Variable environment

Over the past year, i've spent an impressive amount of time ogling a blog called Variable_environment. It had all the key ingredients that get my attention: pictures (many, lavish, big, most of them snapped by Milo Keller), inspiring collaborators (including architect Philippe Rahm, multimedia designer Ben Hooker, researcher and designer Rachel Wingfield and architect Christophe Guignard), mini robotic guest stars, and great content. The blog posts document a fascinating research project called Variable environment/ mobility, interaction city & crossovers.It's all about variable environment. The project starting point is the fact that our living environment and the way we live have tremendously changed over the past few decades. The postmodern city made of signs and infrastructures that Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown have described in the '70s in their book Learnings from Las Vegas, have been progressively "enhanced" by new layers: more signs, spaces and objects, arrival of new technologies, increasing mediation of our relationship to space, intensification of transport.

Christophe Guignard's talk at LIFT07

Lift07 day two is long and extremely stimulating. There are just too many great talks by super smart people. If you'd like to follow what's going on at Lift in french, le team de InternetActu is blogging the event en français. Christophe Guignard, one of the founding members, an architecture studio based in Lausanne, Switzerland, gave one of the talks that interested me most. Titled Architectural Contemporary Space(s), it was an introduction from an architectural point of view on how space is transformed by technology and other processes.
He illustrated the point very simply with a picture he had taken on holiday. On the same image there was the Parthenon, traces of airplanes passing through the sky, people taking pictures or fiddling with their mobile phone. The ancient Greek built temples for gods that reproduced the laws and proportions that rule the cosmos at human scale. But today the relationship between architecture and space is much more complex. New situtations and elements emerge that lead to new architectural situations and possibilities: mobility, networked communities, understanding of Earth as a unique space, 24/7 working time, etc.

Tropicalia

Considering that 1) public squares in northern climes generally turn lifeless during winter; 2) people become even deader once seasonal depression leads to suicides; and 3) landscape architects et al. are always looking for ways to improve the livability of urban landscapes — Perpetual (Tropical) SUNSHINE is thus worth investigating.

U.S. Aims Missiles at Hackers

U.S. sailors man stations at the Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command in Little Creek-Fort Story, Virginia, where they watch out for attacks on Navy systems and networks.
Credit: US Navy

Tapping Quantum Effects for Software

The new system, called the D-Wave One, is not significantly more capable than a conventional computer. But it could be a step on the road to fuller implementations of quantum computing,
which theoreticians have shown could easily solve problems that are impossible for other computers, such as defeating encryption systems by solving mathematical problems at incredible speed.

Sony Sets Its Sights on Augmented Reality

Sony has demonstrated a new augmented reality system called Smart AR that can be built into the
company's future gaming devices.
This could allow game characters to appear on a tabletop, perhaps, or to respond to the movement of real sense objects.

Google Wallet: Who'll Buy In?

Google announced an app and a number of partnerships that could help it become a key gatekeeper in mobile electronic payments—a space that many expect to boom over the next few years.
Google Wallet, announced today at an event in New York, is a app that lets users tap their smart-phone in stores to pay for purchases using near-field communication (NFC) technology—but only after they've entered their credit or debit card details. A related product called Google Offers will let users send coupons to their virtual wallets, via a Google search, for instance, or an advertising billboard using NFC.

Can I borrow your iPhone

One of the most annoying things about owning a new piece of technology is that absolutely everyone who sees it feels the need to play with it. New smartphones are a favorite of those who prefer to look with their hands rather than their eyes,you will see in every hand but sometimes you'd rather keep your treasured device — and the loads of personal information therein — to yourself. A new app for iPhone lets you do just that, by faking a power-down indicator with the push of a touchscreen button.it's best product around the world with more features.

Edible and playable chocolate record sounds sweet

Apparently chocolate is all the advertising rage in Europe these days. The chocolate website announcing the Sagres brewery's chocolate stout beer was a huge hit,you will see very soon in your life again and now a Scottish bakery has raised the (chocolate) bar even further. To celebrate the release of an album by the band Found, Ben Milne, of the Fisher and Donaldson bakery in Fife, Scotland, has created a 7" record single entirely out of chocolate. And what's more impressive? It actually plays and more futures.

Download free high quality iPhone wallpapers at 320by480

 is a new site with lots of resources for wallpapers, selected and created specifically for your iPhone. A forum and also a suggest section is currently being setup for visitors to submit and contribute their own favourite iPhone wallpapers to be downloadable from the site! You can see very soon in every hand.

Exclusive Casio 5.1 megapixels handset for Koreans – “5.1 Mega but Stylish”

Casio is set to join the rest of the major brands in the bid for the best 5 megapixels phone, however the new Exilim W53CA by Casio will only be available in Korea.It's Future goods.

As pictured, the W53CA will be a clamshell, in my opinion it’s design looks much like Sharp’s 902 and 903, except better! It will be available in red, black and white, some features include a 2.8″ wide VGA screen, 5.1 megapixels camera with autofocus, image stabilization technology, you can use very soon.an electronic dictionary, integrated music player function and microSD compatibility.It's Mega technology in Camera.

LocalCooling.com fight global warming from your desktop!

This post has very much been in everyone’s mind in the recent years,we Announce that what’s more this software isn’t necessarily just for tree-huggers! Anyone can pitch-in to help reduce global warming directly from your desktop with LocalCooling.We can use in daily life it's future good. I have been waiting for something this meaningful for a long time, this new piece of “green tech” software effectively helps you reduce power usage from your Windows XP pc when its idle. What’s more is that it gives you an estimate of how many Watts your monitor, hard drive, CPU, graphic card and other hardwares are consuming.

