Firefox 6: Ok, it's still cool.

A Trip Through the Uncanny Valley

Check out this vid with Hiroshi Ishiguro with blatant suggestions toward the gaming and sex industry. I gotta love his lack of fear. 'Probably it will be more fun.'

I've been taking a writing class this semester and my final research paper is being published in serial form on my other blog, Munjeli Cookbook. The paper deals specifically with the superstitions in the Western traditions that inhibit the creation of androids in human form. I've come think after significant reading that the unease we have with humanoids in contrast to say, Japan, where developers are making dopplegangers of themselves, has to do with the deeply embedded Judeo-Christian mythology of the Golem. It seems in our traditions a man-made man never comes to good ends. Check out the series and let me know what you think in the comments.

Beyond the Uncanny Valley

Android Roundup: Joey Chaos

You gotta love Hanson Robotics: it's an art school hi-tech mashup creating ironically lifelike robots. Ironic because the thing people expect in a perfect robot is perception, yet it's something we rarely get out of another person. Joey Chaos' self centered ramblings seem more lifelike than any android searching for something appropriate to say. If you build a personality with a certain aspect of selfconciousness, like that hair, and the piercings, you can get away with less responsive or intelligent answers. Let me be specific: you can build a dumb blonde with a nice rack, and it'll seem more realistic than a nerdy Asian chick. One thing I think could have helped out Joey is more slang (though he's all over it in terms of 'cool' vocabulary) and some well placed vocal crutches such as 'like, man...'. But the well place 'Yo,' is an excellent start. He'd also fare better as a tenor I think, with a regional accent of some sort. Love the politics, nice touch.

Android Roundup: Gemenoid-DK

Some say the market for companionbots will be women; they traditionally are alienated from the institution of prostitution because of the exploitation of women but the number of women paying for it is increasing. They tend to go on vacation and indulge in tourism in the Caribbean or Southeast Asia. It's referred to politely as a 'Vacation Romance'. Well, the market is a bit different in other ways too. A Madame in Spain who runs a brothel for women was quoted in Love and Sex with Robots discussing the importance of conversation to her female clientele. When I saw the Gemenoid-DK, with his distinguished greying hair and mild manners, I thought, hey, that's a gold mine. It'll be interesting to see if the dynamic plays out that way, but one indicator seems to be the strong market for women's bedroom toys.

Android Roundup: Repliee Q1

She's been around for a while, and just seems to keep getting better. Repliee Q1 is a Japanese humanoid robot that has made great strides in lifelike movement and expression. I was rather impressed with how fast she was moving in this video which is about a year old. While some people are always going to complain about the smoothness of her movements, there's definitely been improvement in her gestures and postures, and there are a few moments where she really hits her stride in this video.

Sex With Robots: When Not If.

I went to a new class today and as part of the discussion we were asked about potential topics for a research paper. When I mentioned I was interested in doing a paper about the emergence of androids in the sex industry it was news to some. It's funny how my media habit has got me seeing it as a done deal when others are completely in the dark. Writing a paper will at least give me an excuse for all of those creepy teledildonic links I've collected. Regarding the issue, I'm an optimist. After reading David Levy's book Love and Sex with Robots I've had time to adjust to the idea and do some research of my own. Stay tuned, I'll post more on the issue as I study it.

Sounds Like: the Weather in Nebraska

Nathalie Miebach: sculpture
I was chasing links around some sites of women in technology when I came across this gem: Nathalie Miebach uses weather data to generate musical scores and related sculptures. It's worth a look at her site. The playful colors and dynamic shapes are a new take on a complex data source. When we talk about data visualization the reasoning isn't always accurate and detailed analysis. Sometimes art will bring us a better sense of the gist of a thing, and in the long run, that understanding can promote better 'big picture' decisions.

Geeks at Christmas

An software performance at North Point Community Church highlights the pros and cons of the instruments. The musicians are not generally as lively as they would be with acoustic instruments: especially the guitar players looked cramped. Some of the sounds were better than others. Still the fun of the performance for me was the accessibility of the instruments: anyone with an iPhone or iPad can find these apps, and pile more. Multi-instrumentalists could become more common even on acoustic instruments with the exposure to software versions to play with first. No one is likely to stop playing the guitar for an iPhone version, but it's fun to have sounds in your pocket.

Arduino Percussion with PureData

I wonder what the neighbors think about all that tapping on the pipes? What I love about this thing is the objects are chosen so astutely for their sounds: I think it's a lampshade making that gong sound. Nice work.

