unmediated

New open access govt information journal

Here's a new open access journal to keep track of. The inaugural issue includes articles about the UK freedom of information act (which amazingly didn't come into force until January, 2005!), and a conference report on the 3rd intl conference of information commissioners. One of the exciting things to come out of that conference was the "Declaration of Cancún
Transparency and Accountability: A Commitment to Democracy" signed by a long list of NGOs. The PDF of the declaration is linked from another organization to track called Statewatch.

Via Library Autonomous Zone

Picotux Linux-Based RJ45-Sized Computer

Kleinhenz, a German electronics company, is shipping their new network-enabled Linux system in a unit just about the size of a standard RJ-45 Ethernet jack. The "Picotux,"barely big enough to print its MAC address on, is based on the NetSilicon DigiConnect ME, a fully functional Linux-based OS, with up to 8 MB of Flash memory and blinking LEDs to tell you what's going on in there. It requires 3.3V of DC power but also includes a serial port and a processor up to 55MHz. It's available in Wireless flavor as well, with the wired version costing about $130. A similar, Ethernet-sized web server has existed for some time, but this is likely the first running a Linux kernel on it. It's available today, if you speak German. (Their product page doesn't have any ordering information.)

Linux on an Ethernet Connector [LinuxDevices]
Product Page [Kleinhenz]

Via Gizmodo

MicroEmissive Displays outfit sunglasses with TVs

Engineers at Scottish electronics firm MicroEmissive Displays have developed a television screen less than half the size of a postage stamp that can be fitted inside a pair of sunglasses — or regular glasses for that matter. We’re not sure if they actually have a prototype of the TV shades or not, but the actual display looks something like this one at the right (one thing we know: those definitely ain’t Carreras). And, before you ask, they don’t expect you to plug a cable into them.They’re hoping the wearable displays will be a better solution for watching streaming TV broadcasts on your cellphone.

[Via textually.org]

Via Engadget

Video On Demand for PSP

Gamespot has more noise on the expanding role the Playstation Portable may have in the future. According to the article, when the PSP is released in South Korea in May, it will include a new piece of bundled software called the Network Utility UMD. With that running, users of the PSP will be able to:

Other networked services scheduled for PSP consumers in Korea include on-demand streaming music, on-demand streaming videos (including TV shows), e-learning options, and electronic books. SCEK and KT expect that they will be the first companies to provide a full online experience for the PSP user in any market.

Via TVHarmony

The Broadcasters and Their Billions

Drew Clark (National Journal): Spectrum Wars. Generations ago, broadcasters got the right to use the airwaves -- now worth billions of dollars -- for free. Ever since, they have used heavy lobbying and political friendships to stave off rivals. But as the digital age unfolds, change is in the air.

Via Dan Gillmor on Grassroots Journalism, Etc.

MSNBC Deploys Citizen Journalists in Quake's Wake

MSNBC.com has launched a special earthquake eyewitness weblog written by readers that bolsters its coverage of the massive quake that struck Indonesia today with on-the-ground reports. They also have an entire section of their site for citizen journalism.

The Podcast Hotel

The Podcast Hotel, explains Corante's Alex Williams, will turn a hotel in Portland, Oregon, into a podcast and videoblog studio. It's a place where people come to learn and share how these content creation tools can be used in any way they want, be it for their personal use, their business or their community.

Guests at the Podcast Hotel will create podcasts and videoblogs.

They'll spread out into the city of Portland. I look forward to riding bikes with video cameras attached to our helmets. We're planning a podcast music jam. We're thinking about a fashion show for independent designers where the models are the podcasters and videobloggers.



Experts will be there to share and show how the tools can be used. Newbies will be coached and get the chance to learn how to produce sharp, authentic works. There will be "how to," discussions, "think tank," talks and demonstrations.

Via Daily Wireless

'TV is begging to be reinvented'

Via Lost Remote

The camera that doesn't take pictures

Alain Bublex' Awareness Box is a camera that does not record images, focussing exclusively on the act of taking pictures. It is an object made to heighten one awareness and attention, a new type of electronic product -developed in collaboration with Siemens- that helps one observe better. ... The Awareness Box allows you to capture an image once in presence of the subject, but without recording it, as each image taken erases the precedent one.

Via Pasta & Vinegar.

Via Eyebeam reBlog

Ubuweb audio and video archives

Via Cinema Minima

Game Gardens

From the folks who brought you that adorable mmog Puzzle Pirates, Three Rings have created Game Gardens: a place of 'experimental online game development.' So if you know how to program in Java, you can use their tool kit to create you own games and upload them to the site for others to play. They also provide a forum in which to ask questions and share ideas. So if you've ever been curious about what it's like to make a multiplayer game, here's your chance.

Via Clippings.reblog

Alternative Music Compensation: The Big Mac Plan

McDonald's has come up with an interesting alternative music compensation scheme, apparently. According to the New York Daily News, McDonald's will be offering rappers $1-$5 every time a song praising Big Macs is played on the radio (McHip-hop name-drop).

Via Copyfight

Why Microsoft Won't Fight the Broadcast Flag

According to this refreshingly forthright Seattle Times article, it's because Microsoft knows that the FCC is going to start regulating everything its mission touches, so it had better start playing nice:

Fights over copyrights provide an interesting example of Microsoft's current DC presence and how it switches priorities and sides. ...Only a few years ago, Microsoft opposed the flag, because such an approach attempts to tell software designers what to include and sets limits on the Internet.

t cannot afford to tick off its fledgling friends from Hollywood, the movie moguls it will need to provide content as it ventures into new video technology.

And of course there are similar reasons why it's Mark Cuban and not Bill Gates who can "afford" to fight for innovation in Grokster -- despite the fact that not so long ago, Gates was the young entrepreneur on the outside looking in.

