Ratchet Up

[Random Insights]

French new media artists Marika Dermineur and Stephane Degoutin invite you to build a Googlehouse. Their work repeatedly searches Google for "X + house," producing a succession of random images that their algorithm builds into a complex spatial structure in axiomatic perspective. The first frame on reaching the site presents an overview of a recent build. Be sure to click in the window to start your own.

Here's another work that draws on random images. Luke Gattuso built an image display that pulls down fresh sets of 104 random images from the AltaVistas search engine. Although the idea is simple and direct, quite fascinated with it's cross section of cultural imagery. [Warning: every set pulls up several images from porn sites. The original site allowed you to enlarge individual images, but AltaVista recently retooled so that this is no longer possible. Still totally fascinating for anyone into visual cutlure.

[Googlehouse via Boing Boing.]

[Ratchet Up The Holidays]

[Accessability At Manchester United Soccer]

Really, who could imagine that the soccer lugs at Manchester United could be so thoughtful? MU recently re-designed their site for accessibility and came out near the top in a big competition.

If I make it to 90, I'm definitely planning to be waving a mouse in one hand and patting care-giver butt with the other. Until that magic age, of course, I'll maintain my discipline as a fully reconstructed male. But as my eyes fail and hearing falters, I'll expect the web--which in a decade has transformed itself from a curiosity to a necessity--to accommodate my needs. Accessability matters.

You might be interested to check out the Manchester United site changes too. The first time you visit, you're greeted by a screen that cookies your preferences. I set mine to show the site as it's set up for the visually impaired, but you can opt for a variety of other preferences.

The first thing you notice is that there aren't a lot of images here--a bummer, since I like to see the lads alternately bashing and hugging one another, along with the odd goodie like this. I'm not entirely certain why all images have to be eliminated, although I understand they can't be miniscule in the way art school web designers think anything tiny is cool. No doubt it has to do with how screen readers voice images as .alt text tags.

There's a top-level element for "Disabled Supporters" on the front page that has the same prominence as "Home," "Teams" and "Ticket Information," that is, it's not down on the bottom in wee type reserved for text navigation. [It may be that you can't get to this page, since you will probably not have set you cookie for disabled viewing.] Clicking "Disabled Supporters" takes you to a page that prominently acknowledges and links you to MUDSA, the Manchester United Disabled Supporters' Association, who no doubt have pushed for these changes.

Ironically, the MUDSA page has a flash animation to cheer your visit with a very user-unfriendly "Enter Website" button at the bottom. Following which more flash animation you can't jump through, so you're looped into the flash designer's ego every time you hit the back button. Their "MUDSA Merchandise" page contains several images that even the sighted will find near indecipherable: can you find the pen on this page? As George Bush might say: MUDSA had better get the log out of their own eye before they start poking at Manchester's.

Still, cheers to the boys at Manchester for having widened their fan-base to thousands of people who follow the team on their little blue screen. With their "alt .gif" tags in order, they're ready to take on AC Milan.

[DigitEyes On The Road]

Next sprig, Seattle's Motion Research will be marketing [not just demoing] SportVue, a head-mounted display built into a motorcycle or other headgear. So when you're weaving in and out of traffic on your Ducatti you won't need to look down to see how much you're over the speed limit.

"SportVue is a very lightweight helmet and visor-mounted heads-up display unit, driven by a signal generated by a compact helmet-mounted GPS transceiver. This GPS signal is received via a small antenna on the helmet...[providing] the wearer with a continually updated graphic display, within the normal field of view and focused at or near infinity. The display consists of speed, distance, location and other optional user-programmable indications - (gear position, shift indication, etc.). Racing versions will provide lap time, track position and segmented lap performance data...

The display itself...provides the user with graphical information in a way that is very quick to comprehend and requires little or no focus time, thus minimizing loss of visual data from the racetrack ahead...

