Yahoo! News - Urine may lead to collapse of major bridge in Indonesia's Sumatra.

Public works officials have found that the Ampera bridge, the landmark of Palembang city, the capital of South Sumatra province, has begun to lean on an angle and rocks slightly when traffic is heavy, the Jakarta Post said.

An official at the public works department in Palembang, Azmi Lakoni, was quoted as saying the bridge had deteriorated because people often took a leak on one of its piers, corroding the structure.

Via Die Puny Humans

ADHD - NeuroImaging Used to Understand $77B problem: Corante > Brain Waves
A new study will use imaging to study the effect of stimulants on ADD and non-ADD brains.

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, along with the universities of Munich and Oxford, has created out of genes from the bodies of spiders a form of web which is likely to be developed for commercial use.

The scientists used genes from the garden spider which contain a protein known as dragline silk. It is six times stronger than nylon and steel fibre of the same diameter.

"From a practical viewpoint, mass production of fibres whose diameter is one-thousandth of a millimetre is likely to be useful in the future for the manufacture of bulletproof vests, surgical thread, micro-conductors, optical fibres and fishing rods," said Israeli developmental biologist Uri Gat.

"Even new types of clothing may be envisioned."

Via IOL.

Accenture Technology Labs in Chicago are working on a "caring plant" equipped with microphones, voice recognition software and wireless sensors to feel the presence of a patient or an old person and detect any subtle deviation from the daily routine.

"Let's say the grandmother talks to her plant and complains about her illness or discomfort" explains Dadong Wang from Accenture "The plant will record and time-stamp every mention of this problem and communicate this occurence to the clinician."

Emotion recognition software allows the plant to attach a deeper meaning to what is said "If the grand-mother is weepy unsteady or disoriented the plant is intelligent enough to cheer her up" he adds. Alternatively the plant can contact the care provider in real-time if it detects something serious.

The plant can qlso monitor its own state, reminding its owner when to water it or give it fertilizer.

Read in Wednesday s Wall Street Journal of Europe.
Accenture PDF

Once the preserve of science fiction, biometric facial recognition has now become a reality, according to the BBC.

"Despite its association with the controversy of identity cards, it is predicted to become part of everyday life.

A few corporations are already scanning pictures of staff for access control or to tackle swipe card fraud. And six police forces have so far recognised its use in identifying CCTV pictures of suspects - one claims it to be the biggest forensic breakthrough since DNA.

As companies become more security conscious, the process of having our faces scanned is set to become more commonplace. And new technology which can produce this in a more accurate 3D form could accelerate this trend.

A firm which has developed the 3D software, Aurora, claims it is sophisticated enough to distinguish between identical twins.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on the technology behind haptics, derived from the Greek word meaning "to touch".

"A group of science museums in the US is showing off one form of the technology. The system, dubbed the Internet Arm Wrestling Challenge, uses aluminum arms and hands connected by a series of rods and gears to computer servers linked to the Internet.

Visitors looking for a test of strength sit in front of a touch-screen monitor and ask the computer to look for a potential opponent at another museum. If one is available, his or her picture appears on the screen via streaming Internet video, the two wrestlers grip the metal hands and the computer starts the contest".

Researchers at Clemson University are developing a water-repellant coating that can be used to produce clothes more resistant to dirt.

The coating - a polymer film mixed with silver nanoparticles - can be integrated into any fabric, including silk, polyester and cotton. In the long run, it can save time and money by reducing dry cleaning bills. It is also environmentally friendly.

"The coating doesn’t actually clean itself, but it does resist dirt much better than other fabric treatments," explains research team member Phil Brown. "You will still need some water to rinse away dirt and stains, but cleaning will be quicker and less frequent."

The researchers are also trying to engineer antimicrobial particles into the coating to repel strong odors such as sweat and even cigarette smoke.

Clothes made with the new coating could simply be sprayed clean or wiped with a damp cloth to remove the dirt. If desired, the fabric can still be cleaned by conventional means and put in the dry cleaner, without harming the coating.

