Tag Archives: Bruce-Sterling

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Coding for cars

road_lightApparently the media and navigation systems of a high-end Mercedes now require more lines of code than a 787 Dreamliner:

Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner, scheduled to be delivered to customers in 2010, requires about 6.5 million lines of software code to operate its avionics and onboard support systems.

…

Alfred Katzenbach, the director of information technology management at Daimler, has reportedly said that the radio and navigation system in the current S-class Mercedes-Benz requires over 20 million lines of code alone and that the car contains nearly as many ECUs as the new Airbus A380 (excluding the plane’s in-flight entertainment system).

There is a considerably more awesome car than an S-class described in Heavy Weather by Bruce Sterling, but I can’t find my copy to tell you how many lines of code that needed (I remember it was specified somewhere).

[via Charles Stross][image Aitor Escauriaza from on flickr]

Interviews

INTERVIEW: BRUCE STERLING on Caryatids, Viridian and the death of print

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Bruce SterlingNovelist, pundit, design theorist and iconoclast – Bruce Sterling is all of these and more, and is one of the people that the Futurismic project has always looked to for inspiration.

Sterling has a new novel called Caryatids out at the end of February, the writing of which has somehow been shoehorned in between him bouncing around Europe, lecturing on design theory and keeping an eye on the maelstrom of global multimedia culture and politics.

He was good enough to cave into the pestering of this irredeemable fanboy and answer some questions about the new novel, the closing of the Viridian Green project and the relentless demise of science fiction print media. Continue reading INTERVIEW: BRUCE STERLING on Caryatids, Viridian and the death of print →

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Stylus and sketch: interaction for design

An ongoing trend in design tools and techniques lies in finding ways to make CAD more intuitive by using pen-based interfaces, from Physorg:

Because thinking about a new product shape by sketching is more expressive and more intuitive for engineers than the traditional mouse-and-menu-based design interfaces, the new system gives users more freedom to be creative and a shorter learning curve for use.

By providing greater freedom in conceptual design phases and alleviating costly redesign issues, the new technology will have an immediate impact on a multitude of industries, Carnegie Mellon researchers said.

This sounds similar to the ILoveSketch software tool, demonstrated in this video:

[ILoveSketch from Seok-Hyung Bae on Vimeo][via Bruce Sterling]

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Bruce Sterling’s Last Viridian Note

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His post before embarking on his next project has been getting a fair amount of attention. At the risk of turning Futurismic into all Bruce all the time, here’s one of my favorite bits:

I strongly recommend that you carry a multitool. There are dozens of species of these remarkable devices now, and for good reason. Do not show them off in a beltpack, because this marks you as a poorly-socialized geek. Keep your multitool hidden in the same discreet way that you would any other set of keys.

That’s because a multitool IS a set of keys. It’s a set of possible creative interventions in your immediate material environment. That is why you want a multitool. They are empowering.

A multitool changes your perceptions of the world. Since you lack your previous untooled learned-helplessness, you will slowly find yourself becoming more capable and more observant. If you have pocket-scissors, you will notice loose threads; if you have a small knife you will notice bad packaging; if you have a file you will notice flashing, metallic burrs, and bad joinery. If you have tweezers you can help injured children, while if you have a pen, you will take notes. Tools in your space, saving your time. A multitool is a design education.

As a further important development, you will become known to your friends and colleagues as someone who is capable, useful and resourceful, rather than someone who is helpless, frustrated and visibly lacking in options. You should aspire to this better condition.

OK. Recommendations for a multitool, anybody?

Blog

STARA airdrop device

Reading about this courier device puts me in mind of an event in Heavy Weather by Bruce Sterling:

To avoid the bad guys, high-flying planes can release Stara’s Mosquito. Its customizable cylinder, which can handle up to 150 pounds, contains a GPS unit and servomotor for steering the parachute to a drop site up to 2 miles away.

Actuators cut loose the payload at a preset altitude (from 50 to 1,500 feet). This way, anyone tracking the chute will end up as much as a half mile from the goods, which may be camouflaged as, say, a fist-sized rock.

The company is promoting the $10,000 Mosquito for special forces deliveries — money, passports, blood packets.

In Heavy Weather a character orders certain products which are couriered across the countryside by a monopedal robot – but the principle of ordering stuff via your satphone and having it delivered to any GPS coordinates in the world strikes me as very cool.

[on Wired][image from STARA Technologies inc]