This camera by Lytro lets you take pictures like never before. Unlike a conventional camera that captures a single plane of light, the Lytro camera captures the entire light field, which is all the light traveling in every direction in every point in space. By instantly capturing complete light field data, the Lytro camera gives you capabilities not possible in ordinary cameras, the ability to focus where you desire within a taken photo. Since you’ll capture the color, intensity, and direction of all the light, you can focus and re-focus, anywhere in the picture. And focusing after the fact, means no auto-focus motor. No auto-focus motor means no shutter delay.

The light field is a core concept in imaging science, representing fundamentally more powerful data than in regular photographs. The light field fully defines how a scene appears. It is the amount of light traveling in every direction through every point in space. Conventional cameras cannot record the light field.

The way we communicate visually is evolving rapidly, and people’s expectations are changing. Light field cameras allow the picture taker and the viewer to focus pictures after they’re snapped, shift their perspective of the scene, and even switch seamlessly between 2D and 3D views. Pictures can become immersive, interactive visual stories that were never before possible – they become living pictures.

You can have a go on here

“The Cocoon_FS pavilion was constructed from leaf-like panels of fiber-reinforced polymer. Fifteen original base modules were designed and a total of 220 modules were manufactured. Each panel fastens to the next to form a super strong, self-supporting dome. Its translucent shell admits light during the day and illuminates its surroundings at night.

The temporary featherweight structure weighs in at just 1650 pounds and measures under ten feet tall. Both exterior and interior walls carry the same variety of pores, ribs, minute spines, marginal ridges and elevations that characterize the silica cell wall of the slimy brown surface algae that inspired it. Researchers at PlanktonTech used microtechnology to transfer the richly patterned shells of the plankton to a 3D model. Those models were then analyzed and optimized using various computations to unlock biomechanical qualities and re purpose them for architectural design.

Algae is growing in popularity among biofuel enthusiasts, food developers, and entrepreneurs, but as far as we know, the Cocoon_FS is the first prefab to take its design cues from phytoplankton. The plankton-inspired building made its debut in Germany and will be erected at sites around the world in an effort to draw support, awe, and admiration for PlanktonTech’s ongoing investigation of plankton-based solutions.”

Via Inhabitat and Contemporist

In last February, the NY Times wrote an article about a very interesting skyscraper in Caracas, the Torre de David,  that seems to carry a good analogy with the current Venezuelan situation since Hugo Chavez has been elected since 1999. In fact this 150 meter tall building is currently hosting about 2500 squatters who find in it, a good way to dwell in this housing crisis time. This skyscraper that was originally supposed to become an architectural symbol and an economically operative building of the Financial power never finished its construction because of the national financial crisis in the late 90′s.

To read more:

http://www.domusweb.it/it/architecture/la-torre-di-david/

Greece is at a turning point. For decades the Goliath forces in politics and government have failed to tackle the major problems facing Greece. As a result, the people of Greece have understandably lost trust in those institutions.

The top will not solve this problem: Parties have to trust the people before the people will ever trust the parties. A successful political party will use technology to empower their supporters to arm an Army of Davids to take back Greek politics from the failed Goliath institutions.

taken from TEDxAthens Blog:  http://blog.tedxathens.com/tedxathens-2011-talks-%E2%80%93-joe-trippi/

However, when exposed to sunlight, the paper starts to beautifully reveal itself…

Click here for slightly more information on the project!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01bywvr/

In this TV programme Professor Iain Stewart journeys from the spectacular caves of Vietnam to the remote deserts of Africa and sees how plants first harnessed light from the sun and created our life-giving atmosphere. He describes how the plant kingdom has transformed a lifeless planet into our living world.

Belgian and Dutch doctors have replaced an 83-year-old woman’s badly infected jaw with a bespoke 3D-printed mandible.

The lower jaw of the elderly woman needed to be removed, which would normally affect vital functions like breathing, speaking, chewing, and swallowing. Traditional reconstructive surgery is a lengthy and risky process, especially considering the age of the patient.

So instead, a tailor-made implant was created. Metal-focused additive manufacturer LayerWise from Leuven in Belgium used a method developed by the Research Institute Biomed at Hasselt University, also in Belgium, to create the fake jaw.

The 3D printers we’re familiar with generally use materials like plaster or resin. At LayerWise, they used powdered titanium, which is printed out layer by layer. A computer-controlled laser fuses the correct particles together. Finally, the printed jaw was given a bioceramic coating that was compatible with the patient’s tissue.

The artificial jaw weighs 107 grams — slightly heavier than a natural jaw, but “certainly not a problem,” Hasselt University says.

With more traditional methods it can take up to two days before an implant is completely ready. The 3D-printed jaw was in the patient’s mouth after four hours, and she was speaking and swallowing the next day. The other benefit of 3D printing is that it uses less material than other methods.

The operation was performed in June 2011 in a hospital in Sittard-Geleen, in the southeastern Netherlands. Announcing the breakthrough on 2 February, 2012, Biomed professor Jules Poukens said, “doctors and engineers together around the design computer and the operation table: that’s what we call being truly innovative.”

Via Wired

Alastair Parvin, architect at 00:/, the London design practice behind WikiHouse, says the logic of economist John Maynard Keynes (“it’s easier to ship recipes than cakes and biscuits”) applies to these homes. By putting design into the public domain, WikiHouse hopes to incite real change. “That’s the ambition of the project,” says Parvin. “To lower the threshold to making your own house.”

It is based on 10 Design Principles:

10 DESIGN PRINCIPLES

1. ‘Be lazy like a fox’. Rather than solving problems from scratch, adapt other people’s solutions, and then give them credit. Linus Torvalds thought of this phrase.

1. Design for materials and components which are reasonably cheap to buy, low-carbon and fully recyclable or biodegradable.

1. Design is disruptive when it lowers the threshold. Design structures which can be assembled with minimal formal skill or training, and without the use of power tools.

1. WikiHouses should be capable of being habitable throughout the year, and as efficient as possible in the use of energy and water. We are working to get to the first habitable WikiHouse prototype built in the near future.

1. Design in such a way as to offer maximum provision for the safety, security and health (both mental and physical) of the users at all stages of the structure’s life.

1. As a general rule, design for the climate, culture, economy and legal / planning framework in which you live, and you know best. Others will then be able to adapt the design to suit their environment.

1. Share your work as much and as openly as possible, it might come back better. At very least you’ll have contributed to solving a common problem. All components on WikiHouse are shared under a creative commons license, and authors are always attributed.

1. “It is easier to ship recipes than cakes and biscuits” – John Maynard Keynes

1. Design to dismantle. The easier it is to dismantle structures or replace individual parts, the better.

1. Design for mistakes. Try to design components which either make it impossible for the assembler to get it wrong or are designed in such a way that it doesn’t matter if they do.

Below some image of the house in the London studio 00:/

Via Wired