Spectr

06/05/2023

Can you imagine a car company putting a new vehicle on the market without built-in safety features?

27/04/2023

Augmental, an MIT Media Lab spin-off based in San Francisco, has developed a Bluetooth mouse designed to be worn inside your mouth.

The MouthPad, which is currently in beta testing, will allow quadriplegics and other users without the use of their hands to control computers, smartphones, tablets and other Bluetooth-enabled devices.

27/02/2023

It's easy today to get caught up in discussions about the future of and its potentially negative consequences, but we can't ignore the fact that some dystopian scenarios might be already here.

As AI technology advanced, -powered apps like Replika have matured, offering virtual AI-powered companions with conversational abilities and digital behaviors that are remarkably close to real people's.

They're so close, in fact, that if someone wants or needs to believe they're building a relationship, it's easy to fall into the trap. This vulnerability to harmful consequences might not be there for the majority of users, but given the challenges that modern society faces in the relational aspects of life, it's easy to recognize that the potential for harm exists.

Looking at the community and power users of Replika makes it clear how many problematic consequences technologies like these can generate.

Most common and widespread ‘misusages’ (almost a euphemism) of the Replika app include engaging in AI erotic roleplay and investing too much time and emotional resources with the chatbot, mistaking fictitious digital relationships with real ones, ultimately steering away from reality.

It may seem far-fetched and dystopian, but this scenario has been unfolding already. What do you think?

Video excerpt via ColdFusion - full version: https://youtu.be/QGLGq8WIMzM

20/01/2022

Although the proposal is dramatic, Barr believes that large-scale initiatives are needed to help solve the growing issues facing the city.

"Drastic action is needed because the status quo of small steps has not proven adequate to the tasks at hand," he explained.

via

Rutgers professor Jason Barr has proposed adding a 1,760-acre extension, named New Mannahatta, to the tip of Manhattan Island to combat climate change.

23/11/2021

Meta (Facebook), through its Meta Reality Labs research department, is developing a glove designed to give the wearer sensations that mimic the weight and feel of real objects when they are handled in virtual space. This is one of the many pieces that will make up Facebook’s big vision of : the Metaverse.

The tech draws on the relatively new field of , replacing bulky motors with tiny air valves. Meta has been working on it nearly since it acquired the Oculus VR startup in 2014. It developed its first prototype — one finger with a single actuator — in 2015.

Reality Labs head Michael Abrash recalls one of the first experiences with early prototypes, looking at a virtual plate from inside a VR headset — where a single actuator, combined with the virtual image and the sound of rubbing the rough ceramic, was incredibly convincing. “I saw the plate, and I saw my finger on the plate, and I heard the sound — that kind of scraping sound across it — and I felt the vibration,” he says. “And I will tell you, I was running my finger over a ceramic plate.”

Meta although says the haptic glove is still nowhere close to being released to the public.

“What we’re trying to do is figure out how to give you rich feedback so that your hands become fully useful,” Abrash says. “This is a key piece and one of the hardest, long-term riskiest pieces, but once this is in place, then VR can really become an environment in which almost anything is possible that you are effectively capable of doing.”

More at:
https://tech.fb.com/inside-reality-labs-meet-the-team-thats-bringing-touch-to-the-digital-world/

Video and images ©Meta

03/05/2021

If you think that scooters are a 2020 thing, you might be wrong…

The Autoped was an early motor scooter or motorized scooter manufactured by the Autoped Company of Long Island City, New York from 1915 to 1922.

Kick scooters — a flat board on wheels with a long handle at the front, propelled by foot — have been made for at least 100 years before 1922 as toys for children. The Autoped although was one of the first examples of motorised kick scooters. Like a child's scooter, it had no seat. 
Manufactured in New York and Germany by Krupps, the U.S. postal service tested the Autoped as a means of fast transport for its special delivery service. The foldable scooter was also reportedly used as a quick getaway machine by New York gangs, racing down narrow alleys beyond the reach of police cars.
Other manufacturers followed: ABC Motorcycles produced the Skootamota, which had a top speed of 15 mph (24 km/h), and The Gloster Aircraft Company introduced the Reynolds Runabout in 1919, followed by the Unibus in 1920. 

