On The Ground Looking Up

The MarionetteBot Is Here

Whether you like it or not, the MarionetteBot is here. 

A store window, some mannequines, a kinect and some creative programing make this a fun execution. Seen on CGM, this Japanese execution claims to have people lining up to play with it, yet the video shows very little of the actual mannequins in action making me a bit suspicious about how well this worked, but I am sure we will be seeing this tactic come up again.

Creative Code x DJs x Gawker Media #Laterpost

A bit of a #laterpost of some tech we created while producing Gawker Media's HUSH Silent Disco event.  With a lot of DJ experiences these days there are elaborate visual shows that accompany the music. Since we did not have time to work with the DJs prior (DJ Kalkutta, Dapwell from Das Racist and Chris Keating from Yeasayer), we created a suite of creative visuals with all of the movement within them generated by the frequencies of the music itself that the DJs were playing. We then integrated social scraping with a simple iPad moderation tool and ended up with a dynamic and generative visual dispay that was as unique as the silent event itself. 

Generative Audio Visualizer With Social Integration For Gawker Media from SuperTouch Group on Vimeo.

The Silent Disco visual experience was coded in Cinder. 

The V-Motion Project Makes Me Want To Get Back Into DJing

Certainly one of the best uses of Kinect and Music control out there, this project literally blows my mind, both from the experience and the design perspective. I hope we all take this to heart when we think of what extroardinary experiential technology executions could be.

The V Motion Project from Assembly on Vimeo.

Guinness Beer Goes QR Sneaky?

This is a clever idea for Guinness Beer. Print a pattern on your pint glasses. That pattern when filled with liquid gets revealed. Yet only the contrast between the pattern and the dark liquid of a Guinnes (or any stout I imagine) allows the pattern to be used as a functionaly QR code.

When I load the QR it directs me to LivePint.com, which has no site and is parked at GoDaddy, which makes me think this was Spec, Pitch or Student work, which while still a cool idea, it would seem Guinness themselves did not execute the idea as originally indicated. Any one care to clarify?

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The Virtual Wall of Eyes

I happened across a little Firefox extension recently called Collusion, it shows who is tracking you as you surf the web all in an interactive node map. We all know that people cookie us and then track our wherabouts for advertising/behavioral data but I was really suprised to see so much activity is generated in 24 hours.

Here is the snapshot of all of the locations tracking me in one 24 hour period (keeping in mind that this only represents my work laptop, it does not include home and iPhone). I don't know about you, but I find this pretty scary. I know there is a lot of benign cookieing going on, but still, this is a lot of information being recorded.

Every node represents a different company tracking my behavior in a single 24 hour period. Online time during this period, 10.5 hours.

If you want to see your own map, get Collusion for Firefox here.

Samsung Going Small With Projection Mapping

I am a little tired of large scale projection mapping. I think it still works really well for live events and music, but as stand-alone experiences, it feels kind of done. On the other hand, I am really interested in small scale mapping and it's uses in retail, tradeshow and nightlife.

Here is a pretty lovel example on something I have wanted to try for awhile, mapping onto a human form. Well done Samsung.

 

NatGeo Goes Augmented Reality In Hungary

 

A little goodness from National Geographic in Hungary utilizing some Augmented Reality tricks to bring a mall to life.

Mercedes' Invisible Car

Got the heads up from Anson Burtch on this recent execution from Mercedes. Install one side of a car with monitors, the other side has a camera on it. Real life camo. We literally have been pitching this idea for years and I am really happy to see that someone also had the idea and brought it to life.

Pretty cool effect, military take note!

Look Up In The Sky...It's A Bird...It's A Plane...It's Guerrilla Marketing!

Anson Burtch gave us the tip on this one. For the upcoming superhero movie Chronicle, which features some flying characters, Thinkmodo created flying devices in the shape of human forms and flew them in some public parks around New York City. The visual comes off pretty well if you ask me and nice use of technology and experience. I think it may have been more appropriate to do it at Sundance or SXSW to get crowds involved instead of relatively empty parks (it is not just about the viral video folks) but still, it worked well on camera. 

How could this be utilized to get crowds interested and as the article points out, how easy will it be for the audience to make the connection?

Also via Techcrunch

Romeo & Juliet - The Graffiti Social Media Version

Not sure who the creator of this street art gem is but originally shot by Irit.