Other possible applications include awning material for outdoor campers, fabrics for lawn furniture and convertible tops for cars. The coating could appear in consumer products within five years, the researcher estimates.

Via PhysOrg.

Chinese are working on self-cleaning garments too.

NASA engineers are developing a technology that picks up and translates throat signals into words before they're even spoken.

According to neuroengineer Chuck Jorgensen , when you're reading, sometimes you find that your tongue or your lips are moving but you're not making an audible sound. An electronic signal is being sent to produce that speech but you're intercepting it so it doesn't really say it out loud. That's subvocal speech.

Electrodes cling below Jorgensen's chin picking up electronic signals that the body sends to vocal chords. He amplifies the signals and uses neural network software to decipher word patterns.

Those sounds create waves that electrodes pick up and funnel into a neural net which recognizes the pattern and the label—or word—that Jorgensen assigns to that pattern. Over time, word repetition and processing enable the introduction of new patterns or words.

During a demo before a wide screen, Jorgensen can direct a simulated Mars rover over Martian terrain. It dips, falls, climbs over craters and turns abruptly to the left and right, all at Jorgensen's prompting, all without him uttering a sound.

Of course, conversational speech is very different from uttering a word and it's unclear how well the system would recognize subvocal speech during conversation.

Still, the expectation that subvocal speech devices might retool communication is high. Applications could include communication in covert operations with military troops, situations where you can't speak normally, underwater or in fire gear, or possibly where there's high noise or you have a respirator. One day, scientists might even develop a silent cell phone.

And, best of all, the technology could improve the life of people suffering from speech ailments.

Via ScienCentral News.
Credit photo: NASA Ames Research Center, Dominic Hart.

The 23-year-old design student turned artist makes clothing out of tripe.

Yes, the real thing - the lining of a cow's stomach.

Cathy Horyn wrote a story about Yolacan's work (pictured above and below) in last Tuesday's New York Times Fashion section.

A showing of her photographs, "Perishables," opens at the Rivington Arms gallery on New York's Lower East Side on December 10.

The Turkish-born artist, asked about why she chose to work in her strange medium, replied, "I've always been interested in the impermanence of things."

in 20 years your computer will be your body and your pets will be your network

Chimeras are allowing scientists to watch, for the first time, how nascent human cells and organs mature and interact — not in the cold isolation of laboratory dishes but inside the bodies of living creatures. Some are already revealing deep secrets of human biology and pointing the way toward new medical treatments.

But with no federal guidelines in place, an awkward question hovers above the work: How human must a chimera be before more stringent research rules should kick in? ...

"Chimeras are not as strange and alien as at first blush they seem," said Henry Greely, a law professor and ethicist at Stanford University who has reviewed proposals to create human-mouse chimeras there.

But chimerism becomes a more sensitive topic when it involves growing entire human organs inside animals. And it becomes especially sensitive when it deals in brain cells, the building blocks of the organ credited with making humans human.

In experiments like those, Greely told the academy last month, "there is a nontrivial risk of conferring some significant aspects of humanity" on the animal.

Greely and his colleagues did not conclude that such experiments should never be done. Indeed, he and many other philosophers have been wrestling with the question of why so many people believe it is wrong to breach the species barrier.

& after mice, the humanzee:

Imagine, said Robert Streiffer, a professor of philosophy and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, a human-chimpanzee chimera endowed with speech and an enhanced potential to learn — what some have called a "humanzee."

"There's a knee-jerk reaction that enhancing the moral status of an animal is bad," Streiffer said. "But if you did it, and you gave it the protections it deserves, how could the animal complain?"

Unfortunately, said Harvard political philosopher Michael J. Sandel, speaking last fall at a meeting of the President's Council on Bioethics, such protections are unlikely.

"Chances are we would make them perform menial jobs or dangerous jobs," Sandel said. "That would be an objection."

Las Vegas Mercury: Tales of Vegas Past: Going underground.

