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A team comprising iart, AMDL CIRCLE, and Michele De Lucchi has created a ‘zero-energy media façade’ for the Novartis Pavilion in Basel, Switzerland. Combining PV panels and LEDs, the façade is described by the team as “illustrating the potential of organic photovoltaics in architecture.”... View full entry
At 366 feet tall and 516 feet wide, it’s being billed as the world’s largest spherical structure. Its bowl-shaped theater reportedly contains the world’s highest-resolution wraparound LED screen. And its exterior is fitted with 1.2 million hockey puck-sized LEDs that can be programmed to flash dynamic imagery on a massive scale – again, reportedly the world’s largest. It was fully illuminated for the first time Tuesday night to celebrate the Fourth of July. — CNN
The venue doesn’t officially debut until late September with the beginning of U2’s special residency. The sphere will blast tunes from its hyper-customizable 164,000-speaker audio system, which somehow can even direct specific languages to certain parts of the audience. Video courtesy of... View full entry
A new technique developed by a Binghamton University physicist and his colleagues will improve the quality of flexible, conductive, transparent glass. (The sort that's needed for Minority Report-style giant computer displays.)[...] Creating a more reliable production process for a-IGZO will save electronics manufacturers money. It could also reduce energy use, as a fully transparent display can take advantage of ambient light and does not require as much backlighting. — ScienceDaily
Advances in technologies such as this one will enable glass to go beyond transparency and become screens, with the potential to radically change architecture and urbanism. A future in which windows, doors, and even walls could stream movies or display art is fast approaching. LED and LCD screens... View full entry
Among facets that critics may seize upon — and, this being N.Y.U., there will certainly be critics — is that the screens express technology’s new primacy, all but obscuring traditional forms of scholarship behind a cascade of random data. Critics may also discern a feeling of defeat in having to undertake such a fundamental alteration in the hope of saving students’ lives. — cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com
