Konstruct for iOS creates generative augmented reality art with your voice

If you have an artistic temperament, but you weren't blessed with steady hands or an eye for color, Konstruct might be the app for you. Not only does the iPhone app let you produce generative art using words, warbles and whistles, but it also uses augmented reality to bring your artistic creation to life.

To get started, you first need to print out the Konstruct marker and place it wherever you'd like to create your AR sculpture -- it could be on your living room wall, or on the floor of your bathroom, it doesn't matter. Open the app, point your iPhone at the marker, and start making some noises! Once you're done, you can save your creation, or simply wipe the slate clean and start again.

The volume of your voice affects the size of the shapes that are drawn on the screen, and you can move your head around to alter the path of your 'brush' -- but to change the shape of your brush or modify the color palette you have to use a menu. Without knowledge of the app's internal workings, it's hard to say what the actual difference between whistling, talking and singing is -- and judging by the developer's affinity for whistling in the demo video (after the break), the app probably doesn't perform that much analysis on your input.

Still, Konstruct is just a prototype! A later version could do away with menus and rely entirely on the location, tonality, quality and amplitude of your voice -- and judging by the the words of the developer, James Alliban, there is definitely more in store for Konstruct: "The idea of transforming entire cities into user generated virtual art galleries really appeals to me. I see Konstruct as an early prototype that will hopefully be realised in this form in the future."

Download Konstruct for free from the App Store (iPhone 3GS and 4 only)

[Thanks to Richard for the tip!]

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Konstruct for iOS creates generative augmented reality art with your voice originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/05/konstruct-for-ios-creates-generative-augmented-reality-art-with/

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Next Kinect Could Be a Lot More Understanding

The next generation of Microsoft's Kinect input device may be able to read users' lips and emotions. The forthcoming device, which is expected to come bundled with Xbox consoles, reportedly will not just sense motions the way the current Kinect generation does, but will also allow games to read lips, recognize which way players are facing, and detect when they are angry.

Source: http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/73846.html

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Visualized: Where NASA's SLS will get high

We've still got quite a while to go before NASA gets back into the space travel game with SLS, but the first pieces of the potential inter-planetary transportation puzzle are starting to fall into place. The $500 million mobile launch tower of the future has already been rolled out and is undergoing structural testing at the Kennedy Space Center. You owe it to yourself to hit up the source link for some more images, including a few from atop the tower.

Visualized: Where NASA's SLS will get high originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/u9z_s-jRDHU/

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AT&T Thought We Were All Idiots (Updated) [At&t]

As promised, the FCC provided their full report on the now-defunct AT&T-Mobile merger, in which they laced their comments throughout the original proposal. What'd the FCC think? That AT&T tried to play us all for fools. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/LcOFWPmFgBE/the-bottom-line-of-the-fccs-attt+mobile-merger-report-att-takes-everyone-for-idiots

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Get Your Life In Order, Become a Bug, and Solve Puzzles with Your Own Creations [App Deals Of The Day]

Getting stuff done is easy when you have three things to do. When that number hits about 25, it gets a bit more difficult to remember when and where you're supposed to be. We can help you save a little cash while getting your life in order. And while you're at it, add some time to play a puzzle game and pretend to be a bug. All work and no play... More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/s6HqbgfqfOg/get-your-life-in-order-become-a-bug-and-solve-puzzles-with-your-own-creations

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Anonymous and Team Poison Join Forces For OpRobinHood to Target Banks and Give to Charities [Video]

Two hacking groups, Anonymous and Team Poison, have joined forces to take on the banks, steal money and donate it to charities and protests. Reclaiming the "99 per cent's money back". More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/qBoaAyG8Elw/anonymous-and-team-poison-join-forces-for-oprobinhood-to-target-banks-and-give-to-charities

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BattlePaint is an addictive geometric shooter game

In BattlePaint, you play a cube. In fact, you're not even a cube -- just a square. But boy, are you fast! And you can shoot in all directions. That's important, because there are baddies coming in from all over the place.

The "baddies" are swarms of other squares, in all sorts of pretty colors. They track you all over the screen, and you run around very quickly and just shoot, shoot, and shoot some more. If that doesn't sound very emotionally deep, it's because it isn't. But it's fun!

After you shoot a baddy, it splashes paint as it disappears. You need to skate across this blob of paint and "eat it up" to get points. This game is fast. It clocked in at around 60-70 FPS on my system, and was loads of fun to play. It does tend to insult you when you die, though, but don't be offended -- I don't think it's personal.

