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Newsmap

Marcos Weskamp makes some very interesting flash projects and is quite an illustrator as well. His new project Newsmap creates a dynamic treemap that quickly gives one a sense of what the "big" stories are in the news. For someone who focuses on technology news, it was an interesting reminder to see just how small a current it is in the whole scheme of things. I'm not sure that this would be useful as an every day newsreader (or that it was intended for such), but it looks great. [via k10k]

From the site:

Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator. A treemap visualization algorithm helps display the enormous amount of information gathered by the aggregator. Treemaps are traditionally space-constrained visualizations of information. Newsmap's objective takes that goal a step further and provides a tool to divide information into quickly recognizable bands which, when presented together, reveal underlying patterns in news reporting across cultures and within news segments in constant change around the globe.

Robot Jesus

An hilarious post at Gizmodo regarding the news that a robot was used to simulate Jesus on the cross in "The Passion of The Christ:"

I haven't seen the film yet, but I bet you that no one would have killed Jesus if they would have known he was a robot. A couple of eye-beam laser blasts later, halves of Pharisees go flying through the air; Robo-Jesus tears himself off the cross and uses it to clear a path through the crowd, then launches into the air with his rocket sandals, leaving the still-crackling husk of Pontius Pilate below. I'll be back, indeed. [Read]

Update: Apparently, it was a rubber look-alike and not a robot. Oh well.

Asymmetry in the Motorola MPx Keyboard Design

MobileBurn has a picture of the upcoming Motorola MPx, a cell phone/PDA running Microsoft's Pocket PC Phone OS. The dual-hinge design allows the user to open the display one way to create a typical phone form factor or another which is more like the Danger Sidekick or Sony UX50 Clie.

This is enabled by the strange wave form design of the keyboard... which you can see is not exactly symmetric for either form factor. You have to give the designers credit for trying to resolve the problem by overloading the keys and creating a hybrid shape, but I hope they did some serious user testing on how people adapt to the asymmetric keyboard design. [via engadget]

Massive Change

City of Sound points to the website for Bruce Mau Design's Massive Change project. Among other things, it includes an audio archive of interviews with a number of progressive thinkers including Stewart Brand (of Whole Earth Catalog fame) and Fritjof Capra (author of the excellent "The Hidden Connections").

More Marc Newson Products for the Home

MoCoLoco reports on a new set of pots and pans from Marc Newson. They're not startling, but this continues a trend where we're seeing more sedate Newson designs for the home.

Finally, a Sexy Hybrid

Finally, someone's designed a sexy hybrid. Toyota's Volta sports car that can do 0-60 in 4 seconds and gets around 32 mpg. It looks like a concept, but the engine is destined for an upcoming Lexus model. More at Engadget

"My Architect"

Check out the site for My Architect, a film by the son of Louis Kahn.