Update: Ernie Miller weighs in with Microsoft Cozying Up to Washington Regulators.

Via Copyfight

Unmediated Sanyo Xacti C5 Review

Kenyatta just got his hands on a Sanyo Xacti C5 and I've been non-stop bugging him for feedback. The Xacti is a hard-drive based camcorder that's being used by some in the videoblogging community. I was literally about to order one on eBay, but Kenyatta told me to hold off- giving the camcorder a 3/5 (5/5 = best). So here's our conversation and Kenyatta's review of the C5.


Transcript of AIM IM with Kenyatta (KC) and Eli (EC)
9:55 PM 03/28/05

KC: here's the skinny on the xacti: good size, nice lcd... mpeg4 compression was adequate in fast moving shots with lots of color... the different quality levels were nice... extremely poor low light performance...

EC: hmm

KC: poor ergonomics... too top heavy and one thumb operation was actually a hinderance with such a small camera...

EC: yeah. little camera syndrome.

KC: anytime you went to zoom it shook the shot...

EC: built in mic audio decent?

KC: no manual controls whatsoever. NO gain control (!)... zoom slow but adequate.

EC: no shutter speed?

KC: mic was actually decent... shutter speed control but buried behind at least five menu movements clicks to change it. (Too many to be handy.)

EC: yikes. so it's great for daylight, hanging with friends in bright areas.... bad for concerts, bars, and all the fun stuff...

KC: yep... i tried the mic out at the corner of atlantic and 4th ave in bklyn at rush hour... did a decent job of picking me up.

EC: nice! pointing camera at yourself? or from behind

KC: at self and away.

EC: great

KC: mic is on backside of lcd

EC: yikes

KC: yeah, so if you're shooting yourself.... well, it does pick you up well under low pressure (sound) conditions, but a little harder when having a conversation with someone walking down bway in soho

EC: hmm

KC: mpeg4s were easy to transfer. quicktime player had a problem with the mp3 mp4 audio if you tried cutting copying and pasting. (It likes cut and paste.)

EC: huh... how's file size?

KC: you had to save it as a mov file to work... file size is decent. the image quality makes sense for the file sizes.

EC: that's good... you try editing? splice splice splice

KC: about 5MB per min. spliced the vid. didn't try it with imovie or fcp yet.

EC: cool

KC: i have lots of sample video to post as well... hang on. let me check notes for other stuff...

EC: to be honest, it should be great for peru... it's a travel camera.. outdoors, pretty pix..

KC: agreed. and with an hour of 640x480 on a 1GB SD card, it'll be a welcome relief from a PDX10 and pounds of DV tape... did i mention the weird weight balance?

EC: yes... but give me an example... like when you're adjusting zoom, tpaping through menus...

KC: it's too top heavy, causing my wrist to wobble a lot more (when zooming) than if it were evenly weighted (or bottom biased)

EC: try shooting upside down

KC: i did!

EC: ha!

KC: and it was a steadier shot

EC: can the people who design cameras please come see us- paging sanyo product marketing and development!

KC: and it was probably just for the reason you mentioned - when your thumb is applying so much pressure to the top half of the camera, you have to overcompensate by pulling back with your index finger, more or less.

EC: is there a tripod screw?

KC: there is.

EC: you could add weight

KC: sure. good idea. first thing i'm buying, though, is a mini tripod... that's the other criticism of the industrial design... because they made it so thin, you can't sit it on a table on it's own.

EC: lame!

KC: i mean, none of it's competitors do it either (the sony M1, Panasonic AV100, etc) but if it included a small "travel base" besides or instead of the large round platter that ships with it, it would come in very handy.

EC: bubble gum works

KC: so many videobloggers use still cameras for shooting video...

EC: yeah, good form factor... people are comfortable with them as 'still' cameras.. more social devices than futuristic super 8 cameras.

KC: sure. problem is they do video poorly or don't handle well when shooting video (high compression AVI, can't zoom in while capturing video)... what bothers me about a lot of these small video-first solid state cameras is that they still seem like interesting gadgets first and video cameras second... it's like they're being marketed to the Sharper Image crowd (who look for cool toys) and not the user-generated content folks.

EC: yeah, at least cameraphones are often good phones... and their cameras are getting better all the time...

KC: you know, the ones apple, microsoft, and the like already have in their sights?

EC: right.

KC: speaking of which - have you looked at any of the reviews for these small solid state video cameras?
they're almost exclusively by still digicam sites.

EC: interesting

KC: and they spend paragraphs talking about the still image performance, and then leave, like, maybe a graph or two to the video performance.

EC: nice. gimme a link

KC: i'm looking through steve's digicams and dcresource right now.

EC: does the xacti remote do zoom? could be a workaround

KC: yes it does... which is why i was going for the mini tripod first.

EC: ahh... i'm looking through dpreview

KC: http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/sony/dsc_m1-review/ review of the sony M1... maybe i shouldn't expect digital still camera reviewers to scrutinize the video on these things, but the manufacturers have to start sending the video-first cams out to videobloggers to test.

EC: we can be the source! let's do it.... hey, check http://www.dpreview.com/news/0501/05013101casioexp505.asp sounds hot

KC: a resource is born.

EC: casio. mpeg4. still

KC: reading it now. interesting... oh yeah, about the build quality of the C5... looks and feels solid with a hard plastic shell and a nice metal band around the edge of the thing. good construction. but i fear for the life of the LCD screen. I've only had it four days and it already feels a little loose... and (here's the part that kills me) all menu navigation and option selection happens with two buttons: a menu button, and a five way "Set" joystick (five-way meaning: up, down, left, right, and push)

EC: sheesh

KC: i can tell you now that the set joystick is gonna take a beating. besides being near to impossible to find the sweet spot when pushing in the set button, after a weekend of use, it's already got a bit too much play in it.

