Denise pointed to this from Wired UK, 2D patterns assembling into 3D objects once exposed to light.
You’ve probably all seen this ISS timelapse by now. But I can’t stop watching it.
Chairman Bruce‘s Venn diagram on product invention merits study.
In the ‘things you can spend money on dept.’ Matt W pointed to this New Aesthetic backpack, and Alex pointed out that our friend Brendan Dawes has got his new Beep store up and running which is awesome.
From our ‘robot-readable world dept’, Kari shared this advert she saw for a children’s toy video camera with face tracking A.R. capabilities
Finally, Kari won ‘subject line of the week’ prize with her email to the list entitled ‘Big Brass Nuts’… Which turned out to be this marvellous film about hand-casting a short run of beautiful metal things rather than a meditation on Schulze’s sales techniques…
336 is apparently an untouchable number, and the number of dimples in an American standard golf ball.
It’s cold in London, and people are ill.
Kari and Simon are observing Wildfire Protocol, and working from home – both helping run the studio and all our projects smoothly through magical electronic tendrils.
Jack and Timo are in Copenhagen for the beginning of the week, teaching with our friends at CIID.
This week is dominated by work on Barry, for nearly everybody.
It’s building up to something special.
Also, excitingly – we’re very close to agreeing terms on a new space. We love our studio, and we’ve spent almost two years here but it’s too small for all of us now. Getting a new room to work for next year is going to be brilliant. Andy and Matt W are going to do a final look at our possible new place this afternoon.
A studio is not just a place to sit staring at a screen (well, it mostly is) but somewhere that should be a force-multiplier.
Webb’s got nearly all his attention on Barry, talking with potential partners, thinking about next steps around what’s possible, making sure all aspects of the offer are working in unison. Aside from that he’s working on our move, and with me on a bit of sales.
Andy’s mostly on Barry, doing a bit of prodding and progressing on some modelmaking work we’re doing, buying more plastic sample to do more material exploration, and helping with some preparations for our move. In between all of that, he’s having his wisdom teeth out, poor lamb.
Alex is working with Alice and James on developing the web service component for Barry to the designs he’s been working on. He’s also doing a bit of Uinta UI work with me.
Joe’s working hard on Uinta with Nick, and cranking on some video-prototyping for Chaco.
Denise is in Kaizen-focus on the visual and service design for Barry. She’s also doing a bit of partner presentation work with Webb, and will be working with Timo on the filming on the project at the end of the week.
Nick’s doing some data-compression research, nudging Uinta’s foundations along by examining how some new experimental software works on some new experimental hardware, and doing a hell of a lot of work on Barry to get ready for it’s next stage – along with James and Alice.
I’m working on our projects for Uinta – doing some speculative interface sketches ready for more filming with Timo and Jack next week. I’m helping out with Barry – as it’s really all-hands on deck around that project right now – mainly helping Webb with the partner discussions. I’ve also got some interesting meetings to look forward to at the end of the week.
And finally, tonight, I get to see a personal hero of mine, James Burke speak.
On the 25th November, there’s an incredible sounding 2-day event staged by Intelligence Squared called the IF Conference which I’ll be giving a sort talk at. The line-up is diverse and strong – reminding me of the late lamented Etech…
After that I’ll be on a panel with various extremely clever folk discussing “Robot Futures” on December 1st at the Science Museum.
We staged a small event for Internet Week Europe – a night of drinks and ten minute talks. We were totally suprised when it sold out in under ten minutes!
At the end of the night, I asked the packed little room at The Gopher Hole whether we should do it again – and the result was a resounding “yes” – so stay tuned in the new year!
Thanks to Beatrice, Kevin and all at The Gopher Hole, Penny Shaw at Internet Week Europe and most importantly everyone who came along on the night!
This week there’s an enormous amount of things going on. There’s a Hopeful Monsters workshop being run in the US, software and hardware development for both project Uinta and project Chaco, and filmmaking on location for both of those projects. Models and UX prototypes are coming back from modelmakers and contractors. On top of that, internal projects Weminuche and Barringer are ramping up towards a demonstrator and filmable prototypes. There’s also a little sold-out BERG event tomorrow, and a conference on Thursday. Very exciting.
Hello! It’s Friday, we’ve just done our usual Friday demos. I’m sitting at my desk with a can of polish lager and Matt Jones is playing Huey Lewis and the News. It’s probably time for a roundup of the things floating around the studio mailing list on week 334.
Nick sent around this link of an old experiment looking into male / female walking patterns.
We liked this site advertising a workspace in NYC. Simple but very nice.
Nick also sent around this research project from Microsoft, working on scaling up 8-bit pixel art for modern displays. I don’t think Denise agreed with it.
Denise sent around lumibots – “small, autonomous robots that react to light”.
Jones sent around a nice post on Chevrolet speedometer design over the ages (I’m a sucker for anything design – car related):
And then Andy sent around this picture of the dashboard of a Citroen CX dashboard, with cylinders that rotate to display dashboard info. I’m a massive fan of Citroen’s design from this era. Brilliant. Look at the steering wheel!
Finally, Matt Webb sent around some an email entitled ‘First words’, so I’ll end with the first words spoken on the telephone, from Bell to Watson in 1876:
“Mr. Watson — come here — I want to see you.”
