People tend to view TV and film as the ultimate form of media. However, media is evolving beyond these limited formats into the realms of the immersive and interactive.

John Gaeta and Rudy Poat are taking media to the another level, developing a hybrid environment that draws from the best of games and film

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Unlike never-ending sim games, Desparate Housewives: The Game has a twelve episode story with a script written by series writer Scott Sanford Tobis, which incorporates both drama and dark humour.

Comicbookbin

I missed the introduction of this game, but just saw a commercial that l first mistook for a Sims game commercial. Very interesting meshup.

Narrative underpins all technology marketing and purchasing decisions.

Red Monk

Another confirmation of Storytelling and Understanding. These folks seem to really get the central role of story.

GVScripts can be written using the GVScript Editor written in Squeak which means that given a cast of objects that can be rendered across different virtual worlds, GVScripts are write once, run everywhere. Stay tuned.

RAP messages are created and processed in Squeak Smalltalk, JavaScript and Linden Scripting Language(LSL). These messages are transmitted to a primitive FUNK Space and retrieved by each environment via http.

Cubes are white, the cursor is in Croquet about to click on the “Black Cube” link. After clicking the cubes have turned black and the cursor is about to click on the “White Cube” link.

After clicking again, the cube turn back to white.

Now the cursor is moved to the Second Life window where the “Black Cube” link is clicked and the cubes turn black.

the “White Cube” link is clicked on and the cubes turn white.

The messages in FUNK encoded form look like:

0message,6,3did,firefox,3ts,1184402324783,3aid,DemoCube,3action,setColor,0sd,3,2r,1.0,2g,1.0,2b,1.0,1d,0

A structured layout would look like:

• 0message,6
  • 3did,firefox
  • 3ts,1184402324783
  • 3aid,DemoCube
  • 3action,setColor
  • 0sd,3
    • 2r,1.0
    • 2g,1.0
    • 2b,1.0
  • 1d,0

Having a generational migration path through the various platforms, some for play some for work, raises all the questions about how we represent ourselves in each and how we are able to move between them.

Eighbar

FUNK encoding was designed to accomodate a very broad range of devices/environments particularly those with limited memory and little or no support for commonly used web protocols. I don’t have a Mindstorms robot, but a quick look at the Advanced Programming Guide would seems to indicate that it fits the above description. There may not be XML and JSON parsers for Lego Mindstorms real soon and even when there are, just like Second Life’s LSL, these robots will be small memory footprint environments for some time to come. I’d love to hear from anyone with hands-on Legos programming experiences about this – I’m sure we can get Legos robots to RAP!

 A file format is a particular way to encode information for storage in a computer file.

Wikipedia

Today information systems are used to either simulate and augment the tangible world or represent a fictional, virtual reality(see Meshverse 101). Except for modeling tangible documents and existing information systems, the document-oriented notions of files and folders aren’t needed in today’s simulation-oriented information systems. File systems are a brittle artifact of the misguided evolution of today’s hardware and operating systems which are innovation bottlenecks

The software that best serves human interests needs to change rapidly. From individuals to Google, new code shows up on the Internet daily, but the pace of innovation is throttled by the slower changes in operating systems which in turn are constrained by horribly inflexible hardware designed independently of the software.

Rhythmeering: Water and Ice

Entities(including what we traditionally call programs) represented in simulations just need to persist reliably in a format suitable for the simulation. Ideally, in the future, some type of RAM/holographic memory combo will transparently backup exact copies of the bits representing entities in the simulation using a single binary encoding similar to/derived from today’s FUNK. Until then everyone from large corporations to individuals will continue to increasingly use databases and non-traditional file and other storage systems that better map to the entities being represented. This information is being encoded in a small number of formats such as JSON and XML(which btw, the upcoming new release of FUNK will support). Slowly but surely the industry is returning from the mistaken journey down the road to Babylon. As with nature, a small number of self-similar, recursive approaches are much more powerful than a multitude of over-specialized ones.

Bob Barton, the main designer of the B5000 and a professor at Utah had said in one of his talks a few days earlier: “The basic principal of recursive design is to make the parts have the same power as the whole.” For the first time I thought of the whole as the entire computer and wondered why anyone would want to divide it up into weaker things called data structures and procedures. Why not divide it up into little computers, as time sharing was starting to? But not in dozens. Why not thousands of them, each simulating a useful structure? I recalled the monads of Leibniz, the “dividing nature at its joints” discourse of Plato, and other attempts to parse complexity.

The Early History of Smalltalk

Let me close with something to ponder. Do you recall files and folders being mentioned on Star Trek?

• Getting Started: Starting Croquet
• Programming: Simple World

If you’re itching for more right now, you might try to understand what the quick and dirty path has in common with the route taken by Simple World. To do that you need to find out where and how the SimpleWorld class is used. One approach would be to open a class browser and choose Class Refs from the menu:

However, this will take you on a somewhat thorny path

that ends at a fork where you have to decide what classes to explore further but haven’t really learned anything to base that choice on. Often in Squeak, whenever there’s interaction with the UI, the most direct path to understanding starts with the morph you are clicking. You can cmd-click(Mac) or right-click (Windows) on any morph to bring up a set of icons called a halo.

Repeated clicks will drill down to the object you are mousing over.

Once you have a halo for the object of interest, use the red icon to bring up a menu and open an Object Explorer

Even without knowing anything about the protocol, you can figure out that when you drag one of these buttons out, it sends a message to CroquetMaster. Browsing that class you can see it’s purpose in life seems to be to create a Croquet Harness which is where SimpleWorlds get created

Careful observers will notice the class CroquetParticipant which is probably somehow related to KCroquetParticipant so try using the class menu

to open a Hieararchy browser and see

Once you start exploring KCroquetParticipant, you’ll see that it provides a framework to do what hard-coded methods in SimpleWorld and CroquetMaster accomplish. Hopefully it won’t be long before Matthew covers this better and expands on it but for those chomping at the bit, there’s something to chew on. You may also find the context provided by the Subsystem Overview useful.

Julian Lombardi’s Blog: HP Joins the Consortium!

PloppSL allows you to create intriguing Sculpted Prims for SecondLife™ easily. Both texture and model are created in one step. Simply paint the front and back side of your model and it will be converted to a Sculpted Prim by PloppSL.