EC: wow... you're moving me from 3 out of 5 to 2/5

KC: which means that it's already feeling unresponsive at times and frustrating to use... well, what keeps it at 3 is that there are a lot of things it gets right for videobloggers... the daylight performance is excellent, the built in mic is better than i expected, and the size is incredible.

EC: and battery?

KC: battery wasn't bad. i was able to fill the card shooting about 1hr of video over a 12 hour period, keeping it in standby mode in between takes.

EC: nice

KC: (card was a 1GB SD)

EC: nice. ebay? cost?

KC: (card didn't come standard.) bought the card at j&r. (gotta fill out that rebate form)... i paid $650 for it but i overpaid. you can get it from one of the HK ebayers for about $550+shipping... sanyo is selling a special edition blue one through the sharper image here in the US for $800.

EC: ooooohhh.... ((((suckaBlue I think it's called))))

KC: i wanted one that wouldn't look like a video camera, so i figured blue would work. and it did.

EC: nice

KC: everyone i showed it to didn't realize it was a camera until i told them. (after I shot a good amount of video first, of course)

EC: heh

EC: i think this is good.. i'll edit and post

KC: cool. we should do all of our reviews this way.

EC: i was thinking a conversation between us is more valuable than a straight write up, and easier

KC: cool

Here are some examples Kenyatta shot:
xactiC5_lowlight.mov 10.3M
xactiC5_mic_flatbush.mov 2.5M
xactiC5_movement640.mov 5.7M
xactiC5_mpg_flowers.mov 2.6M
xactiC5_night.mov 4.9M

Flocking; Interpersonal Wireless~Tactile Interface

(Taught by MagicBike creator Yury Gitman and Rocketboom's Andrew Baron. Cool. -kc.)

Billionaire Mark Cuban underwrites Grokster in file-sharing case

Via Cinema Minima

Reed Hundt on the Dawn of Mass Internet

From the Code Blog, tracking the wikification of Lessig’s Code: 2005-3-20-A Note From Reed Hundt

I was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (1993-97) when the Internet was, in a mass user sense, invented (1993-95, in my view). This is to report that a tiny group of bureaucrats did indeed sit in a room, or actually more than one room on more than one occasion, and decide that it was our great opportunity and duty to make sure that the Internet would be as nearly free as we could make it, that the telephone lines would be used by Internet service provider for as close to no cost as we could manage, that as many service providers would be able to start providing Net access as we could conceivably foster, and that we would encourage this new medium, as McLuhan predicted, to swallow all previous media and use them as content. And from 1994 to 2000 that is pretty much what happened. There are myriad specific rules that assisted in these ends coming about, which is not to say that technology and history were irrelevant. Indeed they may have been more significant causes of the various resulting effects. But it would be wrong to impute to government a lack of thought or even, in this case, foresight.

[…] Even the most extreme libertarians ought to acknowledge the historical significance of the G.I. Bill, the Marshall Plan, social security, and the atomic bomb – all world-changing events stemming from decisions by small groups in government made under conditions of limited knowledge and necessary compulsion to act. Similarly the Internet’s shape in its first decade stemmed in large part from an architecture of law designed to foster its disruptive impact and its rapid growth and its usage in particular by the young. It all could have been decided differently, as it was in most other countries and as it may well be decided differently in the broadband era. Because, you see, many of these rules have been changed in recent years, and whether all are reversed remains to be seen.

Via Furdlog

Collective knowledge and The Neighborhood Project

Interesting experiment in collective knowledge:

The Neighborhood Project is creating a map of city neighborhoods based on the collective opinions of internet users. Addresses and neighborhood data are translated into latitude and longitude values, and then drawn on the map. The address and neighborhood data are collected from housing posts on craigslist, and from people filling out the form below. The coordinates are generated using the free geocoder.us. The map is from the TIGER/Line US Census data. Our first city is San Francisco, but we will add more soon....

The more people who add their opinion to the database, the more accurate the neighborhood boundaries become.

Via CyberJournalist.net

Python script for uploading to Flickr

Update: Antrix sez, "Michele Campeotto has written the nice FlickrClient interface for those with more ambitious visions of mating Python and Flickr."

Via Boing Boing

The Public Library Service in 2015

Via PaidContent.org

eXeems.com The new generation of downloading

(Why is the domain exeems and not exeem? Who are these folks? -kc.)

"Interactive Drama" in Matrix Online

Via Grand Text Auto

The Videogame Industry Union?

Great article on Gamasutra about the prospects of unionizing game developers. Very interesting.

Via game girl advance

The rise of camera phone snaps

Antonio in Ion's Blog points to an impressive picture in El Mundo that demonstrates better than any discourse the growing trend to snap pictures with a camera phone instead of a traditional camera at major events. Here during a procession in Sevilla (Spain)

Go to the cinema and star in the film you're about to see

During the Expo 2005, spectator queueing to see a movie at Toshiba’s digital cinema are submitted to a futurecast, they place their faces into a hole in the wall for a few seconds. High-resolution digital cameras perform a quick scan from several angles, and everyone takes their seats.

The animated film, Grand Odyssey, begins as normal but the entire cast is made up of walking, talking digital replicas of people in the audience.



Each speactator gets a role — there are soldiers, doctors, scientists and politicians involved in the story — as a Toshiba supercomputer is processing the one-time-only film.

Elsewhere, Hitachi is inviting visitors to a virtual reality safari where they get handsets that contain a prototype of the mu-chip, a processor which, when brought close to particular transmitters, downloads any information on offer in that area and displays it on a small screen.

The safari ride employs a 3D projection system designed to work with a set of sensors strapped to the hands. In the virtual reality world, solid-seeming objects can be plucked from mid-air and examined more closely in the hands.

Elsewhere, NTT DoCoMo shows its object-recognition binoculars which recognise certain objects and displays details about them in the eyepiece.