Thursday, July 24, 2003 Copyright � Las Vegas Mercury Tales of Vegas Past: Going underground

By Gregory Crosby

About 25 years ago, drivers traveling in southeast Las Vegas were confronted with the curious sight of a well-landscaped desert plot filled with large rocks and trees, surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. An electronic gate stood closed over what could only be a driveway, but a driveway to what? Had they happened by at the right moment, perhaps they would have seen an elderly couple point a hand-held remote at one of the larger boulders and gaped in amazement as the rock face slid open, revealing a corridor that ended at an elevator that soon whisk the couple 25 feet below the surface of the Las Vegas Valley to another world: a 16,000-square-foot underground house complete with its own artificial yard, painted panoramic views and enough steel sheeting to withstand an earthquake and nuclear fallout.
more....

The World Beard and Moustache Championships   permalink

The "World Beard and Moustache Championships" will be held in Berlin, on Saturday, October 1, 2005. Long way to go. But the documentary DVD "A Harmony of Curves" of the last edition is available for purchase ($19.99).

Via The Apartment.

Apparently Antonin Kaspara from Czech invented a low-cost smart shoe that warns about obsticles for blind people.

A infrared sensor detects light reflected back from potential obstacles and indicates this via a vibrating device in the sole of ...

Until recently, no attempts were made to publically discuss the role of cocktail robotics as an index for the integration of technological innovations into the human Lebensraum, or to document the increasing occurrence of radical hedonism in man-machine communication. Roboexotica is an attempt to fill this vacuum. It is the first and, inevitably, leading festival concerned with cocktail robotics world-wide. A micro mechanical change of paradigm in the age of borderless capital. Mr. Turing would without a doubt test this out.

Roboexotica will return November 19th through 27th 2004 in the monochrom area of Museumsquartier Vienna

Researchers in the Austrian city of Salzburg have dug up the bodies of relatives of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in a search for DNA samples. The scientists hope to find out if a skull currently held at Mozart's memorial foundation...

Berlin and London-based company rAndom has developed the Watch Paper , a clock printed onto ordinary paper.

Using a heat sensitive coating, the minutes and hours blur from one into the other in a very subtle way.

Using segmented LED displays and running from a tiny chip, Watch Paper can be integrated into Wallpaper of any printable size. It appears only when it is needed in order to be an un-obtrusive element of the interior.

Watch Paper is the first of a number of products the company is developing for various applications: interactive walls, display systems and customised, made-to-order installations.

Thanks Hannes!

CSIRO Textile and Fibre Technology has adapted technologies used to spin wool and other fibres to produce yarns made solely from carbon nanotubes (CNTs).

Synthetically-made CNTs have unique physical properties, like the ability to conduct electricity and heat.

Potential uses of the new material could be the creation of vests and "soft" body armour protecting from bullets and other small ballistic missiles. And as electronic sensors and actuators can be incorporated into CNT yarn, new garments could be produced to act as electrically-driven "muscles".

CNT yarns could also be used in electronic textiles and electron emitters for ultra high-intensity fluorescent lamps.

"We believe CNTs, either as pure yarns or composites, will revolutionise engineered fabrics due to their excellent strength and toughness and their high electrical and thermal conductivities," says CTFT's research team leader, Ken Atkinson.

Via PhysOrg.

The company has yet to receive any request for an artificial fin or leg for other animals but spokesman (Shinichi) Kobori said Bridgestone is open to such requests.

"We make tires; we specialize in foots of sort. If we see offers, we will consider them," he said.

A device that automatically moves electrodes through the brain to seek out the strongest signals promises to overcome loss of electrode sensitivity and help people who are paralyzed or unable to communicate.

The researchers say that within a year they expect to be able to fit a paralyzed person with an "autonomous microdrive" implant that will allow them to control a computer cursor and navigate the web.

The giant-squid beat just keeps getting weirder and weirder. According to the BBC: Police in Peru have seized about 700kg of cocaine hidden in frozen giant squid bound for Mexico and the US. The drugs - worth about $17.5m - were sealed in several layers of plastic and other wrapping material and covered in pepper to divert sniffer dogs. No comment necessary -- or, really, even possible. (Thanks to Josh, David, and Jeff for this one!)...

