While regine is away, I'm posting pieces about notable and award-winning works at Japan Media Art Festival. Some will be exhibited at Tokyo Metoropolitan Museum of Photography from February 24 till March 5.

Khan Artist, by Osman Khan (see also: "What's your net worth?" and "Sur la table"), looks just like a credit processing machine in front of the Artist. The Artist actually is registered as a validated merchant with the machine, and the Artist (or through a sales rep proxy) asks the visitor to make a purchase. When a purchase is made, no product or service is returned in kind at the time of transaction. The Artist's name will show up on the itemized list of the visitor's monthly statement.

[Khan artist.]

This work is partly inspired by what happened after the tragedy of 9/11.

For the macro well being of a capitalist system, what is actually bought or sold becomes secondary to the actual act of consumer transactions transpiring. We saw this occur, as the government urged people to begin spending and purchasing in an effort to revive the American economy after the tragedy of 9/11. It was not important what was bought or sold, as long financial transactions kept flowing through the economic machine, the path to recovery would be under way. Perhaps it can be seen that a consumer society is actually more dependent on the acts of purchasing then the exchange of goods or services.

Simple as it looks, this work asks several provocative questions about art and consumption.

Khan Artist was selected as Jury Recommended Works out of the finalists of the 2005 Japan Media Arts Festival.

Related projects by the same artist: net worth, data dump, and art dispensing machine (ADM).

This one has just been added to my I want one list.

For the INCITE/RCA collaboration, Jon Arden and Katrina Jungnickel have worked on the Pocket Conductor, an interesting mobile application idea for people travelling on bus.

As you enter the bus your mobile would alert you to the available service (which you can ignore or engage with, much as you would a conductor on a bus). Linked to the existing bus stop countdown system it would feature several services that could reconciliate me with the bus: journey mapping (follow the route), stop alerts (beep in your pocket one stop before you get off), other routes (all transport connections), timetables (alert you when you are in the pub about the last bus approaching), local info (about a particular area). It would also allow you to add a story, picture or sound or read others (like an urban mobile flickr), add some digitial graffiti or see who else is accessing the system or recently uploaded something or maybe graffiti from passing buses.

Via 73.

Tomorrow will be launched the bluepulse location-based service which enables people within a Sydney shopping centre get on their phones the information they want about their surroundings.

Based on a shopper's "profile" which is developed over time, the system is always looking for things of relevance.

The launch version provides shoppers with:
* directions to locate a particular shop, an ATM or toilet with step-by-step directions,
* an events calendar including show synopses, video movie trailers and the possibility to buy movie tickets with the phone,
* a buddy system and the ability to geographically locate other members who are friends, within the shopping centre,
* a constantly updated list of special offers,
* offer coupons to redeem discounts by presenting the phone at the participating outlet.
* your own shopping list appearing from your home computer.

Lucky centre staff wear a Bluetooth badge so that the management can better monitor them and call whoever is near to, say, a milkshake spill in a busy thoroughfare. There's also has an emergency button so management is instantly aware of all situations.

The concept can be applied elsewhere: at the sports stadium to get an action replay, or at a festival to view the schedule or find friends in the crowd.

Via Gizmo and Textually.

When a major disaster takes down the phone system, who ya gonna call? An emergency communications system developed by Maryland start-up TeleContinuity might provide a solution.

The "survivable" emergency telephone system back-up network would keep people, companies and government agencies in touch during disasters by seamlessly merging conventional phone lines and the Internet with a technique called "shoelacing."

The initial version of the software would reroute a user’s phone service within minutes by delivering the call to a remote phone, mobile or even a computer or PDA.

By the end of the project in the Spring of 2005, the company plans to develop an enhanced version of the software that allows administrators and users to monitor and control networks in an emergency with advanced Web-based controls.

From Innovations Report.

Community Voice Mail project provides homeless people with a way for potential employers, social service agencies and relatives to contact them. It also enables them to apply for a job without having to tell a prospective employer they are living on the streets.

The nonprofit Community gives each homeless person a phone number and each records a message. The numbers cannot be used for outgoing calls, but people can check their messages from any regular or pay phone. The service costs the soup kitchen or homeless shelter $7 per number per month.

The program started in 1991 in Seattle and has grown to 37 cities in 19 states, helping more than 47,000 people find jobs and housing last year.

From CNN.

Overdue debtors may not be able to rely on Caller I.D. to screen out bill collectors much longer. Jason Jepson, a California entrepreneur, plans to bring the hacker technique of Caller I.D. spoofing to the business world.

Star38 would offer subscribers a simple Web interface to a Caller I.D. spoofing system that lets them appear to be calling from any number they choose, from nonsense numbers like "123 4567" to the number for the White House switchboard.

Caller I.D. spoofing is not new, of course, but Star38.com seems to be the first to turn it into a commercial venture. The service will charge a twenty-five cent connection fee for each call, and seven to fourteen cents per minute.

Jepson believes that collection agencies in particular will find the service invaluable for getting recalcitrant debtors to answer the phone. And his attorney thinks that the practice is permissible. Star38.com should be launched on September 1st.

From Security Focus.