Buttons by Sascha Pohflepp is a “camera” without a viewfinder or a lens. Instead of taking a picture as you press the button, it shows you the last image shared by someone else on Flicker.

I think this idea is really great, but also quite disturbing. It should make you think one more time what you can do to personalize an image before taking it.

When I first heard about this camera at Siggraph, I thought the camera was a little more advanced, and that it contained a GPS allowing it to seek out an image taken from the location you are at, at more or less the same time of day in the past.

Take a look at this great demonstration of “attention blindness”  

If you like the Alien Abduction Lamp, I am sure you will also like Pixar’s short Lifted. I had a good time watching it at Siggraph’s Electronic Theatre this summer.A high quality version is available from iTunes.

The response to The Alien Abduction Lamp has been overwhelming since I first posted it here two months ago. I have been very busy following up on it since then.

Thank you for your comments!

I have received more than a thousand emails from people wanting to buy the lamp. I am afraid there is no way that I will manage to personally reply to all the messages. So I wish to thank all of you who have posted a comment here and on abductionlamp.com for all your enthusiastic remarks and constructive feedback. You are in my database, so I will keep you informed of any major updates (and only that).

If you are interested in the lamp but have not sent me a message yet, please do so at abductionlamp.com to stay updated about the progress on getting the lamp produced. The more messages I get, the greater the chance of the lamp getting produced! You can rest assured that your email address will be kept safe, and that you will not receive any spam from me.

World press

The Alien Abduction Lamp appeared in hundreds of blogs in the first few days after I published it. I wish to thank all the bloggers who have written so many positive responses to the lamp!

The lamp has also been featured in printed press around the world, including La Repubblica in Italy, Il Mundo in Spain, WENN and Wizard in America, and Sydney Morning Herald, The Courier Mail and Penthouse in Australia. And FHM is featuring the lamp in their October issue, so make sure you grab a copy.

If you know of any other magazines or papers that have printed a story on the lamp, please let me know by commenting on this article.

The next step

I am currently doing my best to get the lamp produced, but it is still too early to say anything about the progress. Again - sign up at abductionlamp.com to stay informed!

I am happy to announce a project that I have been working on for a while now.

The Abduction Lamp is not meant to be a toy. It is supposed to be made in high quality from metal and glass. It is my hope that someone with a playful mind like yourself would want to have a lamp like this in their home.

How does it work?

A light source inside the UFO body lights up the windows and the cone shaped glass beam. The beam glass is frosted to diffuse the light enough to spread it in all directions.

A true UFO Lamp

I got the idea for the abduction lamp as I was driving past a lamp store one late evening and saw how the light fell from one of the lamps in the window. The idea stuck in my head, and I returned the day after and saw that it was a quite common lamp.

I have spent a while building and rendering it in Maya, and I will return with some of my experiences with the visualisation process in a future post.

A new theory on abduction

Visit abductionlamp.com for more images. You will also find my new theory on why aliens are busy abducting cows and people..

Update

The Alien Abduction Lamp is moving from concept to prototype.

I am attending this years Siggraph in San Diego in the beginning of August. It feels like ages since I last attended Siggraph in Los Angeles in 2005. I am especially looking forward to the papers, panels, emerging technologies and the exhibitions.

Last years focus was much on optimizing the technical platforms of the 3D packages and integration on 64 bit systems. I believe that this year will bring some exciting news in the 3D industry, building on the foundation that has been laid. I also believe that Maya 9.0 will be presented at Siggraph, with the full implementation of Nucleus for dynamic systems.

I have also signed up for Autodesk’s Siggraph MasterClasses to brush up on my Maya skills. If anyone reading this is interested, I have an extra copy of the 2005 Maya MasterClasses DVD to give away. It contains lots of great information and sample projects. The first to comment and ask for it gets it.

Eirik Solheim has posted some videos from the art gallery and emerging technologies from last year’s Siggraph in Boston at eirikso.com.

I have now departed with my ten year old Gaggia Paros espresso machine and bought a new ISOMAC Venus (recommended!). And buying the new machine has sparked my interest in making the best possible coffee. The image on the right shows a double espresso in the making.

One important parameter when making a good espresso is how much you make. When I bought the machine at Cortado in Oslo (hereby highly recommended), we had a little discussion about the volume of a single espresso.

The salesman claimed that a single Italian espresso is about 35-40 ml, which I found to be too much. But I didn’t have any idea of how much less it should be. (I am referring to Italian espresso here, not northern European which is larger - especially at restaurants, or American espresso which is even larger still).

I recently had the opportunity to measure it myself during a three weeks stay at a vineyard in Tuscany (also highly recommended and possibly the subject of a future post). The answer is that an Italian espresso (or “caffée normale”) ranges from about 10ml to about 25ml, where somewhere around 25ml seems to be the normal. The measurements were made in Siena and at Chianti Autogrill on Autostrada A1.

And did I get some strange looks as I did my measurements?

You bet