Whoa! Suzanne Labarre on: Wanted: Darpa Hoodie Borrows Military Tech for Custom Fit | Co.Design

Excerpt:

"Software designed to make real, live T-1000 Terminator's for the military is redeployed on hipster fashion. And we kinda like it.

SF-based Betabrand and Otherlab have taken software developed with defense-department funds and turned it into a cool little anorak sure to wind up on the backs of all the Mission District hipsters, who, like totally hate America’s military industrial complex, man."

My fave site of the day. LOVE this: The Knot Collective - People / Ideas / Creativity

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Genesis of The Knot Collective

When I began design school at the age of eighteen, it was the first time I was ever exposed to a large group of people whose individual skillsets, interests and backgrounds varied so differently from my own. I was thrust into a new intellectual and creative environm…

From the site:

"The Knot Collective intends to provide a thought leadership forum for people in the business of creativity. We aim to bring together contributors from around the world to share what they’re thinking about and how it relates to their profession.

Knot theory in mathematics is defined as the embedding of a circle in a 3-dimensional space. Knots create links with unique algorithmic solutions. Much like the infinite ways in which mathematical knots form relationships, people and information in creative businesses incessantly overlap and cross-pollinate to spawn new insights, knowledge and ideas. This is the foundation upon with the Knot Collective was created. We believe that cross-disciplinary collaboration is the future of innovation and design.

Keep in mind that the thoughts and opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent the opinions of The Knot Collective as en entity nor the company or agency for which a member of the collective may work.

Thanks for checking us out. We hope the site can serve as a valuable resource and build a lively community that fosters critical thinking and lively discussion. And we invite you to join in on the conversation!"

I'm Hearing Raves: Kinect for Xbox 360: The inside story of Microsoft's secret 'Project Natal'

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Excerpt:

By David Rowan, 7 Oct. 2010

By mid-2007, Don Mattrick, who runs Microsoft’s interactive-entertainment business division in Redmond, Washington state, was demanding a new direction for the Xbox 360. “There has to be a fundamental reimagining of the way we interact,” explained Marc Whitten, Xbox Live VP, in a strategy meeting. To be fair, Whitten -- along with the rest of the senior executive team -- wasn’t certain what this meant in terms of hardware. Still, they compiled a cursory list of desired features: motion-tracking controls, facial recognition, speech recognition and backwards compatibility.

The problem wasn’t vision. It was the task’s sheer impossibility. Finding cameras that could map a living-room in 3D was easy. Getting one reliably to decode the flailing limbs and shouts of 40 million Xbox users was a whole other dream. To pull this off, the hardware would require software “brain” capable of interpreting what the team calculated was a crushing 1023 spatial and aural variables at any given moment. And it would have to do this on the fly, with no perceptible on-screen lag.

Still, fragments of the solution did already seem in place. Microsoft Research’s Beijing bureau had collected tomes on the successes (and failings) of facial-recognition technology. Redmond’s speech-recognition software -- which now ships in Windows 7 and the Ford Focus -- had already been in development for decades. And Redmond’s hardware engineers were busy creating exotic gyroscopic and accelerometer-based controller prototypes in anticipation of the coming shift. But it would take exhaustive research and testing before anyone could guess whether such a shift would be workable -- or profitable.

As 2008 began, Mattrick made it known that he wanted to transform and expand Xbox 360 and allow users to experience gaming and entertainment in a different, more social way. Could his teams take depth sensors, multi-array microphones and RGB cameras and turn them into a consumer experience? The magic box would need to track people at 30 frames per second, recognise them, understand how they move, and incorporate voice recognition -- and all in ways that could enhance the game experience.

There was just one problem: this hadn’t yet been done anywhere in the world.

Read full article:

http://www.wired.co.uk/wired-magazine/archive/2010/11/features/the-game-chang...

Timely: Why Twitter Influences Cross-Cultural Engagement

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Excerpt

by Jessica Faye Carter

"It’s Not Utopia

While Twitter has the potential to change how we engage interculturally, it’s not a cross-cultural utopia. Users aren’t holding hands and singing Kumbaya. Stereotyping and culturally divisive language still exist on the site, just as in real life. Recent articles about cultural groups on Twitter reinforce stereotypes related to gender and ethnic populations, including white people. There is still a long way to go in terms of intercultural understanding on the site.

Documenting cross-cultural interactions and engagement on Twitter is useful because it encourages others to move past boundaries and bridge gaps using their social graphs. As Johnson put it in his article: “You should follow a few people on Twitter who aren’t like you.” To that I would add, more than a few. And while you’re following them, it’s worth remembering that Twitter provides a very incomplete picture of cultural norms. But despite this limitation, Twitter remains a useful starting point for intercultural connections.

While Twitter’s abbreviated format makes it easily accessible for many, it can also be a drawback when it comes to intercultural engagement. Joe Gerstandt, a diversity and inclusion strategist, notes that “Some conversations simply need more than 140 characters,” and he adds that “cross-cultural communication can involve a fair amount of context and complexity.” So even though users are bringing multiple layers of identity to Twitter, it’s difficult to explore the depths of those layers online. Instead, Gerstandt suggests using Twitter to initiate intercultural exchanges and a combination of in-person and online interactions to forge deeper cross-cultural connections.

Ultimately, Twitter is a useful tool to facilitate cross-cultural interactions, but the lion’s share of the responsibility to engage across boundaries still falls on us. As Mishra observes, “[H]uman beings have a strong tendency to prefer the familiar, so we pay attention to people with a shared context and treat the rich Twitter public stream as background noise … in practice, Twitter’s ability to promote cross-cultural communication is limited by our own willingness to engage in it.”

Other thoughts on Twitter are:

A Step in a New Direction

Open Design

B.Y.O.C. (Bring Your Own Culture)

I Tweet, Therefore I Am