I enjoy drawing, and like to think that I’m not half-bad at it. Not everyone has spent countless hours doodling to perfect their skills, so instead they can rely on a machine to help them. No, it’s not going to make you a great artist per se, but it will force you to draw at least one really good picture.
This Self-Portrait Machine takes a picture of the person using it, and once they’ve strapped themselves in, it moves their arms back-and-forth to create a picture. It’s a little gimmicky, sure, but who wouldn’t want to be able to show off an awesome self-portrait that they drew?
Last time I checked, vinyl stickers weren’t gadgets, but every now and then I come across something too cool not to post. These spiffy stickers go near your electrical outlets and really make them stand out. Some might say that they make you stop and think about everything that goes into getting power from one place to another. Me? I think they’d just look really cool in my office. They’re a bit pricey, at around $71 for the set (don’t quote me on that, I had a heck of a time figuring out the currency), and unfortunately you’ll have to get them shipping from out of the country.
I’ve spent a good deal of time drawing since I was about 10 years old. When I was 12 my dad bought our first computer, on which he promptly installed Photoshop. Needless to say, I was hooked on digital art from then on. I still do a good deal of my work with graphite and paper, but when I want to transform it on my computer, I’ve always turned to a Wacom tablet. Since the Intuos4 line was just recently launched, Wacom was kind enough to send over a review unit, which I was more than happy to take for a proverbial spin.
Wacom sent over the Intuos4 Medium, which is the equivalent of my now outdated Intuos3 6×8. The newer tablet has a slightly larger active area than its predecessor (5.5 x 8.8 inches, compared to 6×8) and the exact same resolution (5080 lpi). However, when it comes to pressure sensitivity, they’ve doubled it to 2048. I can’t stress enough how much of a difference this makes, but we’ll get to that later. Hit the jump for my full review.
These fish sculptures made from carbon fiber Formula One racing parts might seem a little odd at first, but when you consider that Alastair Gibson, the artist who created them, was the lead mechanic for the Benetton F1 team for 4 years, and later served as the race team chief mechanic for BAR Honda for another another 10, you can kind of understand where he drew his inspiration.
The parts used in his creations are from actual F1 cars (like the snazzy exhaust pipes on the back of the ‘Racing Mako’) and each one is documented so you can trace back where each fin, tooth or gill actually came from. Unfortunately these pieces aren’t available for sale, but Alastair is “undertaking a number of private commissions” according to his website, so all is not lost if you really wanted one of these hanging over your fireplace.
If you don’t have kids at home, there’s a good chance your refrigerator is devoid of finger paintings, report cards and other such decorations. But that doesn’t mean it has to be completely bare. Magnetic Pixels is an easy to use kit that comes with 1400 10mm x 10mm colored magnetic squares that can be used to create pixelated works of art. The magnets come in 16 different shades, but if you’re feeling a little uninspired you can download a handful of pre-made pixelated designs from their website to get you started.
Now according to the Magnetic Pixels site, the kits should be available from Kikkerland, but I can’t find any mention of them on their website.
I’ll be frank, this Self Reflecting Lamp, created by Oliver Shick, is a complete act of futility. It looks like a couple of Luxo lamps that were born as conjoined twins locked in an eternal struggle to free themselves.
But oddly enough, it looks like the lamp actually works, though it obviously doesn’t produce much usable light and it makes me wonder how exactly you’re supposed to change the bulbs. On top of that, I assume the black shades that are joined together must get incredibly hot without a reliable way to dissipate the heat from those bulbs. But I guess it’s a conversation piece right?… Right?…
Gazing at the heavens through most telescopes really only gives you a 2D image of what’s out there. And while you might get a good idea of just how many stars and other celestial objects are in the night sky, that 2D image just doesn’t convey the actual size and vastness of the universe in which we live. But the Humble Telescope, created by design studio ENESS, provides a different star gazing experience. While it might look and feel like a traditional telescope, inside the Humble there’s actually an interactive 3D simulation of the entire known universe that you can explore by simply pointing the telescope in any direction.
Not only does it provide a way to explore the stars no matter what time of day it is, but it also helps to remind us how amazing the universe really is.
I’m spending today at the ETech Emerging Technology Conference, and I just got back from a talk by Aaron Koblin. You might remember Aaron from his Sheep Market project, where 10,000 people were paid two cents each to draw “a sheep facing to the left” via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, a service (that you can participate in!) that lets humans perform crowd computing in exchange for money. If you haven’t seen this project, it’s awesome, especially if you like sheep.
In his talk today, Aaron showed two other crowd sourced projects… One was an image of a hundred dollar bill composed of 10,000 individually drawn pieces. The other, in the video above, was a rendition of Daisy Bell, the first song ever sung by a computer and made famous in 2001 (the movie, so in 1968). Aaron’s version of Daisy Bell was sung (and accompanied) by a mix of 2,088 people singing one syllable each, when they had no idea what they were contributing toward, just that they would get paid six cents. It’s pretty remarkable.
So you got one of those useless fancy digital photo frames for Christmas, but do you really want to spend your day looking at photos of your family? Of course not! Thankfully Bandai is the first company to come to that realization, and their new Digital Living Gallery line of digital photo frames reflects that. Instead of a cheesy plastic frame, the LCD is surrounded by a traditional, and tasteful, wooden frame like you’d find on a painting. And since that would probably seem out of place while the frame was cycling through photos of your trip to Carlsbad Caverns, Bandai will be pre-loading the frames with highbrow content.
At launch, the Digital Living Gallery will be available in a Pierre-Auguste Renoir or a Vincent van Gogh version that each come with 30 high-quality digital versions of classical works from each artist. And Bandai will be selling SD cards with works from other artists as well, so you can continually expand your frame’s collection. While you’re not going to fool anyone into thinking that’s a real van Gogh you’ve got propped up on your desk, something like this would go a long way to classing-up your cubicle, once you get rid of all those Halo figures.
The Digital Living Frames will be available starting January 30th for about $580 (52,290 Yen) while the SD cards will sell for about $55 (4,980 Yen) each.
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By Andrew Liszewski
