Moon Landing Tapes Found! [more inside]
posted by sexyrobot on Jul 2, 2009 - 93 comments

How to start and drive a Model T
posted by loquacious on Jun 30, 2009 - 26 comments

The Virtual Laboratory - A collection of essays, biographies, instruments and trade catalogues (e.g. experiment kit) from between 1830 and 1930. I must warn you that some of the films are a bit disturbing. Check out the eerie sounding vowel experiments in the audio section too.
posted by tellurian on Mar 2, 2009 - 9 comments

The Best Robots of 2008 (via)
posted by Artw on Jan 18, 2009 - 13 comments

Primal source at GLOW (video), Burble London (an implementation of Open Burble) (video), Evoke (video) - the transformative artworks of Haque Design and Research. Interview with Usman Haque. Previously.
posted by Artw on Sep 21, 2008 - 6 comments

The Early Television Foundation and Museum Website covers the nascent days of the nation's pastime, with interesting items like mechanical TVs and programming schedules from 1939.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim on Sep 9, 2008 - 11 comments

Enhancing video using photos "Using Photographs to Enhance Videos of a Static Scene" sounds a bit dry, but watch the demo video. Not only are exposures correctable, resolution can be enhanced enough to do a flawless digital zoom in post, and objects can be undetectably changed or removed from shaky handheld video. This is amazingly cool for video people, but also turns the slippery slope of "Can I trust what I see?" into a gaping chasm.
posted by lothar on Aug 15, 2008 - 43 comments

Illustrated Histories of Various Recording Technologies
posted by carter on Apr 22, 2008 - 13 comments

Hitler Speaks

Using advanced speech recognition technology, researchers and voice-over actors have been able to put a soundtrack to long-silent video relics of Adolf Hitler: Eva Braun's infamous home movies filmed at the Berghof, private filmed meetings between Hitler and various Reich cronies, as well as the last known footage of him taped before an awkward bunch of Hitler Youth at the Reichstag in the final days of the war made famous in Downfall. Chilling stuff.

Via.
posted by auralcoral on Mar 22, 2008 - 177 comments

The ultimate in nerdy tattoos? "Jim Mielke's wireless blood-fueled display is a true merging of technology and body art. At the recent Greener Gadgets Design Competition, the engineer demonstrated a subcutaneously implanted touch-screen that operates as a cell phone display, with the potential for 3G video calls that are visible just underneath the skin."
posted by tugena13 on Feb 27, 2008 - 63 comments

The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence has put up a some interesting media, including a variety of talks from the Singularity Summit 2006 and 2007, about the possibilites and progress of technological development. For an overview of the issues Ray Kurzweil talks about the ideas and promises of the singularity, while Douglas Hofstadter calls for deeper exploration of the implications and hazards of coming technology.
posted by MetaMonkey on Jan 21, 2008 - 44 comments

The Digital Freedom Campaign believes that new technologies are essential to the creativity and innovation, and that digital technology enables anyone and everyone to be an artist and an innovator. The DFC is dedicated to defending the rights of artists, innovators, creators and consumers to use lawful technology free of unreasonable government restrictions and without fear of costly lawsuits.
posted by terrapin on Mar 28, 2007 - 10 comments

Fora Tv is a good place to watch videos of lectures and discussions on topics ranging from politics and science to religion and the arts. Whether you'd like to see Jim Lehrer talk about politics and prose, or watch Brian Eno and Will Wright discuss the joys and techniques of generative creation, you might find something here to like
posted by localhuman on Jan 24, 2007 - 4 comments

Tesla coil music system (YouTube alert) and five other musical gadgets you didn't know about.
posted by madamjujujive on Oct 21, 2006 - 24 comments

10 greatest beat-making videos ever* "*Or, you know, today." A Music thing thing.
posted by nthdegx on Aug 23, 2006 - 14 comments

TED talks is a collection of presentations given at the most recent installment of the annual convention of leading technologists, entertainers, and designers (previously). From the $100 laptop to the eradication of smallpoxto new ways of visualizing data and a charming and humorous look at education, there's a lot to chew on and more to come. Inspired yet? here's some more reading material. via
posted by sixacross on Aug 3, 2006 - 8 comments

"Disposable" digital video cameras. Now available at CVS drugstores in the US, from the same company that last year introduced disposable digital cameras. The video is processed onto DVD at the store in an hour. But at $43 ($30 purchase plus $12.99 for processing) for 20 minutes of footage, is it really worth it? Walt Mossberg says, "Meh."
posted by me3dia on Jun 8, 2005 - 22 comments

Steven Levy and Mark Pesce on the future of television. Oh and Conan O'brien! :D [via]
posted by kliuless on May 23, 2005 - 6 comments

Remember the threads last week about R/C planes with digital cameras? Rank amateurs. Animal Planet has upped the stakes in the unmanned aerial vehicle race by strapping a video camera to an eagle. That's right, an eagle. It's incredible. Check out the dogfight in particular. They're also doing a bunch of other cool things with animals and technology.
posted by loquax on Dec 6, 2004 - 28 comments

Ever since I became a TiVo addict, I've found myself wanting to use its features in real life, wishing I could rewind & replay moments of random comedy & chaos, usually involving my pugs. Soon, thanks the good folks at Deja View, I will be able to, with the help of a head mounted micro video camera unit that is always on, recording a 30 second buffer of real time, and up to four hours of manually recordable space for once you activate the record button. The scourge of ephemera will be wiped out in our lifetime.
posted by jonson on Jun 19, 2003 - 13 comments

The Scopitone was a French video jukebox that made its debut in 1960 and was imported into the US in 1964. Although they usually featured high production values, catchy melodies, and lots of gratuitous cheesecake, the singers were often relative unknowns and the music was square even by the standards of the day. Consequently, they never caught on in a big way outside of Europe, and many of the original Scopitone jukeboxes and films were destroyed. Fortunately for us, a few Scopitone enthusiasts have catalogued the songs, scanned the advertisements, and even preserved a few Quicktime clips of the original French and American Scopitone films.
posted by MrBaliHai on May 4, 2003 - 9 comments

Lying with video. Researchers at MIT have created videos of people uttering sentences they never said that consistently fool viewers and are accepted by them as real. Once upon a time, it was a lot harder to be false with film, but whether the medium will be in any way trustworthy going forward seems doubtful. What will it mean when you can't even believe your own eyes?
posted by zoopraxiscope on May 15, 2002 - 17 comments

A really cool idea. This is how new technology is born
posted by delmoi on Jan 26, 2002 - 34 comments

Survival Research Labs: as covered by KCOP TeeVee in L.A. I like this clip because not only is the contrast between the slick newscaster and exploding, flaming machinery bizarre in and of itself, but there is some great footage of the SRL shows and machinery. Hey, it's summer!
posted by mecran01 on May 9, 2001 - 9 comments

iPix Movies are cool interactive movies, you choose the angle you view while it is playing and you can turn to any angle, up, down, left, right and zoom. This is pretty wild but takes a broadband connection so if you are a dial up user, forget it. I want the little helicopter the camera is on, very cool.
posted by me myself and i on Apr 13, 2001 - 11 comments