(Come on. How could I not use this headline?)

Human hair makes an alternative to soybeans because it contains the amino acids that give the sauce its flavor. Some say Chinese soy sauce makers who use hair as an ingredient are posing a cancer risk because of the powerful chemicals they use to extract the amino acids from human hair.

Chinese soy sauce manufacturers say they want to continue making human hair sauce because it's much cheaper than using soybeans. But outrage caused the Chinese government to ban the process, although many unscrupulous soy makers continue prowling barbershops for their economic alternative.

China is clearly treating human hair sauce as a problem...

(Fuck, I think I just died.)

(You will all bring me the human hair sauce now.)

AP - Laugh all you want, say public hygiene experts at the World Toilet Summit, but the importance of having loos you can use is no joke.

^ Allianz Arena, Munich, Germany

via KultureFlash

The U.S. Air Force has commissioned the Teleportation Physics Study of teleportation of material objects.

The study considered teleportation by psychic means, by altering the properties of the spacetime vacuum or spacetime metric, by quantum entanglement, and by transport through extra space dimensions or parallel universes.

British artist Zoe Khamsin Ken Stelarc project was inspired by a lecture about the future of children's toys. By combining a Ken doll with Stelarc's cyborg inspired 'art', I created a doll with all the attributes of a cyborg.

Thanks Chris.
Related: Barbie in a blender day and Tom's post on Stelarc.

HILARIOUS! i wonder if stelarc knows about this. perhaps i'll make sure of that. :-)

D-Tower, built in Doetinchem, The Netherlands, is a sculpture where the intensive (feelings, qualia) and the extensive (space, quantities) exchange roles, where human action, color, money, value, feelings all become networked entities.

Designed by NOX Architects, the tower is connected to a website in two different ways.

1. The website is a visualization of the responses of the 45,000 inhabitants of Doetinchem to a questionnaire which deals with emotions like Hate, Love, Happiness and Fear.

2. The four emotions are represented by four colours: Green, Red, Blue and Yellow, which are also the colors of the lamps illuminating the building. If there was a lot of happiness in the city on day 1, the tower will turn blue.

In a capsule placed underneath the Tower inhabitants of Doetinchem can also place personal messages on the emotional "Landscapes".

Sure, the tie-tying machine was cool.

But you can't eat a tie.

From down under comes this awesome creation, conceived and built by a mad Australian not named Max.

From the inventor:
________________

The attached machine throws Jaffas (small round orange sweets)

across my living room into the laps of my daughters (chosen randomly) while they watch videos.

Range 14 feet.

C.A.P. (Circular Area of Probability) about 2 feet.

Firing rate 4/hour.

Built out of recycled junk and exhibited in the "Junk Love" art show in Sydney, Australia in 2001.

Computer-controlled (visual basic and C++).

All functions have polling and feedback.
________________

I am humbled that someone so smart would take the time to give me a world exclusive on his awesome creation.

Australia (along with Iceland) rules.

Japanese Mikasa Shoji Co. has developed a bendable and foldable speaker, which is made with a piece of cloth woven with copper wire and polyester fiber and magnets. The sound is generated by vibrating the cloth.
The cloth speaker is based on technology of Protro Co., a maker of flat panel speakers. A cloth speaker in the size of 5.5cm wide x 30cm long sells for about 15,000 yen (~$141).
More details on Nikkei.Net (Subscription). The Inquirer reports that Philips Electronics already invented cloth speakers 14 years ago. p>

^ Intelligent Beermats, 1980.

The book investigates the fundamental form-generating processes in architecture, considering architecture as a form of artificial life, and proposing a genetic representation in a form of DNA-like code-script, which can then be subject to developmental and evolutionary processes in response to the user and the environment.

Electronic version of An Evolutionary Architecture [1995]

Via Computing for Emergent Architecture

Beverly Tang, one of my favorite bloggers, has just released her jewelry line... and it looks really hot. Stock up on xmas gifts before it sells out!

please forgive me for shamelessly reblogging this self-promotion. i couldn't help it. :-)

Libby Kowalski has produced the first fabric made from completely clear extruded polymer yarn. The resulting aesthetic is similar to woven drawn glass.