The Land of Lisp

Really. I have the soundtrack to Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby, and now I'm dancing around the house to this. Of course one reason to learn Lisp is Impromptu, the live coding app developed by Andrew Sorensen for Mac OSx. He writes in Scheme, and the tutorials on his site are great. Lisp has got my attention for other reasons too. Expression is critical in modern multimedia coding, where applications are developed and practically thrown away. I really just need a language to build from point A to point B, with out developing a pile of supporting code.

Radiohead cover with old hardware

Friday Fun With Hard Drives – Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat

There's something very poignant to me about old hardware. Once it was the latest and the greatest, but technology moves so quickly, its all disposable long before it's actually falling apart. Still, it isn't a good idea to get sentimental and keep using an ancient machine as your primary. Better to repurpose your hardware into geeky performance art.

Kinetic Wall Sculptures

O, I love these things. They are decorative machines. They are witty and wooden. The craft of engineering divorced from function becomes art. In the digital age, I miss the gears showing, and I believe people more regress to magic as the mechanics shrink and hide.

Sonic Interpretations of Sorting Algorithims

YouTube - What different sorting algorithms sound like: ""
There's a odd sync with music and programming. Audio has been among the first disciplines to abandon traditional interfaces with the livecoding movement, and I've noticed the emergence of several high level languages specifically to manipulate audio. In addition, computers are being harnessed to generate sound in order to better comprehend their processes. While we can see the printed waveform here, perhaps the information is better understood as audio. It seems obvious to listen to the mechanics of the machine, but will we ever listen to computers to enjoy their creations? So far, computer generated music is either contrived or dissonant, in my experience. It's getting better though.

Spiral Wall: Processing with Arduino and Servo

SPIRAL_WALL: PROCESSING ARDUINO SERVO on Vimeo Pretty cool concept here. The fabric is being manipulated by motor controlled by the laptop. Its easy to see the application in theater, or some large venue on an entirely different scale.Gotta love Arduino; you can make anything with their parts, judging from what I find online. I’m drooling over an accelerator-midi thing myself.

Snakebot! Bio-Robotics from Carnegie Mellon

Boing Boing posted this video today and I'm in love with the science. Animal locomotion is a peculiar study from both mechanical and evolutionary perspectives. The snakebot can not only climb but swim, which is an entirely different kind of motion if you've ever seen a snake in the water. It blew my mind to read that some bats can swim as well, using their wings as oars. Other aquatic bio-robotics include the jellyfish bots.

The Orwell Project: Be Your Own Big Brother

trackingtransience.net
Hasan Elahi reacts to his questioning and detention by the FBI by documenting and posting his every move on the internet. The Daily Beast has an article on the Orwell project as he calls it, and the site is pretty cool as well. The loving photos he takes of his meals speak for themselves, and you can see the 'Kiss my ass' to the FBI as photographs urinals around the globe.

Molecular Gastronomy by the Book

Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking
Here we go. Just in time for the holidays, there's a 2400 page set of cookbooks on synthetic paper to cover every aspect of food science. At one time we had a quaint dirty little notebook called 'The Joy of Cooking'. Of course, the recipes kicked ass in that grubby pictureless tome. I'll wait until the library picks this up to pass judgement. Image is important on a plate: I refuse to eat ugly food; but neither will I judge a book by it's cover (even if I love to look at the photos!).

Apollo 11 Launch in Slow Mo

This astonishing video is making the rounds on several sites. I love the voiceover: he's talking as fast as he can for eight minutes, and I was rapt. Its hard to understand forces of this magnitude. There's fire and ice and steam and swirling mad floods. Posted by Spacecraft Films

The Future of Music

Dig this video from Beeple There's an interesting article in Create Digital Motion where he talks about his process. I loved that he admitted to struggling with the software. A lot of people don't realize that even geeks don't automatically absorb new software. You just buckle down and keep working with a program until you have the hours to know it. I just finish a book by David Levy titled 'Love and Sex with Robots'. One of the things he discussed was progress in developing emotion in artificial intelligence. It might be easier than you think, and someday, robots will have their own feelings, feelings we don't have and they will express them with their own art.

Robots + Jellyfish

At some point, I'm not a simple geek. I'm as interested in primitive life as high tech. Basically, this is my porn. The evolution of robotics is borrowing from simple life forms successfully, and in the process, the naive ideal of a machine man crashes and burns. If you could program eight legs, why would you bother with two? If I was a creator (creatrix, rather) I would make life not in my own image, but better.