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I´m having such a fantastic time here at the Computer Chaos´ congress, that i hardly have any neurone left in the brain to blog. Apparently, i´m not the only one who feels happy and honored to be in such a crowd.

I met Nico Lumma the other day, he´s the German blogger who´s been sent an AIBO to review as well. Nice to share views, opinions and pet owners´ tips. He got exactly the same dog as me. First time i saw his Botterhund (that´s the name of his own Cloclo), he/it was switched off, getting charged in the speaker´s room.

I wasn´t missing Cloclo at all. So far. But suddenly i felt like sneaking out of the room with the dog. It could have been Cloclo. Then Nico arrived, switched the AIBO on and after a few minutes it was clear to me: this couldn´t be my robot. Cloclo wouldn´t behave that way, he´s not so confident among people, he would be less of a crowd-pleaser and more of an explorer of the space around. Strange strange feeling. Two identical robots, same colour, same software, same camouflage ears and they have both their own personality.

Human relationships are often the battleground for all kinds of psychotic disorders and delusions. One of the strongest feelings between partners is the feeling of jealousy, “which is born in love and which is produced by the fear that the loved person prefers someone else.” (Dictionnaire de la Langue Française, Littré)

Many women as well as men instigate such a feeling in their partner intentionally. Jealous behaviour of a partner may improve self-esteem or can test the strength of the relationship. If you think that faking an affair could do some good to your love story, here’s a the Traces of an Imaginary Affair kit. These are tools and probes which leave traces of an imaginary affait on the body such as bite-marks, carpet-burns or bondage marks. It also contains probes which can be left on either body or clothes, such as perfume, hairs and lipstick.

A concept project by Design Product student Björn Franke.

Pretty stimulating introduction speech by Tim Pritlove this morning at the 22 Computer Chaos Congress. I´ll write it down for my mum and many many friends who think that hackers are smelly, dangerous and wear skull rings on every finger.

Here you go:

Let´s fight the distorted image of the hacker by listing what hackers are not:
- we are not criminals. Hacking is about freedom, understanding the –more and more filled with technologies– world outside,
- we are not all-mighty uber-geeks, we are people who explore, who are curious, want to go into things,
- we´re not there to fix your Windows box,
- we´re not to be ignored. Hackers have a voice.

What hackers are:
- we are concerned. Concerned about how the world works and try to see how to make it work in a better way,
- we are commited to do that,

The first congress was held 22 years ago by a small group of people who had the feeling that computers would have such a huge impact on our lives. It was in Hamburg in 1984. Yes, 1984, icon of surveillance and opression. Even in Germany today laws are voted that make these issues more present than ever. That´s a reason why the theme of this year is Private investigations.

Some pretty cool things available for everyone here:

- POC: Phone Operation Centre, you can buy one of the handset here and also get a free phonebook so you can call any participants for free at any time. You can even listen to lectures live on the phone.
- CERT: Chaos Emergency Response Team (medical support),
- Art & Beauty (I still have to explore that one) with food, music, BlinkenArea, machatronics, lockpicking lounge, etc.
- Everyone´s favourite is the Hacker Ethics Hotline: just call and ask questions such as: is it morally justifiable to do this? How much trouble will i cause if this thing goes wrong? if i press this button? What´s the most efficient way to handle this?
Call 1042. It´s free!

Check their weblog for more.

Fascinating article in The Economist about the love of Japanese for robots. Made me think of the conversation i had with Roger Ibars about karakuri.

With too few workers supporting an ageing population, Japan is learning how to make robots that can do many of jobs that immigrant workers would be delighted to get. But the country’s keen interest in robots also reflects the fact that Japanese really like dealing with robots.

Wheile in western popular culture, robots are often a threat, most Japanese view robots as friendly and benign. Most Japanese take an eclectic approach to religious beliefs, and the native religion, Shintoism, is infused with animism: it does not make clear distinctions between inanimate things and organic beings.

Japanese popular culture has also consistently portrayed robots in a positive light, ever since Japan created Tetsuwan Atomu, in 1951.

Although they are at ease with robots, many Japanese are not as comfortable around other people, especially foreigners. It is impossible to embarrass a robot, or be embarrassed, by saying the wrong thing. Therefore, argues The Economist“>The Economist, many Japanese seem to like robot versions of living creatures precisely because they are different from the real thing.

