On Sunday this blogger wandered over to the New York Times Building to check out a new digital installation that is going up in the lobby. The installation, called Movable Type, comprises hundreds of small screens suspended on two facing walls of the lobby. The screens, backed up by different ambient sounds like faintly ringing phones or the clacking of a teletype machine, display snippets of text from stories published in the Times.

Ben Rubin, the designer of the project, was putting the finishing touches on the work with partner Mark Hansen, an associate professor at UCLA. “When it’s finished, specially designed algorithms will go through the text of the days stories to refresh the screens with breaking news,” said Hansen. “The idea is to provide the audience with a dynamic portrait of the news as its happening.”

Hansen emphasized that the screens were not LCDs, but rather vacuum-fluorescent displays. “The technology is 30 years old, its not exactly leading-edge stuff. But the light is brighter and more consistent than LCDs, not to mention the fact that the hardware is a lot tougher and long lasting.”

Photo: © benzadrine