Amongst all these innovations it’s nice to see that utterly normal objects are also being radically transformed. It can hear you, respond to your touch and anticipate your actions. If it sounds like a robot you are half way there. It’s an intelligent surface that hopes to replace walls in workspaces and on billboards.

HypoSurface behaves like liquid in a controlled state. It responds to sound, movement and Internet feeds with waves, patterns, logos and even text.

“it draws the eyes because no one has seen anything like it before. It captures the digital ‘mood’ that is in the air, and people are delighted to participate in its intelligent sensuality – they immerse themselves in the wonder of it.”

The latest craze in design has been to tailor a specific ambiance to the individual. When someone walks in the room they should feel more relaxed, at home and welcome. Bill Gates spent millions on his home. When you walk in a room your retina is scanned and the artwork changes to your finest tastes as the lights dim, even the shade of color on the walls seems to deepen into the color that best suits your blood pressure.

HypoSurface brings that attention to personality one step further. It allows the user to play with it as a three dimensional object. And it plays back. The idea of a design space that can be in constant flux to be formed around an individual is groundbreaking.

“Every once in a rare while a product or experience is brought into the world that shifts perspective, ignites curiously and charges us to design beyond our imaginations. HypoSurfac is one of these rare inventions. The HypoSurface™ itself is like an organism; responsive, stunning and organic in nature. It is captivating and full of endless possibilities. The HypoSurface will transform any event, environment and experience into a talked-about one!” -Jody Levy, O2 Creative Solutions, Detroit

[HypoSurface Product Page] [Sci Fi Tech]

When an asteroid the size of Manhattan hits the earth we are as dead as the dinosaurs. How can we preserve our civilization when the time comes?

The moon is scheduled to have it’s first base by 2024. Original plans were to take advantage of the moon’s resources and to serve as a launching pad for further exploration. Jim Burke of International Space University added a third to the list, a way to preserve our world.

Major asteroids or comets hit the earth every 100 million years and the last major impact was 65 million years ago. The clock is ticking and we never really know if we might be on a collision trajectory with larger objects in deep space until it may be too late.

“In the event of a global catastrophe, the ARC facilities will be prepared to reintroduce lost technology, art, history, crops, livestock, and, if necessary, even human beings to the Earth.”

So now the $100 million question, what goes inside the ark? It seems that billionaire philanthropists get the first say. Their donations will fund a major portion of the project.

You can bet your ass there will be no iPhones if Bill Gates is on that list.

[National Geographic]

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So you want to know how to cheat death but don’t know if your ready to be frozen alive? The promise of cryonics is to preserve humans who can no longer be sustained by current medicine. The goal of this speculative science is to resuscitate people at some point in the future and restore them to health. The US has laws prohibiting cryonics to be performed on a patient until clinical death.

The idea of clinical death has been updated several times throughout modern history. Today it is defined as cessation of blood circulation and breathing. The term is updated every time a new method of resuscitation is discovered. So far CPR, defibrillation, and epinephrine injections are able to reverse this medical condition that precedes death. For all intensive purposes, even in the US, when your undergoing cryonics your doing it at a moment before you are actually dead.

Throughout human civilization we have been fascinated with the idea of longevity and immortality. From the ancient pharaohs in Egypt to the myth of immortal vampires, it seems as if we are always looking for another way to “rage against the dying of the light.”

The theory that cryonics could work is hinged on a few basic principles. Life needs to be able to be suspended and then reanimated with its basic structure in tact. A small creature called water bears do exactly this, yet have a fundamentally different structure to our own. We do know that it is a remote possibility because people have survived extreme cold with their hearts stopped for up to an hour.

Freezing temperatures cause cracks in cellular biology, so vitrification is used to allow tissues to be cooled with little or no ice damage. Even though this process has been improved over the years, there is still a minute measure of damage that needs to be fixed before we can bring someone back.

Fixing microscopic damage is the holy grail of not only cryonics but of medical science. You may have heard of it as nanotechnology or nanomedicine. Eventually computers will become so small that they will be able to course through your veins, repairing the smallest defects and problems at a cellular level. That means no cancer, no disease and eventually a way to drastically slow down the aging process.

You might be thinking that this all sounds great in theory and that maybe your kids will have access to it on day. The shocking conclusion is that it is availible today and Alcor, the largest cryonics company worldwide, will sign you up for $150,000. The best part is you don’t even have to pay for it out of your pocket, that’s what life insurance is for.

When I heard about the prospect to open my eyes even one more time after legal death I signed up on the spot. That was over three years ago. Some people tell me that I might as well play the lottery because the odds are so far against me. Yet I believe in the advancement of science and the wonders of innovation. If I had to sign those papers again today and they stated an outrageous chance like .1% to come back to full health I would happily scribble my name in ink once more.

[Alcor FAQ] [The Cryonics Society] [Society for Cryobiology]

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You like visually stunning intuitive touch systems? Boy, is it your lucky day. The reacTable allows multiple artists to manipulate sounds simultaneously by moving unique blocks over a glowing surface. This beautiful instrument is geared towards a musician as well as an audience.

The synthesizer visually responds when the blocks flip, move, and turn on the surface. Proximity of each block changes variables such as pitch and pulsing visuals underneath the blocks visually show the artist and audience what the music is doing.

Developers of the reacTable had a vision of many artists manipulating pieces at concerts to create a mix of music and performance art. Musician Björk embraced that vision in her last tour, where you may already have seen the instrument in action.

Although reacTable may be the best looking, it isn’t the first in the line of “tangible music interfaces.” Audiopad is a project by MIT students stemming back to 2002. Their goals were similar, “Audiopad not only allows for spontaneous reinterpretation of musical compositions, but also creates a visual and tactile dialogue between itself, the performer, and the audience.”

The trend for systems such as these stems from a desire to bring a human experience to computing. Zero manual, zero instructions yet challenging, interesting and collaborative. This may not be the new face of a musical instrument we are seeing but rather a more natural from of computing.

[Wired]

Are you afraid to commit to a tattoo for the rest of your life? Looks like you can finally have your cake and eat it too. Company Freedom-2 in NYC has come up with a new type of ink that still lasts a lifetime, yet can be removed in one fell swoop of a laser.

“I was the first recipient of a Freedom-2 tattoo. I wore it for several months and then had it lasered off. Now my arm is completely clean,” said Martin Schmieg, president and CEO Freedom-2.

The technique uses a standard needle to inject plastic beads that contain bioabsorbable dies. Just like regular tattoos, those particles will be stored in the upper dermis of the skin. The difference is that this microencapsulated ink can be dissolved by a single pass of a laser. The laser actually bursts the microscopic beads open to be absorbed by the body’s immune system.

Like most new technologies this wonder product does come at a price, four times that of regular ink. They say it will be ready for the marketplace this fall, just in time for your next Vegas wedding. Innovation: making regrettable decisions that much easier!

[How Tattoos Work]

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