R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy ~ Live Long and Prosper...

Alas Leonard Nimoy has passed away at 83 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which he attributed to years of smoking cigs. Born and raised in Boston's West End by immigrant Jews from Soviet Ukraine, he's perhaps best remembered for his enduring portrayal of the mostly logical half-Vulcan Mr Spock on Star Trek, where his signature hand-gesture emerged and also the tagline which inspired me and so many others -- "Live Long and Prosper"

PIVOT the World ~ Historic Site Visualizations!

Very cool to see our alumco PIVOT now Kickstarting!

"PIVOT is an app that lets you see what a place looked like in the past and digitally streamlines the preservation of culture & history!"

Winter Cycling ~ Wagenbuur Shares Dutch Ways!

Bicycle Dutch's Mark Wagenbuur shares his talk at the Winter Cycling Congress 2015 in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands...

Beam ~ Screw-in Smart(er)bulb Videoprojector...

Beam -- the smart(er)bulb videoprojector that fits in any light socket -- is Kickstarting now! Still just a baby-step towards Underkoffler's I/O bulb and luminous room and true smartbulbs.

FleetMon ~ Charting Global Shipping on 7 Seas!

NPR spots FleetMon's global shipping timelapse visualization...

Flow Hive ~ Brilliant New Beekeeper Tech!

The latest buzz in beekeeping is the Flow Hive on Indiegogo now!

Racing Can ~ Cinetics User Stop-Mo Promo!

Lovely stop-mo promo for Red Bull challenge enabled by MIT alumco Cinetics!

Guitar Strings ~ Camera Sampling Play Vibes!

Sun Gazing spots guitar string play imagery...

Bike vs Ferrari ~ 207mph Rocket Bicycle;-)

Muscle Horsepower spots rocket bicycle vs Ferrari...

King of Random ~ Mini Arc Furnace Smeltorama!

Lisa Marcus at Neatorama spots King of Random awesomeness, specifically latest Mini Arc Furnace!

SmartEyeglass ~ Sony's New AR 'Shades...

Sputnik spotlights Sony's new SmartEyeglass AR 'shades... Meh, still clunkitudinous.

Curious M106 ~ Strangely Centered Spiral Galaxy!

NASA APOD spots M106 Spiral Galaxy with a Strange Center...

She's Beautiful ~ Founding Modern US Feminism!

My ML colleague Pip points out She's Beautiful When She's Angry...

"A new documentary resurrecting the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women's movement from 1966 to 1971."

Audience reactions... Interviews with inspiring filmaker Mary Dore...

Dubai Flo Mo ~ Whitworth's Epic Urban Timewarp!

MIT alum Mills spots Rob Whitworth offers up Dubai Flow Motion...

True T Map ~ @SaraMorrison on Boston's BS...

@SaraMorrison true-maps the Boston MBTA...

Window on Manhattan ~ Boudreault's Timelapse!

Kuriositas spots Dominic Boudreault's Window on Manhattan...

Snow Pros ~ Competent Removal vs Shitshow

Watching the local yokels here in Boston keep pushing snow around from street to sidewalk (and then back again) and dealing with it in what is surely the most incompetent possible fashion, inspires our visit to places that actually know what they're doing. First, Montreal... (But don't Get Plowed by the Canuck Mob while you're at it!-)

Next, Helsinki... Norway... Netherlands... Italy... Japan... Finally, stop your excuses, here's Hokkaido, Japan...

CHAPPiE ~ Sentient AI, Childlike Robot, Plus++

Prime cultural exports from South Africa involved in new AI robots SF futureflick CHAPPiE! Blomkamp directs, dialing up post-District 9 & Elysium, starring Sigorney, Jackman, Ninja and Yo-Landi Vi$$er too! This is not merely Die Antwoord, but Die AI! Check the trailer... FYI, here's Blomkamp's original Tetra Vaal short...

Moving Mr Al ~ 400 Ton Oak Tree Shifted!

