Interesting bits that have caught the eye(s) of the NYT this year include:

Eye-recognition advertising technology… Bicycle Highways… Man-made Trees… Zombie defense strategies… and more.

Not necessarily the most mind-blowing stuff in every case, but many are things that I had not seen in 2009…

A nice opening of the Year End ‘Lists’ season…

Here’s the link.

Via Neatorama. Sniff projects a CGI dog in a shop window, interacting with passerby. The dog was created in Blender, the open-source 3D suite which is interesting; been thinking about learning it.

People on the sidewalk are monitored by an IR camera in openFrameworks. In oF each individual person is isolated and assigned a unique id for the duration of their interaction. Each persons’ position and gesture information is continually sent to Unity3d via OSC networking protocol. In Unity, an artificial intelligence system representing the dog forms relationships with the individuals. He chooses which person to pay attention to, is able to move towards them or back away, responds to their gestures and initiates gestures of his own. Based on the interaction he gets excited or bored, friendly or aggressive, which is reflected in his behavior.

Video Here:

Sniff from karolina sobecka on Vimeo.

Artist’s website here.

More inspiring work using the Processing visualization language. Processing.org has lots on show, here’s just a few: Balldroppings is a delightfully simple environment where you create soundscapes with bouncing balls.

Terre Natale (Exits 2) is a six screen installation making rounds in Europe. (Joy Division, anyone?)

Terre Natale – Population Shift (Graph) from Stewdio on Vimeo.

Visitors enter a dark rotunda to discover a mirror-image Earth revolving around the room, printing animated maps and data to the wall’s curved surface. Divided into five narratives, this piece quantifies both voluntary and forced movement across the globe due to political, economic, and environmental factors.

And finally, MTV Brasil used Processing for it’s 2009 ID’s.

Once in a while, someone comes along and puts words to your own convictions so well that you just have to take a step back and point…

Why do Design and Aesthetic matter?

Stephen P. Anderson nails it at A List Apart, making the case for the value of design and aesthetics in the making of things… Probably the best case I’ve seen yet, and I will be forwarding this on, far and wide… Best of all, he’s a Poet and a Painter.

Excerpt:

Perhaps more importantly, “aesthetics examines our affective domain response to an object or phenomenon” (according to Wikipedia). In other words, aesthetics is not just about the artistic merit of web buttons or other visual effects, but about how people respond [my emphasis] to these elements. Our question becomes: how do aesthetic design choices influence understanding and emotions, and how do understanding and emotions influence behavior?

go check it out.

Fifty one years on, it’s iconic for so many reasons in both technique and subject—this BAFTA Award nominated film captures the essence and texture of the 1958 Coupe des Alpes, and more broadly, a re-building Europe.

“Got it, race-cars, so what?” you say. Well. Aside from this being an excellent reference for period design, and camera… (Best just watch the movie and not waste your time on my inarticulate sputtering about why this worth your time)… There is charm and intimacy imparted to the event here in lush, un-hurried storytelling that doesn’t exist in today’s short-form highlight ‘packages’ that you’ll see on broadcast… No bleating background music, no chase-helicopters, no feigned drama or commercial breaks…

It’s pure.

Categorical golden ages are usually obvious only when they’ve passed. Their real measure seems to include a rise where all the supporting bits and pieces shine superlatively as well. The associated fashion, typography, industrial design, etc.

It’s all here.

Autoracing was hitting a style-peak in the late fifties, early sixties, and here’s a great window to enjoy it.

Without further ado – (Best in HQ mode) :

Design team HeHe built on the idea of contextualizing public spaces with Dr.Evil-grade “La-sers…” — a bunch of sites picked up on this already, I’m still recovering from the Holidays.  Illuminating the cloud in proportion to the energy use of the city is a great tool to build conservation awareness and engage folks. For other examples of beam installations, see an older post here.

much more about this at the project home page.

If you’re interested in more like this, check out Blinkenlights, Ars Electronica and their past winners at wikipedia.

Ever catch yourself keying a phone number from layout or gestural memory rather than numerical memory ? Cool. Bravo! to ATT and Mental Floss, for a peek into the 1960’s era user testing when phone designers were puzzling over how to redesign a ubiquitous tool… replacing the telephone dial with push-buttons. Turns out the winner, the 3X3+1 layout of the modern telephone was not the most efficient design, nor the closest to the existing pattern, but merely the mostly generally pleasing overall according to the folks on the other side of the glass.

More information and data are at (and via) Mental_Floss and Gizmodo.

Breaking News: Thankfully, we’re capturing the advance troops before they can do much damage. As reported previously on this very site… Nuclear waste is surely causing these discarded toys to grow in size and number…like Godzilla.

The Telegraph reports:

The Lego man is 6ft tall in red, yellow and green. It is presumed to have washed up on the beach, but whether it has come from a cargo ship or from across the Channel is not clear.

Brighton resident Gerry Turner, 34, said: “It’s very odd. God knows how it got here but people are saying it’s from Holland because it’s got some Dutch writing on it. It must have fallen off a boat of something. The kids love it.”

Children helped stand the Lego man up on the beach, but are still mystified as to where it came from. One said: “It’s great, but we don’t know why it’s here.”

A spokesman for Brighton and Hove City Council said it didn’t know the origin of the Lego man, but said it was fine for it to remain on the beach.

He said: “There’s no problem at all. It will be interesting to see how long the Lego man stays there for. We’ll keep an eye on it.”

A different giant Lego man was fished out of the sea in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort in August. That model was yellow and blue, and had the words “No real than you are” in English across its torso. That toy was said to come from England, so perhaps the Dutch decided to return the favour.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3285275/Giant-lego-man-appears-on-Brighton-beach.html

Not a Prada fan, and out of the loop, but new illustration anthems and downloadable art moves them… if Pan’s Labyrinth comes to mind, that’s some fine company. Video and downloadable after the jump.

You can Download the illustration here.