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Sony patent for any object as vidgame controller

Sony has filed a patent for a system that allows any object, from a coffee mugs to a book, to be mapped and used as a controller in a video game. Rob has more over at Boing Boing Gadgets. "Sony files patent on any-object motion control"...

John Keel (RIP)

Legendary Fortean author John Keel has died. A personal influence on my own interest in anomalies and fringe theories, Keel is best known for his 1976 book The Mothman Prophecies, an investigation into strange phenomena that reportedly occurred around Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in 1966-1967. Of course, that book was made into a Hollywood film in 2002. However, The Mothman Prophecies just scratched the surface of Keel's experiences in the realm of high weirdness. Keel's friend and fellow Fortean author Loren Coleman has written an obituary over at Cryptomundo. "John A. Keel has died"...

Artwork and book about clouds

Martin John Callanan, artist-in-residence at University College London's Environment Institute, used satellite data to create a small terrestrial globe depicting cloud coverage from a single second in time. He first showed the work, titled A Planetary Order, last week at an event also celebrating the publication of Extraordinary Clouds, a new book by the UCL Environment Institute's writer-in-residence, Richard Hamblyn. The cloud-themed projects are profiled in a short video from the university. "UCL writer and artist-in-residence look to the skies" Previously:Weird ice balls in London? - Boing Boing Clouds that look like UFOs - Boing Boing Are these awesome clouds a result of the shuttle launch? - UPDATED ... Night-shining clouds - Boing Boing Boing Boing: Tropospheric clouds that are half-rainbow Boing Boing: Crazy "lenticular mammatus" clouds over Joplin, MO Weird clouds in Hastings, Nebraska, 2004 - Boing Boing...>
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Throbbing Gristle's Gristleizer stompbox

Recently, Smashing Guitar issued a limited commercial version of The Gristleizer, the custom audio effects unit that Throbbing Gristle used in the late 1970s to create uneasy listening music and define the industrial music genre. TG co-founder Chris Carter had made the first unit based on a design printed in Practical Electronics magazine. Now, Smashing Guitar has built a run of thirty Gristleizers in a stompbox form-factor. From the product description: The pedal version, housed in a high-quality, heavy-duty Hammond 1590DD box, retains all the functionality of the tabletop design with the added convenience of footswitch operation. In essense, The Gristleizer is a synth module that works with any audio signal. The audio path is modulated by an LFO using four selectable waveforms (upslope, downslope, triangle, & square), functioning in one of two paths: VCA (voltage controlled amplifier) or VCF (voltage controlled filter). Ranging from light and sweet tremolo to extreme, raunchy ring mod, The Gristleizer is a 100% analog, hand-assembled unit built to last. Gristelizer Stompbox Previously: Throbbing Gristle's Gristleizer audio effects unit - Boing BoingBoing Boing Video: The Throbbing Gristle Interview Throbbing Gristle and Derek Jarman - Boing Boing Throbbing Gristle: What A Day. (Boing Boing Video shoot notes ......>
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Multitouch surface made from commodity PC components

I just caught a demo of the Tactable multitouch surface, which grew out of an MIT Media Lab project. It's an impressive product, a mid-sized table with a sharp projector set underneath the glass. It uses an array of moderate-resolution optical sensors to tell where it's being touched, and the sensors have variable focus, so they can sense 3D gestures over the surface as well as contact with the surface itself. The projector's good and bright, and the picture looked good in a well-lit room (albeit a darker corner of same). And being optical, the sensors can also recognize objects laid on the surface, reading bar-codes, text, shapes, etc. It opens up a myriad of possibilities for game design, some kinds of creative workflow (sound and video editing) and other situations where novel UIs are apt to unveil new possibilities. One thing I really liked about it all is that it's just a PC running a bunch of commodity hardware -- a projector, some sensors -- with cool software on the back-end. This is invention-by-recombination at its finest, and it means that the price and performance of the surfaces are tied to the broader markets for optical sensors, PCs and projectors, which points to a rosy future. The company's business model is building and selling the things, simple enough, so they don't make any pretense about top-s33kr1t stuff within. Tactable Previously:DIY multi-touch interface - Boing Boing iPhone + multitouch + goatse = arrghhhhhh - Boing Boing...