Fix on a passing plane and the device will tell you the flight number and destination. Turn your attention to a flower, and it will tell you what variety it is.

DoCoMo hopes to use the technology in camera-equipped handsets. With particular databases of information installed, the phones could be pointed at objects of interest and used to collect information. Waved past an item in a shop, for example, it might inform users where the same thing could be bought more cheaply.

Via The Times.

Via we make money not art

Share those tunes..

SourceForge.net: Project Info - getTunes
This is great.. It is a pain to get music off of my media machine on to my laptop this should help. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to recognize my wireless connection.
From the site:
getTunes is a Mac version of myTunes, a small application that allows users to download music from local Rendezvous-shared iTunes music libraries (instead of streaming the songs). Don't steal music.

Via sLop

VIDEO: 1 of 7 for VideoBlogWeek 2005

It's VideoBlogWeek 2005!!!
This week we are all posting a video a day.
This is post #1.
Thanks to Adam for the call to arms.

It's an attempt to create a conversation and get the juices flowing.
A loose collaborative process.
We can make videos often if you just make the process a part of your life.
And make videos for each other.
No need to impress invisible TV executives.
You can see the first VideoBlogWeek2004.

Anyone can join in.
Just post a video...and tag it HERE.

Via Momentshowing

The future of the 30-second spot

Via Lost Remote

PSP Web Browser with Wipeout Pure

Just a quick word about browsing the web on your PSP. While I think a web browser is an inevitablity for the platform (wasn't that included in that leaked firmware along with the word processor?), I think a few of you might be overreacting a bit when it comes to presuming Sony's response. In short, I don't see why they'd give a flip. Anything that makes the PSP just that much more useful is a good thing. Now one of you needs to figure out how to load a web browser onto a MemoryStick and load it from there.

PSP Web Browser experience [PSP411]
Web Browsing on your Sony PSP [DavesIpaq]
Wipeout Pure: The Hidden Web Browser [FuManchu]
PSP Web Portal [AbsurdGenius] This is the easiest one for people who just want to try it out. Well done. (Thanks, Justin!)

Via Gizmodo

A Citizen Fights Back, Via Web

A mall developer sicced his lawyers on a man who started a website to praise a new mall. He says: "Since I possess very limited resources with which to defend myself from this legal onslaught, I decided that my best option was to make use of that great equalizer, the World Wide Web."

Did he ever.

(Via BoingBoing)

Via Dan Gillmor on Grassroots Journalism, Etc.

Are vlogging and podcasting the ultimate slacker careers?

"the handful of bloggers out there with genuine TV appeal -- former AV geeks, mostly, with some public speaking classes or stage experience under their belts -- are discovering there may be some actual star potential in moving to the tiny QuickTime screen."

Mark Cuban to fund MGM vs. Grokster

I think the people of the US owe Mark Cuban a big thank-you for putting himself in the line of fire like this, for such a good cause.

…the EFF and others came to me and asked if I would finance the legal effort against MGM. I said yes. I would provide them the money they need. So now the truth has been told. This isnt the big content companies against the technology companies. This is the big content companies, against me. Mark Cuban and my little content company. Its about our ability to use future innovations to compete vs their ability to use the courts to shut down our ability to compete. its that simple.

Via [bionic] dan's journal

The Found Footage Festival

NEXT FFF SCREENING! Friday March 25 at 8pm Galapagos Art Space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. --MM

Clear Channel Overhauls Its Net Strategy

Via Scripting News

Aggregators: traffic blessing or copyright curse?

The news industry has mixed opinions about the advantages and disadvantages of aggregators according to the Wall Street Journal Online through Excite. Some editors enjoy the traffic that their site receives when their stories show up high on the list of headlines. Others are perturbed by their lower positions. And in a practice that some in the industry believe will be common place, a few newspapers simply pay for aggregators to give their articles priority, such as the New York Times did with Topix.net. This past week's two aggregator related events, the Topix.net deal and AFP's legal action against Google, whose consequences won't be know for some time highlight the dilemma that editors are facing. AFP demanded that Google remove its content from its GoogleNews site on charges of copyright infringement. Some in the industry scoffed, dismissing AFP to the nut house for canceling the free press and traffic its brand name gets through Google. But this is nothing new as others, notably Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest paper, have also refused Google permission to reprint its material. On the other hand, the Topix.net deal, in which three major newspaper companies - Gannett Co., Knight-Ridder Inc., and Tribune Co., each bought a 25% stake in the high-traffic news consolidator, hints that publishers see aggregators as boosting hits on their own site and spreading their brand recognition. What will be the final verdict?

We can't be sure yet. But we may be able to make a pretty good prediction simply from this posting. My source for this posting is the Wall Street Journal, one of the very few pay-for newspaper websites in the world, a publication which has been documented as being ignored as an online reference strictly because of its pay-model, yet a news site to which I am not a subscriber. So how did I read the article? I'm only assuming I've been able to access sacred WSJ content because the Dow Jones Co., publisher of the WSJ, has a deal with Excite which allows it to let a free article slip out from time to time. Considering this, my guess is that most newspapers will keep themselves open to aggregators, or else risk suffocation at the digital hands of those who do.

Source: The Wall Street Journal Online through Excite.

Video Tour of KDDI Studio

One of DailyWireless' favorite haunts is Wireless Watch Japan, reporting from the heart of Japan's mobile revolution.

The top rated website features the latest news, articles and Video Programs. It's always interesting, beautifully shot and well edited. A model of professionalism.

In today's Video Tour of KDDI Designing Studio, WWJ's Gail Nakada speaks with the Studio's general manager and tours all five floors of the public facility, packed with interactive games, live handsets and mobile demos. Japan is years ahead of the United States, as this tour demonstrates.