Select from preset options or click “advanced” to customise for your own.
More after the jump…

Takara Transformers Music Label Series – transforming mp3 players!

Takara Tomy, Japan, released its ‘Transformers Music Label Series in the Japan market, which consists of a ‘Soundwave’ mp3 player which supports memory cards with a SD slot and earphone ‘Frenzy & Rumble’. The mp3 player it self runs on a single AA battery which can last for about 6 hours.
you try to use in your future life from today,

Based on the video I found from YouTube (after the jump), these were available in very limited quantities and were quickly sold (within hours!). However, i have managed to find a site that claims to sell them in a set of two for $169.95 available in mint box:

A “real live” fish bowl on your desktop!

Here’s an interesting piece of USB gadget I found via Newlaunches.com, “a computer controlled aquarium” from COMFISH! It comes with a “camera interlocking device” (please don’t ask what that means!), which seems to link the fish bowl onto your desktop so that you can see your fish swim in “real time”.it's part of my life that you can also control various functions of the tank directly from your pc, like water temperature, flow, the filter, the pump, lighting, etc…

Alluc.org – watch movies, tv shows and more for free!

I was lucky to come across this site via http://freebies.mutum.org/, Alluc.org offers free news, cartoons, tv-shows, animes, movies, as well as music videos and sports videos. The site itself is quite up-to-date, for example popular titles like,it's part of our life. The Simpsons Movie, The Break Up, Ghost Rider, Mr Bean’s Holiday, Fantastic 4 can easily be found under the movie’s section. What is unique about the site is that it doesn’t actually host these video files, but acts as a site to share video links, although there are a few out there like TV-Links or Peekvid, but Alluc.org is certainly one of the largest ones on the net.

Gmail storage to become GDrive?

It’s been mentioned at Mashable, that it looks like Gmail’s storage will soon look to be evolving into a major competitor for sites that are currently offering free / cheap online file and multimedia storage. I mean, why shouldn’t it? With at least 2.9 GBs of free space in everyone’s mailbox just to store attachments and 1.1 GB for photos and pics, its no wonder why users like viksoe.dk have created tiny tweaks to make Gmail’s storage more accessible, as if it was a “real” online file storage system.
With Google’s new storage system being brought together, and fast response space from Gmail and Picasa can be further maximised, users who desire a more premium service can go for a checkout to purchase more space. Get addition 6 GB for $20.00 per year, 25 GB for $75.00 per year, etc…

Samsung F210 Mobile Phone

Like the Samsung F200, the F210 is another music phone that was announced during the Communic Asia 2007 tradeshow. The F210 also uses the narrow rotating slider design which had been a great success with the Samsung x830 / x830. However the F210 comes in a greater variety of shiny colours, such as purple, silver, pink.

With its light weight and many attractive colours, the F210 will certainly soon become a popular choice for users who wish to seek convenient music play and simple calling.

“Pod Cowboy” for iPod Shuffle from Digital Cowboy

Here is the latest in fashion accessories for the iPod Shuffle in Japan, This piece of accessory though has a bigger price tag than most iPod protective cases you would buy, it’s been claimed to be a perfect fit and is certainly a more attractive and competitive casing over ones you would be able to find on eBay for example.

Sony Ericsson to launch new phones – K850i, K530i, W960i

The K850i is another candy bar shaped addition to the Sony Ericsson K Series, already featured at CNET as the most popular phone, it is expected to be another blowout for SE! At a weight of 118g, this quandband, HSDPA 3.5G phone comes in “Luminous Green and Velvet Blue”. With 3.5G, enjoy fast and stable internet connectivity anywhere you go, nevertheless, the feature everyone’s been waiting for is its 2.2 inch TFT screen along with a 5-megapixel camera with auto-focus and a xenon flash, allowing you to take pictures in environments with only very little light. The K850i is expected to be available shortly this year.
Meanwhile, here is a Sony Ericsson video from YouTube:

Motorola Razr2 V8,V9

Motorola Razr 2 V8

The new Razr 2 V8 as pictured above in its dark bluish grey stainless steel frame is soon set to launch in the UK and has already been posted as a hot up coming mobile phone at Phones4u.co.uk. Compared to its popular predecessor Razr V3 / V3i / V3x, the new V8 has many improved features, like a thinner, shiny clampshell framework. Though it is extremely thin, its steel casing makes it very stable to handle and not ‘shaky’ like other flip phones. It has a large external touch sensitive front screen, which vibrates when it is touched and allows you to control the phone’s various functions like music play.

Made for iPod / Zen Creative X-Fi sound systems

i600 and Z600 are in fact the same product in the series by Creative, the only main difference is the docking port for iPod (i600) and Zen (Z600). The i600 / Z600 are the first in Creative’s X-Fi sound systems, X-Fi which stands for Xtreme Fidelity can be further separated into two terminologies: X-Fi 24-bit Crystalizer and X-Fi CMSS-3D.
Within the sound system X-Fi 24-bit Crystalizer helps improve music play quality while X-Fi CMSS-3D, as you can tell from its name, triggers a more effective surround sound effect.

New T-Mobile MyTouch 4G Slide ready for close-up

  Today, T-Mobile finally put the rumors  to rest and officially unveiled the T-Mobile MyTouch 4G Slide. Expected  in July for $199.99 with contract, it's the latest addition to the  carrier's line of consumer-friendly Android smartphones, and it's more than just the next-gen version of the MyTouch 3G Slide; T-Mobile is touting the MyTouch 4G Slide as having the most advanced camera of any smartphone out there.