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Infographic of the Day: Drawing in 3-D, With Ping-Pong Balls and an iPhone
(Fast Company) Submitted at 7/8/2010 11:32:35 AM
Floating Forecaster, by U.K. interactive designer Richard Harvey, is a ping-pong floatation device that lets you loft up your balls just by running your fingers across your smart phone. Using either the iPhone interface app c74 or a custom MaxMSP sequencing program, you can do pretty much anything with your balls -- shoot them up in the air, keep them quivering low to the ground, hold your own PowerBall lottery, whatever. Check out some epic ball- playing here:
[vimeo NEXT continued from page 4
line. Maybe people don't need the extra horsepower and Mac app compatibility that comes with a MacBook in a super- portable design anymore. Maybe the iPad will suffice for most buyers.
But we have to assume that as long as Apple ships Mac laptops, it'll always want to make them thinner, smaller, and more portable. And that's where all the lessons Apple is learning from the iPhone, iPod, and iPad could really help the MacBook lineup.
So we think Apple might come out with a new MacBook Air in the next year or so that's so thin and light that it's shocking, with a super-long-lasting battery, and maybe even a non-Intel chip on the inside.
It might not be an "Air," but just a super-thin MacBook Pro. But either way, it's silly to assume that Apple won't apply its miniaturization lessons to its Mac laptop lineup. Bonus: Magic Trackpad Image: Engadget Apple has supposedly been developing a
"Magic trackpad" accessory that basically replaces the mouse -- a device Apple has struggled with for years -- with the same multi- touch trackpad on its MacBooks. This thing reared its head in June on the gadget sites, but Apple didn't announce anything about it at its WWDC conference.
So maybe something to spring on us next time it has a Mac- centered event? Perhaps in October when it typically updates its Macs before the
holidays? Now, don't miss...
Image: Associated Press 10 Things We Love And Hate About Apple's iPhone 4 My Excellent SIX HOUR iPhone 4 Adventure 10 Things We Love And Hate About The iPad Join the conversation about this story »
13059978] Mechanically, the contraption is made of 30 air pumps hooked up to a power supply, and it relies on some basic principles of gravity and air pressure. Your physics teacher probably tried the same floating-ping-pong-ball trick in high school, but with a hairdryer. (For nerds who actually care how it works: Air blasts create a low-pressure airstream, while the surrounding higher-pressure air forces the ping pong to stay inside the airstream. The ball rises and falls depending on the strength of the blasts.) Originally, Harvey conceived of the Floating Forecaster as a weather
visualization tool. He got it to show rain (balls falling one at a time); lightning (balls dropping violently); sun (balls floating serenely). Have a look-see: [vimeo 4997880]
His first
installation was controllable by movement. Using a Webcam, he made it respond to his hand and arm gestures, as if he were playing the theramin. The problem: He was the only who
could get it to work reliably. [vimeo 7898708] That brings us to the iPhone/ MaxMSP version, which the geek site
CreativeApplications.net is billing as a 3D "drawing machine." They're already giddy about the artistic possibilities: "imagine ver 2 with a 100×100 grid scenario and an iPad interface for 4 people to share + make collaborative patterns in the air." So we'll all get to play with each other's balls? Neat-o! [Via
CreativeApplications.net; images courtesy of Richard Harvey]
How To Survive
Videos (HowStuffWorks Daily Feed) Submitted at 7/8/2010 9:00:00 AM
(more info) Five Filters featured article: Headshot - Propaganda, State Religion and the Attack On the Gaza Peace Flotilla. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.
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