Program Run-time 8:50 -- Coded for broadband connections only

Via Daily Wireless

TV explodes on Amazon

TV explodes on Amazon

: From PaidContent's digital jobs list, Amazon is doing more in video:

: Amazon.com is looking for a Content Acquisition Manager (CAM) for our forthcoming Digital Video Store. The CAM's job will be to find and license content from content owners near and far.

Via BuzzMachine

PC gaming is dying. Again.

Once every 6-12 months, someone, somewhere, writes an article about how PC gaming is dying. So quite why the author of this piece seems to think he’s so special with this proclaimation I’ve no idea. He also believes that enjoying a game console means you have the IQ of a glass of water… Let me repeat: To all you console owners, which includes a good chunk of us here at Joystiq, including myself, Mr. Anthony R. Brock believes we all have the IQ of a glass of water because we enjoy consoles. Ironically, he condemns Electronic Arts (and, somewhat bafflingly, Eidos), a company who, if I stuck with the PC, I’d HAVE to buy baseball games from, whereas, as a PS2 owner, I have a choice.

I remember reading much the same arguments in PC magazines before the turn of the millenium, about how PC gaming was on it’s last legs, consoles would own all… And yet, here we still are. The author also leaves one huge, gaping hole in his argument. The fact that when designing a PC game, developers have to contend with a million different hardware and software configurations. Whereas with designing for the console, they can design a game, boot it, and if it works on their test machine, they know that it will work on every machine out there.

So, is it a scathing critique of the PC gaming industry? Or elitist, arrogant posturing from someone who thinks that, just because they game on a PC, they’re better than you? You decide.

Via Joystiq

Flickr for Video - The Gates in NYC

Via Julia Set

Flickr and the 'democratization of information'

Yahoo's purchase of Flickr is so interesting because Flickr is a pioneer in tagging, which is not just the latest fad online, but has the potential to revolutionize the way information is found and distributed online.

"The democratization of information is the real interesting thing about this," said Bob Rosenschein, CEO of GuruNet, an answer search engine. "They're messy and noisy and they're not always accurate, but they're people talking about real subjects; and in that manner they have tremendous statistical interest when they get to scale. There's a wisdom of the crowd. The most interesting applications are before us."

It's a deceptively simple premise that holds enormous consequences for information management...

Via CyberJournalist.net

My video rant for the day

I really like the idea of OurMedia.org. After all, I want to have a service that makes it easy for me to share my entire life with you. Text. Photos. Video. Audio.

But my experience in the past 24 hours tells me we are a LONG way from a service that anyone can use. Particularly when it comes to video.

First of all, the uploading experience, in particular, sucked. I tried more than half a dozen times to upload a video. In both IE and Firefox. It barfed everytime and gave very vague error messages.

This is one place where AJAX just isn't the right methodology. The browser wasn't designed to upload things. I switched over to http://www.archive.org and there they force you to use an FTP client or an app that you download. This was a far superior experience, albeit I had to be a geek because using FTP isn't something that most people are familiar with.

With my FTP app I could see how progress was going. With the browser I saw no progress. It either works or it fails.

And that's on top of being forced to be a media file expert to begin with. My new hard-drive based camcorder makes MPG2 format videos. But they can't be uploaded cause they take 4GB per hour. Whew.

So, you need to pick between Microsoft's format, Apple's format, Macromedia's format, Real's format, or the more generic MPG4 format. Problem is there's no ubiquity in playback (except for maybe Macromedia's format which I don't like as much as the others). I can just imagine a normal person giving up.

Don't think Microsoft is blameless here. Our encoding tools are WAY too complex. Windows Media Encoder is free, yes, but you almost need a computer science degree to use it. I wish we had a really great compression component and a really great uploading component that we could use in our Web-based apps. You should just be able to drag an MPG2 file onto a target and have the system do everything else for you.

Well, that's my video rant for the day.

Free Video Content for Your Sony PSP

You've got your shiny black beast home and charged and you've already watched Spider-Man 2 twice—what video is next for your PSP? You can convert some of your own content using the software tools we listed in our PSP Omegapost (yes, I regret that name now, too), but if you just want some short free clips, we're starting a list of places to get free content that's already formated for your baby. As always, if you have a suggestion, send it in and we'll be happy to add it.

29 Guide's Daily PSP Downloads [29HDNetwork]
• Sony Connect Official Page [Connect]
• Move TiVo To Go to Your PSP [ZatzNotFunny]

Via Gizmodo

The Dead Media Project

Bruce Sterling's Dead Media Manifesto: It's a rather rare phenomenon for an established medium to die. If media make it past their Golden Vaporware stage, they usually expand wildly in their early days and then shrink back to some protective niche as they are challenged by later and more highly evolved competitors. Radio didn't kill newspapers, TV didn't kill radio or movies, video and cable didn't kill broadcast network TV; they just all jostled around seeking a more perfect app.

But some media do, in fact, perish. Such as: the phenakistoscope. The teleharmonium. The Edison wax cylinder. The stereopticon. The Panorama. Early 20th century electric searchlight spectacles. Morton Heilig's early virtual reality. Telefon Hirmondo. The various species of magic lantern. The pneumatic transfer tubes that once riddled the underground of Chicago. Was the Antikythera Device a medium? How about the Big Character Poster Democracy Wall in Peking in the early 80s?

The collection of dead media working notes is an ad hoc database of the deceased, the slowly-rotting, the undead, and the never-lived media.

Via Cinema Minima

This Is Not A Review of the Marantz PMD660 Pocketable podcasting field recorder.

I just saw a post on Gizmodo yesterday suggesting the new Edirol R-1 as a most excellent high-end pocketable podcast field recorder. A lot of people seem to be interested in this one, and for good reason: the R-1 has some nice specs for such a small frame. But there's one thing that really bugs me about dropping 4-large on a good field recorder: the lack of XLR inputs.

