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Rudy Rucker

Rudy Rucker is a writer, a mathematician and a computer scientist. Born in Kentucky in 1946, Rucker moved to Silicon Valley when he turned 40. Rucker has published twenty-five books, primarily science-fiction and popular science. He was an early cyberpunk and an editor at Mondo 2000. He often writes SF in a style is characterized as transreal. His most recent novels were Frek and the Elixir, a far-future epic about a boy's galactic quest to restore Earth's ecology and As Above So Below, a historical novel based on the life of the sixteenth century painter Peter Bruegel.  Rucker is a professor emeritus of computer science at San Jose State University, where he created a number of freeware programs relating to chaos, artificial life, cellular automata, higher dimensions, and computer games. He is presently working on The Lifebox, the Seashell and the Soul, a nonfiction book about computers and the nature of reality. Rucker's website can be found at www.cs.sjsu.edu/faculty/rucker or at www.rudyrucker.com.


Cellphone symphony out on Enhanced CD

A "telesymphony" performed entirely through the ringing of audience mobile phones is being released this week on enhanced CD--and no, it doesn't include an extended dance remix of Für Elise, smartypants.

Only 1000 copies are available in this limited edition. Visit the flong.com/telesymphony/ site for free sample MP3 excerpts, and for video clips from past performances at Ars Electronica and other events. From the telesymphony website:

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Dialtones is a large-scale concert performance whose sounds are wholly produced through the carefully choreographed dialing and ringing of the audience’s own mobile phones. Because the exact location and tone of each participant’s mobile phone can be known in advance, Dialtones affords a diverse range of unprecedented sonic phenomena and musically interesting structures...

This CD-Extra contains a complete live recording of the 26-minute concert, as well as a special CD-ROM component with Quicktime video excerpts, interviews with the artists, and other information about the concert. The disc is available on the Dutch/German Staalplaat label (STCD 160) and also from the Ars Electronica shop. The disc is so new that it hasn't been added to the online catalogs yet; your best bet is to place a telephone order at one of the numbers below:

Staalplaat (Amsterdam):
+31-20-6254176
Ars Electronica (Linz):
+43-732-7272-0
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Above: the ringing audience is bathed in yellow light as artist Scott Gibbons performs a vibrating phone, magnified by a live video feed in the side projection screens.

Link. Thanks, Numair! Thanks, Golan!


posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:33:35 PM | permalink


Exclusive! Laptop-Bot Update: Idealab Founder Bill Gross responds to BoingBoing

Idealab Chairman and Founder Bill Gross responds to yesterday's post about the ER1 laptop robot (shown above), and my question about whether or not ER1 maker Evolution Robotics (an Idealab company) is likely to repond to "unauthorized" product hacking differently than Sony's lawyergramming response to Aibo tweakers. BoingBoing is promised a future update on new "robotics-stretching technologies created by others on our platform," and Gross continues:

"We're very interested in opening up the robot APIs so that people can do all kinds of amazing things beyond what even we can imagine...wait till you see the new stuff we have coming!"

Evolution programmer John Wiseman also wrote your faithful guestblogger, providing BoingBoing readers with links to his blog with cool ER1 beer-fetching photos and MPEG video clips, such as this one. John reports that in-store demos are planned soon at locations around the country.

John's laptop-bot blog entries are here, and continue here.

Excerpt: "The robot demo [at the E3 convention] that got a lot of press was one in which a robot listens for the presenter to say Mountain Dew or beer, looks for and goes to the refrigerator, looks for and finds the desired beverage sitting on a shelf in front of the refrigerator, picks the beverage up, and brings it back to the recliner. "


posted by Xeni Jardin at 5:31:04 PM | permalink


Arrrrrrr! VCD Pirates on the high seas.

Organized crime syndicates in Malaysia are reportedly moving VCD-duping operations to offshore pirate ships in an effort to evade The Man. "What is shocking is that they have produced copies of Hong Kong star Jackie Chan's movie — 'The Tuxedo'," said a Penang province police chief in this story, pointing out that the film hasn't yet been released in the USA. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 2:47:29 PM | permalink


Magnetic goop runs through veins of kinder, gentler robots

The limbs of future robots may be able to move as naturally and sensitively as their human counterparts, thanks to new advances in magnetorheological fluids--called "MR fluids" for short. These liquids can harden or change form within milliseconds of sensing a magnetic field. Robotics researchers are exploring new ways to pass MR fluids through robot veins, so that joints and limbs can move in a more lifelike manner.

This NASA article includes DIY instructions for aspiring super-goop makers:

"You can make some of this exotic stuff at home. Just mix some powdered iron filings with a thick liquid like corn oil, and presto: a simple MR fluid. Hold a magnet nearby and the bits of iron will line up end-to-end; they form a rigid lattice that stiffens the mixture. Take the magnet away and the fluid will relax again."

Excerpt from an ABC News feature today:
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MR fluids are not new — the substance was discovered in the 1940s — but recently the fluid has been improved and researchers are devising new ways of putting it to use. The stiffness of the fluids can now be adjusted a thousand times a second... The research could eventually be applied to help NASA smooth space station docking, minimize wear and tear from repositioning satellites and better suppress vibrations during rocket launches.

