This enormous gas tank is now a wondrous, isolating work of art (video)
Once it stored enormous quantities of blast furnace and coal gas, but these days the Gasometer Oberhausen is a 385 foot tall cylindrical art gallery. Since the early 90s, the gargantuan storage tank has been host to more than a dozen art exhibitions, and its latest display puts its own absurd size front and center. 320° Licht plays on the gallery’s tar-black walls, projecting optical illusions that make the surface appear to warp and bend. “This experience is based on the vastness of the Gasometer,” explains project sound designer Jonas Wiese. “We tried to work with that expression to make the space bigger and smaller, to deform it and change its surface over and over while not exaggerating and overwriting the original effect of the room.” According to the installation’s creators, that effect is dwarfing. Viewers are left feeling small, even lost.
The emotionally taxing light show is powered by 21 Epson projectors, which collectively paint the tank’s interior to a captivating, animated display. The display is part of The Appearance of Beauty exhibition in Oberhausen Germany, which runs until late December. Can’t afford to fly out to Deutschland? No worries, the gallery has created a preview video – check it out below.
Filed under: Misc
Source: Gasometer Oberhausen, VICE
AT&T adds more data and a hotspot option to prepaid GoPhone plans
AT&T is adding more data to its GoPhone prepaid smartphone plans without raising monthly fees in the process. If you’re currently paying $60 a month for 2GB, your allotment will jump to 2.5 gigs, while those on the $40, 250MB plan will now get 500MB per month. More data is only part of the value proposition for GoPhone customers, though; the new 2.5GB plan will now offer the ability to use your phone as a WiFi hotspot.
Additionally, the carrier is adding a new $45 plan that includes 1GB of data and unlimited talk — but note that this is only available at Walmart. While these updates are good news for current GoPhone subscribers, they’re not quite as competitive as T-Mobile’s pay-in-advance plans, which start at $30 a month with unlimited (read: 5GB) data and 100 minutes of talk. That said, $60 a month for 2.5GB and hotspot functionality is a nice step up on AT&T’s part.
Filed under: Cellphones, Networking, Mobile
Source: AT&T
Tubecore wants you to hack and mod its beautiful, modular speaker
Let’s be honest: Wireless speakers are a dime a dozen. The options are seemingly endless, and new ones arrive on an almost daily basis. Companies have begun to push the boundaries of design as of late, making options that are an aesthetic step above the larger outfits. Tubecore’s Duo certainly does that, but it’s also so much more.
It may be easy to gloss over the Duo spec sheet and skip right over to the Moto X-esque customization page, however it’s there that the real standout features lie. What’s immediately clear from the first glance is the vacuum tube-driven preamp. It’s a 48v Class A unit that relies on that pair of tubes to deliver “vintage studio hi-fi.” The folks at Tubecore say that this allows you to beam audio from any source and get a taste of analog high-fidelity listening. A 24-bit DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) lends a hand there with the help of the standard-issue Raspberry Pi, and the signal is filtered six times to remove any excess noise that might be picked up by the system’s components.
All of that leads to uncompressed audio from all input sources in a package that’s built to be hacked, moded and upgraded based on the needs and preferences of the user. “Because Duo is high-powered, it’s definitely more expensive to manufacture, but the quality is uncompromising,” says Tubecore President Jason Perkail.
But the thing looks great, and its industrial design is more than skin deep. Perkail told me that the Duo’s cabinet was designed in a fashion similar to an electric guitar, with a heavy dose of inspiration from the analog API Legacy 4×4 console in Ben Folds’ Studio A. In fact, it’s built in a similar fashion to a six-string and this construction is what gives the speaker a full 10Hz-20kHz range.
“Because DUO is high-powered it’s definitely more expensive to manufacture, but the quality is uncompromising.”
What’s more, the controls are simple. There’s a single 4-inch aluminum dial that mimics classic hi-fi knobs up top to wrangle volume, inputs and system preferences powered by an embedded Arduino MC. In terms of connectivity, there’s Bluetooth for wireless streaming with WiFi, line-in, RIAA-equalized phono in and the onboard computer’s USB ports. This will allow you to connect nearly everything to the speaker from a TV to mobile devices and computers — easily fitting in as part of a home entertainment system. As you might expect, Android and iOS apps will accompany the Duo and will work alongside Estimote Beacons to track users as they move around the house, blanketing the same experience in configurable zones throughout.
If the aforementioned customization is what you’re after, that’s certainly a hook here too. There are 10 standard grill covers and 27 custom grill covers (for an additional $19) — all of which are magnetic — for adding a splash of color to the wooden speaker. For those looking to dig deeper with the modular add-ons, three tube upgrades range from $25 to $75, and the option to swap out that Raspberry Pi for a UDOO Quad tacks on $110. All of those bits are tacked on to the $649 base price, which is currently discounted for those willing to opt in early to an attractive $479 pre-order rate.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio/Video
Source: Tubecore
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