To me, a 1/4" to mini-plug adapter for mic input sometimes equals noise and I've been told that in audio recording, unintended noise is bad. If you're a podcaster who's going to spend that much on a pocketable field recorder, may I suggest the Marantz PMD660 instead?

(By the way, I use the term 'pocketable' as distinct from 'portable'. The way most manufacturers figure it, anything under 15lbs can have a cheap strap attached to it. And anything with a strap must be 'portable.' Add a strap to a pallet of bricks and it's portable.)

The PMD660 is about the same size as the R-1 and they share a lot of the same features. And while the Edirol does have a ton of cool effects built in to the box (which makes it quite appropriate for the home recording crowd), it's the extra IN/OUTs that make the PMD660 a more impressive pocket recorder to me. Having used the PMD660 for a community radio project, I can say that it just works. And next time I'm at my local pro shop, I'll take a look at the R-1. Looking at it on spec, it seems impressive.



But the XLR inputs (two of them on the PMD660) gives you a ton more options on what mic, mixing, and capture gear you can go in to and out of. What neither unit has is a digital optical input which keeps me from being able to replace the Marantz PMD660 I use for live event recording.

If you're a beginning podcaster with a need for field gear, start off with an inexpensive (sub-$150) flash recorder that'll take an external mic via it's line in jack. The iriver 700-series is perfect for this. (Also check out PWOP's recommendations for a home podcasting kit.) If you're an intermediate podcaster looking to spend a little more for a good solid state field recorder, check out the R-1, but make sure that you check out the PMD660 as well.

Creative Commons Yahoo! search

Via Cinema Minima

[no title]

Doug Kaye interviews Marc Canter and JD Lasica on the launch of Ourmedia.org.

Via Andrew Grumet's Weblog

Brightcove will soon give you a place to sell your wares

RSS Feed for Cinema Minima

Via Cinema Minima

Student Suspended For Posting Photo Of Principal Breaking The Law

Via Techdirt

Phone cultures set nations apart

European and US culture differ in many things, including in the way they use telephones.

Choices made by governments and companies can mean teens in Athens, Georgia, talk on their fixed-line phones for four hours a day while those in Athens, Greece, send four text messages on their mobile phones.

While the European Commission helps promote a uniform phone standard across the Union. The Federal Communications Commission in Washington lets the market decide.

Details in ChinaDaily.

Playstation Portable now on sale

Via Lost Remote

Getting Broadband Through Your Cell Phone

Via Broadbandreports

Social TV

You just knew this kind of potato salad would happen. BusinessWeek reports on a PARC project, promising the social aspects of the Super Bowl experience without the dropped popcorn and the spilled beer:

The Social TV project is in research stages right now. But the idea is that, with the help of a bit of software, perhaps a keyboard or two and several strategically-placed microphones, people can remotely discuss a TV program while they are watching it. You’ll be able to see which of your buddies is watching which program in his or her house, and join into the viewing. Or, you might start a program-watching session of your own and invite friends.

Indeed, in many ways, Social TV will be similar to the Instant Messenger you already use on your computer. Only it will be more dynamic: Social TV software, located on a device like TiVo or even your TV set, might notice that your and your buddy’s yacking has gone well past the commercial break. The software would conclude that you are no longer watching the show and, perhaps, pause the program until you are ready to resume, says Nic Ducheneau, member of PARC research staff.

The follow-on invention, of course, is a social spam filter that mutes your friends when you are trying to watch TV.

Via Many-to-Many

SourceForge.net: Project Info - Scuttle

"Online social bookmarks manager. Allows multiple users to add, edit, tag and share their bookmarks through any browser connected to the Internet."

How to succeed as a citizen media editor

"But who do you put on the front line? Who can oversee these efforts with a light but discerning touch, allowing free speech without inviting lawsuits? That's the role of the new citizen media editor, a role that's only now coming into focus at various sites such as MSNBC.com, VenturaCountyStar.com, NorthwestVoice.com and News-Record.com."

('Citizen Media Editors'? 'Blogwranglers' is more like it. ;) -kc.)

Bloggers' future influence on the media industry

"While blogging is wielding some influence in media and political circles, traditional news outlets are still the dominant sources of information for the American public." This quote from a CNN/USA/Gallup Poll released on March 22 may hold water today, but what future effects does the media industry expect from these digital diaries? The answers are diverse.

1. The age gap: The Gallup Poll demonstrates figures of blog readership (correlating to internet use) that are the opposite of figures of newspaper readership. Whereas 61% of the 65 and older age group read a daily paper, only 32% of 18 to 29 year-olds do the same. On the other hand, a mere 33% of the older demographic consult the internet, 28% of which read blogs, whereas 91% of the younger age group use the internet with 44% browsing the blogosphere.

2. The changing newsroom: As online citizens' media websites such as OhMyNews are turning profitable, Mark Glaser has written an article at the Online Journalism Review that describes the evolution of a new type of editor: the citizen media editor (CME). Although there is no paper yet with this official title, Glaser predicts that more will surface such as they already have at MSNBC.com or NorthwestVoice.com. He defines the CME as "Part chat moderator, part copy editor and part ombudsman."

3. The media's PR role: an article in Toronto's The Globe and Mail shows that blogs are diminishing the media's role as a public relations tool. Blogs, theoretically written by "normal people," empower companies to have direct contact with their consumers, thus bypassing the media who traditionally has played a major role in PR firms' message. A prediction that blogs will become more influential in swaying public opinion comes from two "trust" polls, one in Canada and one in the United States. The first showed that 55% of Canadians trust a "person like yourself," falling only behind academics and doctors, and that 56% of Americans do the same, up from a mere 22% of peer trust only two years ago.

