http://portfolio.menscher.com Corey Menscher's Porfolio Wed, 05 Sep 2012 23:27:25 +0000 http://portfolio.menscher.com en http://portfolio.menscher.com/Infinity-Mirrored-Room-LEDs-Forever http://portfolio.menscher.com/following/portfolio.menscher.com/Infinity-Mirrored-Room-LEDs-Forever Wed, 05 Sep 2012 23:27:25 +0000 Corey Menscher's Porfolio 4033211 <img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033211/imrlf_square.jpg" width="600" height="600" width_o="600" height_o="600" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033211/imrlf_square_o.jpg" data-mid="21126186" border="0" align="left"/> Infinity Mirrored Room - LEDs Forever" is a re-imagining of Yayoi Kusama's 1966 piece “Infinity Mirrored Room - Love Forever”. It brings it into the 21st-century through the use of RGB LEDs and interactivity to allow viewers to perceive an infinite “virtual” space in a breathtaking way. Is it possible that a confined space can also be perceived as infinitely large? If so, does this make the space “virtual”...physically non-existent but within our own perception? In optics, a virtual image is one in which the outgoing rays from one point on the object never actually intersect at a point on a reflected surface. If you are half a meter in front of a mirror, your image will appear at a distance of half a meter behind the mirror. Our perception of a space that contains facing mirrors becomes infinite thanks to recursive virtual images. With this piece, I wanted to construct an infinitely large "room" by taking advantage of recursive virtual images. Inside the room would exist a world of light: thousands (millions?) moving points of light would be orchestrated to permeate and color the dull vast emptiness of the infinite space. Since the infinite space itself exists only in the realm of photons (and our perception of them), it is only fitting to use light itself to occupy this world. The term “virtual” has long existed in discussions around technology and artificial environments. For the last two decades, creating worlds that are artificial yet indistinguishably real has been a goal for digital visual artists since the tools have existed to create them. But these environments generally only exist as projections on a two-dimensional surface. Numerous techniques are used to trick our minds into believing that flat moving images on screens actually extend into the distance. These tricks range from software conventions such as motion parallax, to hardware techniques like head and eye tracking. By contrast, “Infinity Mirrored Room - LEDs Forever” creates a virtual environment in an entirely analog way. LED light is not projected onto a screen, but onto the mirrored walls of a small but real three-dimensional space. The recursive virtual images of illuminated LEDs are perceived as extending forever into three dimensions. No software or technological tricks are employed to fool our minds into apprehending the infinitely large space. The optical properties of reflective surfaces themselves, as well as the nature or our visual perception, creates the illusion. I did not want this virtual space to be completely static, so I devised a system to enable viewers to participate in the space by changing the motion of the patterns in unique ways. Each pattern has two modes, which can be toggled by the viewer. Additionally, the viewer can desaturate the patterns of color to plain white. I wanted to give the audience a chance to “play” with the space, and I did so by utilizing touch sensors on the external walls of the room adjacent to the viewport, which modulate the light patterns. This means that in order to participate, viewers must interact with the physical boundaries of the room. This forces a contradiction between their visual perception of an infinitely large space and their senses of proprioception and touch...reminding them that the limitless volume of the “Infinity Mirrored Room” is simply an illusion. <img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033211/imr-lf_sketch.jpg" width="600" height="600" width_o="600" height_o="600" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033211/imr-lf_sketch_o.jpg" data-mid="21126151" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033211/imrlf1.jpg" width="600" height="397" width_o="600" height_o="397" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033211/imrlf1_o.jpg" data-mid="21126152" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033211/imrlf2.jpg" width="600" height="396" width_o="600" height_o="396" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033211/imrlf2_o.jpg" data-mid="21126153" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033211/imrlf3.jpg" width="600" height="397" width_o="600" height_o="397" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033211/imrlf3_o.jpg" data-mid="21126154" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033211/imrlf4.jpg" width="600" height="397" width_o="600" height_o="397" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033211/imrlf4_o.jpg" data-mid="21126156" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033211/imrlf5.jpg" width="600" height="397" width_o="600" height_o="397" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033211/imrlf5_o.jpg" data-mid="21126158" border="0" align="left"/> Infinity