Second Plopp

Shiny Life(detailed step-by-step video tutorial)

New World Notes: Sculpties Made Simple

Plopp Second Life: Even a child can do sculpties 

3Greeneggs: Plopp has potential but flops

CroquetHarness cleanup

Next save the image and see if the file size shrunk back to a reasonable level. If not you’ll either have to go zombie hunting or start from a clean image. Sometimes zombie hunting doesn’t produce the results you want. It may be that you’re not looking for the right kind of objects but in other cases, there are just too many zombies of different types and it’s taking a long time to figure out how to untangle them. In either case, if you don’t have any data or graphics bound only to the image, AND your code is reasonably well organized(this doesn’t have to mean Monticello - some projects can be managed well with change sets) the quickest solution may be to just dump the code and load it into a clean image. However, one often learns valuable lessons while zombie hunting so there’s good reason to learn some basic techniques.

The first steps in zombie hunting are simple “is-it-plugged-in” type of things. First look to see if any error windows are hidden from view. Then a look at workspaces you have open in the image and see if you dumped any large objects into variables while exploring. As above, save the image and then check the file size.

Next, you’ll want to identify likely candidate classes that may have instances hanging around. There are no hard and fast rules for this but I tend to look for:

• objects that open and/or initialize central or frequently used UI elements
• objects whose existence depend upon plugins
• objects making calls to any low level system
• objects created by recently loaded packages code I didn’t write

If you browse the CroquetHarness cleanup method, you’ll see a series of statements many of which look like:

SomeClass allInstances do:[:i | i doSomethingToGetRidOfMe.]

I usually get a count first:

SomeClass allInstances size

If there are a lot and you happen to know the appropriate doSomethingToGetRidOfMe method you’re in luck. Things aren’t always that simple though because you may not want to get rid of all the instances or the doSomethingToGetRidOfMe method only works under certain conditions. In the latter case you’ll need some method or script to identify suspect instances

(SomeClass allInstances select: [:z | z suspect]) do:[:i | i doSomethingToGetRidOfMe.]

Often, none of the above works because the doSomethingToGetRidOfMe was not intended to deal with a broad spectrum of circumstances but rather the ones likely to occur under “normal” use. In such cases, one needs more powerful instruments which fortunately Squeak is full of. So start out by opening an ObjectExplorer on all the instances.

Then you can use the menu to find out what objects are still referring to each instance and thus preventing it from being garbage collected:

This will open an inspector with a list of objects:

that are referencing the instance. If you’re fortunate, there’s an obvious reason why the reference still exists and a convenient doSomethingToGetRidOfMe to clean things up. However, there’s a good chance that neither exist in which case, you’ll need to call upon an experienced zombie buster or become one yourself!

HTH

For the time being, I’m disabling comments here while I try to get to the bottom of what appears to be malicious tampering with the site. During this time, you may notice some entries that are blank, but I hope to have the database restored soon.

Thanks for stopping by.

• Dan Shafer really got me looking at Rails and Ruby - the idea of a Smalltalk-like development tool that could be deployed widely on low-cost web-hosting accounts was very appealing.
• After lots of experimentation with Rails, I decided that WordPress was the best solution for what I needed as the current text-based, page oriented web paradigm winds down. Ditto for my use of Seaside btw - both are great object-oriented frameworks but I’d been there, done that already. Before the bubble had burst I’d led the development and deployment of an object-oriented web framework called Community Catalyst and learned that the higher level capabilities are more important that the implementation framework - hence WordPress.
• I began implementing my Morphtron Programming Framework in Ruby(hopefully I’ll get some of that code up here this week) but was very frustrated by the lack of an environment(including but not limited to a native Ruby IDE ). Morphtron is an evolution of the Free Dynamic Object Model(FreeDOM) I’d created in the mid-90’s for Smalltalk and Javascript.
• I spent some time looking at wxRuby and wxSqueak thinking wxWidgets might be a way evolve a common environment where I could take advantage of the powerful, well supported internet capabilities of Ruby without appearing to leave the Squeak environment. The immaturity of these toolkits made for very slow goings though.
• Driven by Second Life’s mega growth, my Croquet and Meshverse Journal blogs began to take up more and more time so since I wasn’t really using Ruby …
• During the past few months I’ve had more than my fill of “can’t do” and “can do with caveats”) experiences in Squeak - particularly having to do with REST, cURL, SSL and other bedrocks of the current web. Like XMPP/Jabber for example. Yes there are Squeak implementations I’ve been using for quite some time for BOPSpace but they are in dire need of refactoring, SSL support etc. So I decided to revisit Ruby and realized that I could use it to do most of the heavy lifting.

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Various amounts of information about most of these can be found on the Sister Sites in the right column. Over the coming weeks I’ll be tying these pieces together here on this blog in preparation for a December roll-out. The first layer you’ll hear about is BOP which is due for a new release next week.

A place where everyone can share stories.

CNN Enters The World of Second Life

Google’s business isn’t really about monetizing eyeballs; it’s about monetizing clicks. That may seem like a small distinction - you have to attract the eyeball, after all, before you can spur the click - but I think there’s actually a very big difference. Eyeball monetization is the traditional media strategy: publish or broadcast content that attracts readers or viewers, and then intersperse ads among that content. The content, in this case, serves not to prompt action directly, but merely to draw an audience that’s attractive to companies looking to promote their products and services. There’s a natural distance, in other words, between the content and the ads - a distance that’s good for the content producer but often frustrating to the advertiser. The click monetization strategy removes that distance. In Google’s AdSense program, for instance, a media company, or other content producer, earns nothing by simply attracting eyeballs. It only brings in cash by getting viewers to click on an ad link.

Rough Type: The Click Economy

yes, in an attention economy, you have to get the eyeballs first. But the money, as many found out with internet stocks, does not automatically follow the eyeballs.

Interview with Richard Lanham

all the crap about attention allocation is primarily because that’s one of the best ways to build a community.
Community Value

Imagine a movie in which the viewer is swept along by a narrative, following the action from place to place, but without the intervention of a camera. You can choose which character to watch in a scene, as if you’re an invisible witness standing there while a real event plays out. This is still years away, at a level of realism people would consider cinematic, but certainly not decades away.

I can imagine the dense fantasy worlds I like to create for movies having an equal or greater life in a world of interactive play, authored by others, in a partnership. Of course, add massive multiplayer capability to this, and people will never leave their homes.

