Hasta La Ideas

Architectural designer Jenny Sabin’s biologically-inspired installation launches Nike’s Flyknit Collective in NYC

Inspired by the marriage of design and engineering that birthed the groundbreaking Flyknit technology, Nike has selected a handful of global design innovators and tasked them with creating a sculpture, structure or installation piece influenced by the Flyknit shoe, to be unveiled at various locations in the US, China,…

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Shift reality with the simplistic slit-scan photography app for iPhone and iPad

Even with the plethora of photo editing, altering and sharing apps available today, there can only be so much variety among sepia-toned brunch photos. So as a slight departure from the camera app norm, DScan puts an analog touch on its user’s pictures. Shots produced with the “slit-scan photography…

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Sous-vide cooking in the palm of your hand

by Irvin Slobodskaya

Sous-vide cooking is a time-tested, 300-year-old method in the culinary world, enjoying somewhat of a resurgence among today’s molecular gastronomist chefs. The remarkably simple process—it works by vacuum-sealing foods in plastic and cooking in a uniformly heated water bath at a specific temperature—has contributed to its longevity, and now, bringing it all together is the Nomiku. Recently funded through Kickstarter after being introduced this spring, the immersion circulator for sous vide is about the size of a hand blender, conveniently designed to clamp onto the side of any cooking pot.

The Nomiku offers a portable, easy-to-use alternative to dedicated sous-vide machines. Simply fill a pot with water, place desired ingredients in an air-tight plastic bag and crank the Nomiku to the right temperature on the tool’s OLED display. The result: tender, evenly cooked meat that’s as attainable in the home kitchen as it is in sophisticated, professional operations.

Taking the next step into manufacturing after the successful Kickstarter campaign, the Nomiku design team is currently in China overseeing the first production run. With this in mind, Nomiku expects to make sous-vide available for the masses this December with pre-orders available now for $359.

Five ways photographers are changing the way we see the London 2012 Olympic Games

Capturing the sport of this year’s Olympics is a corps of skilled photographers. Though the iPhone has proven an impressive tool for following the action, these lensmen and women transcend the everyday spectator’s capabilities with some unconventional techniques, from live-streaming underwater cameras and 3 billion-pixel images to a vintage field camera with 100-year-old lens. Here, five examples of innovations in Olympic photography that have us riveted to the spirit of the games.

Multiple Exposures

Taking advantage of built-in capabilities in the latest generation of DSLRs, photo journalists have moved beyond single shots to multiple exposures. Mimicking the effect produced from taking several images with a single frame of film, the technology creates a composite image that shows the complexity of every single Olympic moment.

Robotic Arms

The robotics gurus at Britain’s Mark Roberts Motion Control collaborated with AFP to produce a dozen robotic arms to control Nikon D4 cameras. The controls have the ability to pan, tilt and zoom and can even roll from landscape to portrait. The video shows technicians hard at work hand-machining each component to create these highly specialized robots. The final product resembles a high-tech weapon as the shutter rapid-fires from a whizzing body.

Gigapan

425 photos taken in a grid pattern of 25×17 provide the building blocks for Gigapan, a composite photo created by photographer David Bergman. Made up of 3 billion pixels, the shot was taken over the course of an hour as athletes entered the stadium. The image, accessible online, can be zoomed in remarkably close on attendees, and there is even an option to tag friends and family through Facebook.

Associated Press

The Associated Press offers a straightforward and interesting overview of their latest advancements in robotic camera systems. Covering everything from underwater-mounted cameras now able to directly transfer images in real time—versus diving down and retrieving SD cards after the race—to the development of joystick-operated cameras, the informational video illustrates the engineering behind some of the more impressive rigs in place this year.

Vintage Portraits

To capture the ageless spirit of the Olympics, Los Angelas Times photographer Jay L. Clendenin shot a series of athlete portraits using both his Canon 5D Mark II and, more impressively, a 4×5 inch field camera with a more-than-100-year-old Petzval lens. Displayed side by side, both the black and white field camera shots and the vivid digital images contrast beautifully to evoke a unique feeling of patriotism.