Cloud, Digital Sculpture by Troika

Created by Troika, an art and design studio in London, “Cloud” is a digital sculpture housed at the luxury lounges in Heathrow Terminal 5. It’s a smooth-shaped object suspended in the air, covered with 4638 “flip dots” - motorized metal patches that change orientation to produce various patterns. Video and more information after the jump.

Anthill Metropolis Filled With Cement and Excavated (Video)

Unbelievable video from the show Ants! Nature’s Secret Power. Cement is poured into a gigantic ant colony (we’re talking 538 sq.feet across!) and allowed to dry for a month. The anthill is then excavated to reveal the ants’ monstrous metropolis.

Saturday’s Comic Relief, Jan 19th

After a week of talking flesh fusing with machines, animal experiments and other under-the-skin issues, it’s important to mix it up with some funny videos! Yarr, here be geeky humor.

Robot Videos From CES 2008

As usual, the Consumer Electronics Show 2008 has brought an onslaught of hot gadgets. Here are a few videos of new robotic products expected to hit the market this year. A special star goes to WowWee for their Rovio telepresence bot which sounds and looks truly fantastic.

Awesome Trailer for Pixar’s Wall*E

Screenshot from the Wall-E trailer
I admit I wasn’t entirely convinced when I saw the teaser for Pixar’s new Wall*E movie a few months back, but damn me for having ever doubted the minds at Pixar! The consequently released plot details plus trailer have me chuckling and wishing for a closer release date than the 27th of June 2008. Wall*E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) is a robot left behind on Earth to clean up our trash after we’re forced to leave the planet. After hundreds of years sifting through mountains of junk, Wall*E meets a new robot which sparks the plot of the main storyline (which I’ll leave unsaid).

The darkly under-toned scenario is brilliantly meshed with the childlike demeanor of Wall*E (cute-factor around 90%) following the renown Pixar recipe for memorable and innovative, all-enjoyable features. His body-language alone has you laughing. Catch the trailer over at Apple Trailers and make sure you watch the HD version — this is no doubt Pixar’s best 3D work!

Matalosis Maligna: Metal Implants, Growing

Metalosis Maligna infected rat
Prosthetics and implants; the hunt for increased longevity and improved physical attributes carry a horrifying cost. Or so is the theme in a short documentary of the fictitious disease Metalosis Maligna. A bacterial infection around implants triggers a growth process within it, causing the implant’s steel to expand and branch-out with devastating effects to the host.

Concept Art: Robotic Chair Follows You Around

Jelte's robotic stalker chair
It’s not paranoya if someone’s actually following you. But in this case, it’s helpful: Visit the library, poke your card at the nearest chair and it’ll follow you around, aptly providing seating once you’ve found a nice cozy place to read. Unfortunately it looks as though this is pure concept art with no actual implementation or research — a conclusion I’m embarrassed to admit took a few minutes to arrive at by watching the video. But a nice concept nonetheless and since it managed to dupe me, if only for a short while, I think it deserves some attention.

The Touch Music Video From Transformers: The Movie (1986)

Rodimus unlocks the MatrixStraight from 1986 comes the music video to “The Touch” by Stan Bush, featured in Transformers: The Movie, hat tip to fellow 9ruler at iDunzo for finding it. The animated feature film was, in my honest opinion, vastly superior to the 2007 Transformers film. No, I’m not kidding. It had more character & story depth (as far as that goes in setting like this), cooler designs, unique ideas and … a better soundtrack.

The Space Collective — Social Collaboration for the Future

Part of the Space Collective frontpage logoThe Space Collective is a site under development, planning to launch a public beta of its site soon “Where forward thinking terrestrials share ideas and information about the state of the species, their planet and the universe, living the lives of science fiction.

Playing the Super Mario Themesong With Tesla Coils

Tesla Coils playing the Mario Bros theme
Hook two solid state Tesla coils up with a laptop and channel midi through to get sparks synchronized with the Super Mario Bros. themesong. I thought this was fun before I realized that the music is actually coming from the Tesla coils — there are NO speakers! At that point I flipped open the head of my desk statue and pressed the red button, opening the secret passage to the Artificial Cave where I wrote this entry.

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