A bit of insight on what the research group I have recently joined at Microsoft, the Applied Sciences Group, is devoted to. Amazing display technologies coupled to novel interaction paradigms. Enjoy!
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Stevie B Microsoft Research demo!
Saturday, February 19, 2011
The secrets of a pop-up book!
My current favorite pop up book for the iPad, the Three Little Pigs and the Secrets of a Pop-Up Book. Almost as interactive as a real pop up book! Thank you Sumit!
Of course, my favorite tech-pop up book for the iPad comes from les éditions volumiques!
You can find it -> here
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Solar Music
Sculpture at Maudslay, Newburyport, MA September 2010 by Kevin Belli.
Sun Boxes by Craig Colorusso are an environment to enter and exit at will. It's comprised of twenty speakers operating independently, each powered by the sun via solar panels. There is a different loop set to play a guitar note in each box continuously. These guitar notes collectively make a Bb chord. Because the loops are different in length, once the piece begins they continually overlap and the piece slowly evolves over time.
Here is a video, Sun Boxes at the 12th annual Sculpture at Maudslay. Filmed by Kevin Belli on September 18, 2010.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Microsoft for the win!
Today was my first day at Microsoft. I am officially a researcher in the Applied Sciences Group!
The coolest research group in industry: "The interdisciplinary group focuses on the synergy between optics, electronics and software to create novel human computer interfaces. The ASG mainly supports projects for next generation computing and interface hardware for Mobile, Xbox, and Microsoft Surface. It also works closely with Microsoft Research."
I had visited Microsoft Research back in February, met fantastic researchers including Paul Dietz (the man behind DiamondTouch, the multi-user touch screen table) and Steven Bathiche (the man behind Mothmobile, a hybrid robot that uses an insect as its control system via a neural electrical interface).
I fell in love with their work, their vibe, their philosophy. I am so fortunate to join this team, and will be updating with cool techy projects very soon!
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Reclaim Vacant Lot with What City’s Got
Photo by Recetas Urbanas.
A proposal made to the city of Seville for legislation to assist in the temporary transformation of public and private solares – vacant lots walled off for security – into public spaces for at least six months. Wall rubble is incorporated into the design, and elements of car and pedestrian barriers are used to construct benches, see-saws, swings, and bike racks with readily available plastic materials like concrete. Instruction sheets were produced to allow residents to construct their own furniture.
The project is designed to minimize material movement, cost, and other barriers to change.
Santiago Cirugeda is an architect based in Seville who has proposed semi-legal strategies for housing and urban renovation under the name Recetas Urbanas, or “urban prescriptions,” since 1996. He inhabits gaps between laws, exploiting overlap and oversight to practice autonomous architecture.
More info
Saturday, January 01, 2011
New year 2011 resolution…
New year 2011 resolution: watch TRON, again and again!
I've watched TRON: Legacy at an IMAX, and this is the best movie I have seen in years. The French duo Daft Punk made a soundtrack so perfect that it makes you cry as you watch light, motions, decors, crazy ideas combine with the nostalgia of the old computer dream.
Back in time...
... And now ... the new trailer. Well I don't think the new trailer is any good. And also it is a spoiler. So just go see the movie, in a IMAX preferably.
And go see it again and again in 2011!
Happy new year!
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Let’s get Soft Wear for the Holidays!
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
220 petites Pixel-tiles
It's really nice to see friends and co-workers from the MIT Media Lab making their ways to the contemporary art scene. Zigelbaum and Coelho keeps winning awards! After celebrating their Design Miami/Basel Designers of the Future award, they are now exhibiting in New York, you can see their work at the Johnson Trading Gallery.
They will show their computational light installation which steals the pixel from the screen and re-introduces it to the physical world. An ambitious, pulsating LED installation completes itself only when touched by the visitor, each movement modifying and transforming the work itself.
The gun-testing vault at Riflemaker will house 220 luminescent pixel-tiles. Visitors to the gallery will be able to change the colours of the tiles, create a rhythmic pulse and re-arrange the overall form of the square, magnetic blocks.
Zigelbaum & Coelho is a design studio founded by Jamie Zigelbaum and Marcelo Coelho. Their work utilises physical, computational, and cultural materials in the service of creating new, but fundamentally human, experiences.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
New Robot Opera Explodes Boundaries!