The Display unit, which contains the actual viewing surface is attached to the helmet or visor using a Snell-approved break-away clip and the GPS Transceiver Unit, a small pod which mounts on the back of the user’s helmet, is bonded to the helmet The Display unit has been designed using the latest available surface mount technology and is both small and rugged. It provides both ambient backlight and its own LED backlight for bright sunlight use and sufficient shielding from engine and radio electrical interference. The optics have been specifically designed for this application and are made of scratch-resistant optical quality plastics, offering a clear and easy to interpret image. The units communicate via a custom RF link, creating a totally wireless solution and provide their own power using easy to find “AAA” batteries."

SportVue is fitting them onto bicycle helmets, too, so they must be pretty small. The best road racing helmets already cost around $180, so this is going to make it mighty expensive to stay in the pack on the weekends. And in pro cycling it could be one more step toward transferring race strategy from the individual rider to the director sportif posting orders on his visor from the car behind: "Piangere no serve a niente!"

[Via NYT; quotes from SportVue site.]

[Strap On Your Guns, Sodbusters Of The Digital Commons]

Looks like those of us who have been tending our little plots on the digital commons are going to have to start packin' pistoles. Drum beats are getting louder and louder:

John Walker: The Digital Imprimatur:

"Over the last two years I have become deeply and increasingly pessimistic about the future of liberty and freedom of speech, particularly in regard to the Internet. This is a complete reversal of the almost unbounded optimism I felt during the 1994-1999 period when public access to the Internet burgeoned and innovative new forms of communication appeared in rapid succession. In that epoch I was firmly convinced that universal access to the Internet would provide a countervailing force against the centralization and concentration in government and the mass media which act to constrain freedom of expression and unrestricted access to information. Further, the Internet, properly used, could actually roll back government and corporate encroachment on individual freedom by allowing information to flow past the barriers erected by totalitarian or authoritarian governments and around the gatekeepers of the mainstream media.

...In this document I will provide a road map of precisely how I believe that could be done, potentially setting the stage for an authoritarian political and intellectual dark age global in scope and self-perpetuating, a disempowerment of the individual which extinguishes the very innovation and diversity of thought which have brought down so many tyrannies in the past."

Stephen Levy: A Net of Control:

"Picture, if you will, an information infrastructure that encourages censorship, surveillance and suppression of the creative impulse. Where anonymity is outlawed and every penny spent is accounted for. Where the powers that be can smother subversive (or economically competitive) ideas in the cradle, and no one can publish even a laundry list without the imprimatur of Big Brother. Some prognosticators are saying that such a construct is nearly inevitable. And this infrastructure is none other than the former paradise of rebels and free-speechers: the Internet.

...Basically, it’s part of a huge effort to transform the Net from an arena where anyone can anonymously participate to a sign-in affair where tamperproof “digital certificates” identify who you are. The advantages of such a system are clear: it would eliminate identity theft and enable small, secure electronic “microtransactions,” long a dream of Internet commerce pioneers. (Another bonus: arrivederci, unwelcome spam.) A concurrent step would be the adoption of “trusted computing,” a system by which not only people but computer programs would be stamped with identifying marks. Those would link with certificates that determine whether programs are uncorrupted and cleared to run on your computer."

Stephen Baker: The Taming Of The Internet:

"The scourge of spam, which clogs the Internet with some 15 billion e-mail messages a day, is provoking powerful responses. It's pushing companies and individuals alike to install new tools and adopt norms for online behavior. These responses are turning cyberspace into a place with tougher rules, thicker walls, and new laws. On Nov. 25, Congress leaped into action as the Senate passed sweeping anti-spam legislation that awaits President George W. Bush's signature. While many predict that the law will leave most spammers unscathed, it marks a large and ambitious step to regulate the Internet and e-commerce.

