Physical Pixels

(from)

Which is a thing that physically reproduces “shapes” albeit in a low-res sort of way…

… which is a bit of an insult to the creators… 900 actuators is a LOT of actuators.

I saw this thing in an art gallery in the UK once… which was a walkway of thin planks on the ground – that moved when someone in Amsterdam walked across a similar, sister-walkway. This is kindof like that, but a whole lot better.

Actuators don’t come cheap though – it’d probably be cheaper just to use the mechanical turk method:

And have a small person sitting inside it – although controlling 900 pixels at a time could be tricky.

…

Elsewhere in the world of physical pixels:

1) Quantum leap in the manufacture of 3D printed guns, albeit one that would cost more than one made using standard metallurgy. How much an untraceable gun costs, I wouldn’t know. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

2) Dancing Microcopters

This is a “making of an advert” video. Can’t be arsed with the advert itself because they’ve CGId it, so you can’t tell what’s an electromechanical marvel, and what’s just a digital drawing. Which I guess is an electromechanical marvel in it’s own right, but we’re bored with that now. You’ve got to have this standing-wave vacillation between fantasy and reality. Too much fantasy and we lose interest. We need to swing back to the felt presence of immediate experience as it were. It’s how art works, it’s how porn works. Jessica Rabbit vs The Girl Next Door.

3) The EU Space Agency is 3D Printing their own Alien Artefacts

4) Kickstarter project for printing circuits

5) 3D Printer that uses molten Aluminium…

Although as far as I’m aware, they haven’t actually gotten the thing to go yet – and it’s looking like a fairly daring bit of vapourware at this point, given extra traction by the fact that the surname of the makers is Vader.