I’ll leave you with a studio staple track as it’s been a slightly music themed weeknotes. I think we have BERG alumni Matt Brown to thank originally for introducing us to this. Have a good weekend.
Usual weeknotes with a little surprise at the end – I thought I’d give a quick rundown of the kind of music we listen to in a normal week in the office. Enjoy.
Matt Webb is deep in business development – working on a new office space, lots of presentations for the end of the week, and lots of future work possibilities. Always exciting to hear what’s coming up.
Matt Jones is on sales this week, as well as preparing a few workshops, and working on various aspects of Uinta.
Jack and Timo are preparing for some upcoming film work, as well as working with Joe and Durrell on some Chaco related business which is looking lovely. They’re lodged over in our new (temporary) overflow space.
Kari’s doing her usual sterling job of keeping the office (and us) in check.
Myself, Denise, James, Alice, Nick and Andy are all deep in various aspects of Weminuche – design, manufacturing, code, you name it. The progress in the last few weeks has been phenomenal, I wish I could say more about it. Soon!
Joseph Malia is doing baffling things Uinta related, on top of some Chaco work for Jack.
Alice is working on the final bits of Dimensions on top of Weminuche.
Simon is producing what I’m expecting to be the world’s largest gantt chart, and generally keeping his very capable eyes on most of our work to make sure it runs swimmingly.
Finally, here’s a few samples of what we’ve been listening to in the office this week:
This week’s Friday Links brought to you by Lech™ Premium Beer.
Here is a video of a robot riding a bicyle!
Next up, this work from the graduate lab at Mint Digital. Having been involved in a lot of short term student projects (Holla at me Extreme Blue!) what really strikes me about this project, pulled together by three graduates under the mentorship of Mint Digital, is how polished it is, how complete and real it feels. In three months they made an actual product, complete with a nice looking website, and to top it all, found it a cute name. http://ollyfactory.com/
Matt Jones sent round this video of people falling in interesting ways:
I feel a bit dizzy.
And finally, because it’s getting a bit dark and wintery, and as far as I’m concerned this blog doesn’t have enough terrible cuteness, here is a picture of someone tickling an otter.
It’s a drizzly day in London and I have cold forearms.
Alex, Jones and Jack are in Uinta workshops this week, so the office feels a bit empty and Jones’ iconic eyebrows are missing from my view across the desk.
This week Simon is shepherding, doing a bit of re-planning, pinging off emails and ushering the rest of us into the right places at the right time with his characteristic patience and charm.
Kari is still doing ‘the usual’, a lot of putting things into spreadsheets. This week she is also writing documentation for new financial admin procedures, which I can only hope is more exciting than it sounds.
Nick has his fingers and also some toes in many pies (dexterous feet) this week. He’s working with Joe on Uinta, with James, Phil, Andy and I on Weminuche, applying some polish to Suwappu, moving more google accounts from one place to another, and doing a bit of Schooloscope migration.
Denise is making some very beautiful things for Barry, which I can’t wait to see in the world.
Joe is working on Uinta, making some truly gorgeous looking animations, and swinging his arms around a lot.
James is working on Weminuche with Alex. Right now he is looking at something complicated in Omingraffle and tapping his face thoughtfully.
I am also working with Denise on Barry. Taking pictures from dropbox and making them into real things.
Matt Webb is thinking about January, doing his regular catch ups with the team, financial stuff and meetings.
Andy is thinking about process and working on Barry. Something must be afoot because every time the doorbell goes he jumps out from Statham and runs to the door to collect whatever the postman has brought. What’s he building back there?
Timo is working with Jack on Chaco stuff. He is also pulling together a script for Uinta work and writing a proposal.
The rain has stopped, and Alex and Jones have just arrived back, laden with coffee and fun things for us all to look at.
As the world starts testing Siri, with all the usuals, Alex found an interesting link discussing Siri’s personality. It’s fascinating times for copywriting in its many forms. As we get frustrated with product copy becoming over friendly, it’s tricky line to tread for the writers of AI. Siri seems to have it nailed, but it’ll be fun looking for the inevitable imitations over the next few years. (How many witty answers can you give to ‘What’s the meaning of life?’)
While we’re talking about Apple, Matthew sent around this link pointing to the origins of the iCloud logo. The golden ratio! So perfect. Only Apple could create such visual magic. Oh.
Matthew also sent around a link to this Monocle radio (above), which he spotted via @antimega. Described as ‘An update of the Heritage model’ it now has an iPod/iPhone remote control application and full coverage of DAB. Perhaps this heritage design (or the price tag) will ‘nurture the desire to keep':
“If you build in emotional value, people will keep products longer and take more care of it; this of course saves energy and materials. It is the difference between selling an ordinary hi-fi and selling amazing sound.”
Like everyone else we’ve been looking at the Lytro camera (above) – with its ‘shoot now focus later’ technology. Timo, sent around the first link to a written review, and Alex followed up with this additional review with videos.
Matthew pointed us at this waste reclamation power plant in the heart of Copenhagen:
“It’s a massive incinerator that burns household rubbish to make electricity.
Two things:
1. they’ve shaped it like a mountain, and in the winter it’ll have snow and 3 ski runs down from the top
2. it emits smoke—well, CO2. But instead of a plume, the smoke stack stores up the CO2 until it reaches 1 ton, and then puffs out a smoke ring.”
