Tag Archives: Museum

Take a Trip to the Malware Museum

Posted on by Peter Donnell
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I’m sure many of you have been to a museum at one point or another but did you know there was also a museum for Malware? That’s right, there’s a huge online collection of things that want to ruin your computer, and no, I’m not just talking about that “download more RAM” banner. Don’t worry, though, as this museum isn’t going to leave you with a wildly virus infected computer, it’s actually run by Archive.org and is more an art exhibition that a pit of doom that will wipe your hard drives.

Most people have heard of malware, most of you have likely suffered at the hand of it too, but there’s also a little artistic beauty to many of these bits of malicious software of days gone by. The exhibition was put together by online security expert Mikko Hypponen, and offers a visual collection of old-school viruses and the often creative visual effects, ascii art and more that they use to use to effectively troll their victims. It’s certainly a colourful display too, and you can see them in action in all their glory.

There are some pretty cool animations in there too, it’s not just blocks of text or pop ups like you would expect from modern spam-centric viruses. If anything, I’d say the hackers of the past were far more creative and more often than not were just out to demonstrate their skills and cause destruction, rather than be financially motivated; not that this makes what they did any better for the user of course.

So what are you waiting for? Take a trip back to the days of MS-DOS and floppy discs, screen saver viruses and more and who knows, maybe you’ll learn a bit of computer history while you’re at it.

View the full gallery at Archive.org.

Private Collector Opens Apple Museum in Prague

Posted on by Alexander Neil
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Apple’s style and appeal are now iconic worldwide, with their products enjoying a strong market share across the globe. Not all nations have access to official Apple stores, one such country being the Czech Republic. This hasn’t stopped an Apple fanatic and private collector opening an Apple Museum in their capital city, Prague.

Holding almost every Apple product ever made, dating back to 1976, as well as paraphernalia relating to visionary Steve Jobs, the Apple Museum comprises of a whopping 472 exhibits spread across three buildings in Prague’s old town. As well as the museum itself, there are plans to open “Steven’s Food”, a raw vegan restaurant, likely serving meals that would appeal to Steve Jobs himself.

The museum may not be a permanent affair either, with its website stating that Prague is “the first city where you can see this unique exhibition.” Whether this means that the museum is planned to go on tour or not is ambiguous, but there could be even more chance to show these pieces of Apple history to its fans if it were available in other locations too.

While this is far from the only Apple museum in the world, with other such as the Italian “AllAboutApple” also boasting an extensive collection, Apple has no official museum of their own history, with Jobs closing the last one back in 1997.

If you’re in Prague or planning a holiday, the price to see these pieces of computing history is £8/€11, with all the proceeds going to charity purposes.

See more photographs from their trip to the Apple Museum here.

Google Lets You Experience Museums From Your Chair!

Posted on by Rikki Wright
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For those who are interested in the museum trip, you can now do it from the comfort of your own home. Engadget has reported that Google is teaming up with the British Museum in London to bring you a Street View style viewing experience of the internal museum itself. This has been recorded in a similar style as the Street View cars by moving around a camera dolly in traditional walking places around the museum floor. Google already has a Cultural Insitute, so this new venture will add over 4,500 extra pieces including detailed photos and descriptions.


Head on over to the Google Street View Cultural Insitute experience and take a free virtual stroll around the museum.

In addition to this system, Google has compiled a microsite called “The Museum of the World”. This is a collection of all stored artifacts in a timeline for you to look into what art/design was popular across different cultures at different time periods.

I can see something like this really taking off with the consumer introduction of Virtual Reality (VR) in the near future and it will really open up the world to those who are bed bound or hospitalised. Would you use a system like this to visit, or would you prefer the experience of physically walking around the location yourself?

