Science Comedian » ETech

Zoe Keating Performs at ETech 2009

Brian — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 21:15:11 +0000

One of the many highlights of the Emerging Technology conference was the Wednesday evening performance of Zoe Keating: “Using a 17th Century Instrument to Create the Music of the 21st Century.”

Zoe uses a cello and a laptop to make beautiful multilayered music. She plays with herself. It’s loopy. Very cool.

Excuse the rough camera work up front – it was shot on a tiny Flip camera – and it gets much better a couple minutes in when I get to the closeups.

Link: http://www.zoekeating.com/

Siftables – Cookie Scale Computing

Brian — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:41:09 +0000

A couple weeks ago I saw this very cool short TED video about Siftables, a project coming out of the MIT Media Lab and Taco Lab in San Francisco. So, for my first ETech session this morning, I’m checking out Cookie Scale Computing with Jeevan Kalanithi and David Merrill. The brief program description is:

Cookie Scale Computing: Human-Computer Interfaces as Piles of Gesture Sensitive Displays
David Merrill (MIT Media Lab) et al

We’ve built a new type of interface that brings computation into our physical and gestural world: a set of cookie-sized, gesturally aware, neighbor detecting wireless displays that act together as one interface. We call them Siftables. People live in and know about the physical world. Computers should too.

Siftables are cookie-sized computers that are interactive, show graphics and can be manipulated physically in interesting ways – they can sense their neighbors and communicate wirelessly. They work together to form a single interface.

They demonstrated a bunch of interesting uses – check out the website and the TED video for examples and numerous news stories.

Link: Siftables and Taco Lab

Real Hackers Program DNA

Brian — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:18:36 +0000

Interesting ETech session this morning about hacking DNA led by Reshma Shetty and Barry Canton of Ginkgo BioWorks.

They brought some kits for the audience to play with. “Play” consisted of inserting some foreign DNA into e. coli for one of three effects: you could either make it turn red, smell like a banana, or, the most popular option, make it glow in the dark.

Took us through the first easy steps but it takes a couple days to observe effects.

Registry of Standard Biological Parts

DIYBio