Tengu is a small USB gadget that lip-syncs to music, your voice or … Neat! The brave out there who want to build one themselves should go here.

‘Absolut Machines‘ is quite an amazing project by Absolut Vodka. Basically, Absolut commissioned 2 interactive sound sculptures, which you can control through the website, you’ll have to wait in line though.
‘Absolut Quartet’ is a robotic mechanical orchestra, by playing the piano you can inspire the 3 robotic ‘musicians’. You can find some making of pictures in this Flickr set. The other one, ‘Absolut Choir’ is a machine consisting of 22 choir members, by typing in words and sentences you inspire them to sing. Both are just amazing!
On the website you can choose from different camera angles, see some documentation, download your composition as a video etc. It’s just a pain to use it. I think it’s a shame that the website doesn’t match the quality of the installations.
Here is a tip, just go to the press website if you want to get straight to the info.

This photo was made by Mauricio Alejo and was used by Wired to illustrate their ‘Home Sweet Gadget: How Our Technolust Helped Bring Down the Housing Market‘ article.

‘You Don’t Matter’ converted a plotting machine into an output device, that can draw, scratch or cut with almost any traditional drawing technique, in order to achieve aesthetics looking neither drawn by hand nor produced with only a computer. Most interesting and inspiring are all the little mistakes this machine produces, because of too much data, too much water, color, pressure etc. There are always gradients because the color gets less and less as the machine draws on. This expansion space describes the machine’s actual identity. No Image looks like the other.
And if you put a camera infront of the machine and take a time exposure it draws with light in the air like Picasso did with his hand.

found at manystuff.org

Yeah, that’s a mobile phone. Well actually it’s a development circuit board for the google Android operating system by Qualcomm. Can you see an iPhone competitor in there?
More info and hardware porn shots at Wired’s Gadget Lab.

Harddisko, it is what it is.
found at VVORK

Troika, known for their SMS Guerrilla Projector, was commissioned by Artwise Curators to create a signature piece at the entrance of the new British Airways luxury lounges in Heathrow Terminal 5. The result: “Cloud“, a five meter long digital sculpture whose surface is covered with 4638 flip-dots that can be individually addressed by a computer to animate the entire skin of the sculpture. The best part is of course the development pictures and 2 videos of the cloud in action.

Snoop from The Wire knows her stuff when she shops for some tools. The Hilti DX 460-MX Powder Actuated Fastening Tool: fully automatic, 27 caliber charge and it manages the recoil just fine. O yeah, the 5th and final season of The Wire starts January 6th!

Yesterday, Google released the software development kit for its mobile platform called Android. Of course I had to install it and give it a try, it comes with sample code and some standard features like a web browser and a maps application.
The standard graphical user interface looks dull to me, especially since I played around with an iPhone before. The screen resolution of the demo phone is only 320 by 240 and it’s not that snappy, maybe that’s because it’s only an emulation.
Although the iPhone is available since last Friday here in Germany, I didn’t buy one for the simple reason that the iPhone and the contract are too expensive. But if I could get one from the States (over a €100 cheaper!), I would.
So Apple, I’m quite curious to play with the iPhone SDK next February! Bring it on!

Blitz made this interactive wall for Adobe Creativity Conducted. It’s an amazing combination of Flash, WiiFlash, Papervision3D and the latest Flash player.

“Adobe Creativity Conducted” Interactive Wall Experience features a holographic-like projection system on which you can paint images and designs using a Nintendo Wii remote control. This full screen Flash application runs in HD resolution, and was premiered during the primary Adobe party of the MAX 07 Conference in Chicago. The experience ran uninterrupted for the duration of the party (4 hours), and received nonstop foot traffic resulting in 68 artistic creations submitted as images to a Flickr account.

You can find some more info at the Blitz labs.