12-Year-Old Boy Breaks Fall by Smashing Into Painting Worth $1.5 Million

Posted on by John Williamson
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A 12-year-old boy in Taiwan has suffered a rather unfortunate accident and already become a viral sensation. While visiting a museum, he suddenly tripped into the path of a $1.5 million painting. The damage caused was quite substantial because he pierced a hole in the painting to break his fall. Unluckily, the Paolo Porpora oil painting is 350 years old and provided to the museum on a loan basis. Additionally, the piece was part of “The Face of Leonardo, Images of a Genius” exhibition, with 50 beautifully compiled paintings by Italian Renaissance artists on display.

CCTV footage recorded the incident which is fairly difficult to watch. Organizers of the event had to close the public gallery and assess the situation. However, it was reopened a few hours later. Focus Taiwan reported that the exhibition’s curator, Andrea Rossi does not want the boy’s family to pay for restoration costs. Obviously, how could they afford it? Thankfully, the painting was insured by the organizers and will be repaired in Taiwan before going back to Italy.

Also, the museum probably should have imposed greater restrictions and improved security. As you can see from the video, the boy is carrying a drink. He could have easily dropped the beverage and stained the painting. Whatever the case, you have to feel some sympathy for him.

Thank you Mashable for providing us with this information.

The Strong National Museum of Play Just Named Its First Video Game Titles

Posted on by Gabriel Roşu
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Have you ever heard of The Strong National Museum of Play from Rochester, New York? Well, if you haven’t, then you should know it now houses its first six games in the new World Video Game Hall of Fame. It’s really exciting to see that we now have a museum with a Hall of Fame just for games.

The committee, made of journalists, scholars and game historians, have named the first six games to be Pong, Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros, Tetris, Doom, and World of Warcraft. Fifteen candidate games have been considered out of thousands of public nominations, but in the end, the six were chosen for their “influence on the video game industry or on popular culture and society in general”.

“There were some very deserving games that did not make it this year,” he said. “There was a high level of competition with the first class, as one can imagine.”

But it’s not all that bad. While some games have been omitted this year, they may eventually end up in the collection next year. The Legend of Zelda, Space Invaders, Sonic the Hedgehog are still great games and deserve to be along the six nominated titles too, don’t you think?

Thank you Arstechnica for providing us with this information
Image courtesy of BirdAir

Coachella and Lollapalooza Ban Selfie Sticks

Posted on by Ryan Leiserowitz
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As a way to help the rest of the public that do not carry around selfie sticks enjoy the events both Coachella and Lollapalooza have banned the devices. This comes on the heels of other music venues banning the devices as well as major museums and the Premier League football stadiums.

This move should hopefully make it a lot less annoying when watching your favorite acts at the festivals. Lollapalooza rules state that no “GoPro attachments like sticks, selfies sticks, and monopods” are allowed. From Coachella’s website it states that “selfie sticks / narsisstics” are not allowed in. For those that loathe the selfie sticks, they can only hope that this is the start of a broader adoption of selfie stick bans.

Source: Engadget

New Graffiti Artwork Uses GIFs as Modern Street Art

Posted on by Gabriel Roşu
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Pedestrians walking down the streets of London have been greeted with some amazing and funny works of art. This is the making of Guus ter Beek and Tayfun Sarier, who apparently used a picture frame around an iPad to display some of their GIF artworks, taping the device in various places for people to enjoy and be amazed.

The colorful, lively and funny GIFs have been an eye-catcher for people walking down the streets, having them stop, take notice and even take some pictures of what the two artists displayed. It is said that after the GIFs got some attention, ter Beek and Sarier would then remove the iPad and place it in another location, recording people’s reactions as they walked past or stopped to admire them.

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/101718999[/vimeo]

The two are said to be working in advertising, but also enjoy creating art projects on the side. They are said to be constantly showing each other GIFs, which is how the two came up with the project to “integrate the world of GIFs with our favorite hangouts.” The GIFs have also been chosen to ‘reflect their surroundings’, having an infinite hamburgers GIF for example placed in an area where food franchises are present.

However, ter Beek and Sarier are not the first to get creative with GIFs. The Photographer’s Galley in London and the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City are also housing similar forms art.

