Fireflies turn woods into an enchanted forest

These spectacular images show mesmerising phosphorescent patterns swirling through a forest that are all produced by fireflies.

Photographed by Kristian Cvecek, the images are captured using slow shutter speeds as the insects fly between the ferns and trees.

Via Daily Mail

Who is gonna finish earlier: Hamilton, who has to speed over a trail of 2.7 km, or the virtual Facebook car of 288 MB?

Get involved at http://apps.facebook.com/facebookvshamilton/

Via Digital Buzz Blog

Although, I’m surprised that this wasn’t ever an actual postal service. I guess it’d be difficult to monetise the results.

Via Urlesque

More retro imaginings in a previous post

Via Cool Material

What took the show to even mesmerising heights however was the visual extravaganza, which at first appeared lo-fi, but progressed to a full assault on the eyes. A live facial recognition system was used to map faces in the audience and overlay the image of his own, trademark distorted face.

The juxtaposition of the MC’s in bunny outfits was also brilliant.

Some trully facinating insights.

Via Digital Buzz Blog

Vintage 1975 portable all electronic still camera

It was a camera that didn’t use any film to capture still images – a camera that would capture images using a CCD imager and digitize the captured scene and store the digital info on a standard cassette. It took 23 seconds to record the digitized image to the cassette. The image was viewed by removing the cassette from the camera and placing it in a custom playback device. This playback device incorporated a cassette reader and a specially built frame store. This custom frame store received the data from the tape, interpolated the 100 captured lines to 400 lines, and generated a standard NTSC video signal, which was then sent to a television set.

The inventors cobbled it together out of used parts, without a clue as to how their device would evolve over the next three and half decades. When they previewed it at the time they were of course faced with questions like:

Why would anyone ever want to view his or her pictures on a TV? How would you store these images? What does an electronic photo album look like?

How’d have thought that digital photography would be where it is today.

Steve Sasson’s full write up is available to read here

Via today and tomorrow

The video sends the message that although the Copenhagen Suppet in December 2009 was progress, because the participants have their nations industrial strength to concern themselves with, a real change was impossible. If however; a platform is built whereby people all of the world can work together, the possibilities are endless. Managing the threat of global warming is used.

Not that this is in anyway a new line of thinking. But the team behind the video have gone to lengths of suggesting a suitable platform for organising the collaboration.

‘Coalition of the Willing’ has been Directed and produced by Knife Party, written by Tim Rayner and crafted by a network of 24 artists from around the world using varied and eclectic film making techniques. Very much in the same that they envisage world to collaborate.

Coalition Of The Willing from coalitionfilm on Vimeo.

Coalition of the Willing

Via Information Aesthetics

This video is a behind the scenes look into the production of the advertising, with interesting insights and interviews with the ‘Code Artists’ that are able to generate the stunning visuals with only code.

Here are a couple of the adverts:

• Data Baby
• IBM Data Anthem

Via Digital Buzz

Can we date? By Erik Bryan and Jennifer Daniel for The Morning News

Via Chart Port