RoboDump 1.0 - a robot that, well, uhh, anyway check it out.

One day in 1948, the Swiss engineer George de Mestral was cleaning his dog of burrs picked up on a walk when he realized how the hooks of the burrs clung to the fur. His realization led to the invention of Velcro -- and a multimillion-dollar industry.

De Mestral wasn't the first to be inspired by natural selection's engineering solutions. Leonardo da Vinci, for example, drew from nature in his designs for flying machines and ships.

But while biomimetics, as the field is now known, has a long history, until recently Velcro has been the only major commercial success. Now, as technological capability catches up with intellectual inspiration, biomimetics is starting to fulfill its potential....

Translator II: Grower, by Chicago-based artist Sabrina Raaf, is a rover robot which navigates hugging a room's walls and responding to the carbon dioxide levels in the air by drawing varying heights of "grass" on the walls in green ink.

Grower senses the CO2 level in the air via a digital sensor. The more people in an exhibit space breathing in oxygen and exhaling CO2, the higher the grass line.

By the end of an exhibition, the bases of all the walls in the space will be covered with fine green lines which together resemble a cross-section drawing of a field of grass. This simulated grass is just like the grass found in nature: it needs CO2 to grow.

Watching the artistic output of a machine sensitive to its environment makes the people in the space more sensitive to their environment too. Besides, the piece demonstrates how much art institutions depend on visitors to make thriving spaces for new art evolve and flourish.

You can see it along with other creative machines at the Peeler Art Center , Greencastle, IN., till November 28.

Josh Rubin: Cool Hunting is right, London based designers and artists of Troika have fabulous ideas.

They have developed pieces reflecting the fact that objects around us are getting increasingly "intelligent."

The Electroprobe allows you to listen to electronic objects while they are talking and dreaming.

The piece picks up the electromagnetic radiation of objects and amplifies them into sound. The new soundscape entice the user to re-evaluate his electronic surrounding.

But the developing intelligence of objects may one day lead to darker impulse: greed, jealousy, greed and revenge could happen electronically (reminds me end of Bruce Sterling speech on "spimes").

Their TV Predator is jealous of the attention that the TV set gets, so this picture frame attacks the tv and prevent it from working properly, by changing the channels, muting the sound, or turning it on at night with full volume, changing the colours, etc.

The founders of Troika met at the Royal College of Arts in London where I bet they attended the lecture of Fiona Raby and read the fascinating book she wrote with Anthony Dunne, "Design Noir: the secret life of electronic objects."

(on Amazon.)

Flood light, by Michael Cross and Julie Mathias from Wok Media, questions a key fundamental: our fear to mix water and electricity. "It only looks dangerous," Cross points out. "Most of the things they teach you about electricity are just lies. You can either be really ignorant and get away with it, or you can get a bit more knowledge and still get away with it. It's only if you're in the middle that it doesn't work."

The duo also created the Blow fan that features an on/off switch mini-fan attached to the front of the main fan. The main fan is activated by blowing on the smaller version; to turn it off, the user does something that looks quite risky too: he sticks a finger into the blades of the mini-fan.

Via core77 < Frame.

London hopes to host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. If their bid is successful, they plan to build a new complex will be built in the Lea Valley area in the east of the city.

BBC published pictures of the project. Among them, there's a spectacular Olympic stadium featuring a roof designed to wrap itself around the stadium 'in a similar way that muscles support and represent the human body.'

BBC and Londonist.

C. Hilders and a gynecologic surgical team of the Leiden University Hospital, The Netherlands developed a new method to transplant an ovary to the upper arm in order to preserve ovarian function in a woman treated for cervical cancer.

Autotransplantation of an ovary into the arm using brachial vessels to establish blood supply resulted in a functional ovary. Blood flow to and from the ovary was adequate to maintain cyclical follicular growth as verified by ultrasound and clinical examination.

