Anthony took this.
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In my defense, I was looking up an address, not just randomly walking around, looking for an open wifi network.
[ Posted from the end of cyberspace via plazes.com ]
Pictures of yourself getting online in cool places.
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Of course, this wasn't me. This was Anthony.
Technorati Tags: Budapest, internet, Kitchen Budapest, travel
On my last day in Budapest, Anthony and I dropped in on Kitchen Budapest, a new digital art / prototyping / cool new stuff place, sponsored by Magyar Telecom.
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As I understand it, the company isn't looking to Kibu as a source of new products-- they don't have to create X number of prototype cell phones or products per quarter-- but instead as a source of inspiration, a place to see interesting things. Definitely nice work if you can get it!
The space isn't huge, but it's very pleasant, and has a nice buzz. It's on Raday utca, which is one of the hipper neighborhoods in the city-- sort of a paprika-dusted version of Williamsburg or SoMa-- and the building itself is a grand old stone pile. Inside, it's all open space and clean lines, but not antiseptic. They have a couple things that I hadn't seen before, but would like to get for the Institute, or just for my own home office. The black paneling on the columns, for example, is pressed wood with a magnetic laminate: presto, floor-to-ceiling magnetic boards. Very handy.
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We had just enough time to see some demos of things they're working on. Two of them completely blew me away. The first is a mind-mapping or relational mapping program that's written in Flash. They call it Zui, because it's also a zooming browser: you can dive into an area, see new details, go deeper on some particular detail, etc., etc. (here's a demo).
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The Institute makes a lot of maps, and so I'm always interested to see programs like these. What impressed me about this is that it's browser-accessible, and it's also offers a way to combine abstraction or high-level organization-- the top layer of the map-- with lots of interesting detail that reveals itself only when you call for it.
So that was very neat. But what blew me away was seeing it in combination with a touch-sensitive screen they've created.
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The system consists of a glass screen with infrared sensors, backed with paper. Behind it is a projector that throws images on the screen, and a camera that watches what users are doing.
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Put all the pieces together, and you have a system that lets you project a map, then move around it by using gestures.
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They've also created a table version with a camera mounted above. What this let you do is put physical objects on top of the map-- say, a Post-it with some words, a photograph, etc.-- which the camera then records, and integrates into the map: in other words, put a physical object on the surface, and it's transformed into a digital object on the screen. Very, very cool.
Technorati Tags: art, Budapest, convergence, design, digital culture, digital-physical, Hungary, Kitchen Budapest
I spent some time during my lat day at Budapest in Graphisoft Park, and technology park on the outskirts of the city. It was developed by Gabor Bojar, the founder of Graphisoft, first as a home for the company, and then as space for other tech companies: Microsoft, Apple, SAP, Canon, and now a couple biotech companies have buildings there.
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The new biotech buildings are especially interesting from a purely architectural standpoint. It has some echoes of one of Mies van der Rohe's buildings, and I think the main entrance resembles Corbusier's church at Ronchamp. Anyway, it's a great space.
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The site is on what was a glass factory, and there are still some very cool old buildings on the outskirts of the site. There's a clock tower that looks like something designed when the architect had gone slightly mad.
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It also has a nice view of the Danube.
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Technorati Tags: Budapest, Hungary, science cities, technology, travel
I'm packed, and heading to the airport in a few hours.
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It's been a heck of a trip, and I'm sad to leave, but I'm also looking forward to going home.
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Which, all things considered, strikes me as a very good combination.
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[To the tune of U2, "Ultra Violet (Light My Way)," from the album "Achtung Baby".]
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[ Posted from Cafe Alibi, Budapest via plazes.com ]
Technorati Tags: Budapest, conference, Hungary, travel
Went to dinner tonight with essentially the entire research staff of Ithaka, the group that organized today's conference.
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We went to a basement place called Bor La Bor, which serves traditional Hungarian food. Giant appetizer platters, cutting boards instead of appetizer plates, then on to huge main courses.
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I went with the beef with parsley dumplings, which was surprisingly delicious.
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[To the tune of Tears For Fears, "Year Of The Knife," from the album "The Seeds Of Love".]
[ Posted from Cafe Alibi, Budapest via plazes.com ]
I'm having an espresso at Cafe Alibi, a lovely little place right around the corner from the hotel.
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The conference went pretty well. Now it's off to dinner, then back to the hotel to do some work-- my day job marches along, after all-- and then to prepare for tomorrow, a mix of meetings during the day and evening Institute conference calls.
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But for now, I'm just enjoying the sun going down, the lights coming on, and people going home.
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[ Posted from Cafe Alibi, Budapest via plazes.com ]
After dinner I went over to the Frank Zappa cafe (which actually was quite nice) and spent some time working on tomorrow's talk.
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I've been working on several different research lines relating to the future of science, and think I can put two of them together in a way that'll be pretty interesting to my Hungarian audience.
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[To the tune of Stone Temple Pilots, "Interstate Love Song," from the album "Thank You".]
Technorati Tags: Budapest, cafe, future, science, STS, travel
I'm a research director at the Institute for the Future, a think tank in Silicon Valley. I'm also an Associate Fellow at Oxford University's Saïd Business School, and a Senior Research Scholar in the Science Technology and Society program at Stanford University.
At the Institute, I work on the future of science and technology. In my free time I'm working on a book on the end of cyberspace. More details are available in my c.v. (PDF). My first book, Empire and the Sun: Victorian Solar Eclipse Expeditions, was published by Stanford University Press in 2002.
I also keep up-to-date profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook.
The banner is from a picture taken by Anthony Townsend, while we were walking along Raday Utca in Budapest, Hungary, October 2007.
Click to leave me a voice message using Grand Central.
Contact me via Skype.
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