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All posts for the year 2008

Sosolimited: ReConstitution 2008

Posted by _tango! on September 27, 2008
Posted in: design. Leave a Comment


ReConstitution 2008 – Live Presidential Debates Remix by Sosolimited from Sosolimited on Vimeo.

ReConstitution 2004 – Sosolimited from Sosolimited on Vimeo.

“ReConstitution is a live audiovisual remix of the 2008 Presidential debates. There will be three performances in three cities, each coinciding with a live broadcast of the debates.

We’ve designed software that allows us to sample and analyze the video, audio, and closed captioned text of the television broadcast. Through a series of visual and sonic transformations we reconstitute the material, revealing linguistic patterns, exposing content and structures, and fundamentally altering the way in which you watch the debates.”

I attended this event in 2005 and it was awesome! The extra information revealed visually based on spoken and visual content from each candidate was incredible. Data mining in it’s simplest form in a very cool way, especially the barrel of words! Watch the 2 videos above (1 summary of what they are doing this year, and the lower video giving you a peek into the 2004 remix) for an understanding of this event, attend if you can for the next rounds in NYC and DC then check out the rest of sosolimited’s projects on their website!.

Freeline Skate

Posted by _tango! on September 22, 2008
Posted in: design, entertainment, experience, inspiration, style, tech, thoughts, wacky. 2 comments


A few months back I drove by a parking lot and saw 2 dudes skating around spinning around like mad men. The weird part was, I couldn’t see their skateboards. I thought weird and straightened my head avoiding the traffic I almost ran into.

I’ve finally realized what these bizarre inventions are. Their called Freeline Skates seemingly like mini skateboards for each foot, somewhat resembling sideway rollerblade besides the fact it’s not strapped to your foot. This is some pretty crazy weird stuff. That’s all I can say, but it seems to be making a blaze across the world! Check out the video above or their website for more info.

Freeline Skates

Thomas Kalak: Thailand – Same same, but different!

Posted by _tango! on September 21, 2008
Posted in: art, design, entertainment, experience, fun, ideas, information, inspiration, materials, style, tech, thoughts. Leave a Comment


Photographer Thomas Kalak sent me his new book “Thailand – Same same, but different!” containing a colorful variety of street improvisations containing creations in leveling objects in challenging environments, sourcing water in unique ways, making broken products useful, converting objects into other uses, and a variety of other everyday needs. The photos are simple, mind-provoking, and very humorous once you realize the entire story. You’ll look at an image, wonder what they were solving, realize the initial problem, then understand how they solved it. Each image is a puzzling fun story in itself.

We live in a culture where resources are abundant, but at times we also find ourselves sourcing our needs around what we already have. The art in improvising is one of the most elemental needs in creativity just as “perspective” is to creation. Just because something is made to do “this” does not mean it cant’ do “that”. Thomas has created a wonderful simple book giving us a lens in seeing such beautiful samples in Thailand!

A little bird tells me this is selling out fast! Get your orders at RupaPublishing.com or direct here!

A few pictures from the book after the jump provided by Thomas!
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I’m a PC

Posted by _tango! on September 19, 2008
Posted in: brand, design, entertainment, experience, me, tech. 9 comments


Apple’s viral “I’m a Mac” ads tainted images of PC users over the years and Microsoft just launched a reply with their “I’m a PC” ads (not the semi failed Seinfeld ones, though buzzy) which surprisingly are pretty good. It’s not bashing Apple at all, and not saying I’m better than you or anything else. It just says hey, look at who uses a PC. No mud slinging, no joking, just purity which I frankly really like over their past “Perfect Family Lifestyle” ads that none of us connected with. “I wear glasses, I wear jeans, I have a beard, I’m a human”. There are quite a few celeb spots in the ads and there is a definite tone about the shear number of users out there vs “other” computers. Transparency in brands, relationship to customers, ability to connect, truth, being nice…. yes… all good things.

Anyhow, I’m not here to say who is better, but it’s great to see this reply from MS. I don’t say this often, but bravo Microsoft! I’m liking you a bit more…. and yes, “I’m a PC”.

