links for 2009-07-18

Inter­est­ing and beau­ti­ful visu­al­iza­tion of Lon­don noise lev­el data. I am par­tic­u­lar­ly intrigued by the braille like version.

PIPS:lab have a new show that fea­tures a thing called the Radar­funk. Here’s a nice clip of a small per­for­mance that demoes what it can do.

A crazy mock­u­men­tary by Matt Cot­tam on com­pu­ta­tion­al wood. It’s an effec­tive for­mat to use for com­mu­ni­cat­ing such far-future design.

“The Play­Pump sys­tems are inno­v­a­tive, sus­tain­able, patent­ed water pumps pow­ered by chil­dren at play. Installed near schools, the Play­Pump sys­tem dou­bles as a water pump and a mer­ry-go-round for chil­dren.” I am not sure wether this is awe­some, or very very wrong. It makes me think of Luis von Ahn’s games that dou­ble as human com­pu­ta­tion har­vesters (such as the ESP Game).

Read­ing this, par­tic­u­lar­ly the bit about the zil­lion deriv­a­tive apps on sale, makes me won­der wether the App Store might be head­ed towards a Atari 2600 style demise.

An inter­est­ing invi­ta­tion-only sum­mit on phys­i­cal com­put­ing hap­pen­ing in Lon­don right now. Will be keep­ing an eye on what comes out of this.