Beyond 3D: James Cameron in BusinessWeek

“Do you still use a typewriter?” he asks a TIME movie critic. “Do you go to a library and consult books for most of your research? Is your story set in type, letter by letter? No. Your business takes advantage of technological advances. Why shouldn’t my business?”

Google+YouTube=Handwriting of the Wall of the Web: George Lucas in Time Magazine

Beowulf is currently making a strong showing now, James Cameron’s Avatar movie is slated for 2009(see also More Signs of Convergence: Avatar - the Movie ) and there are rumors that The Hobbit will be a 3D production due in 2010. More productions are in the pipeline and theaters are gearing up:

• CNN: Movies in 3D: into the next dimension
• 3D Movies Rise Again
• Let’s Talk 3D Movies
• Time for the Digital Age

Given the level of realism being delivered by Second Life’s new Windlight viewer and improvements in avatar robotics, machinima is poised to explode. Some relevant links:

Machinima and what might be

Why Machinima Is Good For Hollywood

BBC: Machinima waits to go mainstream

Croquetlandia

Machinima For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

3D Game-Based Filmmaking: The Art of Machinima (with CD-ROM)

And it’s about time. George Lucas (I know, major name-dropping here) told me not too long ago, that one of the key reasons for his studio’s success is the seamless integration between his LucasArts video games division and LucasFilm, his studio operation.

But he’s been doing it for years. Other studios simply have not been able to grasp the magnitude of that kind of arrangement. … The world is moving online, and the entertainment industry is no different. But like music, and then movies, Hollywood has been slow to see these trends develop, and by the time it does, it’s usually too late. …

George Lucas has to be sitting in his office this morning; celebrating yet another reason for the industry to think of him as “visionary,” and it cost him so much less than the check Vivendi has to write.

CNBC Tech Check: Big Media Now Gets “It”

Multiple monitors and visualization are not a panacea but they do provide a lot of free, already written and debugged tools! These tools aren’t perfect but they generally don’t crash! Well, people do get sick and die, but in general, the software running our mind/body systems is very robust and stable. If I start looking/pointing to the wrong screen, I gracefully recover. For you Matrix fans, this is the “your other left” scenario. I sleep but I’ve never done a full system reboot! If I’m not sure what the best arrangement is I can put post-its on the monitors or notes on a whiteboard within view. This approach has been used for a very long time in complex systems where humans are in the loop. In the past half century aerospace and finance come to mind but the practice goes back much further to the art of memory and beyond to ancient Egypt. In the world of ubiquitous computing and locative art I call the meshverse, coding has to move beyond the text editor and even the traditional IDE - it will be come both visual and location oriented at the same time. Imagine a mash-up between the text adventure-like game playsh and Croquet annotations! I am at present working on the infrastructure for such an environment, bits and pieces of which you can see at my BOP Space and GVScript sites. Both of the previous two links are showing Squeak’s Wonderland but if you’ve been here before, you’ve seen earlier versions of the building blocks.

With all due respect to the authors, Julian Lombardi’s comments and the original Why Second Life Won’t Get A Third article both leave out important information which ironically makes the strongest case for Croquet. The Linden Lab folk know far too well the constraints of their architecture but they also believe they can scale because they are moving away from their highly centralized model towards something more distributed - a page out of the book of Croquet. The new second life grid architecture is evolving in a reasonably open manner(see alsoDavid Jones Notes from OOPSLA). While it won’t ever be as elegant as Croquet, it will address enough of the problems to keep growing the base particularly as the business model shifts to leverage the economic infrastructure. Unless Croquet greatly expands it’s niche, it won’t become a means of creating serious alternatives to Second Life. I believe however that it can and will. In 2008, I expect we’ll see some evidence of Worldbase + Interactivity Server architecture I’ve pointed out before.

After finally getting out to the great social media events in the Washington DC area, I have become increasingly more “connected” with the people and ideas that are surely blooming in the city. I caught myself jotting down upcoming events and came across one that I am definitely looking forward to attending.

Although the official website is still under construction, registration for the BlogPotomac event is open to the general public! Chairman of the event, Geoff Livingston lets us know that “BlogPotomac is this year’s premiere social media marketing event for greater Washington DC. Attendees can expect a one-day event with nationally renown speakers and advanced discussion of best social media marketing practices.” The event is to be held on June 13 at the State Theater, in Falls Church, VA.

Speakers lined up for the event include:

• KD Paine, who writes a great blog on measuring social media
• Lionel Menchaca, digital media manager and head blogger at Direct2Dell
• Frank Gruber, community manager, AOL and author of Somewhat Frank
• Social Media Group’s Maggie Fox
• …among a few others!

If you’re in the DC area and want to get some great information on what’s going on in the digital marketplace, consider attending!

Updates to come as more details roll in.

One of the most pressing public health issues of our times, has been the scourge of HIV/AIDS. The disease – which began to gain notoriety and attention throughout the 1980’s – has crippled the lives of many Americans, most often bringing unwelcome stigmas and lifelong medication treatments.

A particular class I took in college (as a matter of fact, it was the class that brought me from engineering to the public health world), was focused on disease prevention. Among diseases like diabetes and tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS was usually at the top of the list of diseases that needed focused attention to cure/eradicate. Now that we are in the 2000s and in an age of advanced communication, many of the details related to the disease itself – as well as cutting edge research working toward a cure – can be effectively disseminated to the lay audience. For far too long, the darker side of word of mouth communication allowed for incorrect insight into the world of those living with the disease. Now we can change that…

A good example of technology (more specifically the social web) being used to inform the public is the recently launched AIDS.gov blog. AIDS. gov is the official website of the Department of Health and Human Services‘ communication on the HIV/AIDS issue. Their willingness to delve into the social media aspect of communication should be applauded in itself. This is what I’m talking about when I mention thoughts on how social technology can help the health world. Health is about people. How people live, eat and interact…and also learn. The site does a great job of introducing people to the disease and the blog seems to facilitate a way for people to interact with how the government is handling the issue.

This is of course a vulnerable position as there is always the tendency for the public to not always trust government leadership. This is a great step in the right direction. The HIV/AIDS dilemma is a big one – a global one. And from my point of view, problems can be solved faster by having more people truly understand what is at stake.

Bottom line is, as we continue to become more connected, more vocal about what is going on in our lives, it’s important to not only become knowledgeable about these issues but also to provide feedback regarding solutions. Especially in the realm of health – it’s not about what the government can provide, it’s not about a “professional” tackling the problem for us. Our better health future relies on you – it relies on me – to make forward progress. Get educated about health issues that matter to you…and then give back.

