
Best Unbuilt Thrill Rides- The Eiffel Tower of Terror, the Cantilevered Coaster and Hurricane Simu -- should we be happy or sad that these amusement park rides are not real?
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With Microsoft's New Interface, You Are the Joystick- Microsoft's new Xbox 360 controller is no controller at all. Codenamed Project Natal, the interface uses a depth sensor, mikes and a lo-res camera to read your gestures.
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Found: Wildlife From the Future- This month's Found gives you a closer look at wildlife in the mid-22nd century. Navigating the Everglades in 2150 will be no glide through the park. Here, we envision how evolution, human tampering and happy accident could transform the subtropics.
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Found Photoshop Contest: The Future of Athletic Gear- This month's Found contest asks you to imagine the future of athletic gear. Today, aerodynamic outerwear is making superjocks sleeker. Safety equipment is making them less vulnerable. In 50 years, what else will tech do for the sports set?
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Evolution of the Self-Winding Wristwatch- The workings of the self-winding watch were inspired by a seesaw almost 100 years ago. Today's EvoTec is powered by an ultradense geared ring rotating on carbon rollers. Here's a history of the tech as the watch evolved.
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Storyboard Podcast: Vintage Science Illustration Evolves- A flea-market find inspires a brainy mission: Give artwork from Roy A. Gallant's '50s textbooks a 21st-century upgrade. A behind-the-scenes look at "Intelligence, Redesigned," which appears in the November issue of Wired.
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How to Make an 'LotR' Sword- Take a look at how the craftsmen at Weta Workshops created swords for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
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Behind the Curtain of a Customizable Theater-
The Dallas Arts District Theater was a magnificent piece of crap. Affectionately dubbed the Shed, the junky, corrugated-steel construction looked more warehouse than Koolhaas, but it was basic enough that wild-eyed visionaries would routinely rip out and rearrange seats to fit whatever the current show demanded. Then, in 2005, the Shed was torn down.
[1] Aluminum siding. The Wyly is sheathed in aluminum tubes whose cylindrical profiles def... (more)

Today Where next for Iraqi art?- We know about the devastation and looting -- but what impact has war had on Iraq's artistic heritage? Seven years after the invasion, Hadani Ditmars returns to Baghdad to find outWe hear plenty about the horror of Iraq. There are bombs in market places, at hotels and official buildings. There are sectarian rifts, dozens of militias and politicians who claim to be fighting terror yet who have their own private armies. Fifty-three billion dollars has been spent on post-invasion aid, and yet 40% of... (more)

Today Book now- Artes Mundi is back for a fourth year in Cardiff, while Phil Collins screens his filmworks in Liverpool. Here's what's happening in art around the country
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Today Hidden Florence- Most tourists head straight for the Uffizi, but Florence has dozens of smaller museums full of world-class art. The curator of the V&A's new Renaissance galleries was our guideStendhal syndrome is a sickness known to afflict those of a sensitive nature who visit Florence. It's named after the French author, who was left sick and dizzy by the vast amount of art he viewed on an 1817 visit to the city. There have since been many cases documented of visitors fainting in the face of Florence's glorie... (more)

Today Mr Saatchi's Opus- Weighing in at 35kg, is The History of the Saatchi Gallery a tome for the discerning art lover or just an oversize paperweight? Adrian Searle finds out ...Adrian SearleAndrew DicksonAndy Gallagher
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Today In print: the surrealists' muse- Book looks back at life and death of Nusch Éluard, French model and artist painted by Picasso and photographed by Man RayShe was the quiet woman of Surrealist Paris and an enigmatic muse that inspired some of the greatest art of the 1930s and 40s.But Nusch Éluard, a beautiful model who sat for Picasso and posed for Man Ray, has been largely overlooked by history since her death in 1946.In a bid to restore Éluard to her rightful place in the Parisian artistic pantheon, a French writer has this... (more)

Today The fabulous 50s… as seen by Ken Russell- Before he became Britain's most controversial film director, Ken Russell forged a career as a photographer, capturing the great eccentrics of his youth for posterity. His work features in two forthcoming exhibitions: at Lucy Bell Fine Art, St Leonards-on-Sea (17 Mar-30 Apr) Lucy-Bell.com, then at the Topfoto Gallery, Edenbridge, Kent (1--28 May) topfoto.co.uk
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Today Exhibitions picks of the week- Robbie Cooper, BradfordRobbie Cooper hides video and still-photo cameras in TV and computer screens to watch the watchers. There's the flush and blush of the porno-viewer, the zombie stare of the horror fan, the enchanted wow of children's TV toddlers, the incredulous recoil of the unwilling witnesses of disastrous news. On the one hand, this is alarming, as Cooper demonstrates how our perceptions are mediated by technology, so removed from first-hand sensory contact. On the other hand, as I vie... (more)

Today Family life- Readers' favourite family photographs, songs and recipesSnapshot: A cousin lost at sea at EasterShe is 28. He is 21. It's 1941. Alice's chronic asthma prevents her doing paid work. Instead she bakes, cleans and cares for four siblings and elderly parents. Five children have already left home. They bring back grandchildren and she adores looking after them.Hugh is Alice's cousin. Born and brought up in India, he is visiting England to train as a missionary. All are charmed by his exuberant person... (more)

Wasted Lhasa Youth-
But at least they're on target. Fairground target practice on the outskirts of Lhasa.
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Future Photo-
I'm a fan of design provocation - little projects that challenge the way we think about and see the world. Which is why Sasha Pohflepp's camera made me smile - press the button and it pulls in a photo from the internet that was taken somewhere in the world at the same time. We're at a stage in human evolution where connectivity can still bring about a sense of child like surprise and wonder - pause a moment to enjoy it because it's an experience that most of you will look back on as an era of... (more)

