Digital Tools

Alice Wang Tyrant: Alarmclock enters Web 2.0?

2008-07-04T13:58:31Z

I don't know how you feel about getting up in the morning. Still this is one of the biggest problems for many people and countless solutions to that problem has manifested in creative product designs. We see the evolution from the bucket of water to robots, replaying your dreams, that technology is also moving along on that path.

It even looks good!

Alice Wang made a great concept, that combines technology with social factors in a very unique and innovative way. This alarm clock begins to call people from your mobile phone, if you don't manage to wake up. It puts peer pressure on you - if you don't like that noise in the morning, be sure that you will get into problems on that day, just because your friends once again got that call from your alarm clock. This concept also works, if you oversleep rarely. Your co-workers are alarmed and they can call you up, until everything is fine. Well, isn't this a Web 2.0 community then?

via Neuerdings

Störk Tronic: Pixeldesign from Max Pfisterer

2008-06-30T19:58:02Z

On a website of Max Pfisterer, a designer from lovely Stuttgart, I discovered this really, really beautiful pixel-icons. Made in 16x16. Since I love 16x16 so much I directly sensed, that this work of pixelart is far away from the world of icons we are facing every day on our computers, or that cute, cute, cute things we see on computing games.

The design of the pixels here called "Störk Tronic" is so rough and somehow special. Evidently it came from a source, that even designers are not concerned with on a daily basis. Almost instantly I wrote Max a mail. He told me, that this work was made for a customer. The icons are used for a "refrigerated display case" (Kühltheke). He said, and I can imagine, that it was not an easy task to design 256 pixels with one color each (ok, some are animated) to show things like "Messerabstreifer" or "Tropfschalenheizung". Just look on the icons and take the trip into exotica. Thank you so much!

I discovered the site from Max via the Glam Slam netlabel. He did the corporate design and some artworks for this netlabel. Maybe I should also join with my designing skills?

Almost ROM-ready floppydrive for GameBoy Color

2008-06-26T20:36:04Z

Ok, there is hardware and then there is software. Still lovely hardware has so much charm, that we like to spend hours and hours with that gadgetry. Much more irrational is to spend days, maybe weeks, in tweaking hardware together that normally would never meet in this universe. It then reads software for the other device, that normally would never find its way to the datadisk on that very device. To make things short: Some French people build a floppydrive ready connectable to a GameBoy Color.

With that floppy drive you can read files just right into the gameboy from 3,5" disks. At the moment it can't directly read and boot ROM-files, but they posted a possible way to do so. And maybe we will have that update one day. ROM-files normally require hardware-modules gameboy ready or emulator software. This here is the other way round.

There are lots of ways to play gameboy stuff completely emulated and software driven, meanwhile on almost any device with a screen and some keys. But this here made easy things complicated and then easy again in a very charming way. Sometimes I just love the homebrewers.

via boingboing

Interesting Findings Round-Up June 2008

2008-06-20T14:01:43Z

This time the roundup is a little but too late, but nevertheless it's there! I spent lots of time working for customers and also the European Soccer Championship is pulling at my nerves. There are also ongoing Netlabel activities here in Cologne, thanks to the initiative mo. from Phlow.net / Phlow Magazine. So here we go:

1.

The biggest highlight this month clearly was the Firefox 3 World Record attempt. Millions of people downloaded the browser and the servers were only the first two or three hours unavailable. At least there were over 8 million downloads and Europe, especially Germany seems to have many Firefox-fans on board. Here we had 1.1 million downloads, which comes second place right after the USA with 3.9 million. Right at the moment the people of Guinness review the World Record attempt.

2.

Over at the Independent Gaming Source Derek Yu made a report with many interesting links on game engines made with Microsoft Excel Sheets. This is really freaky stuff. Did you already know, that Microsoft developers itself did hide a secret proto-game in the 95-edition of Excel?

"Excel-native cell graphics"

Update: Lars from Gulli pointed me the link to this demo "Excellence", made in Excel. Thanks! (Video here).

3.

Just some minutes ago I discovered this brilliant video of an upcoming German artists Alexander Marcus. The video is really, really good. Low cost, but highly effective. If you don't speak German: He is singing about the land "Papaya", where everyone is happy. You know that story...