BattlePaint is an addictive geometric shooter game originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 09 Mar 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/09/battlepaint-is-an-addictive-geometric-shooter-game/

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Editorial: Carrier IQ -- the 'evil' we agree to and hate that we did it

Seems like every time you turn around you'll see corporations using sneaky tricks to gain a competitive advantage over a different, yet equally sneaky corporation.  That's usually how money is made by the people who are best at making lots of it -- at the expense of others.  The cell phone industry is no different, even though we wish it were.  Yes, I'm talking about Carrier IQ, and it's my turn to bitch.

Carrier IQ sells a stock client for BlackBerry, Symbian, and Android.  There's strong evidence that  they also make client software for other smartphone platforms, and even semi-smartphone OS's like Bada or BREW.  But they're only making it easy to get the same type of data your carrier has been collecting about you since the minute you turned your cell phone on.  If they're collecting it in an insecure manner, which has happened, that's bad on them, and they need to fix it -- pronto. But they're not doing it on their own. They're doing it at the behest of the manufacturer and the carrier, who uses the data to determine how to make changes that get you to spend more money when they offer you the latest shiny.  If 72 percent of the people use a certain feature, you can bet your last dollar that more work goes into making that feature "better" so it's a stronger selling point.  Carrier IQ, as a company, could care less what you do with your smartphone, when you do it, or why.  All they do is make it easier for the people you give your money to each month to see why you like your phone.  I don't work for HTC or AT&T, but I'm sure easy data collection and aggregation makes for a compelling sales pitch.

CIQ isn't doing anything it's not supposed to be doing, unless there's a software bug in play.  The software was purposefully placed there in order to track what you're doing in real time.  Apparently, it works pretty well.  Some may argue that it's a rootkit, or a flaw of some sort, but to the people using the product -- again, the carrier and manufacturer -- it's a feature, one that they pay money to include.  Remember, you are not HTC's (or Samsung, or LG, or RIM, etc.) customer -- companies like Verizon and Sprint are, and all parties find the data that's collected pretty damn useful, so they aren't likely to stop collecting it.

It could be argued that you don't have a choice in the matter. You bought the phone. And while there might be (and usually is -- see the picture above from a CIQ enabled HTC phone) some vague reference to the phone collecting data about how you use it, you likely skipped over that section, and it's not all that up-front about what's being collected or how it's being done. But on the other hand, that's probably true about 90 percent of what your phone's doing at any given time.  It works exactly how it's supposed to work.  Getting mad about it after the fact isn't very productive, and isn't going to solve the problem any time soon.

Vote with your wallet.  You have the option to say no to this sort of data collection software, and that's done by not buying phones that use it.  Every major carrier in the world now carries one of those.

Yes, I think Carrier IQ is a bad thing, done by unscrupulous people so they have more pennies to count.  But all the hate towards the company that writes and sells the software is misguided.  They are only filling a need, and if they stop someone else will step up to replace them.  Enough words have been written about it, yet the solution for Android fans only needs three:

Buy a Nexus.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/dR8VqV7pzKY/story01.htm

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You can now rent Adobe Photoshop for $35 per month, CS 5.5 available soon

Rejoice! No longer will you have to fork over $700 for a Photoshop CS5 license! Adobe has unveiled a new subscription scheme where you can rent the entire Creative Suite, or individual packages, by the month, or for an entire year.

Adobe Photoshop can be yours for $35 per month if you agree to rent it for 12 months, or $49 per month if you require its services for a shorter period. Dreamweaver can be had for even cheaper, at just $19 per month. The entire Master Collection is still rather expensive, though, at $125 per month.

Today, Adobe also ushered in the release of Creative Suite 5.5, and simultaneously upped its release cycle from 18 months to 24 months. This means, if you rent Photoshop for two years, it's actually the same cost as buying it outright. There's no rent-to-own option, though -- so you wouldn't have access to the cheaper upgrade price once Creative Suite 6 rolls around next year. Still, if you need access to Photoshop, After Effects or Premiere for a one-time project, the new rental scheme could be exactly what you're looking for.

In other news, Adobe has announced that it will be launching three rather exciting iPad apps that work in conjunction with Photoshop: Eazel, Nav, and Color Lava. Eazel lets you five-finger paint on your iPad, and export the result into Photoshop; Nav acts as some kind of workspace, brush and menu extension, and the hopefully named Color Lava is a paint mixing palette. The apps are expected to appear in the App Store in the next 30 days.

You can now rent Adobe Photoshop for $35 per month, CS 5.5 available soon originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/11/you-can-now-rent-adobe-photoshop-for-29-per-month/

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