Ad Literacy-
Facebook's ad platform is the Flip of advertising: smart, simple and just enough to be effective.
If you haven't already tried Facebook's advertising platform you should - because it, and services like it, are increasingly going to become part of the vocabulary and literacy of the future perfect. For better and sometimes definitely for worse it democratizes access to run a particular form of online advertising.
The platform allows anyone with a Facebook account and PayPay/credit card/... to ... (more)

Local Local-
Every city has pockets that remain resolutely somewhere else.
The manwhabang tucked in the back of the Wilshire Gramercy Plaza Shopping Center is such a place: wall to wall to wall to wall manwha; low plasticky seating and coffee tables piled high with entire series + phone + cigarettes; a layer of cigarette smoke that at a micro-level competes with the LA smog; and Korean customers so engrossed in stories and home that no-one pays attention to the stranger in their midst. Lovely.... (more)

Observational Transparency-
To know or not to know?... (more)

Conflicts of Interest-
The 27 mile ride in from Dulles takes a soul-destroying 150 minutes the result I suspect of a sat-nav that decided that every possible road-works was a Point of Interest. Which might sound a bit far fetched today, until you consider that someone somewhere is drawing on ever more reams of data to serve up your your route - and someone else somewhere else is using every tool in their disposable to cajole individuals of interest past places 'of interest'.
When the company pitching you advertisi... (more)

Corridors-
Regulators it seems, have a sense of humour - here in Meeting Room E at the Federal Reserve a gentle chuckle ripples around the room for jokes that are as soft as the cushions that no-doubt ease Bernanke cheeks at the end of another long working day. I'd love to share what I'm doing here, and as one-day events go I've written up more notes here than for any recent event I can recall, but in all honesty *you* probably wouldn't find it that interesting.
A fascination you might share however co... (more)

#Fed-
A day in DC hosted by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors - surrounded by regulators and a smattering of financial industry folks and consumer advocacy groups. Quote of the day: "he who enrolls, controls" - if the customer is signing up through your organisation you have the control point through which to monetise other services. Most US banks are (apparently) still not asking for mobile phone information at account sign-up - given the importance of this channel for a variety of banking ser... (more)

Nano Supermarket: Call for Speculative Products-
The Next Nature foundation calls upon designers, technologists and artists to submit speculative nanotech products for the upcoming NANO SUPERMARKET in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
The supermarket will be feature debate--provoking visions on possible products expected to hit the shelves between today and 2020.
Submission deadline: May 12, 2010.
• www.nextnature.net/events/nano-supermarket
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Fuck Google - Build your own Google Street View car-
For Transmediale 2010 members of the R&D network F.A.T. met in Berlin and produced a series of projects dedicated to the topic of the week: FUCK GOOGLE.
In addition to on-site workshops, F.A.T. Lab built a fake Google Street View car and took it out for a ride in the city of Berlin.
Watch the hilarious video, in which the fake Google car gets lost (the driver has to ask for directions), jams the traffic and in other ways attracts negative attention.
For information on how to make your own ... (more)

ShadyUrl-
Shady URL is an online tool, that can turn an innocent looking URL into a suspicious and frightening one.
For instance, the ShadyUrl engine turns www.twitter.com into http://5z8.info/illegal-guns-for-sale_f5v7f_launchexe and CNN.com into http://5z8.info/guns_u1t5v_murdervids.
You can also opt for shorter URL's, albeit making them a little less shady.
• www.shadyurl.com... (more)

Reconfigured Typewriter-
Ambo Dextro is a typewriter in which the keys have been rearranged so there is no correspondence between what you think you type and what you get on the paper. Characters, words and sentences are simply turned into abstract visual text as you type.
Ambo Dextro is on display in Copenhagen at the new gallery IMO projects until March 20. The piece is made by New York based artist Tauba Auerbach. Visit her website for other fabulous pieces - her website is basically a piece in itself.
• Am... (more)

'Sent Things'. An exhibition of objects sent to Paul Smith-
For the past 10-15 years, an anonymous admirer have been sending different items to fashion designer Paul Smith by post.
Items include a a surfboard, a coffee-pot, a skateboard and lots of other things. These objects were never send in a box, they simply had post stamps on them. Quite amazingly, they still arrived at Paul Smith's store in Covent Garden, London.
The objects were recently exhibited at Stockholm Furniture Fair and Designboom has put together a great post with pictures from the... (more)

Polluter Harmony-
Polluter Harmony is an anti-polluting campaign site, shaped like an online matchmaking service for polluters, industry lobbyist and politicians in the USA.
The site is a project of PolluterWatch / Greenpeace and the aim is to draw attention to the close connections between polluters, influence peddlers and friendly public officials.
• www.polluterharmony.com... (more)

Crowd-Jamming: Help Douglas Rushkoff come up with a new book title-
The author Douglas Rushkuff has asked readers at his website to help him come up with a title for his new book.
The book is a paperback version of "Life Inc: How the world became a corporation and how to take it back" but in order to (re)publish it, Rushkuff's publisher RandomHouse asked him to retitle it.
If you feel inspired and want to help out, you can submit suggestions at Rushkuff's website. The winner will receive books, credits - and lots of community respect.
• www.rushkoff.... (more)

Tenants' Rights Flash Cards-
The Tenants' Rights Flash Cards is a non-profit product designed to make renters in New York more familiar with their rights.
The flash cards translate New York's official Tenants' Rights Guide into a simple and friendly format that covers issues from security deposits and subletting to paint and privacy.
The concept is developed and designed by Candy Chang in collaboration with the organization Tenants & Neighbors. A boxed set of 30 cards costs 10$. They are available for sale online.
Wh... (more)
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