I’m so pleased to announce that version 2 of PicoCool has launched!  I originally started PicoCool in September 2007 as a side blog where I could indulge in my passion for finding unique, and often obscure bytes of content from social networks and peer media. After doing that for a little over a year, I really wanted to open the site up to the community.

Rather than being a blog where I post my finds, PicoCool is now a global community dedicated to uncovering “the cool.” As a member, you can contribute your own discoveries within art, architecture, design, culture, environment and science, technology, fashion, travel, and lifestyles. You can also vote on items, “friend” other members, and post comments.

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While PicoCool is invite-only, you can join us by simply requesting an invite.

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http://feeds2.feedburner.com/picocool/recent/

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http://feeds2.feedburner.com/picocoolblog

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Please contact me if you have any questions, comments, ideas or opportunities. I’d love to hear from you.

This is just the beginning of a whole new PicoCool. Stay tuned for updates!

EYE vs. EYE

EYE vs. EYE Is an intense color-matching duel that pits you against an opponent in a race of color accuracy.  Challenge all comers and build your reputation for chromatic perfection.

HOW TO PLAY:
2-players face off on opposite sides of the play field.  A random color, the Target, is presented momentarily.  Each player uses red/green/blue sliders to try and reproduce the Target color as closely as possible in a limited amount of time.  Each player’s color is compared to the Target and a percentage of accuracy is scored.  The higher score wins.  A series of games determine the highest average color accuracy.  An infinite number of games can be played in a single contest.

FEATURES:
2-player simultaneous contest mode
Solo practice mode
Play with your own soundtrack

VIDEO DEMO:

Download EYE vs. EYE at the iTunes store for $.99.

KERN

KERN is a minimalist typography experience challenging you to precisely place a missing letter into a falling word while avoiding any unnecessary ligatures!  Practice and prove your typographical acumen with a score that gives new meaning to point-size!

HOW TO PLAY:
A random type-centric word with a missing letter appears at a variable point size.  As the leading begins to shrink, you navigate the missing letter to the proper space and release it’s handle to lock it in place.  The placement accuracy is measured and your score is calculated based on the size of the type, the leading height, and the perfection of placement--all measured in points.  If you miss by too much and form an unnecessary ligature, one of your five ligature tokens will be lost.  Lose all five ligatures and your game is finished.  How many points will you Kern?

VIDEO DEMO:

Download KERN at the iTunes store for $.99.

French street artist ZEVS puts his signature drip on Google at gzzglz.

If you’re a designer, you’ve probably used WhatTheFont, the service that can identify a font from a photo, web graphic or scanned image. Now you can get those same features on your iPhone just by taking a photo with the WhatTheFont for iPhone app.  You’ll need to have internet access on your phone so the service can perform the font analysis.

If you’re an iPod Touch user, you can still benefit from the app since it can identify fonts in images saved from Safari, screenshots or anything you have in your photo library. You can download WhatTheFont for free in the iTunes store.

Pattie Maes of the lab’s Fluid Interfaces group said the research is aimed at creating a new digital “sixth sense” for humans.

In the tactile world, we use our five senses to take in information about our environment and respond to it, Maes explained. But a lot of the information that helps us understand and respond to the world doesn’t come from these senses. Instead, it comes from computers and the internet. Maes’ goal is to harness computers to feed us information in an organic fashion, like our existing senses.

The prototype was built from an ordinary webcam and a battery-powered 3M projector, with an attached mirror—all connected to an internet-enabled mobile phone. The setup, which costs less than $350, allows the user to project information from the phone onto any surface—walls, the body of another person or even your hand.

Maes showed a video of her student Pranav Mistry who she describes as the brains behind the project. Mistry wore the device on a lanyard around his neck, and colored Magic Marker caps on four fingers (red, blue, green and yellow) helped the camera distinguish the four fingers and recognize his hand gestures with software that Mistry created.

The gestures can be as simple as using his fingers and thumbs to create a picture frame that tells the camera to snap a photo, which is saved to his mobile phone. When he gets back to an office, he projects the images onto a wall and begins to size them.

Here’s the video of Pranav Mistry using the system.

[Via Wired Epicenter]

On February 12, 2009, more than 175 cities around the world will be hosting Twestivals to bring together Twitter communities to raise money and awareness for charity: water, “a non profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations by funding sustainable clean water solutions in areas of greatest need.”

The Twestival is organized 100% by volunteers in cities around the world and 100% of the money raised from these events will go directly to support charity: water projects.

Right now 1.1 billion people on the planet don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water. That’s one in six of us.

Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease, and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war.

Many communities in developing nations often have a plentiful supply of clean drinking water just below the ground, but no way to get to it.

This is where charity: water and their partner organizations come in. Drilling a well can cost from $4,000 - $12,000 USD and many living on less than $1 a day cannot afford one in their community, even if the money is combined.

By rallying together globally, under short timescales, for a single aim on the same day, the Twestival hopes to bring awareness to this global crisis.

There are lots of ways to get involved.

• Attend the event in your own city or town. If there isn’t one happening, plan a local get together Twestival with your friends!
• Upload or buy music at Twestival.fm
• Take part in the t-shirt design competition
• Donate to charity: water.