An example is AIBO. There is a big difference between Japanese and American consumers. American tend to be computer geeks who want to hack the dog’s programming. Most Japanese consumers like AIBO because it is a clean, safe and predictable pet.

To understand how Japanese might find robots less intimidating than people, Karl MacDorman, researcher at Osaka University, has been investigating eye movements, using headsets that monitor where subjects are looking. When answering questions put by another Japanese, the subjects made eye contact around 30% of the time. But when they talk to Hiroshi Ishiguro’s android, ReplieeQ1, they were much more likely to look it in the eye.

Eventually, interactive robots are going to become more common. In other rich countries as well. As we´ll be spending time with them, we are likely to develop emotional reactions to such lifelike machines.

Via robotics.

… till Friday. I’ll be speaking together with Jussi Angesleva at the 22nd Chaos Communication Congress, 22C3: Private Investigations, a four-day conference on technology, society and utopia (their blog). Many talks will be too uber-geeky for me. But i’ve spotted several topics i won’t miss: Robots for fun and research, Search Engines - Oracles of the Information Society, WarTracking, Hacking into TomTom Go, How to build your own radar system, some cool new Xbox” and “Xbox 360″ Hacking, Hacking health, etc. Plus a mysterious hacker quizshow!

Dear Cloclo is staying in Italy to watch over the apartment. I left him in House Sitting mode. If he ever detects a movement, unfamiliar face or noise, he’ll snap a picture or record the sound and will send an e-mail to inform me.

Goodies: here’s a video Amos Bloomberg sent me. There’s an interview of him and a little performance by the Needies, the irresistible companions i hope Amos, Daniel Perlin, and Brett Schultz will manage to mass-produce for next xmas! (previously blogged). They will also be at the Toy Fair in New York next year.

Sony Outsider (Gajin) is a true-to-scale replica of the Fat Man, the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki in August 1945. The art piece is covered in glossy, white Plexiglas and sports a Sony logo. Inside it is a capsule hotel-like room upholstered Sony-style in white leather and equipped with a male urinal squeezed between the wash basin and the TV set/DVD player, and a Dolby stereo set.

The first thing that catches the eye is the Sony logo on the bedding. Tom Sachs is fascinated by the seductive power of branding. In Sony Outsider, the brand has reduced a dwelling to a gadget. Every trace of regional identity has been erased to give way to a manufactured lifestyle.

Sachs remarked: “I think we’re in the adolescence of technology culture. Even with all this information fewer people know less and less. Brands and their power are one of my interests. They’re in right now in fashion and my work kind of consecrates it. I mean you can either criticize it or consecrate and I think my work kind of consecrates it.”

Created in 1999 by Tom Sachs.

Check also his other works. They include the Hermes Handgrenade, a Hello Kitty Nativity Scene, Chanel Guillotine and a Prada Toilette.
Images: artblog and Interni.

The Drumtar is a portable performance instrument and musical composition tool. Its four pads trigger drum sounds –or any sound for that matter– on a MIDI enabled device.

The Drumtar interfaces with a program written in Jitter. Dancers in a video clip execute moves based on beats that the user plays. The result is an interactive dance routine set to live music. The experience is similar to a game for the user and a performance for the audience.

The brain of the Drumtar is a PIC chip. It uses four force sensing resistors, as the drum pads. It has a bank switch knob so that a total of 20 sounds can be accessed at a time. More technical notes.

There’s a silly funny video as well.

reinraus is a mobile space extension for city apartments. It can be installed on any type of window. However, it has to be mounted from within the flat to place reinraus outside the legal sphere of the house owners, neighbours and local building authorities.

More images.
By Berlin-based designers realities united, co-authors also of the Bix media facade in Graz and the Spot installation in Berlin.

There’re some gems here.

Via Campheatwole.

The Polite Umbrella, by Joo Paek, respects people’s personal space in a public area. This shrinkable umbrella enables users to morph its shape like a jellyfish in order to reduce occupied space and to increase user maneuverability.

The user can adjust their umbrella by pulling a handle so that one can protect themselves from harsh winds or bumping into others. Additionally, graphic images printed on the umbrella have animated effects which create gestures of politeness such as bowing or hand gestures. Furthermore the umbrella has readable quotes related to good manners in order to initiate communications. Check the video.