motion control

A 1983 behind-the-scenes film about making the HBO 'Feature Presentation' starship logo sequence. It shows the handcrafted miniature city, motion-control cameras and practical effects.

Ten minutes of ultra-slow-motion footage of bullet impacts filmed at about one million frames per second by Werner Mehl of Kurzzeit. It includes hollow points in ballistics gel and impacts on glass.

A very short demo of SmackBook, a hack that used the MacBook Pro's sudden motion sensor so that smacking the sides of the laptop switches desktop spaces.

Short US Missile Defense Agency footage of the December 2008 free-flight hover test of Lockheed Martin's Multiple Kill Vehicle. The test showed it hovering for 20 seconds while tracking a simulated target.

Linus Torvalds gives a Google tech talk on git, the source control system he created two years earlier. He argues for distributed version control over centralized systems such as CVS and Subversion.

A short demo from the Ishikawa Komuro Lab of a high-speed robot hand paired with a 1000fps vision system performing dexterous manipulation. It shows what very low-latency vision and actuation can do.

In a TED talk, behavioral economist Dan Ariely uses visual illusions and his research to show that people are less rational in their decisions than they think. He covers defaults, such as organ donation rates, and how choice framing steers decisions.

A short clip of a Renault F1 engine playing God Save the Queen by precisely controlling its RPM, recorded at Goodwood. It demonstrates how finely the drivetrain can be controlled.

Air traffic audio of a pilot slurring and incoherent while declaring an emergency due to extreme hypoxia, with controllers at Cleveland Center struggling to understand him.

A short 2000s Apple commercial for the PowerMac G4 that plays on the computer being classed as a weapon under US export restrictions, with tanks as imagery.

The first installment of a hobbyist's video diary documenting his build of a giant walking spider-like vehicle. The footage is casual and self-shot, following the early stages of the project.

Boston Dynamics' March 2008 video of BigDog, a four-legged robot, walking on ice and snow, climbing rubble and recovering from slips and kicks.

A short clip of a ramen restaurant in Nagoya where robot arms cook the noodles. Human waiters serve the food.

Short clip of Honda's ASIMO humanoid robot falling down stairs during a live demonstration.

A short 2009 WIRED clip showing Kiva Systems robots moving inventory shelves in a warehouse serving online retailer Zappos. It shows how mobile robots bring goods to pickers instead of people walking the aisles.

Johnny Lee demonstrates head tracking with a Wii remote and a head-mounted pair of IR LEDs, so a screen acts like a window into a 3D scene as your head moves.

Neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor describes watching her own brain functions shut down during a massive stroke. She gives a first-person account of losing speech, motion and self-awareness.

Amateur footage of a Thomsonfly 757 ingesting a bird on takeoff from Manchester, with a flaming engine and a safe return, with 233 people aboard.

A short promotional video of a 5-axis CNC machine milling an elaborate helmet, made by DAISHIN SEIKI with a DMG machine and hyperMILL CAM software. It shows what 5-axis machining can produce.

A fan-made video of the Simpsons Stonecutters Song, in which a secret society takes credit for controlling world affairs, with lyrics and stills from the show.

Apple's classic 'Think Different' commercial, a one-minute spot celebrating creative misfits and innovators. This upload is from 2006.

Masagin is a realtime demoscene production by Farbrausch and Neuro with music by paniq, using animated recursive SVG graphics made in Inkscape. It is a psychedelic, nested-dials audiovisual piece.

A clip from Charlie Brooker's BBC show Screenwipe showing how reality TV uses editing to manufacture emotion and narrative. It demonstrates how the same footage can be cut to give very different impressions.

A 1947 US military film that deconstructs how the Nazi regime used divisive propaganda and prejudice to split and control a population. It teaches viewers to recognise demagoguery tactics.

Karl Sims's 1994 demonstration of evolved virtual creatures: block-bodied creatures whose bodies and controllers are evolved through selection, mutation and recombination to swim, walk and compete.

A Hitachi promotional cartoon in the style of Schoolhouse Rock explaining perpendicular magnetic recording for hard drives.

A satirical Onion News Network piece announcing the 'MacBook Wheel', a laptop with no keyboard where users type by spinning and clicking a wheel. It parodies Apple product launches and minimalist design.

A 2006 promotional video for sCrAmBlEd?HaCkZ!, a music software project that analyzes and reassembles sampled audio and video in real time, tied to themes of sampling and copyright.

Google's 2009 'Search Stories' ad, shown in the Super Bowl, tells the story of an American who falls in love in Paris entirely through search queries.

A how-to video on datamoshing, the glitch-art technique of removing keyframes so that motion data smears across video. It walks through the tools needed, such as ffmpegx and Avidemux, though the author notes parts are outdated.

A promotional commercial for Microsoft Songsmith, software that generates backing music from a vocal recording. The ad became widely known for its awkwardness.

Apple's famous 1984 Macintosh television commercial, which casts the company as a rebel breaking a Big Brother-style conformity.

The Galaxy Song from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, a comic musical tour of the size and motion of the galaxy and our place in it.

A parody video contrasting Nokia's polished N97 promotional material with the sluggish, buggy reality of using the phone.