4. The business opportunities: "The value of blogs to businesses is their ability to enable and facilitate communication," says Frank Barnako at Market Watch. He goes on to say that blogs are both good and bad for publishers; good because their content is being read, attracting people to their website, but bad because it becomes impossible to charge for their content. Chuck Richard, vice-president of Outsell Inc., a technology market research firm that has recently released a report on blogs concurs that "they are going to be big." A similar article at The Deal provides a summary of the venture capital that is being presently put into blogs and citizens' media. Although it notes that it's still early in the blogging game, the article predicts that "social media" investments will not experience the same crash landing that technology companies went through in 2001: Citizens' media is "Not the next bubble."

Source: CNN/USA Today/Gallup, Online Journalism Review, The Globe and Mail, MarketWatch (registration required), and The Deal

DVD Blowing Away Box Office

Via Cinema Minima

Geert Lovinks concepts in critical internet culture

dr. G. Lovink (IAM) The principle of notworking - Concepts in Critical Internet Culture. (PDF; 2196 KB)(English)

Media theorist, net critic and activist dr. Geert Lovink focusses in this public lecture on three conceptual fields: the relation between multitude, network and culture,the art of collaboration and ‘free cooperation ’, and finally he presents elements of a theory of ‘organized networks ’.

Lovink critically observes the network dilemmas in the age of smartmobs and describes the impact of smartmobs, social software and social networking.

(..) "A key question of my recent work has been how networks deal with the ‘frus-trated ’,those who breach the consensus culture.After 9/11 and the following instalment of a global security regime,this is no longer such an odd question. The age of the ‘true believer ’ is over,,as amateur mass psychologist Eric Hoffer (1951) described this twentieth century figure in his study on mass move-ments. Networks are ultimately an obstacle for those who want to sacrifice their lives for a holy cause. To use networks for propaganda purposes is pos-sible but not as effective as old school broadcast media.".

The videostream of this public lecture delivered in Amsterdam on February 24 2005

transcript of the public lecture (in dutch)

earlier on Smartmobs 'Uncanny networks'

Geert Lovink is Lector Interactive Media on the Hogeschool of Amsterdam

Via Smart Mobs

Anti-censorship legislation

FMQB informs about a bill introduced by a Vermont legislator to halt the possibility of censorship of programming on cable/satellite television and the Internet.

Want to see an uproar of the financial sense? People would start seriously limiting their cable television and other Internet usage if censorship went into effect across the board on those distribution channels - or at least try doing things on the down low. You see, technology always wins. If we're going to make uncensored content illegal in the same sense that something as horrible as child pr0n is, then we might as well just make "Fahrenheit 451" the national book.

Let's try talking some sense into ourselves before taking the nannyism to a higher level, okay?

Via The Media Drop

P2P and Human Evolution

Michel Bauwens has written a phenomenal essay entitled P2P and Human Evolution: Placing Peer to Peer Theory in an Integral Framework. It’s long and much of it goes far over my head, but reads like a P2P manifesto — Bauwens even concludes by calling it “a guide to an active participation in the transformation of our world, into something better, more participative, more free, more creative.” Really quite fascinating.

Via Disinformation.

Via The Peer-to-Peer Weblog

Mobile phone plan for Tube users

Passengers will be able to use their mobile phones on all parts of the London underground by 2008, reports the BBC.

"London mayor Ken Livingstone has announced plans to install transmitters which will also allow access to wireless internet and digital radio.

In the down side, concerns were raised by the Liberal Democrats last year about the security risks of such plans. And both the Lib Dems and the Conservatives warned the new technology could allow terrorists to detonate bombs remotely. "

(~~sniff~~ -kc.)

Via textually.org

rfid music player

don’t take off your tinfoil hats quite yet, but just when you thought rfid tags were all about the man wanting to track you, somebody has come up with a more positive application.

dividuum figured that since some rfid tags can store a kilobyte of data, he should be able to gzip a sid audio file and squeeze it onto one of these larger tags. he then wrote some software for his pc that interfaces with an rfid reader and will play the sid file contained in a nearby tag. put a stack of cards next to the reader and it will cycle through them like a playlist.

follow the link if you want to download the source or check out a video of it in action.

Via hack a day

Microsoft ready to spring an eye toy on us?

CVG is reporting that Microsoft may jump in the eye controller game with their next console, the ol’ whats-its-name. You didn’t know there was such a thing as the “eye controller game”? Funny, neither did we, until we read the article. But Sony’s version is a hell of a lot of fun, and it does open up many more possibilities for the MS box. Especially if you consider the “customization” frenzy that Allard finds himself in. Oh yeah, he’s quoted in the piece. The guy is everywhere these days.

Via Joystiq

MessageCast to Launch Keyword Driven RSS Ad Network

MessageCast, a desktop/mobile RSS alerting tool, plans to launch context-appropriate ads for RSS feeds via a new keyword program that sorts feeds into categories that can be purchased by marketers. Deborah Branscum has the scoop and more info here as well

Via Micro Persuasion

The Sitcommercial Makes a Return

Via Broadcasting

Primetime hypermedia: Why now?

The umbrella title for this series of columns--Primetime Hypermedia--suggests that, for what used to be called multimedia, the long march through the desert is finally over. The mission of these columns is to explore and document the promised land that we are now starting to colonize. But here's a question I've been asked a lot lately: Why now?

The question is subtler than you might think because, in some ways, little has changed. We've had audio and video on the internet for nearly as long as there's been an internet. At times I feel like an archaeologist hacking through underbrush to find artifacts left by an almost-forgotten tribe. When I investigated SMIL, for example, the trail I followed had been blazed years before. The video genre I've rechristened screencasting has antecedents that go back a decade or more, as does the audio genre now called podcasting. So, again, why now?