Since next week looks a little empty, I decided to do a 2 week radar posting:

NetSquared DC March Meetup [link]
When: Tuesday, March 18th 7pm – 9pm (they usually have a large crowd so get there promptly at 7pm)

Where: Affinity Lab
2451 18th Street NW 2nd Floor(above The Diner in Adams Morgan) [map]

Details: Learn about APIs (application programming interface) with Greg Elin and Josh Ruihley from Sunlight Labs.

Washington Blogger February Meetup [link]

When: Wednesday, March 19th 7pm – 9pm

Where: Regional Food and Drink
810 7th St. NW
Washington , DC 20001
202-289-2030 [map]

Details: Local Washington area bloggers meetup for good times and good conversation.

Digital Democracy Panel Discussion:Politics, Privacy & Creativity in the Age of the Internet

When: Wednesday, March 26th 6:30pm – 9:30pm

Where: National Press Club
529 14th Street NW, 13th Floor
Washington, DC 20045
(Metro Center Metro Stop)

Details: A cocktail reception and panel discussion where expert alumni and professors from the Boston University community will examine the implications of digital media on political communication, news reporting and expression of opinion during the 2008 campaign season. (This last one might not be open to the general public, a former colleague of mine is a BU graduate and invited me to come.)

Most likely I will only attend the last event since this week is getting kind of busy for me. But I highly encourage those of you in the Washington DC area to attend these events! It is a great way to meet folks who are passionate about social media and plus you never know what ideas/connections can spark!

Hi folks! I am super excited to bring to you someone who caught my interest because of his work in a field that exclusively focuses on merging cutting edge technology and the health/well-being of the human body. Troy currently manages the Advanced Prosthetics and Human Performance research portfolio at the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) of the U. S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USMRMC), at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Additionally, he serves as the Deputy Chief of the Knowledge Engineering Group, including TATRC’s Robotic Combat Casualty Extraction and Evacuation program.

This interview contains questions related to his job, his thoughts on the prosthetic industry and what the future may hold for soldiers and civilians alike in the biotechnology field.

Q: What attracted you to the area of prosthetics and particularly for the military?

I worked in the telecommunications field for several years, and at that time had a position with Nortel Networks as an operations manager over the Mid-Atlantic & Great Lakes regions. It was a great job, and I really enjoyed working at Nortel, but it was not long lived as Nortel laid off about 65,000 people in the Spring of 2001. In the Fall of 2001 I was approached by Dr. Gary Gilbert with an invitation to visit with him at the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) at Fort Detrick, in Frederick, MD. At that time I really only knew Gary as another of the hockey dad’s on the mite-age travel ice hockey team that I managed, and on which both of ours sons played. Though I had served in the military from 1985 to 1989, it was in the telecommunications field, and I knew nothing about the medical research field.

The week after September, 11, 2001, I visited with Gary at TATRC. During the visit, I learned about TATRC and their mission, hearing about many of the very cool things TATRC was managing. At the end of the meeting, Gary offered me a job at TATRC. Although I had never worked in any field related to medical research, Gary watched me manage our sons’ hockey team, and decided that if I could keep all those parents herded and headed in the same direction, that I had at least a good bit of the skill needed to succeed in the TATRC world.

A couple of years later I was asked to become involved in standing up, or starting, or new area of research of TATRC in the area of Advanced Prosthetics & Rehabilitation. The way TATRC operates and takes projects from the proposal stage to an awarded project is complicated, creative, and can take a long time to understand. However, the way we needed to do some things in this research portfolio required us to step outside even TATRC’s normal “sandbox.” Many times we were told “you can’t do it that way”, and then we’d go ahead and do it anyway, and it did work. We were working for U.S. military members who had lost limbs in Iraq & Afghanistan, and getting hung up in red tape and bureaucracy was simply not an option.

So that’s how I became involved, but the men and women for whom we work, and the help we’re able to bring to them is what keeps me involved. You will never meet people more motivated and more determined to never quit than those soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marine’s dealing with limb loss. Sure they have bad days along with the good days, but you can’t meet or speak with them and not leave feeling upbeat.

Q: It seems as though the division in which you work uses cutting edge technology on a daily basis for the various arms of the US Military – do you see the technology being used for civilians any time soon?

TATRC doesn’t actually “use” cutting edge medical technology. TATRC awards and manages congressionally appropriated funding intended for advanced technology medical research projects. TATRC manages research for the DoD ranging from Advanced Prosthetics & Human Performance, to Medical Robotics, to Modeling & Simulation, Neuroscience, Tissue Regeneration, and so forth. Much of this can be seen on our website at www.tatrc.org. Information specific to the Advanced Prosthetics and Human Performance portfolio is at www.tatrc.org/prosthetics.

The technology being developed through the research projects is being developed not just by leading research universities and institutes, but also by small businesses. In addition to developing advanced and next generation technologies, a primary goal of ours and the performing organization is for the research to result in something that can be commercialized, or provided as an input to another project which will benefit not just members of the military, but civilians around the world. In this field of research, the science and technology crosses the military/civilian boundary so readily since we’re not dealing with an area of research that is specific to the military. I will say though that while this work easily crosses into the civilian realm, some of the technology being developed her will require greater levels of insurance reimbursement before the majority of civilian users will be able to take advantage of them.

Q: What are the most important issues that are being addressed in prosthetics research for military use? Are these in any way similar to issues facing civilian use?

Military-specific issues being addressed in advanced prosthetics research are the use of the device in extreme environments. This means not just the durability of the device, but also the ability of the device to respond, or even predict the activity of the user and be able to adapt instantaneously to that activity. The great thing is that military specific activities are virtually identical to extreme civilian activities. This includes activities such as running, jumping, swimming, diving, snow skiing, water skiing, bicycling, rock climbing, hiking, carrying very heavy loads, driving vehicles of all configurations, and not having to recharge the device every four hours. Providing prosthetic components that can enable this level of activity will allow young amputees to participate and compete, but will also bring capabilities to devices used by less active individuals that will improve their quality of daily living as well as give them back the opportunity to become more active as well.

Q: What is a typical work day like for you?