Thank you Mashable for providing us with this information
Images and video courtesy of Mashable

Museums Classic Arcade Machines Restored With Help of Community

Posted on by Peter Donnell
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The UK Computer Museum in Cambridge plays home to a vast amount of classic arcade units and while many museums would never dream of restoring their items to new condition, this isn’t your average museum. The team recently decided to try and resurrect a bunch old arcade units that haven’t seen action in at least 17 years and many of them are much older than that, or have suffered heavy use until that point.

Among the pack are Space Invaders, Asteroids, Tempest, Xevious, Alien Syndrome, Centipede and more. Organiser Phillip Riscombe-Burton put a post on forums to call for help in fixing the machines, to which several volunteers answered and have already found temporary fixes for five of the eight dead machines, although they’ve said they’ll continue their work until all the machines are fully restored.

Mr Riscombe-Burton invites any members down to the museum to not only check out the exhibits and play the games there, but to also help contribute their engineering knowledge on how to get these dead ones back to life. Either way it sounds like a pretty fun place, as there aren’t many museums where you can touch the exhibits, let alone try fix them.

Thank you BBC for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of BBC.

Elon Musk Promises To Put $1 Million Towards Nikola Tesla Museum.

Posted on by Peter Donnell
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A few months ago we brought you news that Matthew Inman, founder of online comic strip The Oatmeal, did a cartoon on Nikola Tesla. A campaign was soon started to by Matthew to fund a museum to Nokola and he asked Elon Musk, owner of Tesla motors to help fund it, to which Elon replied “I would be happy to help”.

Making good on his word, Elon has just put down an impressive fund of $1 million to the cause, a huge lump of the $1.3 million Inman was trying to raise to purchase the Wardenclyffe laboratory in Shoreham, New York, where Nikola Tesla used to work.

“(Musk) has challenged us at the center to use our resources wisely, find additional resources, and reach our goal of creating this museum,” said Jane Alcorn, president of the Tesla Science Center. “We are excited and extremely grateful for Mr. Musk’s generous gift to Tesla Science Center, and also to Matthew Inman for arranging the opportunity.”

“Elon Musk: from the deepest wells of my geeky little heart: thank you,” Inman wrote. “This is amazing news. And it’s Nikola Tesla’s 158th birthday. Happy Nikola Tesla Day.”

It works well for both parties, as Inman is keen to share with the world a better understanding of Nokola Tesla’s work and Tesla motors, who took their name from the legendary inventor, get some great PR. Musk has even said that they would install a Tesla charging station in the museums parking lot, as well as donate a million dollars.

Thank you CNN for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of CNN.

Elon Musk & The Oatmeal To Join Forces To Create Tesla Museum

Posted on by Peter Donnell
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Internet funny make Matthew Inman is on a mission to fund a Nikola Tesla museum and so far, it looks like his plan is going pretty well. Who the heck is Matthew Inman I hear some of you ask? He is the creator of popular online webcomic The Oatmeal.

Inman found out that an old facility where Nikola Tesla did many of his experiments was getting torn down, he turned to Indiegogo to start a campaign and successfully raised $1.5 million to buy the property. Now he needs another $8 million to convert the property into a full fledged Tesla museum. He reached out to Elon Musk, owner of the Tesla motor group, who famously uses the Tesla name on their cars, to help him fund the product and it looks like Elon may be on board now too!

“You owe us nothing, and you’ve done nothing but good things in the name of Nikola Tesla,” Inman wrote. “But the fact remains: Tesla Motors, a company now worth billions, is using Nikola Tesla’s name, and they’re using his technology, and all we want in return is a little bit of help.”

$8 million is no small task to raise and we wish Matthew Inman all the best in his quest to create this new museum, and since he invented the AC induction system that makes the modern electric cars from Tesla work, we hope Elon lends a big helping hand too.

Thank you Business Insider for providing us with this information.

Images courtesy of Business Insider.