Mirrored Room - LEDs Forever" is a re-imagining of Yayoi Kusama's 1966 piece “Infinity Mirrored Room - Love Forever”. It brings it into the... http://portfolio.menscher.com/The-Naked-Pixel http://portfolio.menscher.com/following/portfolio.menscher.com/The-Naked-Pixel Wed, 05 Sep 2012 23:14:57 +0000 Corey Menscher's Porfolio 4033155 <img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033155/nakedpixel_square.jpg" width="600" height="600" width_o="600" height_o="600" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033155/nakedpixel_square_o.jpg" data-mid="21125946" border="0" align="left"/> The Naked Pixel challenges our notions of decency in public arenas by manifesting each pixel of a nude photograph sequentially, and further "undresses" each pixel when the lights go out. When viewing the piece, the audience is not only unaware of what they are viewing, but can not mentally construct the sequence of colors into a coherent image. Using a light sensor, the piece detects nightfall and further "undresses" each pixel's color into its binary value by displaying a sequence of ones and zeroes. This further obfuscates the representation of the potentially "obscene" image. My intention was to convert a still image into an animated sequence of pixels. This changes our perception of the image by limiting the stream of optical information from a parallel format (all pixels at once) to a serial format (each pixel individually). Our visual system is incapable of parsing this visual information, which fundamentally changes the character of the image. Our experience of the still image becomes entirely new, even though the content of the image remains. The piece was hosted on an XO Laptop (aka an OLPC), and displayed on a ColorKinetics iColor Tile. The iColor Tile is driven by a custom Java application. The Naked Pixel was mentioned on MAKE: Blog.<img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033155/marilyn.jpg" width="670" height="794" width_o="960" height_o="1139" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033155/marilyn_o.jpg" data-mid="21125920" border="0" align="left"/> The Naked Pixel challenges our notions of decency in public arenas by manifesting each pixel of a nude photograph sequentially, and further "undresses" each pixel... http://portfolio.menscher.com/Headjack http://portfolio.menscher.com/following/portfolio.menscher.com/Headjack Wed, 05 Sep 2012 23:04:58 +0000 Corey Menscher's Porfolio 4033139 <img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033139/headjack_diagram.jpg" width="600" height="600" width_o="600" height_o="600" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033139/headjack_diagram_o.jpg" data-mid="21125756" border="0" align="left"/> It has taken electronics companies years to release a decent pair of wireless headphones, and they still have not gotten it right. Listeners are sick of having a four foot cable dangling from their heads to their pockets. Enter HeadJack. HeadJack is a jacket that routes audio signals from the collar to a pocket, where the signal can be input via a standard 3.5mm headphone cable. The collar will contain two thin pairs of conductive fabric…one for the signal and one for common ground…that runs around half the perimeter of the collar. Behind the collar there are two sets of narrow & flexible strip magnets. HeadJack comes with a pair of earphones, each of whose conductors terminate in two magnets. These magnets are intended to snap onto the collar through attraction to the strip magnets. The poles of both the earphone magnets and the collar magnets will be positioned in such a way that the common ground and signal connections will always be attracted to the appropriate conductive fabric strip. <img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033139/headjack_photo.jpg" width="375" height="500" width_o="375" height_o="500" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033139/headjack_photo_o.jpg" data-mid="21125759" border="0" align="left"/> It has taken electronics companies years to release a decent pair of wireless headphones, and they still have not gotten it right. Listeners are sick of having a... http://portfolio.menscher.com/Peggy-Lite-Brite http://portfolio.menscher.com/following/portfolio.menscher.com/Peggy-Lite-Brite Wed, 05 Sep 2012 22:47:49 +0000 Corey Menscher's Porfolio 4033053 <img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033053/peggylitebrite_square2.jpg" width="670" height="670" width_o="943" height_o="943" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033053/peggylitebrite_square2_o.jpg" data-mid="21125373" border="0" align="left"/> The Peggy Lite-Brite converts a static LED-sign kit into a dynamic and fun "Lite-Brite". Users can create their own low-res graphics by inserting LED's into any of the 625 female headers on the board. This project was part of the student-initiated 5in5 Project, which was a group event based on the New York University ITP resident researchers' project "7 in Seven" that took place the second week of June 2008. The premise goes something like this: • Do a creative project every day for five straight days, starting Monday, July 28th 2008 • Projects must be completed in a day, so they need to be as compact as they are creative • Each project needs a name and documentation posted by the end of the day. It should be a stand-alone accomplishment I had obtained the Peggy kit, but was a little upset that it was designed for creating a static sign. Once the LED's were soldered, they could never be changed. So instead of creating a single image, I decided purchase 650 female headers so the LED's could be changed at will. The result is the Peggy Lite-Brite! The work involved 1502 solder points and about ~7.5 meters of solder...which took about 7 hours to complete.