A typical day? I used to think there was such a thing, now I know there isn’t. There is a constant process of dealing with research proposals. We are always working with researchers in funded projects, helping them improve their studies and development efforts, as well as helping them network with other researchers that may be able to add to the effort. Part of this includes engaging on a national and even international level with relevant associations, academies, and conferences, in order to learn and know the field, what’s hot, what’s not, what the people that work in the trenches of the field think, and most importantly the needs of the users, those who will hopefully benefit from the work research.

…stay tuned for Troy’s thoughts on future advancements and more! Part 2 coming later this week.

(For those who want to peer inside the mind of Troy on a regular basis, you can follow him on Twitter!)

This is pretty interesting stuff here…

Real people get interviewed about how they feel about their body images, set to claymation! Pure genius.

Where do you fit in? Does how you feel about the way you look positively or negatively affect how you feel throughout the day?

via Get Fit Slowly

I know you’re excited to get to the second part of Troy’s interview so I won’t be long.

If you haven’t checked out the first part of the interview, hop on over here to get caught up. The world of prosthetics has played an integral part in helping better the lives of many amputees. Troy is one of the good guys – leading cutting edge research into bettering the health of soliders through technology.

Without further ado, I give you part 2…

Q: Of what you are able to share with us, what sort of advancements do you see on the horizon for this field?

I see a time when people will not be able to tell the difference between someone who is using a prosthetic device, and someone using a biological limb. Think along the lines of the arm used by Del Spooner, the character played by Will Smith in the movie iRobot. I anticipate this same technology being use for lower limbs as well. It may sound strange now, but since the majority of amputations are a result of vascular disease, the use of prosthetic devices may become something of an elective procedure versus a life in a wheelchair or using a walker or cane.

Research we are currently funding includes robotic and powered ankles which will provide for significant improvement in what’s called the gait cycle, or walking. Powered and microcomputer processor controlled knees are already on the market, but are being made more rugged and capable through research funded through TATRC. This will allow people using these devices to utilize them in adverse & extreme environments such as water, mud, sand, etc. The majority of lower limb prosthetic devices are currently what I call “reactionary”. That is, they operate according to gravity and swing force. Prosthetics lower limbs do not currently operate according to user intent, that is, the joints and part of the limb move as the user wishes them to move, for example, rolling your ankle or crossing your legs without using your hands while sitting down. Through currently funded research, it is possible that a lower extremity prosthesis user may be able to control their device(s) exactly as someone controls their biological limbs: through impulses that travel from the brain through the nervous system to the muscles, or actuators.

Interestingly, as these devices become more advanced, and public awareness and attention is heightened, increasing numbers of users chose to not wear what is called a cosmesis, or cosmetic covering that helps disguise their device. Many people are wearing their devices in the open, as if to say “this is me, this is part of who I am.” And I think that’s a good thing. However, for someone who chooses to wear a cosmetic covering, there are numerous ways that covering can look. It can be made to look so much like the limb that was lost that it’s amazing. The wearer can have a tattoo painted on, or they can have the covering made and painted in any design an artist is capable of creating.

Q: How do you feel about the barring of double amputee Oscar Pistorius, from the upcoming Olympic Games?

I can’t speak to any specifics of the circumstances surrounding Mr. Pistorius’ situation, but I do think that the fact that he is capable of being competitive at such a high level is a testament to the prosthetics and orthotics technology being developed for those needing it, but also the spirit and never-quit attitude of many people who face significant daily challenges such as these.

Q: Any other comments?

I’ve yet to meet a military amputee that has ever claimed to be a hero, or anything other than just a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine doing their job.

Most people that do “heroic” things don’t think of them as heroic, whatever the “thing” was, they’ll say that they were just doing what needed to be done, or what they were told to do, or what anyone else would have done. But a hero is also someone that others may look up to for motivation, or as an example.

Hero -noun

1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.

2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act.

Some pro athletes will tell you that they don’t want to be role-models or hero’s, but those people have never understood that it’s not up to them – it’s up to the people that look up to them. Fortunately, most professional athletes are thankful for their gifts and realize how incredibly fortunate they are to be able to “play games” at such a high level. They are great with their fans, and live quiet, mature, responsible lives, and are great role models.

One thing the definition above does not say is that the best heroes are the ones that are humble, that do not seek acknowledgement or attention for themselves of their deeds. Today’s military members show courage and ability everyday. They do what they’re told to do, which requires bravery and nobility – dignity and integrity. Do they act up, get rowdy, cause problems and get in trouble? Of course they do, they’re not perfect. But they are heroes nevertheless, and luckily it’s a label that can’t be self-applied. Those who do their duty with courage, ability, bravery, nobility, and without running, are heroes.

What great insight into what it really means to serve. It has been an absolute pleasure interviewing Troy and getting thoughts on his work and the philosophy behind it. Although peace time is the ideal, with people like Troy helping our soldiers, we can feel a little better during war time. Don’t forget, if you want a regular look inside the mind of Troy, follow him on Twitter!

Do you know someone that is doing great things combining health and technology? Please let me know by sending me an email at mindofandre@gmail.com – I would love to hear about it!

I guess one of the great things about being in the blogosphere and writing for public consumption is that sometimes people enjoy what you do, take note, and spread the word.

I am super excited to announce that I was featured in the Boston Globe as well as on Penelope Trunk’s blog on work/life balance!! Penelope writes for the Boston Globe and since I recently joined the new Brazen Careerist network of bloggers (see badge on the left side of the blog) – I figured that’s how she was able to take a peek at the blog post about getting my dream job.

This just once again reinforces my feelings about these new media communication channels. How else in the world would I have gotten an opportunity to be featured in the Boston Globe?

Thanks so much for thinking of me, Penelope!

Hey folks,

Fun things are on the horizon! I am currently in the process of switching over to WordPress.org and will be changing the name of the blog. Since I’m far from a web designer/technical person on the web, it’s taken me a bit longer than I wanted to, but on the flipside I wanted to learn how to work with WordPress myself.

Anyhoo, I should be done by this weekend. Look here for the unveiling post in the next few days!

Thanks again for reading here and I really hope you come on over to the new place – better design and new features coming up!

~Andre

I’ve been really excited to learn more about how the Web and it’s growing focus on community has been impacting the realm of health education. Improving the quality of our lives through peer discussion AND the dissemination of professional information is something we need more of in the health landscape – we need to focus on the people.

And that’s what Healia Communities aims to accomplish.

You’re probably already aware of the health information search engine, Healia – this tool has been around for a while and from what I can tell, has been successful in helping individuals find what they need on topics ranging from mental health to weight management.