Via Eurekalert and BBC News.

At this year's Ars Electronica, I tested the amazing Messa di voce by Golan Levin , Zach Lieberman, Jaap Blonk and Joan La Barbara.

A computer equipped with a video camera tracks the position of visitors’ heads and analyzes the sounds they make. As a reaction to it, various graphic compositions are projected onto a screen. With the help of a tracking system, these visualizations can be shown in a way that makes them seem to be emanating from the mouths of the people themselves.

More recently, I heard about two other creations that allow people to play with walls:

Greg Roberts PlayMotion! combines computer vision algorithms and videogame graphics techniques to turn ordinary walls, floors, and ceilings into virtual playgrounds.

Thanks to Bill Read for the tip.

Bloomberg ICE space in Tokyo observes the visitors and continually computes its appearance in accordance with their behaviour. In stand-by mode, the icicle displays columns of numbers. Depending on the current share prices, they expand on the LED display or they shrink and disappear altogether.

But when a visitor approaches the glass wall, infrared sensors detect her/his presence and ask her/him to participate. The columns of numbers begin to flutter and fluctuate; a menu appears and offers various games - electronic volleyball, a wave generator or a digital harp, for example. The icicle can be used to play music synesthetically in that the sounds played are replicated on it in the form of brightly lit, colorful tree branches.

Via angermann2.

Riverfront Times (St. Louis alt-weekly) looks at alternate perspectives on a newly erected public sculpture.

Last month [alderman Tom] Bauer unveiled a bronze statue designed to pay homage to the borough's namesake. The sculpture, created by local artist Rudolph Torrini, features a child standing next to his devoted mutt. Innocuous enough, but when viewed in profile the dog's muzzle gives new meaning to the term "man's best friend."

It looks like the boy has a tremendous boner!" says a concerned Dogtown resident who brought the matter to Unreal's attention. According to the woman, who didn't want her name associated with the affair, children from nearby St. James the Greater parish school are taking great pleasure in alerting residents to the statue's special feature.

The article has a photo from just the right profile. (Link snagged from Obscure Store.)

Apparently, some weird laws are still in place around the world.

Two people broke a few of the sex laws to show how absurd they are.

Interactive designer Theo Humphries is working on the "under(a)wareables" project that features new kinds of chastity belts.

Some of these devices are intended to be worn by people who are aware of their function; others provide opportunity for clandestine surveillance by jealous, concerned or paranoid people.

- the where(a)ware undergarments are aware of their geographical position and they can only be safely removed in certain locations, otherwise the underwear sends a text message to alert the jaleous lover when the wearer has left it and is not where s/he's supposed to be.

Watch where(a)wear video (2 min)

- time(a)ware undergarments are aware of the amount of time that they have been pulled down or off. If this time exceeds the length of the average toilet trip, an alert is sent to the partner (video)

- snap(a)ware undergarments are reactive to light and location: they take a photo just before they are removed (video)

- the narc(a)ware ones are aware of chemical instances and levels of toxic substances in the blood, sweat and bodily fluids of their users, if these levels rise too high - ALERT! (video)

Romanian workers are donating sperm to save their factory from going bankrupt. Apparently, sperm is one of the most valuable and most requested good in the country.

The "Kampulung" factory, which manufactures 4x4s, owns creditors over $12 000 000. The sperm-bank just around the corner from the facility pays $32 per ejaculation. The workers, hearing about it, rushed to the sperm bank to donate their sperm in order to pay back the creditors. One of the union leaders said:

"Judging by our technical-economic plan, it turns out that if 1000 workers will donate their sperm regularly in the course of 2-3 months, we will be able to collect enough financial means to pay of the debt in its entirety. In the meantime, it is very rewarding to observe young workers trying to do their best to save this facility along with all the working personnel here."

Looks nearly too weird to be true.

DynaScan Japan has developed a 91 inch cylindrical LED screen that lets you see the image within from any angle. The display works with both still images and motion video, either transmitted through the Internet(s) or a DVD/video source.



Pretty cool, if you have about $930,000.