<img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033053/peggylitebrite1.jpg" width="670" height="502" width_o="1024" height_o="768" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033053/peggylitebrite1_o.jpg" data-mid="21125288" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033053/peggylitebrite2.jpg" width="670" height="502" width_o="1024" height_o="768" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033053/peggylitebrite2_o.jpg" data-mid="21125290" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033053/peggylitebrite3.jpg" width="670" height="893" width_o="1024" height_o="1365" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033053/peggylitebrite3_o.jpg" data-mid="21125294" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033053/peggylitebrite4.jpg" width="670" height="893" width_o="1024" height_o="1365" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033053/peggylitebrite4_o.jpg" data-mid="21125297" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033053/peggylitebrite7.jpg" width="670" height="502" width_o="1024" height_o="768" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033053/peggylitebrite7_o.jpg" data-mid="21125308" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033053/peggylitebrite6.jpg" width="670" height="502" width_o="1024" height_o="768" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4033053/peggylitebrite6_o.jpg" data-mid="21125303" border="0" align="left"/> The Peggy Lite-Brite converts a static LED-sign kit into a dynamic and fun "Lite-Brite". Users can create their own low-res graphics by inserting LED's into any of... http://portfolio.menscher.com/The-Bathbee http://portfolio.menscher.com/following/portfolio.menscher.com/The-Bathbee Wed, 05 Sep 2012 22:15:26 +0000 Corey Menscher's Porfolio 4032968 <img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032968/bathbeetx_600.jpg" width="600" height="600" width_o="600" height_o="600" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032968/bathbeetx_600_o.jpg" data-mid="21124898" border="0" align="left"/> Modern lifestyles force many parents to spend considerable time away from one another and their children. In some cases, parents are separated by hundreds or thousands of miles due to their careers. This can place a strain on their relationship as husband and wife, and throw their roles as caregivers into disarray. The Honeycomb is a suite of devices that enable physically separated parents to connect with one another by transmitting fragments of sensory experiences of prototypical parenting activities from various stages of babyhood. The Bathbee is an olfactory bathtime awareness device for a parent who is away from home. It consists of two objects: a “transmitter” in the form of a rubber ducky bath toy, and a “receiver” in the form of a rubber ducky-themed children’s lunchbox. When the bath toy is being actively played with in a bathtub, it transmits the smells of bathtime over a distance by filling the room with the scent of baby oil. The bath toy transmitter contains an embedded power source, a small circuit board with a trigger/timer circuit, and a wireless transceiver. Water sensing probes are activated when the toy is placed in the bathtub, and the transceiver is powered. A Java application running on a personal computer is programmed to listen for this beacon, and consequently communicates over a TCP/IP network (such as the Internet) to a complementary Java application which manages the Bathbee receiver’s operation. The receiver is a small children’s lunchbox. This lunchbox contains a battery, microcontroller, wireless transceiver, and a piezoelectric air freshener. This air freshener works by atomizing small particles of oil by pulsing the piezo element at 150mhz, which is initiated by the microcontroller. As long as the transmitter beacon is broadcasting, the Bathbee receiver is instructed to repeatedly emit the fragrance attached to the air freshener. This custom fragrance is composed of baby oil and isopropyl alcohol. When atomized, the scent of baby oil is released into the room, filling it with the smell of baby’s bathtime.