Eyewriter Lets Eyes Write

I can only imagine the isolation experienced by someone paralyzed either by disease or accident.

That's why this award-winning DIY effort is so great. As noted on the website for The Eyewriter, "a low-cost, DIY system can be made that will allow ALS patients, with the help of their family and caregivers, to make visual art. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that when combined with Mobile Broadcast Units, or similar outdoor projection system, a networked version of the EyeWriter can enable patients to have a large-scale, uncurated presence in public spaces."

And this is no MIT Media Lab extravaganza. Again, from the website: "This system is constructed from material found in local Venice Beach hardware and electronics stores and the software is written using an open source set of C++ libraries for creative coding from openFrameworks."

What more could really new media accomplish than a low-cost effort to enable personal, direct composition?

Have a Ball With "The Ball 2010"

How do you get a potentially world-size group of people personally engaged in an event? Let's kick this one around a little bit...

To promote the World Cup in South Africa, organizers will use the journey of a single soccer ball and its use in "organized games of football, in impromptu kick–abouts and in freestyle sessions. From street to stadium, anyone and everyone can engage with The Ball, sign it, kick it and help it along its way."

What a great way to enable people to give a personal, tactical, tangible connection and experience to what otherwise would be--and is--a very remote event.

Is this new media? You bet.