4.

Let's stay on that topic... Look at this beautiful screen- and user-interface design of this absolutely classic movie Dark Star! One of the best movies ever made.

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Korg DS-10 for Nintendo DS special concert tonight!

2008-06-14T19:18:15Z

The Korg DS-10 slowly makes it steps into public. With that piece of software two of my very favorite hard- and software manufactures unite in one device. Some DS-10s will have a special concert tonight in London, according to Create Digital Music. I really can't wait to get my hands on this musictool, but the official release will be not until later this year. The only chance now is to enjoy great demonstration videos like this:

Natural evolution of something the Gameboyzz Orchestra.

Raster Noton - Death of a Typographer and Sonar Festval

2008-06-11T16:55:09Z

Alva Noto - Unitxt

One of the most interesting labels for electronic music was and may ever will be Raster Noton. They started out as an "Archiv für Ton und Nicht-Ton" (Archive for sound and non-sound) and they still push sound-boundaries with their approach to merge sound, aesthetics and science. They really have good music on, plus in our so beloved digital age, they still make releases with a higher tangible quality. Funny, that from the beginning of Raster Noton digital aesthetics played a central role.

One of the most remarkable artists on this label is Alva Noto, with his very minimal, fragile and rhythmic soundwonders. You may know Alva Noto also under the name Carsten Nicolai and he is one of the people behind this label.

Byetone - Death of a Typographer

The freshest music released today is an intense atmospheric electronic trip. Feel free to listen to "Byetone - Death of a Typographer" at the Raster Noton site. Unfortunately you have to click you thought the website a little bit to get to the musicplayer.

The label will have a booth at the Sonar-festival this year, where they promote their recent showcase, as well as the labels archive. And since Raster Noton was always famous for their mindbending and clear visual and acoustic approach, don't forget to give them a visit if you meet the festival in Barcelona this year. The Sonar will be from 19.-21. June 2008.

Glowing C64 as a full featured SID Synth MidiBox

2008-06-09T18:26:58Z

A MidiBox SID gets into the groove.

This project is hot! The goodness of the C64-sound build into a C64 case, but with far more under and over the hood. The keyboard was totally removed and replaced by magical circuitry and a nice looking user interface. The knobs glow and some LED-indicators show the amplitude of the single tracks. This machine isn't any real C64 anymore - it is a beast. Under the hood 8 SID chips found its place. In total this machine can generate four stereo pairs of sound, and four synthesizer voices at the same time. It gets very futuristic with all that knobs and lights. Very well done interface-design that brings back the good old action- and scifi-movie feeling. A great mod and a jewel for everyone who likes to look at electronic gear.

The worklog of this project is available at subatomic and an extended review can be found at technabob. Oh, you can also build your own C64 MidiBox.

The holy glowing mod.

[ via Engadget ]

Pixelmusic 3000: Visual Nostalgia from the 70ies Era

2008-06-06T19:00:00Z

The Makezine has a neat project in the recent issue, that triggers my heart with the Atari-beat: so cool, it almost hurts! Unfortunately I did not get any issue of this magazine here in Germany yet, but it looks like you can build this thing you your own. The according project-site on the Makezine delivers the schematics for building this, as well as a program-file download to upload this on any microcontroller. Homebrew to take away, if you like.

This box was designed and developed by the people over at Uncommon Projects. They have very interesting projects on their site, so be sure to visit it. I was wondering if there is a market for things like that. Retro-nostalgia hardware, that is free from hassle and remain at the roots of cool stuff. The success from the Macintosh was also based on take-away versus to assemble at home. Maybe this wonder will happen again?

Firebug - Designing and Deploying css-Websites was never easier

2008-06-04T12:30:49Z

If you use the Firefox (98% of the hands rise) and are into designing and developing websites, than I have a very special tip for you. Firebug is the best Firefox add-on, that make debugging, analyzing, creating and designing of css-themes extremely easy. It's a powerful tool that let you design, change and redesign a whole website within seconds. You almost work with your website in a graphical way, like using an illustrator application, but in fact all changes are made on the css. Changes are stored in the temporarily memory of the tool, so you can build upon changes you made earlier and morph and redesign the complete css also "just for testing puroses". When satisfied, just copy the css and paste it into the file on the webserver.