"Think about using a robot to pick up an egg," [says Alice Gast, MIT chemical engineering professor]. "If the magnetic fluid were running in the veins of the hand you could tune it so it would apply just the right force and no eggs would be broken."
----------
Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 2:07:48 PM | permalink


AOL to begin "Amber Alerts" to PCs, pagers, cell phones of >26MM subscribers

If you've driven on a California freeway lately, you know what an "Amber Alert" is: that's when law enforcement sends a description of a missing child's case to broadcasters, and simultaneously displays the data on electronic highway signs. Yesterday, AOL announced that in November it will begin broadcasting abduction alerts to the computers and mobile devices of subscribers who opt in to the system. This news comes in the same week as a White House announcement that it will allocate $10 million to coordinating the current patchwork of alert networks into a centralized program with federal oversight.

On poynter.org, Steve Outing comments:

"Frankly, I'm not sure what to think of this. As a parent, I laud new efforts to quickly solve child abductions, and AOL can reach a lot of people. As an online publisher, I'm uncomfortable in making an interactive medium into the equivalent of a one-way medium like television. I'm not sure that an ISP (and AOL is the world's biggest ISP) should be interrupting what is an interactive experience (in which, by definition, the user sees what he/she seeks out) with unasked-for content, no matter how noble the cause."

For its part, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children--the organization partially responsible for developing the Amber Alert system--gives the AOL plan thumbs-up because it has been described as both voluntary and geographically-targeted. From yesterday's AP story:

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"They're not going to spam the country with Amber Alerts," [spokesman Joann Donnellan] said. The center will be talking to several other Internet companies, including Microsoft, TerraLycos and Yahoo, to take part in the online Amber Alert system.
--------------
Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:47:38 AM | permalink


"Bumfighters" sue video makers for $100,000

Legal woes for the makers of cult video Bumfights continue to mount: "Two homeless men who claim they were plied with alcohol and marijuana and then beaten, rammed into walls and tattooed for the Internet video sensation filed a $100,000 lawsuit on Wednesday against the producers of the series."

Link to story.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 2:18:11 PM | permalink


So, your laptop really wants to be a wi-fi robot?

No problem. This Tuesday, Pasadena, CA-based Evolution Robotics began selling a kit capable of converting any mild-mannered laptop into a seeing, sensing, photo-taking, digital-music-playing, wireless-internet-enabled, beer-fetching über-bot.

Called ER1, the package includes a metal frame for mounting your notebook computer onto a wheeled, mobile platform. Also included are a Web cam and a Robot Control Center (image below).

Optional add-ons can further beef up your new AI buddy into an extra-manly "Claw Bot," "Car-Bot," or "Tractor-Trailer" for laptop monster truck showdowns. ¿Quién es más macho, iBook or Vaio?

The Evolution website includes demo video, and this list of 50 things you can do with the ER1. Coverage in LA Weekly "Best of LA" issue is here; News.com article is here. Excerpt:

- - - - - - - - -
Upcoming accessories will include a "gripper arm" that allows the robot to grasp and carry objects; in a popular demonstration of the arm, an ER1-outfitted laptop grabbed a beer from a refrigerator and brought it to the owner. Partly because of the limited battery life of most laptops, however, ER1 tasks will mostly be defined by whatever sounds like fun. "It's not a product that solves any burning customer need," [Jennifer McNally of Evolution] said. "It's really a product for fun...The beer-fetching application took a string of 35 linked behaviors."
- - - - - - - - -

ER1 owners are encouraged to save behavior sequences and share them with others in a community area of Evolution's website. Will be interesting to see how the company's response to inevitable tweaking, hacking, and deconstruction by ER1 enthusiasts will compare with Sony's draconian, DMCA-waving response to Aibo fans.


posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:24:04 AM | permalink


Get your Metaverse On: LA VRML Confab, 7PM Oct. 07, Figueroa Hotel

Heads up, VRML freaks. The LA Metaverse Interest Group (LAMIG) is alive and kicking again, gathering in meatspace every first Monday of the month at the Figueroa Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Next edition is Monday Oct. 07, 7PM, in the hotel's Botero lounge area.

According to founding member Gavin Doughtie, LAMIG is "a community of individuals who are interested in the development of virtual realities, computer-mediated communication and community, massively multiplayer games, concrete data visualization, and a whole host of related problems and technologies.

"Our goals are to maintain the Metaverse Map, a high-level directory of concepts, links and discussion. The map covers most aspects of Metaverse sociology, technology and aesthetics... Our other "product" is The Metaverse Manifesto, which attempts to capture why you might possibly care about the Metaverse at all."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 7:57:27 AM | permalink


Google Blips: "go to hell" = microsoft.com

Story here on phenomenon of odd search results in Google for certain queries--for instance, "go to hell," which was reported to have served up Microsoft, AOL, and Walt Disney as top-five results (note: perhaps the folks at Google have performed tweaks since the article's publication, but all of the above seem to have disappeared from results now).

"[Danny] Sullivan of SearchEngineWatch said that while some businesses may try to manipulate search results for economic reasons, like getting their Web site or company to the top of the list, the bigger problem for Google seems to be one of perception. The fact that people may be able to manipulate search results, even if they do not do it that often, he said, raised the question of whether Google ought to have some human editors involved in the search process."

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 3:34:13 PM | permalink


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