Play-Doh Interface

Thanks Flo for the best link I've clicked on in a while. I love fuzzyness. I live in a universe where most things are fuzzy. My perception of things that are not at all fuzzy is often fuzzy and being an ex-rotoscoper, I was taught that when you zoom in enough to even the sharpest image, it is fuzzy.

Enough of this fuzzyness - here's the film.


Play-Doh as Interface from Brendan Dawes on Vimeo.

There's lots more crazy analogue and digital projects over here.

Pretending To Be Somebody Else

Avatars are something that have fascinated me for quite a while. From back in the days of MUDs, and MOOs; through to my current presence in Second Life as Professor Donshades Korobase - being a big of a daydreamer I have always liked the idea of pretending to be somebody else.

But beyond living out S.L. Wild West fantasies; or buying designer furniture for my room in Habbo Hotel; the concept of the Avatar is one which I believe is only just beginning to creep from infancy to an almost-useful adolescence.

The guys over at Oddcast have just announced two new interesting services. Sensible, interactive Avatar building services, and the ability to take a photo of your face, and wrap it in 3D around the head of a character walking through any clip of video... It's difficult to explain - best check out their demo here.




So what's with my sudden interest in Avatars? I must point out that it's nothing to do with the recent BBC documentary on Second Life Sex.

If Avatars are being given brains of their own, then will we soon be able to give them tasks of their own to handle? If I'm out of the office, can my Second Life avatar take messages for me? Contextually reply to my emails in a warmer tone than a catch all 'out of office', message. Could the hotel clerk in Habbo Hotel book me a room in a real hotel? Could call centers soon be managed by artificial intelligent agents?

Maybe...

Cunningham eat your Heart out

If only Cunningham had access to one of these. Actually, Fuck Cunningham - I want one to play with. I'm thinking some sort of sworded music video short film mash up with a web interface and in some freak-out live situation with unsuspecting reality TV style protagonists.

Real World Design

This Blog shows us some nice dials, switches, buttons and leavers from the real world. If only I could use buttons like this to control my mac, I might make less typos.