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Lego robot that solves Rubik’s Cube
I was going over to Salon to read an article, and since I don’t have a subscription, I had to click on an ad and view it. What popped up was an extremely nifty Flash ad by General Electric: A string of water bubbles that you can “play” to produce notes on a violin. (There’s a screenshot of it above.) I messed around with it for a few minutes and soon was able to play quite complex melodies. And I thought, damn, now this is what more online ads ought to be doing — producing fun, engaging, quick-hit interactive experiences. It’s a superb little bit of work: Part ad, part game, part instrument.
Go try it out! Hint: To play individual notes, sweep up from below to touch the bubble you want. By the way, going to view the ad will also put money in Salon’s pockets, so you will be supporting independent journalism by playing music. How often do you get to do that?
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
A long German word for “noticing when ads are being customized based on your surfing history”
“El Ajedrecista” — an analog chess-playing computer from 1912
“How did you find my site?” and Vannevar Bush’s memex
» visit the Collision Detection archives
May 20, 2011 » 02:28 PM
From Christopher Kennedy’s very droll book “Neitzsche’s Horse”.
July 28, 2010 » 07:35 AM
“Wr” - S
July 06, 2010 » 10:05 AM
My Xbox broke, and I was trying to Google some possible technical solutions, when I noticed that Google appears to be encouraging me to make a typo. I suppose it’s possible that Google’s algorithms know that typing “wont” instead of “won’t” would produce better results.
June 29, 2010 » 05:00 PM
On the other hand, when I tried the test for multitasking, I was pretty abysmal. I performed worse than people who identify themselves as heavy multitaskers, and those who identify as low multitaskers.
June 29, 2010 » 04:58 PM
I finally got around to trying out the interactive “test your distractability and multitasking” page at the New York Times, which they put up alongside their story earlier this month about how computer distractions are eroding our lives.
According to the test, I guess I have good focus — I’m not very distractable!
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A long German word for "noticing when ads are being customized based on your surfing history"
