francescomerletti.com

New site update coming end of April 2013

Francesco — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:59:35 +0000

Are atoms the new bits or are bits the new atoms?

Francesco — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 11:59:02 +0000

In January 2010 Wired magazine came out with an issue about how the DIY scene is changing the rules of producion. Tools and practices that have become common online are moving back to the physical world. Among these are open source design, crowdsourcing, hacking and repurposing of existing objects.

Two years before that Radiohead, the succesful Birtish band, had released it's 2007 album, In rainbows as a free download. What had been traditionally an atom-based market of audio cds was for the first time on such a scale being transformed in an online, bit-based free model. The band released the following year a mind blowing video for the track House of cards. It wasn't computer generated or shot on camera. It's futuristic look was determined by the use of 3d laser scanning technologies. The raw data used for the creation of the video has been uplaoded for re-use to google code.

I feel the song and the video express the convergence between the physical and the digital worlds bringing the physical space ever more into the digital.

A speaking newspaper: Creative advertizing by VW

Francesco — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 18:14:46 +0000

I'm staying in New Delhi for the Commonwealth Games and the Hotel I'm staying at provides a copy of The Times of India newspaper to my door every morning. This morning while opening the paper I was surprised by a voice coming from inside the paper.

After turning the paper around I noticed a small black patch stuck to the inside of the page. A small hole in the black case shows a light sensor mounted on a small PCB. I ripped the black patch from the page exposing the electronics and took some photos you can see below. It is a basic PCB with a couple of batteries and a small speaker connected.

On the bright side it is interesting to use such a basic sensor used to trigger this effect. When the paper is folded the light doesn't hit the sensor and the speaker is silent. As soon as someone opens the paper the voice comes out which has a surprising effect.

On the less bright side, Delhi and India are struggling to cope with the problem of trash disposal. Streets are littered and recycling seems far from being on anybody's agenda here. Such a siple device multiplied the huge amout of copies that The Times of India prints end up in tons of un-recycled plastic, PCB and batteries.

Website restyling

Francesco — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 14:04:43 +0000

A few busy years have passed since i last updated this website and the time had come to do some restyling. Over time my main field of work and interest has also shifted and new jobs brought me in new and exciting directions. I decided to reorganize my CV in three areas of work and try to express quickly who I am and what I do to the casual visitor.

The first change is a big upgrade to Drupal 6.19 and the latest versions of all the modules used here. Of course CCK and Views over all the others. The second change was a complete redesign and rewrite of the theme with more focus on usability and clearness. I will be updating the blog more often so it has gained more visibility than before. I hope to share useful information about web technologies and general programming tips. I also wanted to keep as much as possible of the website available from the first page and relied on some Ajax and jQuery to obtain this.

I hope you like the new look. Comments and suggestions are welcome!

Complex map of email relations

Francesco — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:46:38 +0000

Like many people I keep most of my email from 1998 to today in an organized archive in my mail application (Thunderbird). A few days ago I read on Punto Informatico about this project by Cristopher Baker on building a visual map of his relations by elaborating the data in his mailbox files.

My Map from Christopher Baker on Vimeo

You can read more about the project on it's page over here.

Openstreetmap.org edits complex visualization

Francesco — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 12:21:49 +0000

While some friends here in Torino are collaborating to OpenStreetMap, ItoWorld has made this beautiful video showing all the edits being made to the website over 2008.

OSM 2008: A Year of Edits from ItoWorld on Vimeo.

Amazing multitouch musical instrument

Francesco — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 11:49:42 +0000

I played with this toy at the Autechre concert in HMA in Torino.

Deatils about the project: http://mtg.upf.edu/reactable/

Graffiti Research Lab

Francesco — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 23:58:59 +0000

This is the beautiful project by the New York based Graffiti Research Lab.

A computer is tracking the laser pointer and drawing lines with the projector onto the builting. I love the idea but I wonder how powerful a projector you need for this kind of project!

A successor to this project made in Berlin is the SMSLINGSHOT by VR/Urban. Read more about it here.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

Francesco — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 23:47:49 +0000

How we got to 2.0...