Architectradure

iWood laptop

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 09:31:06 PST

Giving a whole new meaning to screen time! Perfect for all the toddlers I can think of around... via ReCraft

Quick... while autumn is still here!

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 09:09:59 PST

Leaf animals made with glycerin and love..
.

The next step after Clocky, Catapy!

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:39:14 PST

Go Catapy, go!

Catapy from Yuichiro Katsumoto on Vimeo.

At UIST this Monday: Scopemate, a robotic microscope!

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 03:29:37 PDT

I am at UIST this Monday to present one of my project along with my mentor Paul Dietz since I joined Microsoft Applied Sciences Group. It is a very quick but efficient solution for the ones who like to solder small components!

Summary
Scopemate is a robotic microscope that tracks the user for inspection microscopy. In this video, we propose a new interaction mechanism for inspection microscopy. The novel input device combines an optically augmented web-cam with a head tracker. A head tracker controls the inspection angle of a webcam fitted with ap-propriate microscope optics. This allows an operator the full use of their hands while intuitively looking at the work area from different perspectives. This work was done by researchers Cati Boulanger and Paul Dietz in the Applied Sciences Group at Microsoft and will be presented at UIST 2011 this Monday as both a demo and a poster!

Video

The evolution of the architectural medium in engaging digital 3D

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:33:06 PDT

A pretty neat thesis from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, Greg Tran explains that the traditional mode of material production moves forward, but three new forms of design emerge. Digital 3d immersion is the first and is most similar to virtual reality (but has little to nothing to do with architecture.) It is a simulated environment which is entirely digital and relies on material/site specificity as little as possible. Digital 3d renovation is where existing facilities are retrofit with site specific D3d software and environment recognition, but the final condition is Digital 3d architecture. This bridges the design gap between the digital and the material.

The purpose of his thesis is not to design an architecture that works perfectly within this new medium, but rather to highlight the medium itself, research potentials, create kernel ideas and discover the implications that this type of reality would hold.

Video

More versions:

Final segment here (2.5 minutes) Mediating Mediums - The Digital 3d (Part 3)
Short version here (5.5 minutes) Mediating Mediums - The Digital 3d (Short Version)
Long version here (19minute version) - Mediating Mediums: The Digital 3d

The Printing Dress: You are what you tweet!

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 07:48:44 PDT

Asta Roseway and Sheridan Martin Small , researchers at Microsoft, designed the printing dress!

You are probably familiar with the old saying, “You are what you eat” but how about, “You are what you tweet?” What if this concept were incorporated into garments of the future? Would you censor yourself, knowing you would reveal your statements to the world around you? The “Printing Dress” is an artistic piece that explores the notion of wearable text and its potential impact on the future of fashion, as well as our social identity. Built almost entirely of paper, the dress enables the wearer to enter “thoughts” on to its fabric and wear them as public art. By selecting materials and technologies that draw on the past, present, and future of communication media, we encourage viewers to reflect on the path that has brought us to ubiquitous digital communication and to contemplate its forward evolution.

Draw your music!

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Tue, 10 May 2011 15:26:41 PDT

Designed by Jay Silver and Mitchel Resnick Drawdio lets you draw musical instruments on normal paper with any pencil (cheap circuit thumb-tacked on) and then play them with your finger. The Drawdio circuit-craft lets you MacGuyver your everyday objects into musical instruments: paintbrushes, macaroni, trees, grandpa, even the kitchen sink...

Video

The next step after Rock Band... a real electric guitar!

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Mon, 09 May 2011 11:52:01 PDT

Guitar Games - Revolutionizing How We Learn to Play Guitar

Aurelius Prochazka created a series of projects to help novice musicians to play the guitar. The brilliant idea here is that the more you train your ear to recognize what you hear, the more you will enjoy playing music. Because you'll understand what you're playing!

His most recent work, Guitar Games, allows you to plug in your standard 1/4" plug electric guitar, a Rock Band 3 guitar, or a MIDI guitar and play on your Mac, iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. Playing the guitar on small devices might not be the way to go, not to worry! If you own Rock Band, you owe it to yourself to take your guitar gaming to the next level and transfer all the experience you've amassed playing Rock Band into learning to play a real guitar!

Guitar Games teaches you how to play songs and how to hear better. Beyond that, it also helps you develop your own personal guitar playing style.

Video

You can try it out during Live Product Demo at Maker Faire on the San Mateo Fairgrounds May 21-22. If you're already a backer by then, come claim your free Guitar Games guitar pick!

Human interface loading...

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Sun, 08 May 2011 21:30:03 PDT

Our inspiration, always.

