The “belinographe” (a.k.a. belino) is the ancestor of the fax machine. Designed by french inventor Edouard Belin in 1907-1912. It used to allow the transfer of pictures: a telephoto transmitter. According to adventures in cybersound:

His invention involved placing an image on a cylinder and scanning it with a powerful light beam that had a photoelectric cell which could convert light, or the absence of light, into transmittable electrical impulses. The Belinograph process used the basic principle upon which all subsequent facsimile transmission machines would be based.

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Netto is a curious laptop carrier by german designer Tonia Welter:

The standard plastic bag in a new sense: on journeys and trips, inventive laptop owners wrap their best piece just into a plastic bag or nap film to create a kind of trash-look as an effective protection against thieves.

NETTO picks up this “art of improvisation” and transforms it into a product.

How it works: The double-walled bag has a valve, which makes it inflatable. The black inside of the bag works as camouflage for every black laptop. As the inner bag is shorter than the outer, the laptop is surrounded by an air bag from all sides including the bottom.

Among the curious trend on the web lately, I am quite fascinated by YTMND:

YTMND, an acronym for “You’re The Man Now, Dog!”, is a website community that centers on the creation of YTMNDs, which are pages featuring a juxtaposition of a single image, optionally animated and/or tiled, along with large zooming text and a looping sound file. Most of these images are created or edited by users. Most YTMNDs are meant to expose or reflect the more inane facets of pop culture. Wikipedia definition)

Why do I blog this? I am always intrigued by some of the web trend regarding weird content reshaped by users. What is very powerful here is the level of private joke/common references those folks have.

My favorite is this one and of course the mac gyver one.

I think I saw this project on Regine’s blog: Experiments in Galvanism: Frog with Implanted Webserver by Garnet Hertz:

Experiments in Galvanism is the culmination of studio and gallery experiments in which a miniature computer is implanted into the dead body of a frog specimen. Akin to Damien Hirst’s bodies in formaldehyde, the frog is suspended in clear liquid contained in a glass cube, with a blue ethernet cable leading into its splayed abdomen. The computer stores a website that enables users to trigger physical movement in the corpse: the resulting movement can be seen in gallery, and through a live streaming webcamera. Risa Horowitz (2003)

Why do I blog this? an intriguing biotech concept connected to the the origins of electricity, which is here transcripted in the world of internet connectivity? Does a dead frog can be used as proxy to reach BoingBoing from countries that do not allow their citizens to access it?

Sherpa Design (a mechanical engineering services company specializing in design and product development, through 3D printing) and RFTrax have worked out this odd concept:

Project/Experience: RFID security system for shipping containers enclosure design and development

Working closely with the client’s RFID and IR Supply Chain security technology group Sherpa Design has developed a number of enclosure and bracket assemblies that can be adapted to a variety of different applications. The housings can mount to the inside of most shipping containers used throughout the world as well as crates, mail bins, and other types of containers. These RFID Tags had to be environmentally rugged for the extreme conditions they experience during international transit.

Drawing on our experience with plastics, security systems, and sheet metal we delivered functioning prototypes for the client to be first to market with this new RFID technology. From conceptual models and prototypes (plaster and FDM), to detailed mechanical design, mold construction, and assembled working units for field trials, we helped them get there.

Sherpa Design continues to provide complete molded part and bracket assemblies and assist with their ongoing design and development programs.

I actually don’t get the whole meaning of this… almost an instantiation of a spime?
This company do 3D modeling/prototyping but I don’t really get what they designed here with RFID tags, might be a tracking system for containers but is the RFID included in the object?

A curious patent: FLEXIBLE AIRFOIL RING FOR SAFETY FLYING CDS AND DVDS

An annular protective ring attachment designed to grip the outer peripheral edge of all compact discs (CDs) and digital video discs (DVDs) which, when used in combination with said CD or DVD, creates an airfoil. The airfoil ring consists of an inner periphery, which is molded to form a top lip (3) and bottom lip (4), and between these lips, a gripping mouth (6), which securely holds the CD or DVD (7, 76) inside the aperture of the airfoil ring. The body of the airfoil ring is curved in such a way as to create an airfoil adequate to enable the airfoil ring with inserted CD or DVD to be safely tossed into the air and to exhibit controllability in flight

Via geisha asobi, this weird toy: Big Bad Booming Bugs:

Collect some insects and place them inside the unique sound chamber. A powerful 3X magnifier enlarges your performers so you can see every detail. Put on the headphones and listen as a microphone under the special sound stage picks up and amplifies every move and noise your bug makes!

Includes a handy capture-and-carry bug scooper.

17.99$, what a creepy thing.

I am always stunned by pet technology (that’s why I like petistic), there are really incredible innovation in this field. Look at this Pet Master Electronic Pet Guide:

Find out exactly what you need to know about your cat or dog, instantly—with the push of a button! Get emergency information—even on the road! Find the likely causes and treatments for common symptoms. Even get training, nutrition and exercise tips! Product Hightlights: • Includes a built-in shopping list for pet care! • Frames a photo of your pet on the back! • On the road? Find a pet-friendly motel fast! • After hours emergency? Get the location and phone number of pet clinics close to you, wherever you are in the U.S.! • In fact, get practically all the information you’ll ever need about your best friend with Excalibur’s Pet Master! • A donation is made to animal charities with the sale of each Pet Master!

Why do I blog this? even though pet tech is somehow cliché there are sometimes interesting innovative practices, which are not so far from what we with human-beings. And besides, locative/spatial issues related to pets or humans are tightly related too.

When knitting freaks meet topology mathematicians, the outcome is knitting one-sided surfaces or mathematical knitting pages.

