Archive for the 'Videos' Category

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HyperConnected Beings // From Social Web to Networked Consciousness

Published on 2/3/2009 in Academia, Art, HowTo, Media, Personal, Trends, Videos, wearable and Web 2.0. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Presentation Mindmap: Networked Consciousness
HyperConnected Beings (Slides)

As a guest lecturer at @panomatic‘s Designed Play visual studies class yesterday, I thought aloud of how we are increasingly inter-connected with one another. Although in varying degrees, there are some like me who are inclined to explore the extremities of self-awareness.

Perhaps not now, but little choice later…
Note that I take the perspective of being hyper-connected as a choice at this point, though I believe that it will be unavoidable in the near future. As my friend MrBig already noted, even when he tries to have online presence through pseudonymity, the dilemma comes where his friends connect back to him, verifying real-life information about himself (e.g. Facebook).

Since information shared online by others around and about you would likely be beyond your control, having some form of online presence that’s verifiable by people you know, would act as a findable official reference from which you can control. Even if you aren’t interested in promoting yourself online, having presence acts as a defense mechanism for your namesake / reputation.

To contrast the diversity modes of online presence, I talked about my personal experiences in attempting to share and store consciousness via two routes:

1. Taking the High Road – VIDEO
+ High Cognitive Bandwidth; hard to multi-task / browse
+ Visceral, im-mediate reality
+ Technological accessibility: smaller sensors, cheaper storage
+ Mobile live video streaming (e.g. Ustream.tv, Qik, etc)
+ Searchable video via thumbnails, keyframe tagging, face detection

2. Taking the Low Road – TEXT
+ Low Cognitive Bandwidth: easy to multi-task / browse
+ Imaginary, requires prior experience
+ Scalable Complexity: twitter (low) to blog posting (high)
+ Democratic participation: twitter, SMS/txting cellphones
+ Highly searchable; naturally mashable / remixable

Points discussed in class during presentation:

Finally, the means of communication often creates avenues for serendipitous encounters, which could explain why we are attracted to use social devices such as twitter.

ASIDE: I’m keeping track of related information at http://theory.wikispaces.com/Social+Cyborg

UPDATE: I’ve share the presentation on Slideshare.net





Louis Suarez-Potts: On Escaping the Orgy of Consumerism

Published on 1/29/2009 in Academia, Business, Law, Social, Trends, Videos and Web 2.0. 80 Comments Tags: , .

Louis Suarez-Potts @ UB

Louis Suarez-Potts’s “The what, why and how (not to mention who) of Open Source — and why it is important” was held at UB North Campus, Clemens 120 on Jan 29th, 2pm. Here’s the event description:

The Digital Humanities Initiative at Buffalo is pleased to announce a lecture by Louis Suárez-Potts, who holds a PhD in English from Berkeley and who is now the community manager at Sun Microsystems for the open source project OpenOffice.org. This promises to be a fascinating presentation from someone who understands both the scholarly concerns of humanists and the rapidly growing prominence of open source approaches to computing.

I got a chance to chat with Louis after the talk, where he stated how monetary-based transactions strips away the emotional aspect of innovation, as opposed to the “love thy neighbor” approach (aka gift economy) which thrives on sharing and transparency of ideas. He agreed with me that the communal innovation approach would be more sustainable on the long run since the user/producer (see Axel Brun’s Produser concept) community could (theoretically) directly address its own needs more effectively than a corporation would.

Louis noted that “[t]he issue is that if you pay somebody money, they do X for that money. If you inspire them to gain value that goes beyond the monetary value ascribed to X, they do that thing, X, plus all that goes beyond and that cannot be easily monetized; an economist would call it an intangible. [...] What it comes down to: Open source works regardless of the motivator; and motivators beyond price work even in closed source environments. What counts, then, is engaging people so that the value of their actions and role goes beyond price.”

Now here’s the 40min pre-recorded live stream I shared for folks who couldn’t attend, including the backchannel chat log as well as my raw notes from louis’s talk…
Continue reading ‘Louis Suarez-Potts: On Escaping the Orgy of Consumerism’





Shock & Awesome Show: On digitally mediated sex cultures

Published on 1/29/2009 in Personal, SecondLife and Videos. 70 Comments

"Shock & Awesome Show"

MixieMoxie and Mander have yours truly as a guest on their strange yet fabulous Blog.tv show, Shock & Awesome.

It started with MixieMoxie asking me whether we could “touch the Internet”. Naturally, our two hour talk show started with tele-haptics, but soon dribbled down to tele-dildonics, cybersex and the digital mediation of sex subcultures such as Furries and BDSM in SecondLife.

Aside: Despite leaving after 2hrs, MixieMoxie went on broadcasting and turned it into a six hour marathon chat session! Be sure to check out my previous interview with her as a Zivity model.





“I Google You” by Neil Gaiman

Published on 1/26/2009 in Funny, Music, Videos and Web 2.0. 62 Comments Tags: .

Tonight at 7pm EST, I’ll be making a guest appearance on MixieMoxie‘s “Shock & Awesome Show“.

Mixie, Mander and I, as well as her friends on Blog.tv, will be chatting about “touching the Internet”. We’ll probably go into tele-haptics, which will likely segway into cybersex and eventually BDSM culture. We’ll be filling in the gaps of each other’s knowledge.

While testing out Blog.tv’s co-host feature with Mixie, I got to learn from her friends about a song by Neil Gaiman called “I Google You“. To spice things up, this rendition is performed by bi-sexual cabaret-punk entertainer, Amanda Palmer (hat tip Blake Stacey).

