The Virtual Cable concept has steadily been building 'buzz', online and in the papers. This idealised satellite navigation system is a development of the head-up displays already used in some Citroens, Corvettes and BMW, but instead of using symbols, it strings out a virtual red line to mark your route ahead. The line is a projection that appears like a personal trolley wire, curving round corners and junctions to illustrate the way. It's an inverse of the ball of thread Daedalus gave Ariadne to help Theseus find his way out of the Labyrinth.

Wayfinding is a central theme of so many myths and fairytales it's not surprising that technology should seek to make the act of following a route so elemental and straightforward. 'And when the full moon had risen, Hansel took his little sister by the hand, and followed the pebbles which shone like newly-coined silver pieces, and showed them the way.' (we've often wondered whether the shining stones laid by Hansel and Gretel had any influence on the beautifully title missile defence system Brilliant Pebbles, 'a 4,000-satellite constellation in low-Earth orbit that would fire high-velocity, watermelon-sized projectiles at long-range ballistic missiles launched from anywhere in the world.')

Apart from the fact that such a system could be even more distracting than regular satnav systems, as drivers become bewitched by the floating red line at the expense of all other activity around them, the possibilities are endless. For a start, the system could be hacked to share its output, leading to all sorts of potential scenarios. Police could use the 'trails' left behind by the system to apprehend stolen cars. After market glasses - perhaps even contact lenses - could be sold to enthusiastic amateurs who want to see 'live' trails stream past them - red for destinations yet to be reached, blue for the paths already travelled, perhaps slowly dissipitating and unravelling as time passes, like vapour trails or the paths of incoming aeroplanes descending on American airports in Google Earth.

The tangle of 'wires' that criss-cross above our heads will recall the lines of fighting kites, or the adhoc arrangement of telegraph wires and gas pipes that have lasted decades unmolested. Only these will be dynamic and constantly shifting, an inverted version of the immersive environment created by Toyota, for example, with everyone's digital aura made clear and visible.

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Other things. We Love Mags / gorgeous slice of late period modernism / a long time since we've looked at lost in E minor / AA Log, the Architectural Assocation in 'realtime' / Reaction, a weblog / G.x 2.0 Workblog, the literal cutting edge of manufacturing / car adverts seem to imply that cars leave behind an indelible impression of our choices as consumers, a lingering glow to bask in. Saab's 'Born from Jets' commercial is a case in point, a representation of a vapour trail which unfortunately looks a bit like clouds of smog.

DayGlo Rococo - Reyner Banham would have had a field day - the interior design of German brothels, or 'Frauenzimmer' (sfw). Photographs by Patric Fouad. Says Caitlin Moran, 'it almost made me wish I was a middle-manager in petrochemicals on a three-day business trip to Dusseldorf, aiming to waste a bit of time and protein'. Compare and contrast with Tim Hursley's Brothels in Nevada.

Labels: cities, technology

posted by things at 10:11