phase in his thesis project at IDAS. The installation uses glass prisms which reassemble 3D image components from the mobile displays below. The prisms allow the extraction what’s being shown on the smartphone’s screen, making them look almost like floating holograms. Check it out, it’s pretty cool:

I wonder if this technique could be used with tablets or flat panel TVs to display floating images inside of even larger prisms.

luminogeist yuri endo art installation smartphone close

luminogeist yuri endo art installation smartphone detail

[via designboom]

I Want to Get Lost in This Room of 8,064 Floating Lights

Getting lost in a forest of trees sounds like a lot of fun but then you realize things like bugs and wildlife and poison ivy exist. Not so fun anymore! What’s guaranteed to be fun is to trap yourself in a cube of floating lights. 8,064 LEDs to be exact. More »

Waterbed Pavement: I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet

A couple of months ago, we saw people bouncing along to their destinations thanks to design firm Salto’s Fast Track trampoline installation. Pathways are once again getting a redesign, this time of the watery kind, with artist collective Raum’s waterbed-like pavement.

Sidewalk Waterbed

The pavement, which was installed in Bourges, France a couple of years back, was created in collaboration with the National Art School of Bourges and FRAC Centre. What they did was install a huge pad filled with liquid underneath the bricks to turn that stretch of pavement into a moving waterbed.

The project is called ‘La Ville Molle’ (‘The Soft City’) and while it’s a completely fun concept, it was created with a very serious message. The project was meant to question the ‘hardness of the city and its ability to change’, which I think is a pretty common problem that many cities all over the world face. While replacing sidewalks with waterbeds probably won’t solve that problem, at least it might make you think about it, and lighten up for a few minutes.

[via Pop Up City]

See-Through Public Toilet Lets You Do a Number Two While the Rest of the World Passes You By

Having to take a dump in public is the subject of many people’s nightmares. And that nightmare is about to become a reality if you suddenly have the urge to go and the closest toilet you can find is Monica Bonvicini’s public toilet-slash-art installation called ‘Don’t Miss A Sec.’

That title’s certainly appropriate, since the toilet is located right on the sidewalk. And with its one-way mirrors, you can see whatever is happening or whoever happens to be walking by while you do your thing, while nobody outside can see in. At least I hope not.

Saw your girlfriend pass by while you’re inside? “Hey, I just saw you while I was…” Or maybe you witnessed a robbery while you were finishing up? “Yes, Officer, I was right inside when the whole thing happened. Look, I even capture the whole thing on my phone. Oh, sorry, you weren’t supposed to see that, I was just about to flush…”

You won’t miss a sec, all right, but I’m sure you’ll have the hardest time going when you’re in this bathroom.

[via Incredible Things]


Google opens Web Lab at London’s Science Museum, because ‘the internet is incredible’

Google opens Web Lab at London's Science Museum, because 'the internet is incredible'

Still unable to resist its technophilanthropic urges, Google has just unveiled the Web Lab at the Science Museum in London. Paid for entirely with Google juice and constructed in a basement area that was previously used for storage, the exhibition consists of five experiments that help us to “discover the power of the internet while we’re on the internet.” That might sound cheesy, but we’ve had a good play with each installation and they’re actually very well thought out and accessible — although, if you’re already a hyper-connected nutcase then you might find it more appropriate for friends and family.

We won’t give too much away in case it spoils your fun, but you can get a flavor from the attached promo video we saw back at Google I/O, plus our gallery and the PR after the break. In any case, it’s safe to say that each experiment involves creating and sharing media in a way you’ve never tried before. What’s more, everything you do is stored in a little personal account in the cloud that you can access using the unique “lab tag” shown in the photo above. (Incidentally, all those symbols floating around in the background represent other individuals who are also currently participating in the project — which ought to give you some idea of the overall premise.) The exhibition opens to the public tomorrow, is free to enter and follows the same opening hours as the main museum — although the lab’s online dimension will remain active for a distinctly un-British 24-7-365.

Continue reading Google opens Web Lab at London’s Science Museum, because ‘the internet is incredible’

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Google opens Web Lab at London’s Science Museum, because ‘the internet is incredible’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Jul 2012 16:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Alt-week 7.8.2012: Solar flares, trapping dark matter, and life-sized Lego trees

Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days.

Image

This week we swing by some superhero news, look at how solar panels might shape up in the future, explore a Lego forest and see how to grab dark matter just using some household gold and strands of DNA. Not only that, we discover how the sun likes to celebrate the fourth of July with its own firework display. This is alt / week

Continue reading Alt-week 7.8.2012: Solar flares, trapping dark matter, and life-sized Lego trees

Alt-week 7.8.2012: Solar flares, trapping dark matter, and life-sized Lego trees originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 08 Jul 2012 16:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceTechnabob, Space, PhysOrg, Wired, Wired (2), Lego Festival  | Email this | Comments