Given that my ex-prof Alex Halavais had recently published “Search Engine Society“, and considering how it is now common practice to judge acquaintances by checking Google, this song was just too good to be true.

Here are the lyrics to “I Google You” by Neil Gaiman:

I Google you
late at night when I don’t know what to do
I find photos
you’ve forgotten
you were in
put up by your friends

I Google you
when the day is done and everything is through
I read your journal
that you kept
that month in France
I’ve watched you dance

And I’m pleased your name is practically unique
it’s only you and
a would-be PhD in Chesapeake
who writes papers on
the structure of the sun
I’ve read each one

I know that I
should let you fade
but there’s that box
and there’s your name
somehow it never makes the pain
grow less or fade or disappear
I think that I should save my soul and
I should crawl back in my hole
But it’s too easy just to fold
and type your name again
I fear
I google you
Whenever I’m alone and feeling blue
And each scrap of information
That I gather
says you’ve got somebody new
And it really shouldn’t matter
ought to blow up my computer
but instead….
I google you

ASIDE: If you recall, I interviewed MixieMoxie just last year about her modeling experience with Zivity.com.





Video: Alex’s lecture on Search Engine Society

Published on 1/18/2009 in Academia, Media, Trends and Videos. 0 Comments

While waiting for my book to arrive, Prof. Alex Halavais has just shared the first of his many upcoming lectures from his book, Search Engine Society (hat tip Jason Nolan).

As he notes, the common misconception of publications relating to search engines, has been their attribution to the marketing of goods and services through search engines (e.g. search engine optimization or SEO).

Instead, Alex explains that Search Engine Society focuses on the media effects and cultural impact relating to online search engines, which I believe is an issue that has largely been ignored. Just as newspapers once dictated how we perceived the tone of each day, the mechanism (and failings) of search engines immensely affects the way we perceive the world around us.

If you wish to watch more, stay tuned to Alex Halavais’ blog. Here’s an earlier video overview of his Search Engine Society syllabus for 2009. Finally, you can go at your own pace by buying the dead trees version.





Macworld 2009: BoinxTV – elegant live video production for Mac

Published on 1/11/2009 in Apple, Gadgets, Productivity, Videos and Web 2.0. 10 Comments Tags: , , .

I’ve beta-tested it, loved it and even bought myself a sponsored edition for just $97 at Macworld Expo 2009. It’s normally $199 from their web site, with the full version being $499.

Why do I like BoinxTV so much?
Bastian, the video guru at Boinx Software, explains some of the key features of BoinxTV for live video production on the Mac.

BoinxTV’s slick interface, hardware flexibility (see how he uses a midi mixer for channel control), and extensibility (create show templates) won it over for me.

Being real-time means you get to stream shows live (e.g. Ustream.tv via GrabberRaster) with multi-camera support, overlays, chroma keys (for green screen) and more. It also means we get to produce video podcasts on the fly, with literally no need for post-editing over than video encoding for targeted media players.

They’ve just released BoinxTV 1.1 and here’s hoping for a strong user community and support.





Macworld 2009: Microvision’s “Laser-Powered” Pico Projector

Published on 1/11/2009 in Apple, Gadgets, Videos and wearable. 4 Comments Tags: , , .

3M and Texas Instruments have all made handheld pico projectors, but Microvision might have just upped the ante with their “laser projection” technology.

Jacques Lincoln, Microvision’s Global Product Manager, explains that by using laser instead of LEDs to project light, image projections never needs focusing (as you’ll see in the video), and maintains better contrast and accuracy.

Microvision’s codenamed “Pico Projector” is expected to arrive mid-2009 at an estimated price of around US$500.

UPDATE: Being highly mobile opens up new possibilities for displaying imagery in the open world. As seen in this Pico Underground blog, animal projections in everyday spaces create for a surreal synthesis of the real and virtual.





Macworld 2009: Techsmith’s Jing Pro

Published on 1/11/2009 in Apple, Productivity, Videos and Web 2.0. 1 Comment Tags: , .

While I got to see a preview of Camtasia for Mac, it’s not ready for public viewing. What I can show you though, is the “Pro edition” of Jing released earlier this month.

Katie Lewis of Techsmith demos some of the new features Jing “Pro” offers, which includes:

  • YouTube export and uploading
  • MPEG-4 export, great for editing and podcasting
  • Jing branding removal

At $14.95 per year, Jing Pro comes at a decent price for the convenience of screencasting on the fly. Do note that the free version of Jing is still available complete with complimentary hosting on Screencast.com





Macworld 2009: MindMeister = Mindmapping + Wiki + Gorgeous!

Published on 1/11/2009 in Design, Productivity, Videos and Web 2.0. 0 Comments Tags: .

If you’ve been thinking about mindmapping, and want to take it to a “multiplayer” level, definitely give Mindmeister.com a go!

Mindmeister’s developer, Til, shows off their gorgeous interface, easy to use controls and open collaborative wiki-like features. Newly announced at Macworld 2009 were the animated revision history (like a wiki but highly visual) and ability to connect between different branches of nodes.

Let me know what you think about Mindmeister after you give it a shot!





Macworld 2009: Brenthaven’s Switch Messenger Bags

Published on 1/9/2009 in Apple, Gadgets and Videos. 3 Comments Tags: , .

Freshly announced at Macworld 2009, Brenthaven CEO Scott Armstrong gives me the lowdown on their new line of changeable laptop bags called the Switch Messenger Bags.

Brenthaven bags are well-known for being tough at protecting your laptop, but are also known to have a professional standard look to them. With the newly patented custom flip covers for these bags, users can now show off both their casual and professional personalities.

If you’re interested in these Switch Messenger Bags, you can create your own flaps over here. Retails $129.95.