The Highly Interactive Parallelized Display Wall project
The most 30″ Apple Cinema displays, ever. Scientists at UC Irvine have completed the world’s highest-resolution grid-based display for visualizing and manipulating massive data sets. The Highly Interactive Parallelized Display Wall (HIPerWall) is a room-sized display that measures nearly 23 x 9 feet. The HIPerWall system, consisting of 50 flat-panel tiles, resides in the Calit2 Center of GRAVITY (Graphics, Visualization and Imaging Technology) at UCI, and provides a total resolution of 200 million pixels, bringing to life terabyte-sized data sets. HIPerWall’s resolution is nearly twice that of the world’s next-highest resolution display wall. [via] Link.
Stunning photos of the Orrery clock from Make pal Jacob Appelbaum. The Orrery is a ten foot tall planet tracking display. The lower half is a mechanical binary calculation engine. Each layer is calculating the orbit if one of the six human eye visible planets (Mercury through Saturn) to 28 bits of accuracy. The Orrery is primarily made of monel (a nickel copper alloy), and stainless steel. The planet spheres are ground from natural stones that resemble each planet they represent. [
Rick writes “How to make ultra light weight boats and canoes. Plans are available but there are enough details on the web site for you to go from there.” From the site: What is Geodesic Airolite Construction? It is a simple, inexpensive, low-tech, forgiving system utilizing some exotic materials. The sequence consists of building a simple rugged wood framework, braced with triangulated KEVLAR® roving strands. This tough basket-like frame is then covered with Dacron. This is a first cousin to sail cloth; except it heat shrinks. It is a super-weight, airplane wing covering type of fabric, used on crop dusters. 
Maker Rich Gibson is welding up a neat looking chopper bike – on the MAKE flickr photo pool he writes “Chopper bike ‘complete.’ I am going to lower the seat some more. It is still basically unrideable by mere mortal. I’m going to make a new front fork that is shorter. Keep the original one for ‘special’ occaisions.” 
Make pal Eric Rice is up to something “The ChaseCam mount, six suction cups holding a Panasonic DVC30 3CCD camera. Look out for drive-by citizen journalism. Or car chases, your call.” I wonder if there’s a Maker version that uses our cheap 
Rick writes “Always wanted to build a fast comfortable bike? This is the place. Human Powered Vehicles (HPVs) or Recumbent bikes are a delight to ride, fast and stable – Different goes without saying – not for the shy.” 
Captured using a wide range of techniques, from state-of-the art scientific microscopes to standard and digital cameras, the images cover many different areas of science. For example, amongst the winning images we see a hatching mosquito, a close-up of salt and pepper, an artist’s impression of a migraine attack and care of a premature baby. [