Berard heavy lifts Mr Al, a 400 ton oak tree 2 klicks!

Urbanization Map ~ Charting Rise of Megacities...

The Economist Daily Chart spotlights the Rise of the Megacity...

"By 2030 nearly 9% of the world's population will be living in just 41 megacities (those with more than 10m inhabitants), according to the UN. London earned megacity status in 2013 and Asia will account for over half of the world's 29 megacities in 2015. By 2030 Lagos in Nigeria, Africa's most populous city, is forecasted to have over 24m residents."

The Queen Of Code ~ Grace Hopper's Legacy!

Thanks to Isis Madrid at Good for spotting The Queen Of Code documentary by FiveThirtyEightLife!

inFORM @ CH ~ Topomorphic Displayfulness!

Lovely inFORM exhibit at Cooper Hewitt Design Museum! A tangible topomorphic dancing display with playful properties...

Founding Terrafugia ~ Building Real Flying Cars!

MIT co-founders of Terrafugia recall their start! But is it a flying car or a roadworthy aircraft? Hmm.

Huge Fish Market ~ Tsukiji on Japanology Plus!

Tokyo's Tsukiji Market on Japanology Plus...

"The world's largest fish market -- hundreds of kinds of seafood from around the world are sold there. 40,000 people work at Tsukiji each day, and hordes of foreign tourists come to check out the vast, buzzing hive of activity. This time [...] we explore the customs and commerce of Tsukiji Market. Our guest is Masataka Fujiwara, a seafood expert who's been visiting Tsukiji regularly for more than 30 years."

And here's more intimate details...

Dogs On the Inside ~ Transforming Prisoners...

Neatorama's Lisa Marcus shares about Dogs and Prisoners Learning Valuable Lessons from Each Other in a documentary film called Dogs On the Inside...

"Filmed in a Massachusetts prison, follows the story of stray dogs in the community who were rescued and placed with prisoners at a minimum security prison. Before their rescues, the dogs were likely on a path to be euthanized in shelters. The goal of the program is for the prisoners to develop empathy and loving feelings toward the dogs, who in turn learn to trust humans in spite of any troubled histories they may have suffered. It seems to be situation benefiting both the dogs and the inmates."

MIT Engineering Health ~ Thur 7-9p Spring 2015

Our MIT Engineering Health class is about Designing and Deploying Affordable Health Diagnostics and Therapeutics. Design and build novel health diagnostics and sensors while learning the fundamentals of rapid prototyping, applied optics, signals processing, imaging and other advanced sensing modalities. Students work in teams with a physician and technical mentor to design and construct a cutting edge health diagnostic or device. The best projects will be continued in the summer through a clinical trials and ventures program with the best projects reaching early trials by the end of the school year. Example projects include spectroscopic sensing of ear infection, an automated stethoscope, non-contact blood pressure sensors, ultra wide angle endoscopy, and wound perfusion monitoring. Structured labs will build engineering and design skills, lectures will introduce considerations for medical design and new prototyping techniques.

First class is Thursday night 7-9p on February 5th, 2015 in Media Lab E15-341.

MIT Media Ventures ~ Thurs 10a-12n Spring 2015

Our MIT Media Ventures ~ Media Lab Entrepreneurship & Digital Innovations class surveys a broad landscape of emerging media technologies interwoven with live- and historic-cases of inter- and entrepreneurship-based on new media ideas, culminating in a term project. The core goal of this Action Lab offering is for students to gain increased understanding of how emergent media and digital innovations translate into commercial reality and transform society.

We survey case examples of both successful and failed businesses and generally grapple with the difficulties of deploying and diffusing products and as a means of exploring a range of business models and opportunities enabled by emerging Media Lab and related innovations. This year we will be especially emphasizing urban innovations, personal data rights, public health, financial service innovations, mobile transactions, and social media generally with special focus on social networks, quantified self and society, and "Big Data" analytics. First class is Thursday morning 10a-12n February 5th, 2015 in Media Lab E14-633.