We’ve all seen a lot of art in our time that mimics pixels.

We’ve all seen a lot of art in our time that mimics pixels. Think of an 8-bit Nintendo game, but rather than keeping the objects within the game world, ripping them out and placing them into your living room. What we haven’t seen, though, are real-life objects that mimic the way a flickering image on a computer monitor or television might look. Thankfully, artist Ferruccio Laviani has us covered, and has created a storage unit that, quite frankly, doesn’t look like it inhabits the same reality we do.

Supposedly, the cabinet is actually hand-carved to look like a flicker monitor, and the picture you see above was not digitally altered to make the piece of furniture look distorted. Rather, it would seem Laviani figured out how to manipulate time and space itself, and instead of using his newfound powers for greed or evil, he made some trippy furniture.

The cabinet, dubbed Good Vibrations, will make an appearance at Fratelli Boffi’s 2013 Furniture Exhibition, so the world will most likely get to see the tangible unit, and can judge if Laviani is a master craftsmen like the above image suggests. If so, we’d love to see the unit from different angles, as it would be pretty incredible if Laviani managed to add the wavy visual effect to each side.

Reade more >>

As Andy Rubin, the father of Android, steps down to pursue other Google-based projects

As Andy Rubin, the father of Android, steps down to pursue other Google-based projects, and Chrome lead Sundar Pichai will step up to handle his existing workload as well as instructions to “double down” on Android. It’s pretty natural to assume that there will be some cross communication between Android and Chrome, but how far will that really go?

Imagine the world that we would live in if Android and Chrome OS played together. Android apps running in Chrome tabs, background updates for Android that happen without interrupting the user, and everything in the cloud. There’s plenty of reasons to want this merger to happen, and there’s more than enough talent at Google to make it happen. The line between these platforms has always seemed pretty thin anyway, especially since they are both made by Google. If you take a step back and look at the two platforms from the ground up, however, you’ll see that there’s more than a few necessary differences.

Android grew in popularity by being something open source that any company could pick up and make their own. The Android platform focused on easy sharing and enabling location-aware devices that made your mobile tasks easier. The specific focus there was enabling the user to be able to do more on these tiny pocket computers. Along the way, this design has changed shape a bit, but the overall focus hasn’t changed.

This is wildly different from Chrome OS, which aims to remove as many layers as possible between you and the web. Hassles like file systems, apps, and having to be concerned about the way your computer is behaving are seen as distractions. Chrome OS isn’t about being more productive with a more powerful machine, it’s about being more productive by removing distractions.

In order to see a real merger here, Pichai would have to embark on the same journey he did with Chrome. The browser needs to be something that requires no thought from the user, and in many ways that is exactly what Chrome is. If you apply that same logic to Android you would be looking at an OS where version number is irrelevant. Everything is always up to date, and the hardware is never something you have to think about because it is always something that “just works”. Android is pretty far from that luxury right now, especially since they are part of an aggressive ecosystem whose primary focus right now is delivering the best features.

Reade more >>

Though Canonical released its Ubuntu Touch preview over one month ago

Though Canonical released its Ubuntu Touch preview over one month ago, not all of us have either been brave enough, or had the proper combination of devices and software to give it a test run. For those that fall into this category, but still want to give Ubuntu Touch a look-see, some previews of the core apps have trickled out into the wild.

The core apps are what you’d expect a mobile device’s core apps to be: A calculator, a weather app, a clock, a file manager, Twitter and Facebook clients, an email app, and so on. Interestingly, and because it’s Linux, a Terminal app is being developed as a core app as well. So now you can simultaneously be frustrated with having to pop into the Terminal on your phone, but also feel like a cool hacker since you’re dumping dense text commands into a terminal.

You won’t really be blown away by the artistic direction of the core apps at the moment, but they’re getting the job done. They don’t look bad; they just look a little plain, but unfortunately not plain in the sense that a pleasing minimalistic aesthetic style would be “plain.” The apps do look very Ubuntu, but they could benefit from Ubuntu’s greatest strength: the wonderful, iconic aubergine color.

Granted, the apps are currently in a development stage, and have until October (if Canonical’s aim of having Ubuntu Touch devices available to consumers by then comes to fruition) to spruce up the look. Again, though, they don’t look bad — you just wouldn’t sneak a second glance if they walked by you on the street.

Aside from the core apps, some third party developers are working on apps of their own as well. An alternative weather app makes an appearance, as does Google Reader and microblogging client Gwibber, as well as some staple mobile games like Sudoku and Chess.

Reade more >>

So you’ve got a fancy new computer, with all the bits, bytes, and Hertz you could ever need or want

So you’ve got a fancy new computer, with all the bits, bytes, and Hertz you could ever need or want. It’s probably very pretty and very powerful. But the real question is, how are you using that computer? Surely you don’t have a $2 USB keyboard, nor a $50 bargain-basement special LCD monitor.

We’ve espoused the benefits of a quality display a number of times in these deal hunting chronicles. Not only is a quality display important, but for the serious computer worker (or enthusiast, for that matter) multiple displays are an incredible benefit. For every bit of added enjoyment and multi-tasking efficiency you get with a quality display, it is practically doubled with a second display.

