August 25, 2004

Technomadic DOOM

ROAM-NET, a group of programmers and artists that I started, is bringing the above art car, and a public terminal kiosk for this year's Burning Man festival in the Nevada Black Rock Desert. This is the reason I've been pretty quiet the last few days, but while I'm at Burning Man, I will be uploading photos to igargoyle of interesting technology from this remote festival, and will be blogging the event on the ROAM-NET newsfeed.

The goal of this year's project is to establish a roaming platform for signalling to, and interacting with event participants, be it through event publishing, blogging, photo sharing, or signalling to your friends where you are.

It is about communication, cartography, and tech art in the most remote of places in North America, and one of our long term goals is to build programs and projects to teach children about emerging technology and cartography.

To send in a donation to the project, click here, and become a ROAM-NET angel.

Posted by nym at 04:56 PM | TrackBack

August 22, 2004

Disabled or Crossbow-Enabled?

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Don't mess with Cyborgs.

'Great photogallery of a TenPoint Crossbow that has been retrofitted to be mounted on and fired from a powered wheelchair. The paralysed owner of the bow "bagged two deer on his first evening hunting."'

[Link via boingboing]

Posted by nym at 06:15 PM | TrackBack

August 09, 2004

Al-Jazeera Banned in Baghdad

The Iraqi interim government has shut down the Baghdad bureau of Al-Jazeera, claiming that they are inciting violence. The ban is for 30 days, but is renewable according to the independent.

Reporters Without Borders has gone on the record as saying "We are extremely concerned about persistent episodes of censorship in Iraq", and brings up the fact that "the government has obstructed Al-Jazeera's work before" [Reporters Without Borders]. Prime Minister Iyad Allawi claims the move is "to protect the people of Iraq". Al-Naqib said the closure was intended to give the station "a chance to readjust their policy against Iraq". Al-Jazeera officials are calling this "An ominous violation of freedom" [Guardian].

Sulli says "Meet the new boss...".

"Interior minister Falah al-Naqib declared that the order was aimed at protecting Iraqis and that the government did not want Al-Jazeera or anyone else endangering civil peace in Iraq. The minister had said a few days earlier that some stations were encouraging kidnapping by showing pictures of hostages under threat of execution." [near near future]


"Falah al-Naqib, the Interior Minister, who last week declared that al-Jazeera was "strengthening" kidnappers and hostage-takers by showing their videos, said the month in which its Baghdad office would be closed down would give it the chance "to readjust its policy agenda". He accused the station of encouraging "criminals and gangsters to do their activities in the country", and said the station transmitted "a bad picture of Iraq"." [The New Zealand Herald]

It appears that almost no American news sources are carrying the story. The only exceptions are a four paragraph blurb about the situation in the Winston-Salem Journal and a satirical site named "The Daily Farce". As the Daily Farce says:

aljazeerahisout.gif

Updated @ 11:11 for clarity and to remove editorials

[Link via near near future]

Posted by nym at 08:23 AM | TrackBack

August 08, 2004

Cyborg Democracy

babyfist2.jpgJust found a new blog called Cyborg Democracy.

"[Cyborg Democracy is] a collaborative blog for democratic transhumanists, nanosocialists, revolutionary singularitarians, non-anthropocentric personhood theorists, radical futurists, leftist extropians, bioutopians and biopunks, socialist-feminist cyborgs, transgenders, body modifiers, basic income advocates, world federalists, agents of the Culture and the Cassini Division, Viridians and technoGaians - transmitting a sexy, high-tech vision of a radically democratic future."

Okay wow. WTF? Now I need to read deeper.

[Link]

Posted by nym at 01:36 PM | TrackBack

August 07, 2004

Helmet Head

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Looks like some relic from the 80's. Maybe they don't get mugged enough in NY anymore.

[via engadget]

Posted by nym at 04:40 PM | TrackBack

Many Places, One Mind

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Anesthesiologists at Vanderbilt University Medical Center are doing something that many people in important jobs are likely to start doing over the next three years, just as mechanics in auto shops are - using mediated reality. Vanderbilt's Anesthesiologists are using head mounted displays to be in many places at once, by use of cameras. Future security guards will likely follow suit, wearing HMDs that allow them to see many places and pull up individual cameras to view away from their control room.

"Attached to an anesthesiologist's goggles are a tiny screen, and a video-panel from each of the four on-going surgeries, displaying real-time images of his patients and their vital signs. Besides, information can instantly flash before his eye: surgery schedules, medical charts, patient histories, etc.

'You may actually be monitoring anywhere from 4-to-15 patients at one time,' says Dr. Michael Higgins. 'In any one of those situations something can happen to a patient.'" [far far future]

[Link via near near future]

Posted by nym at 09:49 AM | TrackBack