Awesome job Crispin, Porter + Bogusky!(the rockin ad firm)

via gizmodo

EveryMomentNow.com

Posted by _tango! on September 18, 2008
Posted in: art, design, information, tech. Leave a Comment


EveryMomentNow.com has a pretty cool interactive visualization by designer Craig Mod depicting the amount of news published about both presidential parties Obama vs McCain. The obvious shift in news occurs in early September during McCains wild announcement for Palin. Will be a good visualization to watch out for in the weeks to come, though it sometimes acts up being viewed in firefox.

Test Your Color IQ

Posted by _tango! on September 14, 2008
Posted in: experience, fun, me. 26 comments


I learned long ago in a science museum that women can see more colors than men naturally, and some women can see more colors than anyone else . Anyhow, I stumbled into this “Test your color IQ” test by Xrite and think I did pretty good considering I did it in 5 minutes using an lcd laptop screen from 2002. Give it a go and let me know your score. I got 32 messing up in the middle cool colors a bit.(lower is better)

Eeepy Bird Guys: Post-it Notes

Posted by _tango! on September 14, 2008
Posted in: art, brand, entertainment, fun, inspiration, materials, thoughts. 1 comment


EepyBird’s Sticky Note experiment from Eepybird on Vimeo.

The Eepy Bird Guys, infamous for their Diet Coke Mentos fountain experiment(post), hinted during the Art Center conference their next experiment with Post-it notes here (above)!

This video reminds me in the shift in marketing. The Coke+Mentos video was made for fun and gave Coke and Mentos tons of great PR (even though I still dig the old fresh-maker commercials), and the post-it note was most likely a paid experiment. You no longer need to explain what a product does, you just need to make people curious and aware of that “something”. Anyhow, this can be a long discussed topic, so I wont dive into it, but I guess it’s just a note on how companies are pushing for the success in viral videos for their brands and products.

eepy website

2008 Paralympics

Posted by _tango! on September 13, 2008
Posted in: entertainment, ideas, information, inspiration, tech. 2 comments

A few weeks have passed since all eyes gazed into the late night 2008 Beijing Olympic broadcasts, but many of us aren’t aware of the wonderful events happening now in Beijing during the 2008 Paralympics. I cant seem to find anything on TV but you’ll be able to watch online at UniversalSports.com or ParalympicSport.tv. (opening Ceremony here)

After seeing photos from Boston.com I’m going to tune into the Paralympics with even more anticipation with events I’ve never seen. Events where blind people run, run with partners attached by arm, play soccer blinded, where game rules change, where a disability creates an amazement of ability, fencers do battle in wheelchairs, volleyball is done on the ground, where advanced prosthetic legs launch runners beyond belief, swimmers power themselves forward with just their arms, and several other amazing accomplishments.

Give a look at the incredible pictures after the jump carefully then imagine being able to do what they are doing. I’ve tried walking more than 20 feet with my eyes closed and running is just beyond my imagination. These athletes rock!

For the creative side, this reminds me in a project given during RISD ID: Design a cell phone for Edward Scissor hands. The point is to imagine, create, and enable a product, function, or even experience when an ability we might all be accustomed to is not possible. The solution solves the problem and at times surpasses the original. So I guess a thought for design is to always consider the non obvious when approaching a project to innovate. When designing a phone, you might wonder how to input by sight, smell, sound, your face, feet, etc. This might sound odd, but I can guarantee this is how some of the most innovative ideas surface!

36 images after the jump mirrored from boston.com
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Swype

Posted by _tango! on September 13, 2008
Posted in: experience, information, tech. 4 comments

T9(predictive text) inventor Cliff Kushler revolutionized the mobile industry with his auto-word-complete T9 system and just announced Swype which basically takes the same idea as T9 but uses all the letters your fingers crosses over to auto complete text in a touchscreen! (uhmm, iphone)

According to their website this is the next fastest input method after a full size keyboard. The video makes this technology seem ingenious but you never know until you give it a try . “Give us a interactive flash page we can give it a go with, dammit!!” Okie, yes, it’s new and ya’ll are shopping for vendors, so I’ll have to wait bit to give it a go…maybe CES, or early product launches. I want I want!

via newluanches

Swype website