I reviewed some of the sponsor goodies I brought home from the Media Lab yesterday:

1, 2) "Maeda Book Club" offering: Haptic - Awakening the Senses, a showcase of tactile fine artworks.

3, 4, 5) DVD of the 8 1/2 minute video of the Visible Language Workshop's 1995 showreel ... made a year after the passing of founder Muriel Cooper. The VHS quality video has footage of classic explorations in flying in real-time through dataspaces.

Not pictured: Simplicity Special Report #1, an analysis of online shopping websites by Connie Yeh.

Links related to the lab presentations to visit later:

~ MIT Concept Cars with GM & Frank O. Gehry ... be sure to click through "More Cars" ~ Smart Cities Project ~ Third party reseller of E-ink displays ~ More info on omni-directional wheels shown in Photo #4 of this post ~ I need to have our research library at work order an original copy of Ted Selker's blurb from a November 2004 issue of the New York Times Magazine on Spray-on Baby Clothing. Here's the text of Ted's comments from a handout he gave us:

7. Problem: Too Much Dirty Laundry Solution: Spray-On Baby Clothes

Ted Selker, director of industrial design intelligence, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab

''I first had the idea when I was 11. I was with my father, who was visiting a laboratory where there was a little extruder of polyethylene. I sprayed it on my hand and made a little glove. It was very warm. The idea has been with me ever since. Adults are tricky. How can you conceal flab? But babies have the perfect shape for spray-on clothes. The apparati are all under the changing table. A vat of heated polyethylene, a bag of starch, bottles of color and an air compressor. Using the nozzle that's got lines to all these elements, you would first add color to the starch, then powder on the starch as a warm layer next to baby's skin. Then you'd spray on a layer of breathable polyethylene pile that's kept cool by the air from the compressor. The plastic acts like fabric, very flexible, ideal for a wriggling baby. When you change the baby, you tear off the polyethylene and recycle it in the vat. And, when you go out, you take some along with you in an aerosol can for touch-ups.''

And finally, a correction of the link to Processing in this previous post.

- mike lee - langley park, md