Via , ,

References:

https://mashable.com/2015/06/15/1916-suffragette-scooter/?europe=true&fbclid=IwAR0bcQkjEFNT8Vm0BKXbs1R5m4OYIoRMlJ3mZXJmjKr9sBHhfze1U-0qjjM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoped
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/motorized-scooter-boom-hit-century-dockless-scooters-180971989/

Pictures
PAUL THOMPSON/FPG/ARCHIVE PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES

28/04/2021

After a long year of social distancing, & quarantines..a look to an old iconic project revolving around new forms of living, confined and uncontaminated spaces…

Oase No. 7 is one of the many experimental projects by the famous Viennese group Haus-Rucker-Co. It was designed as part of the Documenta 5 exhibition in Kassel, in 1972. The
installation consists of a transparent sphere with a diameter of 8 metres, the sphere was placed in front of the main facade on the Friedericianum. A catwalk made of standard tubular steel sections projected through the window from the interior of the building into the transparent sphere.

Haus-Rucker-Co was founded in 1967 by Laurids Ortner, Günther Zamp Kelp and Klaus Pinter,
later joined by Manfred Ortner. Their work explored the performative potential of architecture through installations and happenings using pneumatic structures or prosthetic devices that altered perceptions of space. Such concerns fit with the utopian architectural experiments of the 1960s by groups such as , , Ant Farm and Coop Himmelblau. Alongside these groups, Haus-Rucker-Co were exploring on the one hand, the potential of architecture as a form of critique, and on the other the possibility of creating designs for technically mediated experimental environments and utopian cities.
After 47 years a reinterpretation of Oase n.7 was realized by in Milan inside
during 2019 Milan’s Design Week.

For more ideas and iconic case studies, follow .spectr

Text excerpts via Spatial Agency, https://www.spatialagency.net/
Images © .archiv, Wikipedia, Space Caviar,

27/04/2021

"Supersuperficie" (Supersurface), made by Superstudio in 1972, is one of the most original expressions of a design activity elaborated by architects in the form of a film. It was produced by Marchi Produzioni with a sponsorship of Anic, on the occasion of the "Italy: the New Domestic Landscape" exhibition curated by Emilio Ambasz at in 1972 in New York.

From the words of Superstudio: “In this exhibition, we present an alternative model for life on earth. We can imagine a network of energy and information extending to every properly inhabitable area. Life without work and a new 'potentialized' humanity are made possible by such a network…
…There will be no further need for cities or castles. There will be no further reason for roads or squares. Every point will be the same as any other (excluding a few deserts or mountains which are in no wise inhabitable). So, having chosen a random point on the map, we'll be able to say my house will be here for three days
two months, or ten years. And we'll set off that way without provisions, carrying only objects we're fond of. The journey can be long or short, in any case, it will be a constant migration, with the actions of living at every point along the ideal
line between departure and arrival.”

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Original sketches:
🔗 www.cca.qc.ca/en/archives/408095/alessandro-poli-fonds/428301/architectural-and-design-projects/473260/supersuperficie-supersurface-1972

Full video:
🔗 www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KkTewCUKT8&t=6s

🔗Full .pdf catalog of Italy: New Domestic Landscape at MoMA.
https://assets.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1783_300062429.pdf

22/04/2021

“We are morphing so fast that our ability to invent new things outpaces the rate we can
civilize them. These days it takes us a decade after a technology appears to develop a social
consensus on what it means and what etiquette we need to tame it”

― Kevin Kelly, The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future, p.3



Fabio Besti Interdisciplinary Design

15/04/2021

Spectr is coming soon… Stay tuned!

A past, present and future perspective on the world and society through the lenses of , & thinking. Curated by Besti Interdisciplinary Design