These new laws and barricades are shaping a new stage in the short history of the Net. While in its infancy, the Internet was marked by its soaring potential, this new era is defined by limits and defenses. The last year alone has provided a sobering wake-up call. Not only has spam quadrupled but the spammers' technology and methods also have been adopted by virus writers, grifters, and thieves. Now they can deliver their poison to hundreds of millions of inboxes. Brightmail, a leading spam-blocking company, estimates that fully 13% of the spams circulating are not just advertisements, but scams. Web giants from Amazon.com to eBay Inc. are seeing spammers swipe their identities, sowing distrust among shoppers in the $3.9 trillion global e-commerce market. The result, says Aviel Rubin, director of Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University: "We're going to change the way we use the Internet."

Say good-bye to the unruly Internet of old. It's heading straight to obedience school, safety classes -- you name it. This is the taming of the Net. Where traditional Internet communications are unfettered, open, and chaotic, look for the next generation to be far more regulated, orderly, and closed."

Lawrence Lessig: The Future of Ideas:

"In The Future of Ideas, Lawrence Lessig explains how the Internet revolution has produced a counterrevolution of devastating power and effect. The explosion of innovation we have seen in the environment of the Internet was not conjured from some new, previously unimagined technological magic; instead, it came from an ideal as old as the nation. Creativity flourished there because the Internet protected an innovation commons. The Internet’s very design built a neutral platform upon which the widest range of creators could experiment. The legal architecture surrounding it protected this free space so that culture and information–the ideas of our era–could flow freely and inspire an unprecedented breadth of expression. But this structural design is changing–both legally and technically.

This shift will destroy the opportunities for creativity and innovation that the Internet originally engendered. The cultural dinosaurs of our recent past are moving to quickly remake cyberspace so that they can better protect their interests against the future. Powerful conglomerates are swiftly using both law and technology to "tame" the Internet, transforming it from an open forum for ideas into nothing more than cable television on speed. Innovation, once again, will be directed from the top down, increasingly controlled by owners of the networks, holders of the largest patent portfolios, and, most invidiously, hoarders of copyrights."

[Curley Braces in America]

Real early in the morning, just out of bed; all jangled up I guess from "Angels in American" on HBO }{ saw it way back on Broadway and was riled up for days then too }{ it casts big shadows on the walls that mingle with some from my own family }{ right now I'm so in love with Meryl Streep' acting I just want to hold her face in my hands }{ my own dear Elizabeth had big moaning dreams last night, struggling with her angels or demons who knows what but at least something big }{ she startled me from my own dream which usually I can never remember even though I lay half awake memorizing only to have it dissolve away the instant my foot touches floor }{ but spinning the milk frother in my hands just now brought it back }{ a whole dream at a computer interface, yes just looking at a screen, trying to get curley braces right in CSS }{ Elizabeth's dream shot with sinew reds and bile greens and mine just an off-gray, two-dimensional stupid death-struggle with curley braces that back to back are a diminished, tiny, nothing parody of angel wings }{ why couldn't this thin, pale dream, and it was a long one, and fevered in its own way, have stayed sealed in the night like they all do? why show itself on a night when big dreams were called for? }{ this summer my canoe never came down from the ceiling of the garage }{ hand-built by the best canoe maker in the Upper Midwest with two little deck plates of some South American hardwood that he made a big effort to get because we had some good talks in his garage shop }{ but no this summer I was sucked into the interface trying to give it some dimensionality, clicking on radio buttons to get a little emboss effect here or some shadow effect there, anything to put it into better relief }{ one or two more humiliating, inconsequential interface dreams and I'm going to paddle around the world twice until I bump into Costa Rica where I'll tack down in the rain forest some angels worth fighting and learn all their names in Latin }{ if you stumble on this little box in the future and find an animated .gif of a canoe bobbing in silence, know that I've paddled off and that I'm OK.

[Digital Epistolatory Novels...And A Modest Proposal]

Intimacies is an example of e-literature that engages the cultural space of email, realtime communication, reader-centric construction--and even promotion. I say promotion because you'll find it at Greatamericannovel.com replete with its own Flash splash-screen. Like most things eager to celebrate their techno-novelty, it even has a self-annoynted acronym. "Intimacies" is a DEN, a digital epistolary novel.

