national geographic has created a somewhat interactive map tracing mitochondrial and y-chromosome lineages across human history and the globe. mapping time and space is difficult enough; additionally each genetic marker is traced, dated and explained in this elegant mashup. when this many things are contained in a relatively small and intuitive document, it seems like […]
Author Archives: leo
virtual tailor
the college of human ecology at cornell has a 3D scanner that they have turned on the human body, not for medical research, but to help design clothing that is automatically custom-made on-demand. they show how, in fact, it’s hard to know how mail-order clothing will fit you. if you have a (recent) three-dimensional model […]
Posted in customization, fabrication
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marketing making
only very few companies give an insight into their design and manufacturing processes. maybe this is for secrecy or from ignorance or shame – in any case when someone goes to the trouble to showcase how they make things, it’s pretty neat. hopefully the ease with which we can video- and photo-document nowadays will make […]
Posted in fabrication, product design
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mini-house
martin ruiz de azua makes essential designs such as this minimalist house (above) and nest house (below). maybe with all of the layers of social isolation made possible by earphones and wearable displays, the substance of our physical isolation can be diminished to thin sheets of mylar or leaves in a net?
Posted in architecture, guerilla, materials
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DIY Death
there are some kinds of technology that are so ubiquitous that they can be found in any human civilization, like fire and weapons. just as the combination of widely available cell phones and discarded explosives in iraq feed the constant carnage of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), firearms are made just about anywhere on this earth, […]
Posted in open objects
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bookmaker
the espresso book machine can print a bind an entire 300-page book in 3 minutes for $3! if only it were like the dishmaker, it would recycle your old books into new ones on the spot.
Posted in fabrication
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seeing size
screen-based interfaces are very poor at conveying size, weight, and spatial arrangements. one effort is to make interfaces that are tangible – using real-world objects and spaces. another is to endlessly refine the screen-based stuff so that it gives a better illusion of what it represents. sizeasy is part of a growing number of web […]
Posted in visualization
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