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When IDEO decided to show off the fact that they are a global brand by putting together a Rube Goldberg Machine of epic proportions, what they ended up with was a creation that spanned eight worldwide locations across three continents, six time zones, and involved the work of roughly fifty people.
The result is a 15 minute montage of crazy contraptions and unbelievable gadgets that all worked together surprisingly well:
[Via: MAKE: Blog]
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Flickr has collected almost ninety million geotagged photos, and for every geotagged photo they have up to six Where On Earth IDs, which are unique numeric identifiers that correspond to the hierarchy of places where a photo was take: the neighborhood, the town, the country, and so on up to the continent in a process called reverse-geocoding.
Eventually they got to thinking: If they plotted all of the geotagged photos associated with a particular WOE ID, would there be enough data to generate a mostly accurate contour of that place?
Apparently the answer is yes, and though it’s not a perfect representation of the place, it’s definitely getting pretty close.
As a gift to the Flickr community, they’ve even made these 150,000 (and counting) WOE IDs with proper (-ish) shape data available via the Flickr API.
It might be a fun toy right now, but give it a few years and add in all of the data from geocoded cell phone photos, and this just might be the future of cartography as we know it.
[Flickr Code - The Shape Of Alpha]
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IDEO’s Global Chain Reaction Experience may just be the most impressive Rube Goldberg Machine built to date.
The chain, which fifty people put together across eight worldwide locations in six different time zones on three continents, contains everything from a flaming column of helium bubbles and a cell phone dialing hot dog to a poll dancing doll and a Tickle-Me Elmo, as well as everything in between.
All told, it lasts for more than 14 minutes, but it’s definitely worth the time if you’re a fan of weird and wacky chain reactions:
[Via: MAKE: Blog]
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The Moon-Regan Trans Antarctic Expedition plans to cross the icy continent using state-of-the-art bio-fuelled vehicles and cutting-edge communications equipment to raise awareness of how Antarctica’s fate affects the whole environment.
One of those bio-fuelled vehicles is this Lotus Concept Ice Vehicle, or CIV, which will act as a pilot for the two heavier Science Support Vehicles that will also be making the journey.
With a bio-fueled, supercharged BMW 1150 engine driving the propeller to a top speed of 84 mph, trike skids that bring the overall size to a rather svelte 4.5 meters long and 4.5 meters wide, as well as independent suspension all around, it’s got plenty of go to get them there. Plus, with ice penetrating radar to detect any crevasses, a spiked foot for emergency stops on the edge of any detected crevasse, and weight so low (360kg) that a single person can pull it across the ice, it’s got plenty to get them back as well.
Now if only they rented this thing out at the local skating rink…
[Moon-Regan Trans Antarctic Expedition - Lotus Concept Ice Vehicle]
[Via: Autoblog]
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