With Firebug you can test out ideas very quickly or visually explain the design methods, while your customer is sitting next to you. Even for debugging it's got great features. One example: for every element you browse, you'll get all css-data that is affected and relevant for this special element on the website - even the inherited lines of code, and also the ones that were inherited, but overwritten (marked with a strike).

Download it at Firefox Add-ons or on the Firebug Website.

[ via CForms ]

Spread Firefox: Firefox 3 wants the world record!

2008-05-30T16:03:41Z

Update: The Download Day will be on Tuesday, 17. June 2008. Have a good time in downloading FF3!

The browser Firefox 3 wants to get the world record for the most downloaded tool within 24 hours. On the so called "Download Day" you can submit your mail-address to get the latest information. You "pledge", that you will download the browser on that day. Just right at the moment the amount of people who promised to download Firefox 3 on that day is impressive. Just take a look at the live-update, interactive map.

[ via Gulli ]

Muto: Paint on the Wall by Blublu

2008-05-28T16:30:13Z

Streetartist blublu.org made an amazing video, that will let you ask foremost one question: How much time did the people spend to make this video? "Motu" basically shows an animation, that was entirely filmed outside or to be more precise: on walls or abandoned places. With chalk they animate morphing figures all over walls in the city. Each frame leaves a white trail, that was the "animation frame" from the picture before, resulting in a very interesting visual effect.

The whole movie is somehow based upon surprise and there are scenes, that simply will make you wonder, because the play of light, animation, spacial situation and camera perspective is simply awesome! Thumbs up for the idea and the work invested. A unique piece of art.

Another piece called Livorno by blublu.

[ via Stylespion ]

Interchange Photoset by Ken Ohyama

2008-05-23T13:39:08Z

Today I discovered a great pictureset on flickr, that deals with under-appreciated architectonic elements, that are often associated with "transport" und "wasted space". The talk is about "Interchanges". Ken Ohyama takes pictures in Japan of this motorway-elements from the foot passenger point of view. Most pictures were taken at night with long exposure and reveal the magic of this forgotten spaces within the city body. The pictures remind me both on a mystical game world, as well as the unlimited imagination of toys with the ability to think anything, in order to build it. The streets look like moody rollercoasters, while the ghostly pictures somehow talk.

Interesting Findings Round-Up May 2008

2008-05-19T22:23:58Z

May is a lazy month! That's why the Round-Up will be short. I had also lots of stuff to work and mostly wrote my thoughts directly in here. Besides... we had two highlights this month with the Flex-Actionscript-tutorial and the Winamp-Interview with Justin Frankel.

1.

A short movie, that played right into my heart! Musicotherapy is wicked day at a therapists-center. In this cartoon the doctor is very sensitive against noises, while the inhabitants of the house can't stop to play music. This movie is also a contribution to the Bitfilm-Festival 2008 in the category 3D space award, feel free to vote!

2.

Another short movie with similar color-scapes. Not as brilliant as the work above, but something nice to entertain. The characters expressions are somehow... cute?

3.

Okay, this is old stuff, but it blasted my mind! The Yellow Magic Orchestra and their view upon the technopolis city Tokyo. Sometimes... I just love the 80ies.

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Toriton Plus: Water Music Controller

2008-05-15T20:32:51Z

The Toriton Plus is a very interesting music controller. It transforms movements of water into sounds. The motion of the water is detected by lasers. The sounds in the video give a nice Oval-like drift, making this a very smooth music instrument.

A Veggie Orchestra: with Instruments made of Vegetables

2008-05-14T18:15:29Z

This is original and some different way to "do" homebrew instruments. It is an orchestra that manufactures and plays instruments, they made 100% of vegetables. It's interesting how many different things they build out of this garden fruits. Not only things to knock upon, but also flutes, trumpets and many other interesting things. After the show you don't need to stay hungry: you simply can eat up the stuff you played.