Technology

Curiosity is as old as humankind. Ever since humans exist, they want to explore the world they are living in. They want to reach the “Edge of the World” to see what’s beyond it, even if it puts their lives in great danger.

Many conquerers and explorers left their harbors and sailed the seas without having an idea where they are going not to mention whether they will survive. Many of them died at sea, but - as we know today - nobody died of falling off the “Edge of the World”.

It was quite a contrast to step into the IBC salon a week after attending Ars Electronica. The conference boldly calls itself the biggest international broadcasting event, specially since the American NAB has the N instead of an I; it’s national and not international, and it’s 4 times bigger than the biggest international event. It’s the American way. Anyway, IBC 2006 was quite impressive and reaffirmed how the broadcasting world is excited with new technologies emerging as saviours for the old model of doing things. Moreover, the top-up tradition of doing things seams to be falling in love with some interaction trends.

Don't forget to check John Maeda's blog, where he's developing what he calls "The Laws of Simplicity".
lawsofsimplicity.com

The research was formatted into a book as well , recently published by MIT Press. The project is sponsored (?) by Philips.

Let's say, I have apples. A lot of apples. And I want to have a pear. What would I do? I would look out for someone who has a lot of pears and then trade an apple for a pear. This concept works fine, as long as the opposite is actually interested in my apples. But what if the my trading partner is actually looking for bananas? This makes the situation a bit more complex.

The solution to this would be, that you introduce some kind of "medium" that just bears value but other than that, there is nothing more to it. We've done it, we call it "money".

By chance I started to use Joomla. (Soon it will be up and running, i hope so) As soon as the Joomla platform was set up, I began my plugins/components/modules hunting for the site customisation. It was such an enjoyable beginning. Massive plugins/components/modules were found and they all seemed useful to me. Anyway I installed community builder as my first component- a little struggle but works fine. Secondary I tried gallery2 bridge, as I am building a gallery for the site and this component seemed to be exactly what i need. It turned out to be a 3hrs struggle and troubles remained unsolved... a mysterious configuration terminated the whole process, as well as my enthusiasm. Their demo site is down, I dont even get to see how well it works. There is no clear instruction, not direct indication, I felt totally lost in a desert called Joomla plugin.

I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone thought of a way to more closely intergrate the ipod and sex industry (although apparently not for the first time). The OhMiBod is a thrilling new twist on ipod powered vibrators - vibrating to the beat of your music. Seems to be plug & play in all sense of the term which will plug into anything which generates sound. The Q&A section on the website made me chuckle...

(Régine, if you are reading this...Sorry!)

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2005:

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, "check it dont wreck it" would be it!
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth...Don't worry about the future...Do one thing every day that scares you...blah blah blah blah...AND MOST OF ALL...

...MAKE SURE YOU PLUG THE MICROPHONE INTO THE MIC SOCKET AND NOT THE PHONES SOCKET WHEN YOU GIVE AN INTERVIEW!

GoogleEarth Image
Originally uploaded by christoph b..

Google Earth's images consist of a number of satellite images taken at various times. It is an ultimate challenge to find out, when exactly a certain picture has been taken. When I first tried Google Earth a couple of days after its launch, I noticed, the city of Bern, Swiss Capital, was not included in high resolution map yet.

After a couple of months though, I found out, that Bern had been added to the high resolution images.

Soon after, I began to wonder, at what time the picture had been taken.