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 22:37:58 PDT

Max Mathews, the father of computer music.

Pulp-Based Computing: Building Computers Out of Paper

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 07:26:08 PDT

Marelo Coelho, Lyndl Hall and Joanna Berzowska have developed a series of techniques for building sensors, actuators and circuit boards that behave, look, and feel like paper.

By embedding electro-active inks, conductive threads and smart materials directly into paper during the papermaking process, they have created seamless composites that are capable of supporting new and unexpected application domains in ubiquitous and pervasive computing at affordable costs.

Pulp-Based Computing: A Framework for Building Computers Out of Paper from Marcelo Coelho on Vimeo.

A nice 4$ (or less) touchpad!

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 19:15:02 PDT

Matthew Blackshaw created a nice 4$ (or less) touchpad with a copper-based matrix!

Video

Gestural manipulation of an actuated surface

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 19:09:46 PDT

Relief, created by Daniel Leithinger, Adam Kumpf and Hiroshi Ishii is an actuated tabletop display which is able to render and animate three-dimensional shapes with a malleable surface. A direct extension of this work, Recompose created by Matthew Blackshaw, Anthony DeVincenzi, Dávid Lakatos, Daniel Leithinger and Hiroshi Ishii, is the gesture control of such actuated surface.

By collectively utilizing the body as a tool for direct manipulation alongside gestural input for functional manipulation, we show how a user is afforded unprecedented control over an actuated surface. We describe a number of interaction techniques exploring the shared space of direct and gestural input, demonstrating how their combined use can greatly enhance creation and manipulation beyond unaided human capability.

Video

DIY combining random displays into a single, large virtual display.

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:42:14 PDT

The Junkyard Jumbotron lets you take a bunch of random displays and instantly stitch them together into a large, virtual display, simply by taking a photograph of them. It works with laptops, smartphones, tablets --- anything that runs a web browser. It also highlights a new way of connecting a large number of heterogenous devices to each other in the field, on an ad-hoc basis.

The Junkyard Jumbotron is designed by Rick Borovoy, Ph.D. and Brian Knep at MIT's Center for Future Civic Media.

Video

Get the code to install it on your displays, here.

CATRA: Cataract Maps with Snap-on Eyepiece for Mobile Phones

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 19:12:15 PDT

Can we create a device that makes people aware of their early cataract condition? Using a light-field display, the researchers' method projects time-dependent patterns onto the fovea. Interactive software measures the visibility and point spread function across subapertures of the crystallin lens. By repeating this procedure for several light-paths, the cataracts size, position, density, and scattering profile are estimated.

Created by the MIT Media Lab, Camera Culture's research group with Vitor Pamplona, Erick Passos, Jan Zizka, Manuel M. Oliveira, Everett Lawson, Esteban Clua and Ramesh Raskar, CATRA utilizes a forward scattering technique, which allows the user to respond to what they visually experience.

Their device scans the lens section by section. The user sees their projected patterns and presses a few buttons to map the light attenuation in each section of the eye. This information is collected by the device creating an attenuation map of the entire lens. This allows individuals to monitor the progression of the severity of the cataract.

The maps capture a full point spread function of the lens, allowing the researchers to simulate the visual perception of a cataract affected subject over time. Early cataract onset is difficult to diagnose. This device aims at measuring cataracts, which is highly portable and collects quantifiable data to help tackle a global health problem making it ideal for the developing world.
Video

BodyNotes: a mobile tool to enhance the interaction between patients and healthcare practitioners.

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 19:02:39 PDT

BodyNotes was created by the MIT Media Lab. It contributes to a series of projects that enhance the interaction between patients and healthcare practitioners. BodyNotes is a mobile tool that combines anatomical landmarks to physical objects as a mean for a patient to discuss body pain with her doctor.

Video

The video introduces Anna, an amputee who uses BodyNotes to track the pain and comfort she feels throughout the day when wearing her prosthetic limb. Anna can view visualizations and summaries of her reported pain by location, intensity, time, duration and activity.

This data is also accessible to Anna’s prosthetist. BodyNotes also allows remote, real-time collaboration.

During their session, Anna uses a photo to indicate the exact points where she feels pain. Since this screen is simultaneously seen by the prosthetist, and the interaction is synchronized, he can show what modifications Anna could do on her own.

BodyNotes enables advanced logging and telemedicine functionality on mainstream mobile phones. It has the potential to improve health care and communication, allowing patients and doctors to better spend their time by reducing the need for office visits.

Stevie B Microsoft Research demo!

