100 year old lens
Photographer Mathieu Stern decided to see what kind of video he could capture with a lens he snatched from a 100-year-old Eastman Kodak camera. The footage is quite good, with a dreamy and warm quality to it.
You never knew a 80″ gong could sound like this
Recorded with a really terrible mobile mic – but it still gets the effect across.
Chernobyl Series
When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there.
Valery Legasov
But it is still there.
Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid.
Deep Fakes Keep getting better
I’ve written about the various AI algorithms that allow for image and voice replacement before. How about this scene from The Shining – but with Jim Carry instead?
AR for car repair
One of the more interesting and hot uses for VR and AR has turned out to be training and repair.
BMW announced it has added RealWear HMT-1 smartglasses to the tool kit its technicians use in order to reduce the time a car spends in the shop, and make its service centers more efficient. The technology will be fully implemented at all participating dealerships by the end of June 2019.
Ubimax’s augmented reality technology lets them access service manuals on the spot. Voice recognition lets mechanics open files hands free. For example, a technician changing the water pump can access a diagram showing how to install the part using the smartglasses.
The technology also puts mechanics in contact with engineers if they need to diagnose or solve a more enigmatic problem. Using the smartglasses, a mechanic can remotely work with a member of the engineering team via a hands-free video link. The engineer sees what the mechanic see, and can send an image, a diagram, or voice instructions directly to the smartglasses.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/bmw-mechanics-using-smart-glasses-to-fix-cars-faster/
Amazing bookstores of China
There are amazing new designs coming from China. Some of them are happening in retail spaces – especially in book stores. Shanghai Zhongshu Industrial Ltd. is one such bookseller that has been using Shanghai-based X+living design firm to create amazing book stores.
Most noteable to me was this 1,300 square-meter (approx. 14,000 sq.ft) store on four levels is located in the Zodi Plaza completed in 2016 in Chongqing. The clever use of mirrors and staircases makes it a truly M.C. Escher-esque experience and takes its inspiration from old libraries with the dark brown hues and floor-to-ceiling shelves.
For other stores, the designers also took cues from the shapes of Chinese lanterns and lamp shades:
What makes the areas of the store even more fantastical is the use of mirrors and reflecting surfaces that makes the space seemingly endless and turns things upside down.
I’m continually amazed by the innovative work coming out of China. They appear to be having a real design renaissance. I for one will be keeping an eye out for work coming from there.
Reference: https://thecoolhunter.net/zhongshuge-bookstore-chongqing-china/
Autonomous taxis won’t save us from congestion either
I’ve already written about this before. Namely, rideshares like Uber/Lyft increase congestion in cities – not alleviate it. Mostly because these services put people that would have likely taken public transport/walked/biked into a car instead. It doesn’t reduce driving either since they’re just swapping one car on the road for someone else’s. Since then, there have been numerous other studies that have confirmed this effect.
A new study by EHT – Zurich’s Institute for Transport Planning and Systems seeks to find out if that equation changes if autonomous taxi services were introduced. Using an agent-based simulation on the city of Zurich, they tested a number of scenarios (service models, owner models, etc), examined costs, and how disruptive the shift would be. The simulation uses an agent-based system in which individuals make decisions based on time/cost/etc, instead of overarching rules. This has previously produced really accurate studies.
Turns out, the impact is not as much as people expect, and the fleet to do it actually must stay relatively small when paired with existing, good quality mass transit systems to be viable. This doesn’t shock me in European cities with great public transit, but I wonder how it would play out in American cities without that infrastructure. My gut tells me it likely would be the same as Uber/Lyft study results.
Either way, the study is definitely worth a read:
https://www.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2019/06/driverless-congestion.html
Analog arcade!
Released in 1973, the SEGA Moto Champ machine had no screens, buttons, or a joystick. The electro-mechanical racing game had a group of magnetically-attached motorcycles which rolled over a “road” that was generated by shining light through a spinning cylinder onto the playfield.
Here’s another playthrough with more narration:
I love the clever engineering of older machines because of all the constraints. Games required you be more imaginative – which I think is really part of the fun of playing them.
Which is why I’ve come to love some of the ideas behind hackathons. Limits on time, resources, can help unlock amazing creativity.
Tour Early 1900’s New York City
Videographer Guy Jones edits century-old film – the ones that usually run too fast and jerky. Jones slowed down the film’s original speed and added ambient sound to match the activity seen on the city’s streets. This particular film print was created by the Swedish company Svenska Biografteatern during a trip to America, and remains in mint condition.
You can see more of Jones’s edits of films from the late 19th-century to mid-1900s on his Youtube channel. (via Twisted Sifter)