<img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032968/bathbeerx_600.jpg" width="600" height="600" width_o="600" height_o="600" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032968/bathbeerx_600_o.jpg" data-mid="21124897" border="0" align="left"/> Modern lifestyles force many parents to spend considerable time away from one another and their children. In some cases, parents are separated by hundreds or... http://portfolio.menscher.com/The-Burpbee http://portfolio.menscher.com/following/portfolio.menscher.com/The-Burpbee Wed, 05 Sep 2012 22:07:24 +0000 Corey Menscher's Porfolio 4032905 <img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032905/burpbeetx_600.jpg" width="600" height="600" width_o="600" height_o="600" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032905/burpbeetx_600_o.jpg" data-mid="21124692" border="0" align="left"/> Modern lifestyles force many parents to spend considerable time away from one another and their children. In some cases, parents are separated by hundreds or thousands of miles due to their careers. This can place a strain on their relationship as husband and wife, and throw their roles as caregivers into disarray. The Honeycomb is a suite of devices that enable physically separated parents to connect with one another by transmitting fragments of sensory experiences of prototypical parenting activities from various stages of babyhood. The Burpbee transmits the warmth of a baby’s body on one parent’s shoulder to the other over a distance. It consists of two objects: a “transmitter” in the form of a burp cloth, and a “receiver” in the form of a men’s button-down shirt. Inside the transmitter, a padded soft switch is sewn under the area on which the baby rests. This part of the burp cloth hangs down over the chest of the parent. When the baby is resting on the parent’s shoulder, the switch is closed. Inside the other half of the burp cloth, which hangs over the shoulder and down the back of the parent, is a small circuit board which contains a battery and wireless transceiver. When the soft switch is closed by the presence of a baby, the transceiver is powered and acts as a beacon. A Java application running on a personal computer is programmed to listen for this beacon, and consequently communicates over a TCP/IP network (such as the Internet) to a complementary Java application which manages the Burpbee receiver’s operation. The Burpbee receiver is a button-down shirt that has a resistive heater, small circuit board, and a battery sewn to an inside chest pocket. As long as the transmitter beacon is broadcasting, the Burpbee receiver is instructed to turn on the resistive heater that covers the wearer’s left shoulder and chest. This heater warms slowly, and after 30 seconds has reached its peak temperature of about 110º fahrenheit. This heat is dissipated over the shoulder through copper foil, and with a couple of layers of fabric underneath effectively simulates the body heat of an infant. The current design uses a men’s shirt, but the modular electronics could easily be moved to a woman’s garment. <img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032905/burpbeerx_600.jpg" width="600" height="600" width_o="600" height_o="600" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032905/burpbeerx_600_o.jpg" data-mid="21124690" border="0" align="left"/> Modern lifestyles force many parents to spend considerable time away from one another and their children. In some cases, parents are separated by hundreds or... http://portfolio.menscher.com/The-Kickbee http://portfolio.menscher.com/following/portfolio.menscher.com/The-Kickbee Wed, 05 Sep 2012 20:29:00 +0000 Corey Menscher's Porfolio 4032469 <img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032469/kickbee_header_square.jpg" width="608" height="608" width_o="608" height_o="608" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032469/kickbee_header_square_o.jpg" data-mid="21123087" border="0" align="left"/> Modern lifestyles force many parents to spend considerable time away from one another and their children. In some cases, parents are separated by hundreds or thousands of miles due to their careers. This can place a strain on their relationship as husband and wife, and throw their roles as caregivers into disarray. The Honeycomb is a suite of devices that enable physically separated parents to connect with one another by transmitting fragments of sensory experiences of prototypical parenting activities from various stages of babyhood. There's something special about pregnant women's bellies that make so many want to touch them. The presence of a child inside the womb is mysterious because we only have visual clues to its presence. Yet we know that if we press our hand and wait patiently, we may be greeted with a physical manifestation of its existence by feeling the baby's subtle (and not so subtle) movements inside. As an expectant father, I was removed from the physical knowledge my wife has of our baby and its development. With the Kickbee, I wanted to create a device that would give me a chance to be aware of our baby's movements. It can also aid in tracking the frequency of fetal movements, which is an important way to monitor the health of the developing child. The Kickbee is a fetal activity monitor worn by a pregnant mother. When a baby kicks its mother, a text message is sent to the father, alerting him to the developing baby’s activity within the womb. The vibration of the cell phone becomes a physical response to fetal movement for the father. During initial development, I considered creating separate devices for the mother and father to wear. The mother’s device would detect a kick, and the father’s device would receive that kick as a physical response. Several concepts were considered for the father’s device: Would it simulate a kick on his belly? Maybe a nudge by a servo somewhere else on his body? Perhaps a vibrating wristband? This exploration concluded in the realization that fathers usually