inkbluesky

Kristanna Loken’s shoulder tattoo 

I just got this and haven’t had time to look into the symbols and what they mean. The center, to me anyway looks like something taken from Inca or Mayan symbols.

The Smithsonian Photography Initiative  main entrance to the site and then one part of their permanent exhibit that caught my eye Eadweard Muybridge ( and no that is not a typo).

 Expatriate Englishman Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904), a brilliant and eccentric photographer, gained worldwide fame photographing animal and human movement imperceptible to the human eye. Hired by railroad baron Leland Stanford in 1872, Muybridge used photography to prove that there was a moment in a horse’s gallop when all four hooves were off the ground at once. He spent much of his later career at the University of Pennsylvania, producing thousands of images that capture progressive movements within fractions of a second.

I read where Google bought YouTube so I thought that the link to Muybridge was especially relevant. Just as Google is thought to be a leader in technology and Youtube a leader in internet delivery of media, in 1872 Muybridge was on the leading edge of motion photography that would one day lead to modern film, television, and internet media.

I think some kids and their teachers still play that little game where everyone says what physical sense they would lose if they had to lose one. Everyone always chooses smell or touch, no one ever chooses sight.  Scientists build better navigation aids 

Georgia Institute of Technology researchers are trying to pick up where GPS leaves off. Its System for Wearable Audio Navigation, or SWAN, consists of a wearable computer connected to a headband packed with sensors that help sight-impaired users know where they are and how to get where they’re going.

Besides a pendant-sized wireless GPS tracker, there are light sensors and thermometers that help distinguish between indoors and outdoors. Cameras gauge how far away objects and obstacles are. A compass establishes direction. And an inertia detector tracks the roll, pitch and yaw of the user’s head.

All the data are crunched by a computer in a backpack, which relays high-pitch sonar-like signals that direct users to their destinations. It also works with a database of maps and floor plans to help pinpoint each sidewalk, door, hall and stairwell.

Bruce Walker, an assistant psychology professor who helped develop the system, said in a few years it could be used to help guide blind people, first-responders to emergencies or soldiers through unknown territory.

My great grandmother went completely blind in one eye and partially blind in the other so I’m aware of how much sight means and how much external aids can help to make life better. The scientists working on this kind of audible GPS system admit that it is years off and even then will not replace guide dogs, but may ultimately be helpful in helping in situations where the  site impaired are not real familiar with the surroundings.