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.
A virtual space resort being built in the online role-playing game, Project Entropia, has been snapped up for $100,000 (£56,200). Jon Jacobs, aka Neverdie, won the auction for the as yet unnamed resort in the game, which lets thousands of players interact with each other. Entropia also allows gamers to buy and sell virtual items using real cash. The space station is billed as a “pleasure paradise”. Last year, a gamer bought an island for $26,500 (£13,700). [
Washingtonpost.com is offering its users video “podcasts” of select original video news programming. Users will have the ability to subscribe to existing and newly released video directly from washingtonpost.com or via such podcast listings as iTunes, among others. Video available for the launch include news and short-form documentary pieces on the preservation of New Orleans jazz after Hurricane Katrina, large scale evangelism events and updates on National Zoo panda cub Tai Shan. 
MAKE is nominated for “Best new title” and “Science/Technology coverage” in the Utne Independent Press Awards. There isn’t any voting, but wish us some happy thoughts – and thanks to everyone for making this a wonderful first year of MAKE. 
Jake writes “I make kerosene lamps from old electrical lamp parts. Much of the hardware in today’s electric lamps is actually descended from the days of kerosene and gas, the ubiquitous 3/8″ threaded rod for instance. It’s amazing how genuinely useful a good kerosene lamp is, it’s oh so easy to imagine a steampunk future where Mr. Edison’s electric light never came to be!”