Naturally it comes with a FAQ, from which:

"What is a DEN?
It's a novel you read on your PC. The "book" is actually a series of windows simulating emails, web pages, and Instant Messages (IMs). You click through the story just as you would read emails from friends.

Is it real email?
Though the novel looks like real email and web pages, they are actually simulations which are totally self-contained on your computer.

Can I read it at work?
It's great with us, if it's great with your boss! You won't actually be in cyberspace; it just looks that way! Wink, wink! Nobody can trace your reading tracks!"

I particularly like that last one. It reminds me of the old days when "Mad Magazine" used to publish guides on how to wrap their rag in a copy of "National Geographic" so you could read it at middle school. Which I did, and found thrilling.

As for the form factor, you read "Intimacies" in what looks to be an email browser window.

"Two young professionals meet through a mis-sent e-mail. They become attracted in cyber-space and tentatively agree to a real meeting. A brutal assault follows. The obvious suspect is the e-mail partner, but one person is unconvinced. A series of surprises and revelations follows -- all delivered in digital form, all entirely possible, and all representing ways we now learn of events in our world where virtual reality constantly fights its counterpart."

If you've followed hypertext fiction over the years, a DEN won't seem terribly novel. [How could it be a novel, when it's a DEN?] But viral marketing may be helping it catch an audience different from the one that years ago pretty much turned its back on the clunky mechanics of Storyspace and the like.

That and their willingness to put some high-heels and a dame's face on their pixel cover, which has always been a winner.

Here's an immodest proposal for their next bold pomo literary move. How about an adaptation of A Diary of Love, "the tell-all confession of a young girl who grew up with the devil in her flesh! As intimate as the Kinsey Report." Naturally you'd do the diary as a blog. And you know there's a huge audience for anything--and I mean anything--blog.

[Quotes from their site.]

[Old Media, Circa May, 2003 / New Media, Circa December, 2003]

   

I'm putting a twist on some of the "old media/new media" picture justapositions I've posted in recent weeks. Media theorists like to say that interpretation is historically situated. That is, the same message can have different meanings at various points in history. What's the difference between these two pictures?

[Hint]

[Photo: Peter Thompson for NYT]

[Music Circle]

I hope you're in the mood to try out a music app today. Experiment a bit, then come back for a little background.

No doubt you've seen other Java-script music apps on the web. In my experience, they're mostly of the "DJ wannabe" variety, but typically fun to play. Daisyphone is of particular interest because: 1) it's collaborative, 2) you can jam over the phone, 3) it has an elegant graphic form, and 4) I mostly like anything that loops.

"Daisyphone is a novel group music improvisation tool which supports remote collaborations. Its novel features include:

- Support for localisation within the artefact during collaboration
- Mutual awareness of actions
- Shared and consistent representation
- Continuous and persistent annotation
- Novel representation of music

Daisyphone uses a circular representation of notes (symbols) in a loop. As the rotating ‘arm’ passes over a symbol it is played, different kinds of symbols indicate different instruments, the intensity of colour indicates volume, distance from centre indicates pitch, and colour indicates who contributed it.

Users can modify their own notes and those contributed by others by clicking on the appropriate symbols. Clicking on an already filled symbol removes that note. Annotation is continuous whenever the mouse button is held down. The cross hair of blobs in the centre of the circle allows users to select which note style and volume they will use." [From their site.]

If you're interested, they have a very short .pdf with more information about web-based collaborative music programs, like WebDrum and Laurence Bricker/Popular Front's Sound Lounge.

The developers of Daisyphone are part of the Interaction, Media and Communication Group at the University of London, where there are some other interesting goodies to discover.

[3D Desktop Demo From Sun]

There is a lot of work around 3D these days...many new directions beyond the VR imaginings of he early '90's.

Here's an interesting demo from Sun of a 3D desktop interface. The audience whoops and hollers when presenter Jonathan Schwartz flips a web page around to make a note on the back. Say what?

Link for the elect with broadband.
Link for those raking lawns to save money for broadband.

[Click the Realplayer icon on your desktop.]