Working with multiple data sources, comparing two pieces of content, or even just having a second screen to hold the secondary things like email, IMs, and the like is extremely useful to most any computer user. Running dual monitors does add clutter to the desktop, and the added cable management challenges are unavoidable, but with a package like we have here today you can keep clutter to a minimum and score a sweet deal.

This bundle takes two of Dell’s most popular monitors, the UltraSharp U2412M, and bundles them with an adjustable stand. The monitors are top notch pieces of kit, serving up 1920×1200 resolution on a gorgeous 24-inch IPS LCD panel. They will connect to nearly any video sources via VGA, DVI, and DisplayPort and even have a four port USB hub built-in. DVI and VGA cables are included in this bundle as well.

The stand normally runs around $100, while the monitors are can sometimes be found for $300 on sale, effectively giving you the stand for free in this bundle priced at $594.99 with free shipping. The UltraSharp monitors even have their usual and oustanding 3 year warranty, complete with advance exchange and bright pixel guarantee.

    Two Dell UltraSharp U2412M IPS Monitors with stand for $594.99 + free shipping (reg. $699.99 | use coupon 6DBNK$ZJLR$L4J)

Our other top deals:

    Nexus 7 16GB Android 4.2 Tablet (refurbished) for $152.10 + free shipping (reg. $199.99 | ends soon)
    Apple MacBook Pro 13.3″ Retina Display Core i5 Notebook w/ 256GB SSD for $1,499 + free shipping (reg. $1,999)

Reade more >>

With a new subscription service for Mojang’s craft-em-up, Minecraft

With a new subscription service for Mojang’s craft-em-up, Minecraft, it would seem the hit game’s popularity is far from stalling just yet. Minecraft Realms, a new subscription service for the game, aims to provide customers of the game with online play, but free from the tyranny and vulgarity of the anonymous internet.

For a monthly free, a Minecraft server can be leased that is tailored to the subscriber and free of random people making a mess of things. The initiative is more focused on providing parents with a worry-free PG experience than it is focused on preventing griefers from logging on and destroying intricate build projects. The subscriber will have complete control over who can access the world and friends list. Only one person will need to subscribe, and regular, non-subscription users will be able to log on so long as the owner of the server allows it.

Though Realms is intended to be self-contained, Mojang is open to the idea of allowing portals between different Minecraft worlds, so friends can play on each others’ servers.

Reade more >>

The first thing every kid does with a hose when they pick it up is the same

The first thing every kid does with a hose when they pick it up is the same. You put your thumb on the spout and bend the stream to your will. If you grow up and take that one step further, you could come up with something pretty fantastic.

Optical illusions come in all shapes and sizes. Typically, when you think of optical illusions, most people think of perspective based image manipulation. It’s not often that a constantly moving object generates such an illusion. It turns out, this has a lot to do with how fast things move. If you catch them at the right frame rate, constantly moving objects can deliver similar optical illusions. This video is an example if such an illusion, capturing flowing water as it the spout it is pouring from is subjected to specific vibrations and then captured at 24 fps.

In this video, the vibrations from the speaker cause the tube to vibrate in a very specific pattern. This, in turn, causes the water to leave the tube in that same pattern. The different patterns captured here are a result of the tube vibrating at 23hz, 24hz, and 25hz while being captured on camera at 24fps. If you were to conduct this experiment yourself and you were just looking at the water with your eyes, you wouldn’t see the sine wave patterns that are captured by the camera. Our eyes capture the world at significantly faster than 24fps, so the camera serves as an interrupt that allows us to observe this optical illusion.

Reade more >>

Engineer Mehdi Sadaghdar makes YouTube videos in which he answers questions about electronics and technology

Engineer Mehdi Sadaghdar makes YouTube videos in which he answers questions about electronics and technology. One question he apparently gets quite often is which type of electricity hurts more, AC or DC? You have to respect the commitment Sadaghdar has to his audience. To answer the question, he applied increasingly potent electrical shocks… to his tongue.

In AC, or alternating current, the flow of electrons periodically reverses. DC (direct current) is simply unidirectional flow of electric charge. Most electrical systems in the world run on AC (50-60Hz), but many devices require DC power. In these cases, a power supply steps the power down to DC. If you’re tinkering with electronics, there are plenty of places you could get a nasty jolt from either form of electricity.

Sadaghdar wanted to figure out which type of shock would be more painful, but without using huge (read: dangerous) amounts of voltage. It stood to reason he should use the body part with the lowest resistance, which turned out to be his tongue. There are a few incidents during the testing process, which should serve to remind you not to try this at home.

With DC, Sadaghdar started at 1 volt and ramped it up to 12 volts, where he was forced to stop. Before the actual AC testing got underway, Sadaghdar demonstrated how the frequency of AC causes the muscles of the tongue to contract. It’s an effective visual aide. As for how painful 60Hz AC is, he had to stop at about 6.5 volts.

Reade more >>