From Nikkei.Net (subscription required).

Cian Cullinan and Stefan Agamanolis, researchers at the MIT Media Lab Europe , are working on the One2One project, a technological infrastructure to create or reinforce a sense of presence and togetherness between two distant persons.



Their Floral Display is a plastic flower pot with a pink flower that blooms when Cian's girlfriend, Ciara, logs into her computer, and closes when she leaves.



The pot hides a simple radio transceiver and some motors that allow the flower to be opened and closed on command. The pot communicates wirelessly to a nearby computer that checks Ciara's login status at regular intervals.

Fuji Spinning Company's vitamin-infused shirts are made out of a fiber called V-up , which contains the equivalent vitamin content of two lemons (the recommended daily dose) and remains effective after 30 washes.



The emulsified provitamin dissolves upon contact with sebum and sweat on the skin's surface, absorbs into the skin and changes into vitamins inside the body. The company also sells a t-shirt containing vitamin E, in addition to the vitamin C, and plans to market vitamin-enhanced lace underwear.



(CNET Asia)

Merging clothing with other random things seems to be the thing in Japan right now.  Keeping the dream alive, Mikasa Shoji have created clothing that can double as a speaker. By weaving copper wire and magnets into the fabric, the inventors say they can make cloth sing. While we haven’t seen pictures, descriptions of the technology say that it wraps around the user’s face. So plug in your iPod, pump up the bass and turn yourself into a walking boombox. Because you can.

Too lazy to take your multivitamin in the morning?  No worries, just put on a V-Up shirt.  Fuji Spinning Co. have introduced wearable vitamin clothing that allow the wearer’s skin to absorb vitamins through skin over time.  The clothing lasts an estimated 30 washes, so don’t sweat your lemon citrus shirt getting too stinky on you.  Current available shirts are a Vitamin C and E model, and they plan vitamin-enriched underwear soon.  Mmmm…B12 panties.

Really brings new meaning to the term “printed circuit board” when Epson goes and creates a process by which an inkjet printer can literally spit out complicated boards. Circuit paths are drawn by conductive ink and layered between coats of insulator ink. Naturally you shouldn’t expect to be able to download and shoot out the latest nVidia or ATI board every 1.3 days they release a new one, but this could mean really, really big things for portable electronics and wearable computing since these boards are only 1mm thick at 20 layers (trust us, that’s pretty amazing).

[Via ArsTechnica]

Last week you asked us no questions and we told you no lies with the ”The Truth Detector Watch”. This week we’re kicking it Cold War style with the Nixie Wristwatch.

What it is
Nixie Tubes use glowing bottles of ionized gas to form letters and digits, and are usually found in gear from the former Soviet Union (as opposed to the drab LEDs that litter our gadgets and home electronics). Now they’ve made it onto the real estate of your wrist with a Nixie Wristwatch.

It doesn’t get more geeky than this, a watch with Krusty brand batteries?

To view the time simply press the button on the front of the watch to illuminate the Nixie Tubes. Daylight viewing is good, and nighttime viewing is “like a beacon”.

Where to get it and how much
These went for $495.00 assembled, looks like they’re currently sold out—but a new model is supposedly in development and nearing completion.

Macabre Creation by Nakajima Nobuhiro.

Hey - I don't make this stuff up, I just bring you the news the matters.

And this apparently matters, judging by the roaring success of this business.

The Flatulence Deodorizerâ„¢ - U.S. Patent No. 6,313,371 - is "guaranteed to eliminate embarrassment from odors associated with flatulence - forever - or your money back."

Says the site: "Try it, you'll like it - and so will the others around you."

Sounds good to moi.

And, it's "Doctor Recommended" - so you just know it's gotta work.

Order yours today, and "say good-bye to intestinal gas odor once and for all."

"Now is the time for groin odor control."

Truer words were never spoke.

Only $12.95 here.

If you're the upscale type, the Premium version will set you back an additional $7.

But not to worry: both styles are reusable.

Better buy your own, though; I doubt people will be willing to loan you theirs.

Ha.