Neswaiu Mummy Goes Digital At Stockholm Museum

Posted on by Peter Donnell
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Stockholms Medelhavsmuseet museum has taken its display and research of the Egyptian mummys to the next level, and their latest exhibit sees the mummy of Neswaiu, son of Tekeretdjehuty is the latest to get some extra attention with the aid of 3D scanning technology. It has taken years of careful scanning to create, but now visitors can digitally unwrap an Egyptian mummy.

Using an interactive touch table, you can explore this 2300 year old mummy, something that has never been done on this level of detail before. Not only have the introduced 3D scanning and touch screen technology, but also 3D printing. When the museum digitally recreated the mummy using tomography and 3D photogrammetry techniques, they also discovered a golden amulet beneath the layers of wrapping. Unable to take it out with damaging the exterior, the amulet was 3D printed and now visitors can hold the 3D-printed copy along side using the touch display.

“3D digitization technology enables us to describe the health and fate of individuals, as well as ancient Egyptians’ beliefs about the afterlife,” said Medelhavsmuseet director Sofia Häggman. “Our new exhibition focuses on the human aspect, while also offering new perspectives on Egypt.”

“It is truly inspiring to see how technology, now so much more powerful yet so accessible, can offer unprecedented new ways to experience, explore and learn about our past,” said Tatjana Dzambazova from Autodesk, the company that helped the museum with the scanning.

Thomas Rydell from the Interactive Institute Swedish ICT added: “In this project we worked with mummies, but the same methods could be used on large variety of objects, such as natural history objects and other historical artefacts.”

Touch screen, interactive 3D models, 3D printed items that you can handle, all sounds pretty cool to me, I was at an Egyptian exhibit in Glasgow just a few days ago and you couldn’t touch anything, maybe if I’m ever in Stockholm I’ll check this new exhibit out.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/u5ncNCH4MNc[/youtube]

Thank you Wired for providing us with this information.

Images courtesy of Wired.

French Graffiti Block To Be Preserved In Virtual 3D Gallery

Posted on by Gabriel Roşu
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Magasins Généraux Pantin from Paris has been a place for most street artists from all over the capital and beyond. Originally an embodiment of French industry, the building closed at the turn of the century, only to be reimagined as “Graffiti Général,” a five-floor monument to graffiti. The building is now scheduled for refurbishment, although the artwork done so far inside the building will not quite be lost just yet.

There been an effort to preserve the works of art that lie within, although the demolition and construction of a new office building is imminent. However, the newly entitled tenant, namely an agency named BETC, has created a 3D model of the building, and incorporated over 5,200 high-resolution photos of the art that covers it.

It can be viewed from a website set up by BETC, where you can walk a virtual road full of graffiti artwork, just like you do with street view in Google Maps. There’s also a graffiti mode where you can add you own piece to the building’s walls. It’s an interesting concept, that you can “preserve” something tangible with a purely digital copy. For those interested in viewing this modern virtual gallery, BETC’s website can be found at the following address.

Thank you The Verge for providing us with this information
Images courtesy of The Verge

Wargaming Donates £75k For RAF Museum Education Centre

Posted on by Scott Frankling
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Wargaming, the online developers for the worldwide MMO game, World of Tanks, has announced it will be donating £75k to the RAF Museum in Cosford, Staffordshire.

The donation will be used to fund the building of a new education centre at the museum, as well as funding exhibitions at both the Cosford location and in London.

The RAF is currently restoring a Dornier 17 German bomber plane and those visiting the museum will be able to see the plane in action on their smartphones using augmented reality, as well as taking part in other interactive exhibits.

When asked why a gaming company should feel the need to sponsor a museum, Wargaming boss, Victor Kislyi said:

“Wargaming is passionate about military history, so we jumped at the opportunity to help be part of a truly historic endeavor.”

The benefits to the RAF Museum itself are obvious. It’s Director General, Peter Dye, beamed that the funding will allow it to tell an historical story in an innovative way whilst:

“Augmented reality, mobile applications and the use of user-generated content are new developments for the Museum and we are excited about exploring their possibilities.”

The funding announcement coincides with the beta-testing of Wargaming’s newest MMO game, World of Warplanes.

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