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 11:42:57 PST

A bit of insight on what the research group I have recently joined at Microsoft, the Applied Sciences Group, is devoted to. Amazing display technologies coupled to novel interaction paradigms. Enjoy!

The secrets of a pop-up book!

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 22:14:16 PST

My current favorite pop up book for the iPad, the Three Little Pigs and the Secrets of a Pop-Up Book. Almost as interactive as a real pop up book! Thank you Sumit!

Of course, my favorite tech-pop up book for the iPad comes from les éditions volumiques!

You can find it -> here

Solar Music

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:25:14 PST

Sculpture at Maudslay, Newburyport, MA September 2010 by Kevin Belli.

Sun Boxes by Craig Colorusso are an environment to enter and exit at will. It's comprised of twenty speakers operating independently, each powered by the sun via solar panels. There is a different loop set to play a guitar note in each box continuously. These guitar notes collectively make a Bb chord. Because the loops are different in length, once the piece begins they continually overlap and the piece slowly evolves over time.

Here is a video, Sun Boxes at the 12th annual Sculpture at Maudslay. Filmed by Kevin Belli on September 18, 2010.

Nokia C7 as remote control for BMW car

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 09:55:56 PST

Now we are talking!

Microsoft for the win!

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 23:11:12 PST

Today was my first day at Microsoft. I am officially a researcher in the Applied Sciences Group!

The coolest research group in industry: "The interdisciplinary group focuses on the synergy between optics, electronics and software to create novel human computer interfaces. The ASG mainly supports projects for next generation computing and interface hardware for Mobile, Xbox, and Microsoft Surface. It also works closely with Microsoft Research."

I had visited Microsoft Research back in February, met fantastic researchers including Paul Dietz (the man behind DiamondTouch, the multi-user touch screen table) and Steven Bathiche (the man behind Mothmobile, a hybrid robot that uses an insect as its control system via a neural electrical interface).

I fell in love with their work, their vibe, their philosophy. I am so fortunate to join this team, and will be updating with cool techy projects very soon!

Reclaim Vacant Lot with What City’s Got

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 22:36:03 PST

Photo by Recetas Urbanas.

A proposal made to the city of Seville for legislation to assist in the temporary transformation of public and private solares – vacant lots walled off for security – into public spaces for at least six months. Wall rubble is incorporated into the design, and elements of car and pedestrian barriers are used to construct benches, see-saws, swings, and bike racks with readily available plastic materials like concrete. Instruction sheets were produced to allow residents to construct their own furniture.
The project is designed to minimize material movement, cost, and other barriers to change.
Santiago Cirugeda is an architect based in Seville who has proposed semi-legal strategies for housing and urban renovation under the name Recetas Urbanas, or “urban prescriptions,” since 1996. He inhabits gaps between laws, exploiting overlap and oversight to practice autonomous architecture.

More info

New year 2011 resolution…

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 14:39:14 PST

New year 2011 resolution: watch TRON, again and again!

I've watched TRON: Legacy at an IMAX, and this is the best movie I have seen in years. The French duo Daft Punk made a soundtrack so perfect that it makes you cry as you watch light, motions, decors, crazy ideas combine with the nostalgia of the old computer dream.

Back in time...

... And now ... the new trailer. Well I don't think the new trailer is any good. And also it is a spoiler. So just go see the movie, in a IMAX preferably.

And go see it again and again in 2011!

Happy new year!

Let’s get Soft Wear for the Holidays!

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 12:02:03 PST

PC nostalgia anyone?!

Microsoft "SoftWear" has created a new line of closing all soft and cozy. A perfect gift for the holidays! Or you can download the .pdf of your best logos/artwork and DIY!

220 petites Pixel-tiles

noreply@blogger.com (cati) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 08:40:41 PDT

It's really nice to see friends and co-workers from the MIT Media Lab making their ways to the contemporary art scene. Zigelbaum and Coelho keeps winning awards! After celebrating their Design Miami/Basel Designers of the Future award, they are now exhibiting in New York, you can see their work at the Johnson Trading Gallery.

They will show their computational light installation which steals the pixel from the screen and re-introduces it to the physical world. An ambitious, pulsating LED installation completes itself only when touched by the visitor, each movement modifying and transforming the work itself.

The gun-testing vault at Riflemaker will house 220 luminescent pixel-tiles. Visitors to the gallery will be able to change the colours of the tiles, create a rhythmic pulse and re-arrange the overall form of the square, magnetic blocks.

Zigelbaum & Coelho is a design studio founded by Jamie Zigelbaum and Marcelo Coelho. Their work utilises physical, computational, and cultural materials in the service of creating new, but fundamentally human, experiences.