tune in, turn on

Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning In Again: "Researchers from around the world are gathering this week in San Jose, Calif., for the largest conference on psychedelic science held in the United States in four decades.

They plan to discuss studies of psilocybin and other psychedelics for treating depression in cancer patients, obsessive-compulsive disorder, end-of-life anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction to drugs or alcohol. (Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/science/12psychedelics.html)"

how i learned to love the ipad

Theodore Gray, author of our own Gray Matter, turned the periodic table into one of the most stunning (and popular) applications for the iPad. Here, take an inside look on what brought it from fantasy to reality in 60 days

By Theodore Gray Posted 04.06.2010 at 1:00 pm 

Bismuth Theodore Gray/Nick Mann/The Elements

Every once in a while things just come together to make you realize that you'd be an idiot not to put yourself through hell in pursuit of an impossible goal. That day arrived for me on January 27th when Steve Jobs announced that the iPad would be shipping 60 days hence.

After some deep soul searching for about 60 seconds, I decided that I had the chance to create something quite remarkable, and just maybe do it better and faster than anyone else in the world. More specifically that I had a chance to take my recently published book, The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe, and turn it into a book that Harry Potter might check out of the Hogwarts library.

I wanted to make Harry Potter's magic books a reality, and do it in 60 days flat. Here's how we pulled it off.

Electronic publishing, including books, magazines, and newspapers, was a big part of the announcement of the iPad. I knew that some of the biggest media companies in the world would be racing towards the same goal I was, trying to come out with the best, the most talked-about, and the most fun new kind of electronic publication, and get it done and shipping in the App Store the same day the iPad started arriving in people's hands. Even my friends at PopSci were showing signs of iPad fever, so I knew they were on the scent as well, though Apple's strict secrecy rules meant that I couldn't talk to them and they couldn't talk to me about what we might or might not be working on.

Creating a really good e-book, one that doesn't just reproduce the limitations of paper in electronic form, requires a lot of raw material that isn't part of the traditional paper publishing process. Harry Potter's books look like normal books, with pictures and text mixed together on the page, but all the pictures do something. Pictures of people move and talk. Pictures of objects pop off the page and let you see them from all sides. Pictures of events show you the action, not just a static scene.

To do that for real requires not magic, but media: Video, computer simulations, 3D virtual objects, and so on. The kind of media that is usually very expensive and time-consuming to create. The hardcover edition of The Elements includes over 500 photographs of objects representing the complete periodic table, and to make a proper Harry Potter version of the book, every one of those 500 objects would need to be able to spin around in 3D, because, well, that's what magic objects do.

This brings us to the first secret sauce I knew I had on my side in the race against everyone else pulling together their own iPad apps.