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This image of a so-called “Wii Spray” device, thesis project of a one Martin Lihs, has been making appearances on design and tech blogs lately. Discussion of the prototype has so far focused on heightened realism the controller would bring to a street-art videogame. Personally, I’m partial to the rainbow cable – but that might just be me. Aesthetics of cordage aside, what I find most intriguing about the device isn’t it’s application as a gaming interface but the potential to repurpose it as a recording device. TiVo for graffiti, as it were. So lets put our Johnny Chung Lee hats on for a moment and think this through… continue reading »

I’ve only just started digging into Grand Theft Auto IV, so I’m not gonna offer much of a review here; but I thought I would throw out a couple early notes…

With Rockstar’s decision to model the game world after New York City, the one thing myself and many others were eager to learn was how the GTA experience would differ for those already familiar with NYC. What I’m finding is that Liberty City doesn’t build on any functional understanding of New York as much as it appeals to my emotional appreciation for it. It’s very much an artistic impression – “it’s like a painting” as a friend put it.

However, with that said, the environment’s intricate detail and unbelievable richness demands comparison and inspection. And the first thing I did upon setting foot in Broker, Liberty City’s answer to Brookyln, was hijack a car and attempt to connect landmarks, streets and neighborhoods to their real-world counterparts. There are plenty of connections to make, almost all with a brilliant satirical twist; however, Rockstar understandably, though disappointingly, resisted the temptation of mirroring the exact layout and geography of Manhattan and its surrounding boroughs. All the major parks, monuments, bridges and buildings have their place, but you won’t find yourself killing drug dealers outside your local bodega at any point in the game. continue reading »

A couple months ago I read a story in the NYTimes about a device called the Boomerang developed by BBN Technologies. The Boomerang, which looks a bit like an over-sized cat toy, is attached to military vehicles to determine the direction of incoming enemy fire. It does this by recording the sound of the bullets with multiple microphones and then triangulating their source and trajectory based on the differences between the recordings – a process called acoustic triangulation.

In my post on Recording Reality, I mentioned two basic approaches to compiling a single recording of everything: things observe other things and things observe themselves. What’s fascinating about the Boomerang is it’s a hybrid of these two approaches – a sort of machine sousveillance. That is, by observing it’s environment (other things), it “observes” itself. Since it can track the trajectory of incoming bullets, it can effectively determine when the vehicle’s been hit by one. The Boomerang is a sensory prosthetic for Humvees.

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