This bleeding-edge company specializes in technology that uses the human ear as an OUTPUT device.

Yes, you read correctly.

Not input, but output.

Their patented InnerVoice technology is put into use via three innovative routes:

- Virtual Mouse - translates tongue movements into computer commands to perform tasks

- Think-A-Move - translates thoughts into commands to command computers and other operating systems

- InnerVoice Pro - uses the ear canal as a conduit for the human voice in discrete communication

In all three technologies, the main hardware is a non-invasive hearing-aid-type device placed in the ear.

Coming very soon - well before spinal cord anastomosis and restoration of function in paraplegics and quadriplegics - will be the liberation of the spirits currently trapped in their useless meat shells.

Last month, a calf with seven legs was born in Central Trinidad. According to the Trinidad Express, a woman who lives near the amazing creature said that its birth is divine.

"We are living in the dark age which is called (Kalyug), and during this time miracles would happen all over the world, so no one should be surprised," she said.

If you want your dog to look like this:

then you will have to buy the Humunga Tongue doggie toy.

AP - Heavy suitcases aren't the only things weighing down airplanes and requiring them to burn more fuel, pushing up the cost of flights. A new government study reveals that airlines increasingly have to worry more about the weight of their passengers.

Now that New Media is getting old, at least in 'Internet years,' its histories are starting to accumulate. A PBS series has traced the commercial development of the internet (up to the edge of the dot com bubble), and Thames & Hudson has published historicizing texts on new media and internet-based art. But, as most involved in this, hardly homogeneous, field would probably say, the documentation and theorization of new media art is anything but well defined. In recognition of the large gaps in these areas, the Banff New Media Institute is hosting Refresh!: The First International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology. Co-organized by Leonardo/ISAST, the Database for Virtual Art and UNESCO DigiArt, Refresh! aims to further the understanding of art practices that engage with science and technology, from nano- and biotech art experimentation to the problems posed by networked art to curation and preservation. The conference is scheduled to take place from September 28 through October 3, 2005 in Banff, and you have until December 1st to submit proposals for papers. - Ryan Griffis

http://www.MediaArtHistory.org/

Meenakshi Iyer, Ph.D. of the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke Brain Stimulation Unit has found that a two thousandths of an ampere applied to scalps using electrodes increases the speed of word recall.

What started like the thesis project of Dario Buzzini is being turned into a real commercial product.

The surface and patterns of what appears to be ordinary wallpaper are actually interfaces that act as switches or displays. The back of it is covered with a grid of sensors, conductive materials and resistors. The physical interaction allows you to dim lights, turn on home appliances, read email on the wall, or view pictures taken with a camphone.

Another version of the wallpaper acts as a barometer, changing colour according to the level of humidity detected in the atmosphere.

A new re-engineered version of the wallpaper --along with the revamped Fiat 500-- will be shown at the Science Festival in Genoa (Italy), till 8 November 2004. If you're around, drop me a line (reg at we-make-money-not-art dot com), I'll go to the exhibit on Sunday, and I'd be happy to meet Italian readers.

Cross-posted on textually.

Speaking about wallpapers...

Loop.ph flocked wallpaper , by Rachel Wingfield, glows as it reacts to ambient noise levels.

Land vertebrates can breathe through their noses due to the evolutionary rearrangement of fish-style nostrils

art @ IIT presents the International Rapid Prototyping Sculpture Exhibition at the Kemper Room Art Gallery, Paul V. Galvin Library, 35 West 33rd Street, Chicago, at the Illinois Institute of Technology; from Nov. 10 through Dec. 19, 2004. Reception will be held Nov. 10, 5:30 to 8:30pm. This exhibit will highlight 18 sculptors, many who are using this new technology after working many years with traditional materials. Included is the work of Kenneth Snelson, Michael Rees, and Keith Brown. An additional exhibit will showcase work by four digital artists who materialize virtual sculpture expressing the beauty of mathematically generated forms. The exhibition includes a variety of processes and material; from starch to metal. Info at: art.iit.edu or art@iit.edu or 312-567-5293.