"The Creation of the World. Illustrated Manuscripts from the Braginsky Collection," currently on view at the Berlin Jewish Museum features both a robot and a rabbi transcribing the torah. The yet unnamed Torah-writing robot comes to us courtesy of the German artists' group robotlab. The installation is titled"bios [torah]" and: refers to the activity of Torah writing performed in the Jewish tradition by a specially trained scribe, the Sofer. While the Sofer guarantees the sanctity of the Scripture, the installation highlights its industrial reproducibility. It simulates a centuries-old cultural technique that has long since been overtaken by media developments...The installation title refers to an...
Amazon Rising: CNBC to profile the godzilla of e-commerce
This Sunday night CNBC shines the light on Amazon with the premiere of Amazon Rising. From the press release: CNBC tells the story of a shrewd visionary named Jeff Bezos who bet his fortunes on the exploding internet and created one of the most admired and feared companies in the world. Today, Amazon sells everything from accordions to zippers – nearly $80 billion worth a year – and has changed the way we shop, bringing goods to our doorstep faster than we ever imagined. Correspondent David Faber reports on a powerhouse that has upended the publishing and retail industries, and...
Braigo: A Braille Printer Made From Legos
BraigoShubham Banerjee is 12 years old and lives in Santa Clara, California. When someone left a flyer on his doorstep asking for donations for the visually impaired he began thinking of ways he could help. Once he found out that a Braille printer cost about $2000 and that about 90% of the visually impaired live in developing counties he went to work. He went straight to his Lego's and began building. After lots of experimenting and 7 failed models Banerjee unleashed his new invention, Braigo (a mash up of Braille and Lego), at a science fair. How does it work? Push up pins act...
Why Books Smell
For many bibliophiles the smell of books has always been one of the most satisfying and mystifying components of their book love. Now, thanks to the folks at Compound Interest, we have a visual breakdown of the aroma.
New Computer Program Turns Literature Into Music
The latest from the algorithm universe comes to us via TransPose, a new computer program which translates literature into music. Created by Hannah Davis and Saif Mohammad TransPose assigns ratings to words based on their emotional value and aims to "programmatically translate the basic emotions of a novel into a musical piece that holds the same basic emotional feeling." The current version of TransProse is just the beginning of our investigation, and we don't claim to be making beautiful music yet. This iteration is a starting point to see if we could programmatically translate the basic emotions of a novel into a musical piece that holds...