Sometimes you get treated to that rarest of strange beasts: a conference talk that makes you want to rouse yourself from slack-jawed amazement to stand on your chair and clap and holler. What Blaise Aguera y Arcas presented at this year’s TED conference is trippy— not just for what it is, but also for what it suggests may be crouching, hidden-tiger-like, right around the corner. Click on the photo to watch the man in action.
On my second day living in Rangoon, Burma (renamed Yangon, Myanmar, by the ruling junta), I visited the blockaded American Embassy. After my passport was passed from person to person to person, I got in.
It was August 2003. Burma had been ruled by an oppressive, military dictatorship for more than 40 years.
I was 22, fresh out of college, and had come to work at the Myanmar Times and Business Review. Before my trip to Burma, foreign correspondents and Asia experts warned me about the situation there: don’t talk about the political crisis and don’t trust anyone, they said.
It’s not what you say but how you say it. Never be too visibly moved, committed or enraged about politics. Take it calmly and sitting down, no matter how enraging things may be. Isn;’t that the lesson sent by the University of Florida last week?
“Don’t tase me, bro†sounds like something that you would hear at a frat initiation. They were part of the desperate plea spoken by student Andrew Meyer as university campus police dragged him out of a John Kerry forum.
The whole thing of course was captured on video from several angles and quickly made the rounds on YouTube and the nightly news. Anyone can see that Meyer is a little overheated, a might zealous at the mic. His tone is abrasive, questions unrelenting and temper rising. But he did his research— his questions about how disenfranchised voters and the 2004 election are well substantiated. (Kerry concedes to have read at least one book on the matter.)
The point? Meyer had something to say and he wanted to be heard. When asked to hurry up and ask his question already instead of making a ruckus, he smartly snaps back, “[Kerry’s] been talking for two hours, I think I’ll have two minutes.â€
The conversation between politicians and youth is often a one-way street— them telling us what they think we want and how they are going to “make it happenâ€â€” talking back shouldn’t be a taseable offense.
Read the campus newspaper’s account of the events here.
On September 14, the Los Angeles Convention Center hosted the annual WIRED Magazine NextFest. From the NextFest website:
WIRED’s vision of a new World’s Fair, WIRED NextFest is a four-day festival of innovative products and technologies that are transforming our world. This year’s NextFest in Los Angeles features more than 160 interactive exhibits from leading scientists and researchers around the world. Experience the future of communication, design, entertainment, exploration, health, play, robots, transportation, security, and green living.
While that sounds like a slightly overblown, self-aggrandizing hype-blurb, it really does live up to the billing in many ways.
When I told most of my friends that I was going for a sneak peek the night before the event was open to the public, most of them assumed that it would be all iPods and HDTV’s (a common misconception about WIRED magazine as well).
Make no mistake, this is no E3. There is a definite social conscience to all of the exhibits at NextFest, and it is welcome departure from the rampant consumerism typically on display at its hokier, techno-geek companions. Most of the exhibitors here at least believe they are working on something meaningful for society— whether or not that is actually the case is up for debate, but the sentiment is refreshing nonetheless.
The “new World’s Fair” claim conjures up images of the last-century’s massive London, Paris, Chicago, New York World’s Fairs that attracted millions of visitors. Use of the term today evokes the grandiose cultural themes that characterized those events (e.g. the Transportation Zone, the Communications and Business Systems Zone, the Food Zone, the Government Zone).
In 1939, not satisfied to replicate the purely industrial overtones of earlier fairs, the New York World Fair organizers wanted to give people a more complete glimpse of what was down the line by adding social context.
Although the advent of TV and the internet preclude a physical gathering of that magnitude from ever happening again, WIRED attempted to capture the essence by emulating the structure. Visitors got a glimpse of the futures of communication, design, entertainment, exploration, health, play, robotics, transportation, security, and green living.
Interactivity was a main component, highlighting the way technology and society are now interwoven and almost interchangeable as concepts.
Below are some photos, broken down into a few of the above categories, taken while I was meandering through the convention floor.
Above is the E-TAF automatic door. Comprised of parallel horizontal strips with infrared sensors at the tips which slide open automatically to accommodate the shape of the person entering, the minimalist approach saves energy, and airtight strips keep out dust and bugs.
The Morpho Towers consist of two metal spirals lounging on a plate resting in magnetic liquid saturated with iron particles. Crank up your stereo and the “ferrofluid” will creep up the towers, forming a viscous, organic sculpture that grooves to the tunes and forms a variety of shapes. Sounds crazy… easily one of the coolest displays there. Check out this YouTube video to see it in action.
CuteCircuit Interactive Fashion— here you have a bluetooth powered shirt that transmits embraces. Put it on, give yourself a squeeze, and its textile-based sensors send pressure and temperature data through your cell phone to a friend’s, prompting his/her shirt to replicate the cuddle. What’s it called? The HugShirt. Duh. They also offer a Skate Hoodie that plays mp3’s and a solar-powered MDress with a keypad and speaker embedded in the sleeve.
Here is a real-world Batsuit. Richard Palmer, snowboarding enthusiast and director of the d3o Lab in Hove, England, has helped design a flexible, foam-like fabric called d3o (go figure) that hardens on impact. The material is already used to safeguard soccer players, snowboarders, and motorcyclists. The US Olympic ski team wore d3o enhanced gear at the 2006 Winter Games. The Superhero Suit, a d3o outfit that doubles as protective armor, could be marketed to soldiers, police officers and firefighters.
Here is Brainball. Two players sit across a special table wearing brainwave-detecting headbands. The headbands monitor each player’s stress-level-indicating alpha and theta waves, and report the data to a computer that directs the ball away from the stress and towards the calm. Zen wins.
