Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Friday, April 20, 2012

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Friday, April 13, 2012

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Google’s ‘Project Glass’ Augmented Reality Glasses Are Real And In Testing

Chris Velazco in TechCrunch:

After weeks of speculation and rumors, Google has officially pulled back the curtain on what they have come to call Project Glass — a pair of augmented reality glasses that seek to provide users real-time information right in front of their eyes.

“We think technology should work for you — to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don’t,” wrote Babak Parviz, Steve Lee, and Sebastian Thrun, three Google employees who are part of the Google X skunkworks. “We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input.”

Something tells me that they won’t be hurting for feedback.

To call these things glasses may be a bit of a stretch — early rumors noted that glasses bore a striking resemblance to a pair of Oakley Thumps, but the demo images on Project Glass’s Google+ page (one of which can be seen above) don’t look a thing like them. Rather, they appear to be constructed of a solid metal band that runs across the brow line, with a small heads-up display mounted on the right side.

Also see this post by Joseph Stromberg in the Smithsonian blog.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Monday, March 26, 2012

“To Commute,” by the Way, Can Mean to Transform (as in from Base Metal to Gold), or, The Banality and Sublimity of the Mundane

“To Commute,” by the Way, Can Mean to Transform (as in from Base Metal to Gold),

or,

The Banality and Sublimity of the Mundane

by Tom Jacobs

Each morning the day lies like a fresh shirt on our bed; this incomparably fine, incomparably tightly woven tissue of pure prediction fits us perfectly. The happiness of the next twenty-four hours depends on our ability, on waking, to pick it up.

~ Walter Benjamin

Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor. Neither do they spin.

~ Luke 12:27

Depending on whether one has ever felt the vaguely incarceral character of everyday life, the following scene may or may not resonate. The term “everyday life” is tossed around quite a bit by cultural/critical theorists and philosophers, and it’s not always clear just what the hell they mean by it. And I will try to explain what I think it means in a moment, but first, this scene. It’s about a guy who comes to understand that the life he’s been inhabiting is not actually his own, but has yet to figure out how to create a new one. No doubt you’ve seen it, but it’s good enough to warrant watching again.

It is worth noting that this conversation takes place in the context of an emergent love that, even here, clearly begins to be felt by the two characters. And also that it takes place in something like an Applebee’s. Even in an Applebee’s, it seems, the source of true love and real hope may lie. Strange to consider.

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