sewing circuits » Erik

See Yourself Sensing

Erik — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 15:43:46 +0000

Madeline Schwartzman’s new book See Yourself Sensing: Redefining Human Perception is out!

See Yourself Sensing: Redefining Human Perception is the first book to survey the fascinating relationship between design, the body, science and the senses. Over the last 50 years, artists, architects and designers have been experimenting with the boundaries of our senses, altering the way we experience the world. — Black Dog Publishing

Blog
Author (coming soon)
Review by We-Make-Money-Not-Art
Amazon US — link

Really looking forward to checking this out (and not just because I make a cameo).

4th Amendment Wear

Erik — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 15:31:25 +0000

Tired of being exposed to harmful radiation? Worried that being vocal about your right to privacy will keep you from making your flight? 4th Amendment Wear might be for you!

But seriously, this is nice. Garments are printed with metallic inks that could in theory? display the 4th amendment as you go through the airport scanners as a silent protest. Good idea, but I’d still like to know if it works.

Piezoelectric T-Shirt can charge your phone

Erik — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 15:22:18 +0000

From physorg.com Apparently, French telecom company Orange is working with peizoelectric materials to make shirts that transform sound into electricity — enough to charge your cell phone. Video at the link.

Neurowear “necomimi”

Erik — Sat, 07 May 2011 15:47:47 +0000

This made my day. Neurowear is a project to develop fashions and gadgets that respond to brain waves and bio-sensing.

Volume 1., “necomimi” is a set of cat ears that perk up when you concentrate, and flop when you are relaxed. The video is a must see. A fantastic-ly bizarre, playful, fun piece.

Raspberry Pi

Erik — Sat, 07 May 2011 15:18:52 +0000

Not necessarily wearable, but an interesting project nonetheless, the Raspberry Pi Foundation is developing a tiny, low cost ($25) computer to promote the study of computer science in schools. The machine connects to a monitor via HDMI, has a USB port to connect to a keyboard, and looks like you could put it in your pocket. The specs aren’t bad, and it looks like it will run Ubuntu. Nice.

More information at the BBC and Geek.com

Pop Wearables

Erik — Sat, 07 May 2011 15:09:31 +0000

Fresh off the Black Eyed Peas Superbowl performance, Katy Perry is seen sporting an animated LED costume on American Idol. The costume was designed by Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz at CUTECIRCUIT with shoulder pads and a necklace by sculptor Yasemen Hussein (who makes fantastically wonderful things).

You may remember CUTECIRCUIT from their award winning “Hug Shirt.”

It’s nice to see wearables in the mainstream media, even if they are just blinky-s paired with annoying music. Thanks to my UB colleague Luke Noonan for the heads up! (pictures and video in the link).

Paperphone

Erik — Sat, 07 May 2011 14:58:36 +0000

Gizmag reports that researchers at Queen’s University’s Human Media Lab, partnered with Arizona State University will be presenting their e-ink cell phone at CHI 2011 which starts May 7 in Vancouver. I’m not sure that “bendability” is a feature that I would desire in a cell phone, but I’m sure the e-ink display is very battery friendly.

Insect Media by Jussi Parrika

Erik — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:07:33 +0000

Rhizome has a review of Jussi Parrika’s new book Insect Media, written by Jacob Gaboury. The book sounds very interesting, here’s a relevant quote from the review:

…the first half of Insect Media is devoted to uncovering this long history of a fascination with insects as technological animals in a pre-cybernetic moment.

The second half of the book examines the post-war period in which the development of cybernetics becomes the crucial mode of interfacing animal affects with technological systems…

Jussi Parikka http://jussiparikka.net/ is a writer and media theorist, working in Media Theory & History at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge [UK]. He is also Director of the Cultures of the Digital Economy (CoDE) research institute, and all around interesting person.

The Neuroscience of the Gut

Erik — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 16:55:52 +0000

From Scientific American: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-neuroscience-of-gut&page=2

Regardless of how these intestinal “guests” exert their influence, these studies suggest that brain-directed behaviors, which influence the manner in which animals interact with the external world, may be deeply influenced by that animal’s relationship with the microbial organisms living in its gut.

Image is from here: Giant Microbes

Video Input/Output for Arduino

Erik — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 23:18:13 +0000

A couple of projects for video INPUT/OUTPUT for Arduino:

Arduino Eye Shield by David Chatting interprets PAL or NTSC video, and looks like you might be able to build one yourself (there is a schematic and some code)
Video Experimenter by Nootropic Design can:
- Overlay text and graphics onto a video signal from a camera, DVR, DVD player, VCR or any other source of composite video.
- Capture low-res video image frames for display or video processing. Give your Arduino the gift of sight!
- Perform object detection for computer vision projects.
- Decode closed captioning or XDS (extended data services) data embedded in television broadcasts.
- Works with NTSC (North America) or PAL (rest of the world) television standards.
- Uses digital pins 2, 6, 7, 8, and optionally 9. Uses analog pin 2.
and it looks like you can buy or build.
Finally, the Gameduino a “a game adapter for microcontrollers.” This is a new project that is seeking funding on kickstarter (only 6 days left to get in on it!), designed to build old-school games with your Arduino (think Super Nintendo old-school, not Atari 2600 old-school). The specs look pretty impressive, 400 x 300 pixels, 512 colors, sprites, etc.. Definitely worth keeping an eye on.