Developed at Carnegie Mellon, these little beat bots, named Keepons, have soft rubber skin, cameras for eyes, and a microphone for a nose. They can respond to aural or visual stimuli, whether a song or the wave of a hand, and move in sync. You’ll never have to dance alone again.
Turn the rainbow-colored faucets of Sound Flakes on to “drip” sounds into a large basin of water. The corresponding light projections appear to float on the surface like multicolored, music-making snowflakes. They are interactive, too. You can stir them or scoop them up with the special ladle.
From this angle, it looks like little more than colored steam. It is actually called the Fogscreen, and pictures are projected on to an ultrafine vapor “screen.” The fog is dry to the touch and it displays images from any standard projector. It is turbulence-resistant so images are undisturbed by foot traffic.
Ok, random guy in a chair…
Look again… it’s the humanoid clone of Xi’an Chaoren Sculpture Research Institute founder Zou Ren Ti. This bad boy can move its face and speak, but the real breakthrough is the unnervingly realistic silica-gel skin he’s sporting. But can he do Bishop’s knife trick?? No? Game over, man. Game over.
And here we have Reem-A, from U.A.E. based Pal Technology. This life-size humanoid robot (sans creepy skin) can recognize casual questions and commands, hold simple objects, and stop for obstacles in its path while taking a stroll. Reem-A actually won the foot-race at last year’s RoboCup (I didn’t know it existed either), yet it’s also capable of more intellectual feats, such as playing chess and differentiating between magazines of the same size and shape.
The Wheelsurf— a cross between a skateboard and a motorbike— relies on two concentric structures. There is the outer “tire” and an inner rotating chassis that keeps the driver upright and houses a single-cylinder engine, clutch, propulsion mechanism, and fuel tank. The cycle goes up to 30 mph and has a throttle and brakes on the handlebars. Steering, however, is done by shifting your weight left or right.
The Fasttrack1 is a high-speed all-terrain vehicle that uses its tracks for propulsion on land and water, in swamps and wetlands. Thanks to its lightweight frame, it can travel 65 mph dry and 39 mph wet. Its massive suspension system and bracing air shocks guarantee a smooth ride. And with room for four, it’s perfect for fishing and camping trips. Torpedo launcher and smoke screen will cost you extra.
This vertical takeoff and landing vehicle— called the Airscooter II— features a lithe design that makes it easy to maneuver, even for the inexperienced. Its handlebar throttle and simple steering controls help it take off in a flash, but its light AeroTwin engine is the real innovation, improving airflow to generate turbocharged horsepower. It can actually travel faster than the FAA allows for a vehicle of this weight. The kicker: it doesn’t require a pilot’s license.
James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma is about redemption, self respect, and… pistol-packing, Stetson-wearing, leather-vested bad apples and their nefarious deeds. It’s also about bringing back the western as a more hardcore and less ridiculous genre. Mangold (of Walk the Line and Girl, Interrupted fame) is not the first to use the Elmore Leonard short story as a jumping off point. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the original movie-version of3:10 to Yuma, directed by Delmer Daves and starring Glenn Ford (“Ben Wadeâ€) and Van Heflin (“Dan Evansâ€) in the roles played in the latest version by Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.
Although Daves worked within the confines of a cowboy-flick tradition widely hailed as the essence of masculine cool, Mangold has produced a piece in an era when most filmgoers eye westerns as feeble, ludicrous, and unrealistic products that should be approached with the wary suspicion of the previously disappointed. My generation has grown up hearing the “truth†regarding the cowboy’s bravery as one that led to widespread Native American massacre and suffering. It’s also hard to find long-johns and high waists sexy. Unforgiven was perhaps the last western twentysomethings can remember relating to in their lifetimes.
With its drama, gritty dialogue, and Marco Beltrami-composed soundtrack— acoustically driven and tinged with Texican trumpet, reminiscent of the archetypal soundtracks of Ennio Morricone and Luis E. Bacalov—3:10 to Yuma brings back all the allure of 1960s spaghetti westerns like Django, A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.
Ben Wade (Crowe) is a sociopath. (“You’re not all bad.†“Yes I am. I wouldn’t last one minute out there if I weren’t rotten as hell.â€) He shoots and stabs bystanders and robs stage-coaches as calmly and as often as he sketches the animals he spies and the people he interacts with in his journal or in the pages of a bible. He’s a smooth-talker who utters such dry absurd beauties as “I don’t mind skinny girls [to a waitress he’s wooing] as long as they’ve got green eyes to make up for it. [Vinessa Shaw, “Emmy,†turns around to face him with her brown eyes] That’s alright… they don’t have to be green.†Dan Evans (Bale) is beaten down by the system, Job-like. He lost a leg in the Civil War. He’s hard up on cash and about to get kicked off of his land by the railroad company. His wife (Gretchen Mol) is unsatisfied. His younger son has tuberculosis. And his older son despises him as a weakling.
When the police capture Wade, Dan volunteers to be one of the escorts paid to accompany the outlaw to Yuma prison. Sound simple? As plans go, it’s not too bad, but throw in hostile Apache, a crazed Luke Wilson and Wade’s cadre of faithful minions headed by Ben Foster as Wade-obsessed psychotic Charlie Prince, then the journey is tantamount to playing five-bullet Russian roulette. As obstacles mount, Dan’s mission becomes less about the money and more about sticking to a promise and his principles. His wife tells him that “no one will think less of [him]†if he says no to the venture. He replies that “No one can think less of [him].†But by the end he, like the new western, become badasses worth applauding and worth emulating. All I can say is, thank god the cows have come home.