have a (networked) vibrating device in their pockets all the time...their mobile phones. By taking advantage of the phone and its communications abilities, I was able to implement an analogue of a baby kick through the transmission of a simple SMS text message. The Kickbee’s physical platform is a medical-grade spandex belt normally used for supplemental support of a woman’s pregnant belly. A series of vibration sensors are attached to the belt longitudinally so their sensing areas can register the vibrations within the torso generated by a third-trimester baby. A microcontroller receives these signals, performs software filtering and processing, and transmits validated “kick” signals wirelessly to a custom Java application running on a personal computer. The Kickbee utilizes the popular microblogging service Twitter as a platform to record and distribute “kicks” to fathers as mobile phone text messages, thanks to its publicly available Application Programming Interface (API). The application logs into the Twitter messaging platform via its API and updates the Kickbee’s account with a new message, such as “I kicked Mommy at 5:17pm on Sunday, April 26, 2009!” The Kickbee received much attention in the media... Putting Twitter's World to Use - New York Times Twittering from the womb: How soon is too soon to 'tweet'?- NY Daily News Kickbee discussed on ABC's The View Kickbee on ABC's Good Morning America Fetus Tweets from the Womb! - CBS's The Early Show New device Twitters baby kicks - Reuters For more information, visit the official Kickbee website. <img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032469/kickbee_version2_2.jpg" width="670" height="1001" width_o="1024" height_o="1530" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032469/kickbee_version2_2_o.jpg" data-mid="21122403" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032469/kickbee_version2_3.jpg" width="670" height="448" width_o="1024" height_o="685" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032469/kickbee_version2_3_o.jpg" data-mid="21122404" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032469/kickbee_version2_4.jpg" width="670" height="448" width_o="1024" height_o="685" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032469/kickbee_version2_4_o.jpg" data-mid="21122405" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032469/kickbee_version2_1.jpg" width="670" height="1001" width_o="1024" height_o="1530" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032469/kickbee_version2_1_o.jpg" data-mid="21122400" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032469/kickbee_iphone_hardware.jpg" width="432" height="788" width_o="432" height_o="788" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032469/kickbee_iphone_hardware_o.jpg" data-mid="21122336" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032469/initial_prototype_arduino.jpg" width="480" height="640" width_o="480" height_o="640" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032469/initial_prototype_arduino_o.jpg" data-mid="21122334" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032469/initial_prototype_sensors.jpg" width="480" height="640" width_o="480" height_o="640" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032469/initial_prototype_sensors_o.jpg" data-mid="21122335" border="0" align="left"/> Modern lifestyles force many parents to spend considerable time away from one another and their children. In some cases, parents are separated by hundreds or... http://portfolio.menscher.com/Findings-Quote-Printer http://portfolio.menscher.com/following/portfolio.menscher.com/Findings-Quote-Printer Wed, 05 Sep 2012 20:09:08 +0000 Corey Menscher's Porfolio 4032439 <img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032439/20_2012-08-07-180122.jpg" width="600" height="600" width_o="600" height_o="600" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032439/20_2012-08-07-180122_o.jpg" data-mid="21121781" border="0" align="left"/> The Findings Quote Printer uses a small thermal receipt printer and a WiFi-equipped Arduino to poll Findings.com for new quotes from books or the web every minute, and prints new quotes when found. The quotes are printed in a long continuous stream of 500 feet of thermal paper. The goal of the Findings Quote Printer was to render physical the words that inspired Findings users. Since the quotes originated in digital form, I wanted to bring them into the analog world in a format that was compact and neat, yet communicated that vast chain of ideas that linked the users of Findings. <img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032439/20_2012-08-08-163400.jpg" width="600" height="600" width_o="600" height_o="600" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032439/20_2012-08-08-163400_o.jpg" data-mid="21121783" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032439/20_leto.jpg" width="612" height="612" width_o="612" height_o="612" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032439/20_leto_o.jpg" data-mid="21121785" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032439/20_2012-08-09-114024.jpg" width="596" height="600" width_o="596" height_o="600" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032439/20_2012-08-09-114024_o.jpg" data-mid="21121784" border="0" align="left"/> The Findings