History of the Twestival:

In September 2008, a group of Twitterers based in London UK decided to organise an event where the local Twitter community could socialize offline; meet the faces behind the avatars, enjoy some entertainment, have a few drinks and tie this in with a food drive and fundraising effort for a local homeless charity.

The bulk of the event was organized in under two weeks, via Twitter and utilized the talents and financial support of the local Twittersphere to make this happen.

Around the world similar stories started appearing of local Twitter communities coming together and taking action for a great cause. Twestival was born out of the idea that if cities were able to collaborate on an international scale, but working from a local level, it could have a spectacular impact.

Tweet. Meet. Give!  Personally, I’m hoping this is the start to more Twestivals to raise money for a variety of causes.

I’ll be at the Twestival in San Francisco.  NOTE: the venue has changed to Paradise Lounge 1501 Folsom Street, San Francisco.  Hope to see you there!

Main Twestival site:
http://twestival.com/

UPDATE: They’ll be broadcasting video and aggregating photos and such from around the world on Feb 12 at this site.

I woke up at 8 a.m. PST to the sound of crickets (my iPhone alarm) and tapped on the Ustream iPhone app (iTunes link), which had just become available in the iTunes store the day before. Seconds later, while still in bed, I was seeing live AP and CNN video of the inauguration events on my iPhone. That’s a first.

When I got to my desk, I opened up some tabs in Firefox and launched Twitter to see what my friends were saying. I also opened Twitter search and Tweetdeck with the terms “inaug09” and “inauguration” specified to see public opinions. For video, I went to Current.tv‘s stream and the CNN video player, which included a Facebook panel integrated into the right side of the page. Right away, I was seeing commentary from my Facebook friends, automatically refreshed. This was particular intriguing since I have friends in Facebook that span from high school to college to grad school, NY to SF, to eHub and Ideacodes contacts and tech clients. It was fascinating to see such a wide array of opinions and conversations around this one event from people I knew in such diverse contexts.

Screenshot of the CNN page with Facebook panel:

Photo of my iPhone with Ustream and my monitor:

YouTube video of President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address:

A few minutes after President Obama’s speech ended, I searched to find the text transcript. I ran the text through Wordle and create these two tag clouds, which I posted to Flickr and twittered about. 

Tag cloud of President Obama’s speech:

On Flickr, the tag cloud screenshot generated more than 5,000 views, lots of favorites and comments within a couple of hours. I also added my shot to the Flickr Inaguration09 group.

Edubya, one of my friends on Twitter and Flickr, suggested that I “zazzle up that tag cloud.” Sure enough, later that night, I made a little Zazzle store with some merchandise designed with the tag cloud of Obama’s speech. I tweeted again and within minutes, Edubya bought 4 mugs :)

Tag cloud merchandise:
http://zazzle.com/emilychang

You can also see a great comparison at the NY Times of tag clouds from every U.S. Presidential Inauguration speech from 1789 until present.

Turns out my tweet became the second most retweeted during the hour of the inauguration. Very cool!  Unsurprisingly, I learned that from @retweetradar who sent me a tweet letting me know. 

Screenshot of retweetradar page:

Certainly, we’ve witnessed the explosion of citizen and social media in the last few years, and it’s only apt that Obama’s inauguration proved an appropriate time to converge and celebrate it.  To me, Obama is the first President in my lifetime to promote and discuss this need for interaction, conversation and participation.  Now let’s get to work again, using our tools and technologies to solve real-world problems.

Sreenshot of the new Whitehouse.gov:

To close, here’s the first blog post on The White House Blog:

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 at 12:01 pm

Change has come to WhiteHouse.gov

Welcome to the new WhiteHouse.gov. I’m Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House and one of the people who will be contributing to the blog.

A short time ago, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States and his new administration officially came to life. One of the first changes is the White House’s new website, which will serve as a place for the President and his administration to connect with the rest of the nation and the world.

Millions of Americans have powered President Obama’s journey to the White House, many taking advantage of the internet to play a role in shaping our country’s future. WhiteHouse.gov is just the beginning of the new administration’s efforts to expand and deepen this online engagement.

Just like your new government, WhiteHouse.gov and the rest of the Administration’s online programs will put citizens first. Our initial new media efforts will center around three priorities:

Communication—Americans are eager for information about the state of the economy, national security and a host of other issues. This site will feature timely and in-depth content meant to keep everyone up-to-date and educated. Check out the briefing room, keep tabs on the blog (RSS feed) and take a moment to sign up for e-mail updates from the President and his administration so you can be sure to know about major announcements and decisions.

Transparency—President Obama has committed to making his administration the most open and transparent in history, and WhiteHouse.gov will play a major role in delivering on that promise. The President’s executive orders and proclamations will be published for everyone to review, and that’s just the beginning of our efforts to provide a window for all Americans into the business of the government. You can also learn about some of the senior leadership in the new administration and about the President’s policy priorities.