Mathematical Knitting seems to be a very lively domain, judging from the variety of examples and methods

My favorites are certainly those: first is a klein bottle hat and second is projective plane hat:

(Via social fiction)

When San Francisco is interested in turning dog poo into power, some other folks have designed a robot that does not require batteries or electricity to power itself but instead, it generates energy by catching and eating houseflies.

Dr Chris Melhuish and his Bristol-based team hope the robot, called EcoBot II, will one day be sent into zones too dangerous for humans, potentially proving invaluable in military, security and industrial areas. (…) The EcoBot II powers itself in much the same way as animals feed themselves to get their energy, he said. At this stage, EcoBot II is a “proof-of-concept” robot and travels only at roughly 10 centimeters per hour. (…) The EcoBot II uses human sewage as bait to catch the insects. It then digests the flies, before their exoskeletons are turned into electricity, which enables the robot to function.

(Image taken from der spiegel)

Few years ago, it was just a project, and now it works…

This afternoon I ran across stories about railway velocipedes and I think it made my day. For instance, this one is amazing at Catskillarchive.com.

The railway velocipede shown in the accompanying illustration is an adaptation of the design of the safety bicycle to track service, the machine having a, flanged tire on the front wheel and a blind tire on the rear wheel, and being held upright by a brace carrying a small guide wheel, with flanged tire running on the opposite rail. (…) The space occupied, when thus folded, is only 6 ft. x 1 ft. 6 ins., a little more than that required for a road bicycle.

Why do I blog this? first because it’s definitely a nice objects and second because I am impressed by the concept of using infrastructures for other purposes (close to Situationists’ concept of détournement), it’s very like the skateboarding idea in which you use urban topographies to - mmmh - surf through the city.

This inflatable structure enables lightweight transportable buildings, which is somehow intriguing:

Inflatable structures (aka airbeams) have developed rapidly in recent times, finding application in a variety of new engineering projects ranging from military tents in Iraq and Afghanistan to antennas in outer space. (…) By changing design parameters, the airbeam shape can be modified for different products. The team guided and matured two weaving and braiding capabilities into a reliable technology with unlimited potential, according to Leighton, and in the process created an economical manufacturing base.

And it seems to be quite robust as attested by this.

Why do I blog this? hum I am just impressed by inflatable structures…

This is an intriguing project carried out by Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr in Collaboration with Guy Ben-Ary. It’s an artistic research and development project into the use of tissue technologies as a medium for artistic expression.

In the last five years, we have grown tissue sculptures, “semi-living” objects, by culturing cells on artificial scaffolds in bioreactors. Ultimately, the goal of this work is to culture and sustain, for long periods, tissue constructs of varying geometrical complexity and size, and by that creating a new artistic palette.

The acquisition of living cells and tissues for artistic purposes has created concerns and has focussed attention on the ethical and social implications of creating “semi-living” objects. Thus our goal is to create a contestable vision of futuristic objects that are partly artificially constructed and partly grown/born. These semi-living objects consist of both synthetic materials and living biological matter from complex organisms. These entities (sculptures) blur the boundaries between what is born/manufactured, animate/inanimate and further challenge our perceptions and our relations toward our bodies and constructed environment.

In this project we have used pig’s bone marrow stem cells and three dimensional bio-absorbable polymer scaffolds in order to grow three sets of wings.

More information about it on the website of the Pig Wing Project:

The Pig Wings installation presents the first ever wing shaped objects grown using living pig tissue, alongside the environment in which such endeavour can take place. We will attempt to present living tissue engineered pig wings that will be animated using living muscles. This absurd work presents some serious ethical questions regarding a near future where semi-living objects (objects which are partly alive and partly constructed) exists and animal organs will be transplanted into humans. What kind of relationships we will form with such objects? How are we going to treat animals with human DNA? How will we treat humans with animal parts? What will happen when these technologies will be used for purposes other then strictly saving life?

Why do I blog this? still a sunday afternoon browse, I was also wondering about tissues as a new interface (input/output) for certain technologies.

(Update: Thanks cb for telling me that this is really an april joke)

Via, this 2005 april joke news (though I did not manage to find any other references about it). As the blog mentions:

Researchers from Belgium have been able to extract voices and sounds from a pottery that is 6,500 year old. The person making the pottery at the time was using something very sensible to vibrations which recorded the sound vibrations on the pottery. This amazing video is in French so I hope you will not mind. However at the end of the video there is a recording shown and you can hear somebody laughing from 6,500 years ago.

The group of is led by belgian researcher Philippe Delaite. Check the video on youtube (in french though).

BUT, after a quick scan in some scientific articles, it seems that other persons are working on that issue: Bart Lynch for instance:

In architecture, natural harmonies occur in Renaissance structures. Harmonic relations of form and space were often based on the golden section and the ratios therein. These same ratios occur in the growth patterns of flowers, fish and other components of nature. I am currently concerned with understanding why these ratios occur and why they are pleasing to us.

I have been translating sounds into three-dimensional pottery using several computer programs in order to see if pleasing sounds make pleasing pottery and vice versa. Using the sound program Sound Edit Pro, I can get a visual representation of a sound that is time dependent. That visual is saved as a picture and imported to the program Swivel 3D where the sound form can be lathed to resemble pottery and used as a template to create actual ceramic works. Using these programs, I have also been animating the figures so that the pottery forms on the computer screen dialogue with the sounds that created them. I see these processes as data-gathering exercises that help me to understand the nature of the harmonic relations so that I will be able to use them more effectively in the future.

Why do I blog this? … curious sunday browsing found… but it’s unfortunately not a real thing a good fake project for regine’s collection!

This drawing is somehow recurrent in Geneva (among lots of others, like this one which found also in Lyon and Barcelona), located in various places; even on a door left on a tree in the city.

Just felt it was inspired by the sayajin armor from dbz.