Anyone who's ever plunked down big cash for a high-end DSLR camera knows the true cost of that investment: 15 lbs. of glass and metal hanging on your neck all day. If you've got a tripod, an assistant, and a planned shoot, a Nikon D200 is a great piece of equipment. But if you're simply out on a jaunt and hoping to capture some nice shots along the way, it's just a literal pain in the neck.

And along comes this little godsend. Encased in the Sigma DP1's diminutive body is a 14-megapixel image sensor that's the size of a standard DSLR's, and 7 times the size of a typical compact camera's. This allows it to capture much more data, and perform incredibly well in low-light conditions (which were the only conditions left for me to test it in, after I expended my sunlight hours running from store to store). The shot above (click here to view large version) was taken at twilight, at ISO 400 with no flash. The results on any other compact camera would look like pixel soup. And the depth of field achieved here, which is only possible with true aperture control, is pretty much impossible with a standard compact.

And finally, it's a magic bullet for HDR enthusiasts. The DP1 allows automatic exposure bracketing up to +/- 3, shooting a sequence of 3 shots in about a second – which makes it the perfect little instrument for capturing HDR material. And since it's got a perfectly flat bottom, if you've got an even surface and a steady hand, you don't even need a tripod to capture a nice bracket sequence.

But most importantly – if you're a point-and-shooter who doesn't care about any of the crap I'm talking about, the DP1 requires no expertise to snap a great shot.

On the left is a site for Whitevoid, a company that creates interactive installations for museums and events. The site is essentially an interactive sitemap, elegantly exploded in a gently-rotating 3D space. The interface is fluid, responsive, and highly intuitive – effectively selling the company's capabilities, even before you view any of their work.

On the right is a site by writer and performance artist Miranda July.The entire site is a linear series of simple messages, hand-written in dry-erase marker on the author's kitchen appliances. This presentation format is funny, clumsy, and deeply personal – conveying, in just a few clicks, the writer's particular brand of eccentric satire.

The approach of the first is antithetical in nearly every way to the second: polished vs. crude, high-tech vs. low-tech. But in both these cases, the medium delivers the message (Whitevoid = slick tech / Miranda July = quirky wit) so effectively that you get it, instantly and indelibly.

Impeccable design, comfort in spite of tight spaces, attentive yet unobtrusive service, fresh and superb cuisine – these add up to the most memorable dining experience I've had in a while. Swing by the 'burg soon and check it out: 77 N 6th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211. And the word has gotten out, so make sure to reserve a table: (718) 388-8985.

The *Cornelius Group* graced Webster Hall last night with their "Sensuous Synchronized Show," a balletic choreography of sound and visuals. The Japanese foursome, fronted by Keigo Oyamada, played two solid hours of their unclassifiable experimental sound, a soup of of dissonance and conventional harmonies, played on electronic and traditional instruments (complete with chimes, flutes, and a theramin). The music is mind-blowing in itself, but what elevates this show beyond even the electropop Carnivale of Fischerspooner (the second-best live show ever) is the visual extravaganza. Projected on a huge screen behind the band is a dizzying series of videos by artist Koichiro Tsujikawa, using techniques ranging from stop-motion and cell animation to clip samples from old Nixon footage. Each video is timed, with double-dose-of-Desoxyn precision, to the music.

Some of my Flickr pics, here.

]]>wacom cintiq. wow.http://www.stimulusresponse.net/latest-stimuli/2008/1/6/wacom-cintiq-wow.htmlcarla echevarria2008-01-06T05:41:30Zvisual stimuliWacom recently released a (somewhat) affordable version of their Cintiq drawing tablet, which allows you to draw and paint directly on the screen. Today we picked up the smallest version, with a 12-inch screen.

After playing with it for an hour, I can safely say that I don't regret a penny I spent (though I'll have to get that back by selling some stuff on eBay!).  If you're like me, your greatest enemy is yourself – and you often find yourself paralyzed, pen poised above paper, terrified of screwing up. The Cintiq frees you of that neurosis, while retaining the tactility, immediacy, and joy of drawing on paper.

And that means you can work more freely, and much faster -- I did the above sketch in about 15 minutes, maybe 3 times as fast as my pen-and-paper productivity.

The Cintiq won't make you a better artist.  If you tend to draw guns that look more like hairdryers, as I do – well, you'll still draw hairdryers. But at least you have the freedom to draw increasingly more gun-like hairdryers, without wasting an entire pad of paper.

My Kindle finally arrived. The blogosphere is awash in reviews, so I'll keep it short: the device itself is a 4 out of 10 for industrial design. It's clunky to hold, inelegant to use, and ugly to look at.

Nonetheless, I love this thing. So it's not the industrial design accomplishment that an iPod is, but that almost doesn't matter. What drove the iPod's success isn't the device itself, but iTunes: a cheap, fast, always-on distribution system for content. And that's what Amazon is doing with the Kindle.

Here are two visions of a better future with the Kindle:

Futurevision 1: The Endless Book
With its pre-paid EVDO connection, the Kindle gives a book infinite extensibility via hyperlinking. In the middle of muddling through a book on string theory, you might realize, as I did, that your grasp of quantum mechanics isn't so hot either, so you'll want to stop and read a quick "Heisenberg for Dummies" guide before you move on. That's an opportunity for the publisher of the Dummies guide to make, say, two bucks. And for Amazon to keep squeezing revenue out of you, after your initial book purchase. With that kind of financial incentive, I can see the future Kindle editions of many books being laden with hyperlinked cross-sell opportunities. And we ain't even talkin' advertising, yet.

Futurevision 2: The Infinite Army of Librarians
Another unexpected nugget of coolness is the Ask NowNow feature, which must be the first consumer application of Amazon's great crowdsourcing experiment, the Mechanical Turk. You can submit any question and expect 3 well-researched answers from  human beings, within 10 minutes. It's the portabilization of the Sunday/Mahalo trend: humans are still the best search engines. The Ask NowNow "staff" is currently composed of the Mechanical Turkers –– people scattered all over the internet, making 5 cents per answer. (I'm one of them, but I've been derelict in my Turking responsibilities.) In spite of the fact that these "research librarians" are an untrained bunch, their sheer numbers mean that statistically speaking, you'll get at least one solid answer. If Amazon can sustain this model and find a good way to monetize it, it would be an amazing proof of the power of crowdsourcing.

On the whole, the Kindle is amply worth the $400 price tag – not because of the device, but because of the content services and where they're headed. But that same price tag might be a barrier to the proliferation it needs, in order to become the paradigm-shifting force that the iPod has been. Amazon needs to realize one thing: the device itself needs to feel like it justifies the price tag. If they manage to create a device that's as smart and elegant as their content system, this thing will change the face publishing – and make books sexy again to the Xbox generation.

Academic publishing has long been a godforsaken bastion of terrible graphic design – poor typography, stock images dating back four decades, all printed onto cheap, smudge-prone paper. Being both a philosophy major and a graphic designer, I've often been pained that the books dearest to my heart are so offensive to my eye. I'm glad to see that a publisher is finally giving these great thinkers the handsome faces they deserve.

Viewing each work is like swimming through a Notre Dame built of vanilla pudding, the exquisite meticulousness of the technique contrasting weirdly with the flat blandness of the subject.

On display at Deitch Projects, 76 Grand Street, through Nov. 3.