The Health 2.0 movement is definitely taking notice that individuals aren’t solely seeking doctors for their medical advice. There are plenty of health professionals who are better trained to actually interact with people on deeper community basis and you can find some of them on Healia Communities. This has always been a concern of mine when it comes to health information being twisted and changed - causing people to leave thinking about the wrong concepts. Experts are important, but experts that actually respond is essential, good job Healia.

The personalization aspect of being able to join certain groups that are tailored to your health interests make the site even more effective in that you don’t have to look all over the community to find what you want. Interested in finding out how to get your family to lose weight (similar to a question I put up there)? If you are part of the weight management group, you will most likely see this query and be able to quickly respond. You feel better by offering your own sage advice and the person asking the question now walks away with a smile, feeling encouraged. Win-win situation right?

Healia Communities is about what concerns you.

So go ahead and join the conversation and meet people who are concerned about the same things you are. What better issue to be concerned about than your health and the well being of others?

If you want to connect with me, I’m mindofandre in the community. Oh yeah they also blog regularly about diseases and conditions that you probably want to know about.

Please updated your RSS feed now that Antibio.tech has moved to www.pulseandsignal.com

That is also the new name of the blog.

Thanks everyone for making this a success and I hope to see you at the new site!

Once again, the new site is www.pulseandsignal.com

The folks at LinkedIn understand that today’s busy-ness professional is focused on how to do more with less and squeeze every bit of utility out of one tool. They’ve learned (sometimes the hard way) that it’s best to stick with one thing and master the heck out of it.

For the social networking newbie, you can’t beat LinkedIn to get started.

• It doesn’t require a lot of money–I’ve had a free account for years and have used it to network just fine.
• You create and update your own profile. You control whom you’re linked to and for how long.
• You can build your network as large or as intimate as you like and be a “connector” by introducing people in your network to one another.
• For increased visibility, you can create your own “R&D team” by asking timely, relevant questions and developing a dialogue with those who answer.

And, for all you Twitter-ized FriendFeed‘ers, if you’ve pooh-pooh’ed LinkedIn, its new offerings might be of interest:

• Share your reading list via Amazon.com
• Share files via Box.net (glad they finally got their act together)
• Share travel plans via TripIt.com
• Share your latest blog posts with WordPress and SixApart
• Share your latest PowerPoint presentation with SlideShare (if PPT is your thing)
• And if you’re nosey curious like me? There’s always LinkedIn’s own Company Buzz.

Don’t say I never gave you anything. Get going!

But, as ever, Harry does things for a reason, so I decided to stop skimming The New York Times article about a credit card-sized projector and really read it.

The article is about the Optoma Pico Projector (about $400) that literally can fit in your shirt pocket. It connects to your cell phone, iPod and smart phone to project whatever’s on the device’s screen (clear that last text from your hubbie first!)

As someone who had had her share of projector madness while trying to deliver my fabulous presentations across the country, I really must say that this is a sight for sore eyes–pun intended.

David Pogue goes into all the nitty-gritty tech details in his article (like battery life, etc.), but I wanted to share this with you to ask the real question:

Now that many previously sizable machines are small, do women (myself included) still need to carry such huge purses?

All you have to do in input your e-mail address below and hit send to make your vote count. Easy peasy. Don’t forget to click “Submit.” Thanks!

I have just learned of a service that converts Photoshop files (PSD) into CSS-driven HTML files–no coding needed. It’s called PSD2CSS.

I did some poking around on the site, and it looks like it’s legit. The site offers video demos and tutorials along with helpful hints about how to make the most of all the service has to offer.

And best of all, it’s FREE.

Viven los robots!

Here’s what the site says about psd2css:

“psd2css Online is Software as a Service that converts your fantastic, creative, artistic, no holds barred web page designs into dynamic HTML and CSS web pages automatically. Use Photoshop or The Gimp to express yourself and create the most professional, aesthetically perfect, dynamic and functional designs you can think of. CSS stands or Cascading Style Sheets and is technically the best way to build your web pages.”

So if you’re a pro with Photoshop, but can’t or don’t have the desire to figure out how to code websites, your train just pulled in. Toot, toot!

So what should you do? Do what I did, get the skinny on best practices for online retailers from one of the leaders in online privacy, Fran Maier, CEO of TRUSTe. (You know TRUSTe, it’s the one that gives you that nifty privacy graphic for your website, like the one on the left.)

You say you don’t know Maier? Well, it always pays to go to the top. Here are some pearls of wisdom she shared with me the other day:

• Hold onto your current customers tightly. That means better insights and better targeted messages, promotions and appeals. But it’s important to gather information about your customers in the right way. Collect data about your customers while staying compliant with privacy obligations, to gather more accurate data about your customers and ultimately serve them better.
• Enhance privacy. Don’t let trust or privacy stand in the way of your brand reputation. Participating in a certification program like TRUSTe’s and displaying a trustmark on your online retail site shows your customers that their information is safe and protected. In a tough economy, many online retailers are tempted to cut corners and take less-than-ethical approaches to increasing sales: Make sure you’re the one who’s trusted.
• Make your privacy statement both easy to read and easy to find. When your privacy statement is in straightforward language, your customer is more likely to feel confident, stay on your site and make a purchase.
• If data spills, contact the trustmark organization immediately. Take the appropriate steps if there is a security breach; organizations like TRUSTe, are able to track those complaints so you can respond to your customers quickly.
• Take advantage of your company’s reputation. Is your reputation rock-solid? If so, now is the time, with modest investment, to capitalize on that differentiator. If it isn’t, then your competition will have an easier time luring your customers away and converting new prospective customers.

Hop to it, the holidays are a’ comin’.

The temptation with social media is to join every social networking community that launches, agree to blog for any company that will accept your posts, be a guest on anyone’s podcast and accept “friend” requests from people you barely know–with no visible results or connections–all in the name of being part of the conversation.

A few months later, you’re tired, stressed out and your business is suffering. You’re left wondering why your social networking efforts aren’t worth the megabytes they gobble up.

I’ll be leading a teleclass for the Downtown Women’s Club this Wednesday, November 19 at noon EST to show you specifically how to avoid that whole mess while still finding the time for social media. Yeah, you. The one sitting there reading this blog post.

Whether you’ve got five minutes or 50, I’m going to show you my personal low-tech, low-cost tips and tricks for getting the most out of social media while keeping your sanity in your back pocket.

