Where games are made
For his Made of Myth series, Marc Da Cunha Lopes goes back to the places where the elements of great game classics were made. You really didn’t think it was all virtual, right? Above: the gold rings from Sonic.
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What is Next Nature?
With our attempts to cultivate nature, humankind causes the rising of a next nature, which is wild and unpredictable as ever. Wild systems, genetic surprises, autonomous machinery and splendidly beautiful black flowers. Nature changes along with us.
Posts Tagged ‘Toys-are-Us’
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Cursor Kite
Cursor Kite brings the desktop of your computer outdoors. Nerdy? Yep, but the youtube video of the mouse pointer exploring the beach is fun to watch.
Related: Boomeranged Metaphors, Digital trashcan brought to physical office, When Facebook gets physical.
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Aging Barbie
You wouldn’t give it to her but Barbie is already over 50 years old. The doll made her debut at the American International Toy Fair in 1959 and has been a young girls (and gays) beauty icon for decades. Just image what Barbie would have looked like today if only she wasn’t so utterly plastic fantastic by nature. Still a pretty woman, stylish too! Peculiar image of the week (creator unknown: let us know).
Related: Beauty kit for little girls, Virtual Miss, Photoshop Beauties, Objects of desire, Real Mario, Software that ranks female beauty.
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Grow-a-NanoRaptor
Now here is an example of the fusion between the made and the born, most kids would crave for. Much better than the robotic dino toy. Designed by evolution!
Hopefully this genetic surprise doesn’t grow genetically wild and eats its owner. Luckily it is just an imaginative product – so far.
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Augmented Phone Browsing
This video shows the first beta version of TwittARound – an augmented reality Twitter viewer on the iPhone 3Gs. It shows live tweets around your location on the horizon. Because of the video see-through effect you see where the tweet comes from and how far away it is.
The app does something similar as layar(.com) — launched in Amsterdam (NL) June 17th –, a phone interface that puts a content layer over the phone camera’s videoscreen to locate the nearest toilet, bar, supermarket, bank and other search categories.
Though we still trust our natural eyes and ears; with tools like these, we have but to reach in our pockets to look ahead and see what is coming. The apps are not predicting the future yet, but I am pretty sure we will have to get back on that soon.
via: i.document.m05.de (thanks @droombos) | Related: On the Road | Avatar Machine
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Real Mario (closeup)
In next nature, video game characters become part of your everyday environment, however I am no sure if I would hire this guy to do my plumbing. This hyperreal Mario was created by Pixeloo by pasting a bunch of random faces over a 3d render of Mario from Nintendo. Peculiar image of the week.
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Real Mario (video)
These college students perform a “live-action” skit of the old school Super Mario Brothers video game at a talent show. Virtual for real in a high school musical (hilarious alert!). Thanks Ehsan.
See also: Boomeranged Metaphors, Living with first-person shooter disease, Game on, Everything is Fake, Games become jobs.
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Recycling robot takes the streets of Italy
Let the robots do the dirty work! This real-life Wall-E Recycling robot, part of the $3.9 million DustBot research program that is trying to improve urban hygiene, collects trash and measures atmospheric pollutants. He – or is it a she? – can also identify residents, and sort their trash into organic, recyclable, or waste.
The robot is nimble enough to navigate where conventional gas-guzzling garbage trucks cannot. The one on the picture is still in the prototype phase and robots aren’t legally allowed to roam around without human guidance in Peccioli, Italy. But who knows — some day soon you may see a friendly green robot zipping garbage down your street.
Via The Guardian. See also: Ladybug cleans the toilet, Killer Robots, the order Electrus.
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Norwegian forest cat on batteries
Robots are penetrating our homes… disguised as cats? On July 30, Sega Toys releases an el-cheapo simulation cat toy for
robotcat lovers with allergies or pet-unfriendly apartments. It’s made to look, feel, and act just like a Norwegian Forest Cat. It runs on four AAs and will retail for about $100.We are unsure whether the kitten can talk, what its fur is really made of – rabbits perhaps? – and if there is also a version available with a vacuum cleaner integrated. Nonetheless, it is another schoolbook example of nextnature disguising itself as oldnature in order to gain acceptance.
Via Tokyomango. See also: Steam Horse, Designer Pets, Epidermits – the tissue engineered toy, Lifestyle Pets, Is your cat infected with a computer virus?, Robot costumes, Babybunny – stuffed pets as toys. Thanks Tinkebell.
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Living with First-Person shooter disease
Now how is this for a Boomeranged Metaphor? Gene suffers from first person shooter disease, also known as Duke Nukem’s disease. It is such a sadness.
See also: When Facebook gets Physical, World of World of Warcraft. Thanks Thomas.
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Not so Happy Meals
This week a Brazilian prosecutor asked a judge to nationally ban toys sold with meals in fast-food outlets like McDonald’s and Burger King, because it can lead children to develop bad eating habits. The move comes amid wide-spread concern over the link between some fast food and illnesses such as diabetes, as the U.S. congress considers requiring chain restaurants to disclose calories on their menus to help fight endemic obesity.
Prosecutor Marcio Schusterschitz, a federal prosecutor in Brazil’s Sao Paulo state, said fast-food toy promotions encourage children to buy high-fat meals through “the abusive creation of emotional associations” that turn them into life-long eaters of high-fat foods. Read the full article on uk.reuters.com
Toys are us… Apart from the health-aspect and cases of obesity, this article makes me wondering; how much plastic are we talking about on a yearly basis? According to thebluebrick.net, it takes 34 cents to manufacture and package each Happy Meal toy. At 2.5 million Happy Meals sold annually, $850 thousand is spent on those little wads of plastic a year.
You think that is much? Why no; it is good investment. Children really need some entertainment to go with their meals. It is educational, every toy is played with over and over again and almost never thrown away. And when children play, they burn calories. I guess it is the toys that determine the nature we deserve.
Related: Fake For Real: Image Consumption | Hamburger Sneaker | Million Dollar Burger | They are made out of Meat | Where it came from |
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Foldable Icons
In response to the Boomeranged Metaphors post of last week, visual wizard Ton Meijdam sent us these foldable icons. Print them, fold them and use them to decorate your 3D desktop (you know that one from the pre-digital age). Should keep the kids busy during the weekend.
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