Quote Printer uses a small thermal receipt printer and a WiFi-equipped Arduino to poll Findings.com for new quotes from books or the web every... http://portfolio.menscher.com/ITPedia http://portfolio.menscher.com/following/portfolio.menscher.com/ITPedia Wed, 05 Sep 2012 19:27:49 +0000 Corey Menscher's Porfolio 4032279 ITPedia is a collection of tools that form an information infrastructure for the students at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. In collaboration with fellow student John Dimatos, we have helped oversee the deployment, maintenance, and promotion of a MediaWiki installation for student use. ITPedia is public-facing, and has become the de-facto repository of our collective knowledge. In addition to the wiki, ITPedia encompasses a few other integrated tools: • A series of student Google calendars, integrated with the wiki • An SMS-interface to the student directory • An SMS-interface to the student projects in the ITP Shows and Gallery Since its creation, ITPedia has facilitated knowledge-sharing and collaboration among students, and serves as a repository of student knowledge for future classes at ITP. http://itp.nyu.edu/itpedia/ <img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032279/Screen Shot 2012-09-05 at 8.29.07 PM.png" width="670" height="432" width_o="2034" height_o="1314" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4032279/Screen Shot 2012-09-05 at 8.29.07 PM_o.png" data-mid="21120684" border="0" align="left"/> ITPedia is a collection of tools that form an information infrastructure for the students at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. In collaboration with... http://portfolio.menscher.com/Asterisk-FTP http://portfolio.menscher.com/following/portfolio.menscher.com/Asterisk-FTP Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:43:35 +0000 Corey Menscher's Porfolio 4031519 The Asterisk File Transfer Protocol is a prototype method for transferring files via an Asterisk VoIP PBX. The inspiration for A-FTP came from my early computing days using a an audio cassette recorder to store applications for my first personal computer, a TI-99/4a. Programs were stored on audio cassettes, and were literally transferred to RAM via an audio signal over a 1/8” jack. If you didn’t plug in the jack but instead listened to the files through the cassette player’s speaker, they had an eery digital quality (a lot like a fax machine). So, I decided to recreate this experience over the telephone. If you have an acoustic coupler attached to your computer, you could potentially download files from the system at a blistering 300 baud! For demonstration purposes, the A-FTP server transmits this file…an 8Kb jpeg image (which takes 3 minutes and 29 seconds to play): <img src="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4031519/aftp_isawaturtle.jpg" width="320" height="213" width_o="320" height_o="213" src_o="http://payload86.cargocollective.com/1/0/23643/4031519/aftp_isawaturtle_o.jpg" data-mid="21116102" border="0" align="left"/> I decided to use the “Kanas City standard” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City_standard) for audio frequency-shift keying of digital files. This standard was established in 1975 at a symposium in Kansas City to provide an alternative storage solution to expensive floppy drives. (I’m not sure whether the TI-99/4a used it, but it sounds pretty close.) To convert the file into an audio file that conforms to the Kansas city standard, fellow Fiver Adam Parrish clued me into the CSound audio programming language. Csound is “a unit generator-based, user-programmable computer music system.” Its syntax is excruciating, but it is extremely powerful. I spent most of the day trying to learn the basics to create the fundamental components of a CSound composition…the Orchestra File and the Score file. The Orchestra file describes all the “instruments” used to generate audio. In my case, I needed two instruments…one 1200hz sine wave oscillator for “0” bits, and one 2400hz sine wave oscillator for “1” bits. The score file is what describes the audio piece itself…it tells CSound what sounds to generate, and when and how long to play each instrument. (CSound gets vastly more complex than my rudimentary needs.) Once I figured out how to generate this file, I wrote a PHP script that reads my binary image file and outputs the appropriate lines in the score file. (A big thanks to Adam Parrish again for helping with the bit masking stuff.) Once the .wav file was generated, I converted it to the GSM audio format that Asterisk loves so dearly. I then created a short dial plan to first playback a greeting, and then the file itself. You used to be able to access the server by dialing (212) 796-0729 ext. 160...but the ITP Asterisk server's number has apparently been changed or dismantled. In any case, the low quality GSM codec probably precludes the audio waveform from actually being used for file transfer…but it’s still a fun idea. You can listen to a higher-fidelity version of the file (2.4mb): &#9835; aftp.mp3 &nbsp;Play The Asterisk File Transfer Protocol was featured on Hackszine.com. The Asterisk File Transfer Protocol is a prototype method for transferring files via an Asterisk VoIP PBX. The inspiration for A-FTP came from my early computing...