Check out “Social Media & Time Management: How Do I Find the Time?” You need to be a member to listen in. Not a member? Tsk, tsk.

It knocks conventional thinking on its rear.

After all, didn’t NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg fire a city employee for playing solitaire at work? Yep, that would be affirmative.

Well, now hear this, Mister Bloomberg . . .

A snazzy employee incentive consulting firm, Snowfly Inc., has the answer to Dilbert’s dreams. They’ve “legalized” playing games on company time–and you might just get a promotion in the process. The games look a tad juvenile, but that’s the whole point, right? My word, I’m in the wrong business!

Here’s how it works:

A web-based software program designed by Snowfly allows your employees (with your approval, of course) to earn playing time on games online during work hours–with the goal of raising productivity and morale in their day. Winnings from game play are immediately posted to a Visa debit “game card,” which every player has.

The flagship product, Capstone (Bourne Identity, anyone? Whoops that’s TREADstone . . .), provides random point-yielding games and real-time results to maximize an employer’s ROI. Games can be played from any browser with internet access, desktop, a kiosk in the break room, lunchroom or from home.

Surprisingly, employees lose very little work time. Keep in mind, they are awarded playing time only if they have performed well first. Ahhh, dangling the old carrot. And they spend fewer than 12 minutes per week playing games, redeeming points and logging goal accomplishments.

Loads of REAL companies are using Snowfly as an employee reward system and, whaddaya know, so far it’s working.

People who are allowed to play games as a reward for performance have higher productivity, higher morale and lower turnover. This is particularly true for Gen X & Y employees who grew up with the constant stimulation and immediate gratification of game playing. And 42 percent of employees who earn game tokens in the workplace take the tokens home and play them online with their children in exchange for chores, exercise and homework.

Play on, player!

Join us as we discuss how confidence, resiliency and failure can lead to social media success.

Using social media the right way is simple, but it’s not easy. It requires time, energy and an intricate knowledge of the appropriate resources. It’s the perfect inexpensive resource to use in a recession.

Learn how to use social media to help build your business at my complimentary teleseminar on Dec. 9. Your 10-second registration is here.

Update:  Here’s the link to download the teleseminar audio: http://www.box.net/shared/hdbfrfic9g

Anyway, I was reading through the recent (OK, I know it’s from October!) Downtown Women’s Club “Online Networking: How Social is Your Media?” survey, and its results show that “businesswomen in all generations now prefer e-mail (82 percent) to the telephone (64 percent) when it comes to networking.”

I can honestly say I must agree. I see telephone calls as a bit of an intrusion, and I usually only pick up the phone when I’m totally “over” e-mail (which lasts about an hour or so) or if I feel that it would be quicker to communicate what I have to say by voice mail or speaking directly to the person.

People are doing exactly as Faith Popcorn predicted. We’re cocooning. We’re sitting at our desks, behind our computers and not answering our phones–at least, most of the time, I am–and I know I’m not alone.

I know that I mostly connect colleagues that I think need to meet one another–and they connect me to people they feel I need to meet–via e-mail. None of that calling back and forth stuff.

I recently had a very painful conversation with a businesswoman whom I respect immensely. She has a stellar track record, and I have watched her career skyrocket. I’ve always wanted to meet her. What made it so painful? The person who introduced us insisted that we talk on the phone.

Wrong move. I knew it was wrong when I agreed. It’s not that I didn’t want to meet her. Heck, no! I just think we should have built up our rapport a bit via e-mail first, and then we probably would have increased our chances of having a fabulous conversation–when it was time.

You can listen to all the pundits who say that e-mail is dead, but do so at your own peril.

Image credit: Crunch Gear

If you’ve ever dealt with (or considered doing business with) a placement firm or online hiring website, you know how costly it can be. There’s a fee to place your opening or there’s a fee if you hire someone or there’s a fee for the fee. It’s nuts.

So it was coolio when I found out about RealMatch.com.

The deal is employers can post a job for free (nationwide or regional) and allow RealMatch’s “matching technology” to line up potential hires that are a good fit for the available position.

Employers can view the qualifications of applicants . . . for free. You read that right–for F-R-double-E!

Once an employer sees an applicant he or she wants to contact/interview, at that point the employer pays a minimal fee–like a paltry $40 to review three resumes. Schweet!

Gone are the days where employers have to follow a pay-per-post model. RealMatch.com is a stronger and better alternative to Monster.com. And once it becomes even more popular, it’ll be the clear solution for SMBs. Be an early adopter.

1. I noticed an e-mail from a publisher seeking story ideas for a new book project

7. It’s releasing in June

What you should know is that without this blog, I probably wouldn’t have a book deal. The publisher read more than just my blog entry about fighting a multi-billion dollar company for 2,300 shareholders. They also read entries about the U.S. Government, Federal Reserve, and many other topics I’m passionate about. The very nature of Stick It To The Man is all about leveling the playing field between us ‘regular folks’ and those in government and corporate America. It was a great fit for everyone.

So, in addition to appearing on primetime TV, being interviewed by major press outlets, learning from extraordinary people, hanging out with celebrities in Hollywood, catching the ear of billionaires, teaching myself software design, interviewing cool people, and making a lot of great mistakes, I can also now add a book to my wonderful life experiences.

The only reason I can say I’ve had these experiences is because I’ve never denied myself the opportunity to experience them! The key is that I always believed in my ability to ascend obstacles and challenges to seize the moment.

If I can land a book deal, anyone can!

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L-R: Cuba Gooding, Jr., Terrence Howard, Donald Faison

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Today, life is good again. I’ve made peace with the past. I’ve rediscovered happiness and a passion for my goals, life. My star is shining once more and I’m very pleased. With a healthier and improved view of relationships, dating dynamics, etc., I have reached a juncture where I’m curious about love again for the following reasons:

1. I know there are grounded, kind women that believe in a strong, loving relationship

2. I desire to experience a healthy relationship that’s built on mutual trust, honesty, and sacrifice

3. I’d like to experience special moments with someone other than myself

4. I am emotionally prepared to love the right woman

5. I am stronger, wiser, and more confident because of my experiences

I believe I’m just a thought away from meeting a dynamic woman. I expect my Facebook status to change sometime this year.

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Tell the IRS where you stand on April 15th.

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Read more from the Washington Post

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More Americans are waking up to the deceit of their government!