Participation—President Obama started his career as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, where he saw firsthand what people can do when they come together for a common cause. Citizen participation will be a priority for the Administration, and the internet will play an important role in that. One significant addition to WhiteHouse.gov reflects a campaign promise from the President: we will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it.

We’d also like to hear from you—what sort of things would you find valuable from WhiteHouse.gov? If you have an idea, use this form to let us know. Like the transition website and the campaign’s before that, this online community will continue to be a work in progress as we develop new features and content for you. So thanks in advance for your patience and for your feedback.

Later today, we’ll put up the video and the full text of President Obama’s Inaugural Address. There will also be slideshows of the Inaugural events, the Obamas’ move into the White House, and President Obama’s first days in office.

Me in 8 autoshots

The app is available for $1.99 in the iTunes app store.

See below for a demo from their site:

As I’ve mentioned before, I love taking photos with my iPhone, partly because of the low-res 2 megapixel quality, and mostly because it offers a different type of photograph.  Every device has its own quality and exploring these has always been one of my hobbies, from Lomo cameras, to Polaroids (miss them) to my old Nintendo Game Boy camera and sticker printer.  With the iPhone, the ability to add features and effects with apps makes it all the more enjoyable.

His first experiment took place in Japan’s Shibuya train crossing last month in which he converted one square meter of the ground into an electricity generator.  Each time a person walks over the area, electricity is generated. Over 20 days, with 900,000 people passing through Shibuya each day, he was able to generate enough energy to power 1,422 televisions for one hour. 

Hayamizu thinks that similar systems could be installed on a wide range of scales, from small systems embedded on mobile phones, to huge systems installed on highways that would harness the electricity generated by the movement of cars and big trucks.

A quick Google search on this topic brought up some other related projects. A post at Inhabitat from June 2008 describes a proposal by David Webb to do something similar on the stairs of the Spinnaker Tower viewing platform in Portsmouth, UK.

Image of Spinnaker Tower

His hope is to install miniature “heel-strike” generators underneath the stairs that would capture the power generated by a person as they walk down the tower. His ultimate goal is to install them in every rail station, shopping center and even in your shoes!

According to Webb, if these generators were to be installed at the Victoria Underground Station in central London, the power generated by the 34,000 people moving around would be able to power approximately 6,500 lightbulbs. The technology also has application beyond the small steps. Plans are afoot to look into installing these devices in the tower itself, to harness energy from the swaying movement of the building!

An article at Physics World from September 2005 describes how “scientists in the US have invented a back-pack that converts the up and down motion of walking into electricity. The device can generate 7.4 watts and could be used by field scientists, aid workers and soldiers to power mobile phones, GPS instruments and other devices without having to carry heavy replacement batteries.”

Image of Lawrence Rome’s “Suspended-load” backpack

Another natural fit for this technology would be to have your shoes generate energy as you walk (at least enough to power your own devices - mobile phone, camera, etc).  As early as 2000, John Sarich developed a prototype that did just that. At the time the idea had “interest from the military, from the medical community, and from retailers...” but he still needed financing. 

More recently in October 2008, Telecoms giant NTT announced it was developing shoes that generate electricity as you walk.

Image of prototype

The shoes have a small generator attached to water-filled soles. Each step puts pressure on the soles, causing the water to spin a small turbine and generate power, NTT said.

The futuristic shoes currently generate 1.2 watts of electricity, “a level sufficient to run an iPod mobile music player forever, as long as the wearer keeps walking,” said spokesman Hideomi Tenma.

“The company is trying to improve the power-generating capacity to 3 watts, which is the amount of electricity to power a mobile phone,” he said.

“The shoes do not have a power-storage function, but you would be able to charge a mobile phone automatically or talk on it forever as long as you connect the phone to your shoes and just keep walking.”

NTT hopes to put the generator into actual products as early as 2010.

I’ll be first in line to get those shoes when they hit the market.  My hope is that these technologies will continue to be developed and adopted, but with more urgency and support, on both a personal/consumer level and a global urban scale. In the era of sustainable energy, harnessing electricity through piezoelectricity and kinetics seems to be one viable way to design a more energy-efficient and sustainable future.

Incidentally, I recommend browsing the OurWorld 2.0 website for more issues, news and ideas about climate, oil and food in our collective future.

[Credit: Thanks to KyNam Doan for the initial tip on Hayamizu’s project at Shibuya.]

From The Rise of the Machines By Erico Guizzo

There are now 1 million industrial robots toiling around the world, and Japan is where they’re the thickest on the ground. It has 295 of these electromechanical marvels for every 10 000 manufacturing workers - a robot density almost 10 times the world average and nearly twice that of Singapore (169), South Korea (164), and Germany (163). 

Although the top three countries are in Asia, Europe gets the regional title as the epicenter of global automation; it has a robot density of 50, compared to 31 in the Americas and 27 in the Asia/Pacific region.

IEEE Spectrum computed the robot density for 67 nations in all, using data from the International Federation of Robotics and the International Labour Organization [see http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/dec08/robodata (to come) for the complete list].

By 2011, the world’s industrial robot population is expected to rise to 1.2 million. Which countries these new robots will call home--and how the machine-to-human balance will change - remains to be seen.

[via tokyomango]