I will join the Opera of the Future team the 24, 25, and 26th of September in Monaco!
A bit more on the robot opera...
Death and the Powers, a groundbreaking new opera created by Tod Machover with his Opera of the Future Group at the MIT Media Lab, is to receive its world premiere September 24, 2010 at l’Opéra de Monte-Carlo.
Tickets can be purchased ->here<-
Prologue (in French): Obscurité. Les robots roulent, oscillent, and glissent sur la scène en groupe puis se dispersent en différentes unités. Quatre robots émergent et commencent à parler. Dans leur dialogue, les robots essaient de comprendre le sens du mot « mort , » un concept étrange auquel ils sont confrontés dans un drame qui leur reste de leurs créateurs humains. A la fin du prologue, toujours perplexes devant la notion de la mort, les robots entreprennent d’interpréter le drame rituel selon l’ordre des créateurs humains. Le robot leader annonce : « Il est maintenant temps que nous commencions. »
Photo credit: M.I.T. Media Laboratory.
When I die, what remains? What will I leave behind? What can I control? What can I perpetuate?
These are the eternal human questions facing Simon Powers, the protagonist of visionary composer Tod Machover’s new opera Death and the Powers, a full-evening work which premieres September 24, 2010 at l’Opéra de Monte-Carlo. In the opera, Powers, a rich, powerful businessman and inventor, wishes to perpetuate his existence beyond the decay of his physical being.
Reaching the end of his life, Powers uses his vast resources to devise a way to 'download' himself into his environment. This transformation turns every object in his surroundings—his books, furniture and walls—into a collective, living version of himself, called The System. His family, friends and business associates are left not only to figure out if The System is, in fact, a true embodiment of Powers, but how to sustain a relationship with him in his new form, and whether to abandon their own organic existence and join him in his world of light, free of death and suffering.
In this cutting-edge work, Machover—called “America’s most wired composer” by the Los Angeles Times—elegantly blends his artistic and technological expertise to create an inventive score filled with arching melodic lines, wry humor, richly nuanced textures and propulsive rhythms. Death and the Powers additionally introduces specially-designed technology – including animated walls, a chorus of robots and a musical chandelier – assuredly launching a new era in opera production and expression.
Death and the Powers’ creative fusion of music and technology could reposition opera as an art form that embraces innovation, says Marc Scorca, president and CEO of Opera America, a nonprofit that serves U.S. opera companies. “I’m always cheering when I see opera once again reasserting itself as the richest tapestry for innovative, live art,” says Scorca.
Death and the Powers sets itself apart from other operas with its groundbreaking performance technologies, developed by Machover’s Opera of the Future Group at the MIT Media Lab. A new technique called Disembodied Performance employs innovative sensors and analysis software to translate baritone James Maddalena’s conscious and unconscious sounds and gestures, enabling the set to ‘come alive’ with Simon’s thoughts, feelings, memories and desires even after his physical body is no longer on stage. In addition, a chorus of “Operabots” narrates and reacts to the story; robotic furniture morphs and moves about on stage; and a musical Chandelier engages in a sensuous duet with Simons’ beloved wife Evvy.
Machover collaborated with a creative team that reads like a who’s who of movers and shakers of American culture. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky wrote the libretto. Director Diane Paulus received a Tony nomination for her recent revival of HAIR on Broadway, and is joined by celebrated choreographer Karole Armitage and production designer Alex McDowell, who is best known as the creative director behind such films as Minority Report and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Death and the Powers’ cast features baritone James Maddalena as Simon Powers; mezzosoprano Patricia Risley as Simon’s third wife, Evvy; soprano Joélle Harvey as Simon’s daughter, Miranda; tenor Hal Cazalet as Simon’s research assistant and adopted son, Nicholas; countertenor Frank Kelley as ‘The United Way’; baritone David Kravitz as ‘The United Nations’; and bass Tom McNichols as ‘The Administration.’
Following its Monaco premiere on September 24-26, 2010, Death and the Powers receives its United States premiere March 18, 2011 with Harvard’s American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) and Opera Boston; and its Midwest premiere April 2, 2011 at Chicago Opera Theater.
Generous support for Death and the Powers has been provided by the Monaco-based Futurum Association.
More info:
Video
Synopsis of Powers (in English)
Synopsis of Powers (in French)
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