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I’m proud to announce the conclusion of a risky, year-long assessment of Amazon EC2. As a technology professional and early adopter since the late 80s, I’ve always had a penchant for living on the cutting edge of technology. Cloud computing is no exception. Nearing my two year anniversary as an Amazon Web Services customer, I am pleased with Amazon’s cloud experience. It’s solid, reliable, and extremely flexible. I’ve launched and configured dozens of servers for personal and client projects ranging from databases to VoIP applications. I’ve never experienced a single failure.

So, why was this experiment risky? Until a few months ago, Amazon lacked a permanent storage solution to maintain data in the event a server crashes. Sure, I maintained backups, but I still ran the risk of losing important data. It’s a risk I was ready to take and I’m happy to report that my experiment with cloud computing was successful.

I hope my experience will encourage others to adopt cloud computing for their own projects. If you’re considering Amazon Web Services, I’d be happy to assist you. Just contact me.

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See the Kindle listing.

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What can I say? I’m looking forward to purchasing the XC60 in 2009. Here are photos from the test drive:

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Get the rest of the story!

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Come out on the eve of Tuesday, June 23, and help us celebrate the launch of Stick It To The Man.

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According to David, we’ll talk about my new book, “Stick it to The Man,” my blog, and other topics. Be sure to tune in!

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I have reached a critical juncture in my life that demands the freedom and attention necessary to focus on my reinvention as an author, speaker, journalist, and activist. I am no longer the “man behind the scenes.” Recently, motivational speaker Les Brown told me, “You have a wonderful voice,” and so I plan to use it and my other gifts to inform, inspire, engage, and lead people around the world. I believe strongly in my ability to bring a unique and refreshing approach to books, public speaking, digital media, activism, and more.

To prepare for the biggest transition of my life, I will wrap up remaining projects, help transition existing clients, and yes, find a non-tech job for the interim to earn a decent living. I am incredibly excited to get things underway.

Many thanks go to my clients for the challenging and rewarding projects over the years. I am also grateful for everyone who were patient enough with me as I attempted to balance projects, demands, challenges, and setbacks over these last few months. You kept me from going hungry and for that, I am indebted to you.

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Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve must make records about emergency lending to financial institutions public within five days because it failed to convince a judge the documents should be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska rejected the central bank’s argument that the records aren’t covered by the law because their disclosure would harm borrowers’ competitive positions. The collateral lists “are central to understanding and assessing the government’s response to the most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the Great Depression,” according to the lawsuit that led to the ruling.

Read the whole story

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The handset Vodafone 360 H1 will be primarily offered to Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain customers with a larger rollout scheduled for France, Russia, Australia sometime in 2010. The odd thing about the announcement is that no date has been set for introducing the V odafone 360 into Korea anytime soon.

Via Samsung

Despite that issue, the car does employ a feature called the i-stop system which shuts the car off when not in motion, and features regenerative braking. You can see more photos of the Kiyora here.

Via Car Connection

Via Inhabitat

The deal also includes the right to distribute the comic strip, the production of books, stationary, clothing and television programming. No word yet if we are due for a Sony meets Snoopy PC, but given the popularity of the Hello Kitty computers it’s probably just a matter of time. Despite the comic’s American aesthetic, Peanuts is wildly popular in Japan and used often to promote various products including the shopping guide Hot Pepper (see commercial above) and Honda (see commercial below).

Via Nikkei

Versace spokesman Federico said, “The Versace boutiques in Japan no longer represented the brand image and it was felt to be more advantageous for the company to close them and start with a clean slate.” Nevertheless, Versace still intends to open new stores in China in 2010, perhaps signaling an overall shift in market attention away from newly cautious Japanese shoppers to China’s growing wealthy population.

Reports have been piled up over recent months confirming that the luxury goods market in Japan is currently in freefall. Among trend hunters and style mavens the new Japanese aesthetic appears to be a move towards more practical and affordable items such as those proffered by stores like The Gap, H&M (which recently opened a mega-store in Shibuya, Tokyo) and Muji.

Another theory holds that in the midst of the economic downturn, Japanese consumers decided to huddle close to more local Japanese brands, thus ending a decades long love affair with foreign branded luxury logos. It remains to be seen as to whether the runways at Tokyo Fashion Week will follow these consumer trends or continue to lavish in the fast fading fantasy world of Japan’s foreign fashion excesses.

Via Bloomberg

The newly styled robot is now able to belt out a rather convincing tune in Japanese, complete with proper lip syncing and head movements. Although this model is still far behind the anime fantasy of Ghost In The Shell, it still shows us that such a future is not far off.

Via IT Media

“This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded for two scientific achievements that have helped to shape the foundations of today’s networked societies. They have created many practical innovations for everyday life and provided new tools for scientific exploration. In 1966, Charles K. Kao made a discovery that led to a breakthrough in fiber optics. He carefully calculated how to transmit light over long distances via optical glass fibers. With a fiber of purest glass it would be possible to transmit light signals over 100 kilometers, compared to only 20 meters for the fibers available in the 1960s. Kao’s enthusiasm inspired other researchers to share his vision of the future potential of fiber optics. The first ultrapure fiber was successfully fabricated just four years later, in 1970.

Today optical fibers make up the circulatory system that nourishes our communication society. These low-loss glass fibers facilitate global broadband communication such as the Internet. Light flows in thin threads of glass, and it carries almost all of the telephony and data traffic in each and every direction. Text, music, images and video can be transferred around the globe in a split second.

If we were to unravel all of the glass fibers that wind around the globe, we would get a single thread over one billion kilometers long – which is enough to encircle the globe more than 25 000 times – and is increasing by thousands of kilometers every hour.”

Via Nobel Prize

Similar to American-style bankruptcy law, Yamamoto will be allowed to keep his business running while he restructures and attempts set the company back on the right course. The designer’s daughter, Limi Yamamoto aka “Limi Feu,” herself an up-and-coming fashion designer, will also be protected by the bankruptcy proceedings. BBC has the full details in English here.

Via Yomiuri

The fear of catching the H1N1 flu virus has become a focal point in Japan with thousands of commuters donning medical masks each morning, despite the fact that studies show the masks cannot prevent one from catching the flu virus, which is small enough to penetrate the average mask’s fibers. The new anti-flu suit went on sale this week in Japan for 52,290 yen ($589).

Via Haruyama

*front page photo courtesy of Kumasan

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