Very Cool: Alt-Minds ARG Preview: An Interactive Detective Adventure - StickTwiddlers

Alt-Minds is a transmedia Alternate Reality Game (ARG) taking the form of interactive fiction; combining gaming with social media and web TV to deliver an in-depth and interactive story. The story is mainly played out via a web series as well as interaction with tablets and Facebook and the use of smartphones and GPS to checkout events and locations.

The brainchild of Orange and Lexis Numerique, known for the PC games In Memorium and Expérience11, Alt-Minds story is a bold new detective adventure aimed to give the player a high degree of immersion. Participants can choose to follow the story through various media forms, or enter the story themselves to take part in an interactive game.
Alt-Minds is set up as an episodic, paranormal thriller that takes players on a captivating journey throughout Europe as they attempt to solve a series of mysterious kidnappings....

!!!! The Wachowskis & Tom Tykwer's 'Cloud Atlas' Now Arrives On October 26th; Susan Sarandon Plays An Indian Man | The Playlist

From indiewire... (I am so excited!)

"So just how messed up and bonkers will The Wachowskis' and Tom Tykwer's adaptation of David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas" be? Well, Hugh Grant will apparently be doing a lot of "killing and raping," and as for Susan Sarandon? She tells Postmedia that her small role finds her playing "an Indian man." Huh? We're getting ahead ourselves a bit, because the good news is you'll be seeing this sooner than expected.
While initially tagged for a December release, Warner Bros. has officially announced today that "Cloud Atlas" will hit theaters on October 26th, where the starry cast that also includes Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, James D’Arcy, Zhou Xun and Keith David should trounce the competition that weekend that includes the Lionsgate comedy "The Big Wedding" with Robert De Niro, Robin Williams and Katherine Heigl, the tween thingy "Fun Size," Curtis Hanson's surfing drama "Of Men And Mavericks" and "Silent Hill: Revelation 3D."......

Infographic Exposes A Little Mystery About Twitter Behavior Around The World | Co.Design: business + innovation + design

Media_httpwwwfastcode_bupdp

Must read:

"Twitter’s internal analytics team has published a new paper (PDF) that, while brief, reveals a bit of insight as to the challenges of having so much information at your fingertips--namely, making some semblance of sense of it."

original post here:

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670133/infographic-exposes-a-little-mystery-abou...

What A Toaster Teaches You About The Future Of User Interfaces | Co.Design: business + innovation + design

Media_httpwwwfastcode_finby

Excerpt:

WRITTEN BY: Michael Meyer

MICHAEL MEYER’S TOASTER MAY NOT HAVE A TOUCH-SCREEN INTERFACE OR RETINA DISPLAY, BUT IT’S GOT THE RIGHT PERSONALITY AND SET OF BEHAVIORS--A LESSON WORTH LEARNING FOR ALL PRODUCTS.

"The current model of good interaction design has run its course. Users have come to expect the rich, fluid, high-bitrate presentation and the direct manipulation and gestural interface control, as enabled by the latest generation of smartphones and tablets. For devices whose economics can support the internal parts cost required to deliver it, this style of interaction is simply table stakes. But while all product interactions need to be thoughtfully designed, rich screen-based interactions may not be the best direction. In fact, they are often just plain wrong...."

Don Cheadle’s “Envision” Keynote Address on Sustainability and Activist Filmmaking | IFP

</

Actor Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda, Crash) delivers the closing keynote address from Envision 2012: Stories for a Sustainable Future.

Here, he discusses his career, issues of sustainability, and the merits of social issue filmmaking.

Envision 2012 was presented by IFP, the United Nations Department of Public Information, and the Ford Foundation on 4/17/12.

Original post here:

http://www.ifp.org/resources/don-cheadles-envision-keynote-address-on-sustain...

Here it is! Civic Spectacle: Public Journal 45. Thrilled my "Nuit Blanche & Transformational Publics" is out

Edited by Jim Drobnick and Jennifer Fisher /

This issue of PUBLIC considers how large-scale events have challenged conventional understandings of audience, spectacle, and what it means to “view” art. The recent success of Nuit Blanche, for instance, breeds a paradox: in one night, the number of visitors often surpasses the attendance at major art institutions for an entire year. Despite such numbers, this popular exhibition format has so far yielded limited scholarship, which PUBLIC 45 seeks to engage. This issue on Civic Spectacle analyzes the greater context of performances that includes the time-honoured cultural forms of festivals and parades along with more spontaneous and oppositional events, such as flash mobs and activist interventions. Indeed, beyond Nuit Blanche, these types of civic spectacles respond to a situation of urban crisis: the loss of sustainable jobs as tourism and service industries replace manufacturing, the weakened political clout of cities as suburbs and exurbs become wealthier and more populous, and the challenges to retain a sense of community in the stressed circumstances of the downtown core.

Table of Contents

Editors’ Introduction
NUIT BLANCHE

‘Sleepless Nights: Contemporary Art and the Culture of Performance’, Heather Diack
‘Nuit Blanche and Transformational Publics’, Siobhan O’Flynn

PROJECT: ‘NIGHTSENSE,’ Jennifer Fisher and Jim Drobnick
‘City of Night: Parisian Explorations’, Catherine Howell
‘Halifax’s Nocturne versus(?) the Spectacle of Neoliberal Civics’, Max Haiven....

Vintage suitcases up-cycled as unique boomboxes

Gorgeous....

"Some models are complete and ready to ship as they are, but others can be custom-configured to include buyer-specified inputs, amp sizes, power sources and personal detailing. The designers say that they use tried and tested classic electronic components that were built to last rather than throwing in the very latest that technology has to offer (and perhaps falling foul of early bird faults and foibles). The Cimino-Hurt brothers also state that where vintage electronics are no longer available, newly-made substitutes will be used but for the most part, vintage is best...."

How to send balloons into space (Wired UK)

This article was taken from the July 2012 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.

Canadian teenagers Asad Muhammad and Mathew Ho sent a Lego minifig 24,384 metres up (near-space) using a balloon. Ho explains how.

Keep it simple
"We used a box fixed to a parachute attached to a giant weather balloon," says Ho. Order the parachute from spherachutes.com and the balloon from kaymontballoons.com. The 350g model should be fine, but a bigger balloon will last longer in the air.

Be prepared...

Mysterious Fairy Circles Are 'Alive' | Wired Science

by Rachel Nuwer, ScienceNOW

"Walter Tschinkel may not have solved the mystery of the fairy circles, but he can tell you that they’re alive. Tens of thousands of the formations — bare patches of soil, 2 to 12 meters in diameter — freckle grasslands from southern Angola to northern South Africa, their perimeters often marked by a tall fringe of grass. Locals say they’re the footprints of the gods. Scientists have thrown their hands up in the air. But now Tschinkel, a biologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee, has discovered something no one else has...."

read more here:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/06/fairy-circles-grass/?utm_source=twi...