Two reasons. The platform for hypermedia has matured, and so has the publishing environment. In both cases, obvious and not-so-obvious factors are in play. [Full story at O'Reilly Network]

Via Jon's Radio

Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences

I'm going to have to get my hands on this book:

"Is this book sociology, anthropology, or taxonomy? Sorting Things Out, by communications theorists Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star, covers a lot of conceptual ground in its effort to sort out exactly how and why we classify and categorize the things and concepts we encounter day to day. But the analysis doesn't stop there; the authors go on to explore what happens to our thinking as a result of our classifications. With great insight and precise academic language, they pick apart our information systems and language structures that lie deeper than the everyday categories we use."

On another note, I've just been informed that I will be presenting at the Canadian Library Association on folksonomies as part of their hot topics track. Here's the description I sent in:

Tag - You're It!

"The collective intelligence of Web users is not new. We have seen them work effectively in forums, newsgroups, and even electronic discussion lists. Social-tagging tools (also called folksonomies) such as del.icio.us, Furl, Flickr, Digg, and Feedmarker move this collective work into new ontological avenues. The presenter will discuss why information professionals should embrace the unstructured nature of folksonomies and how they can be best implemented into the structured library community."

Bring the distribution channel to us

So Jeremy Allaire talked about Brightcove [Monday] at PC Forum. Hidden between the hyperbole, rehashed models and ever hopeful attitude were nuggets of brilliance that I wanted to highlight to you folks. And sorry for the shitty photo - J. I'm clearly NOT a photographer.

Up until now - all video on demand interfaces have been giant shopping catalogs. Download sites today are also catalogs - as they enable customers to 'walk the virtual aisles, browsing for music or video - just as one browses for web pages or up and down search results lists.

But Brightcove has turned the notion of distribution channel back onto itself. Any Brightcove publisher, after using the Brightcove tools to encode and upload their work onto Brightcove's servers, can then take special javascript code and embed the entire 'DRM-like playback/chooser interface' directly into their own web page.

This not only gives the publisher a convienient way of promoting one's products by 'baking it into' one's own site, but it also gives Brightcove a great viral way of spreading their brand and services!

It's brilliant!

So congrats to Jeremy Allaire and co on that one. Maybe next time - we'll find out MORE about what you're doing.

To my eyes - I saw the ON2 codec - a beautiful, hi-res codec and pseudo-sexy Flex interface (the Laszlo stuff is better - needless to say.)

And I'd also like to shout out to Brightcove's investors. This is gonna be on drawn out battle of attribition. If it didn't work for Atom/Shockwave - they sure as hell better figure out why it's gonna work this time around.

But I actually do agree that this is teh right model and the 'last man standing' - is gonna win - big!

UK TV Channel 5 offers Legal TV Show Download

We talked about TV stations to offer legal internet downloads of their shows. Now UK's Channel 5 seems to beat everybody in being the first TV channel to offer shows for download for a fee.

BBC News reports that channel five offers DVD quality downloads of their car show for £1.50. It looks like the billing is done via SMS and mobile phones.
The BBC story has also statistics from a survey with high numbers of brits download US TV shows. So Comedy Central! start offering the Daily Show for legal download now! The world is waiting for this.

My interview with ChangingMedia

Via Eric Rice

Blog, Vlog, Podcast, Mobcast

So many new words, so little time. Blog (web log), Vlog (video web log), Podcasting (including audio in your RSS (really simple syndication) feed for download into an Apple iPod or other MP3 player) and Mobcasting (mobile podcasting) an Andy Carvin acronym which posits the use of smart phones to create podcasts -- are all relatively new words that represent one extremely big idea -- unfettered plebeian access to the fifth estate.

Until a few years ago, governments (secular or non) had almost complete control of information. That made (and continues to make) information a form of currency -- like the military and other stores of economic value. These "new words" are much more powerful than the technologies they represent, they speak a new language of information and, to be sure, currency.

The value you will place on this information is in direct proportion to the use you have for it. Most people won't care about the rantings of a technophile or a housewife lamenting her need for appropriate child care -- or will they? Imagine a world where a group of protesters use their cell phones to acquire and document their experience with government forces and aggregate (and spin) that audio/video experience on the web. How about a simple group of friends witnessing a car accident or something worse.

We are at the dawn of a new era -- not the cliche version of the phrase -- "new era" the home game! Imagine the power of an individual when they are able to publish and internationally distribute audio and video more efficiently than CNN or Fox News. That's not years in the future ... it's already here. Want to believe? Check out some of the websites like http://tv.oneworld.net
or http://www.audiolink.com or http://www.audiolink.com and just play the tape .. err ... file to the end.

Everything is Possible - Storytelling in Games

Via Clippings.reblog

Between crisis, panic... and opportunity

"It's somewhere between crisis and a panic," says Todd Gitlin, professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University, New York. "The generation that lived through Woodward and Bernstein and Vietnam has almost gone. They had an idea that they could make a difference and that they were a force. It might have been pompous but it was there." ...

ption that the media has failed," says Michael Wolff, a media commentator and Vanity Fair columnist. "There is a general understanding that something has gone radically wrong here." It is a feeling coming from both outside the industry and from within. Gitlin was recently invited to a meeting at the Times to discuss how to combat the erosion of confidence and stagnant sales. "There was a real sense of urgency," he says. "They were asking some fundamental questions. It was not a casual exercise." I think we're moving onto the next phase, having gone through the stages of denial, resistance, and panic.

Whether at those darned conferences or in conversations with people I know, I now see big media looking -- some eagerly, some desperately -- for ways to embrace the new ways. It's more than a blogs-are-hot fad moment. I'm starting to see a realization that this is about a new relationship with the public, new ways to gather news and information, new ways to involve diverse viewpoints, and -- at long last -- new business models.

Via BuzzMachine

SimpleTech 128 GB Solid State SATA Drives

SimpleTech has announced their new Serial ATA Solid State Drive called the Zeus. Lacking any moving parts, it's effectively a gigantic flash drive with an SATA interface. The Zeus will be offered in capacities up to 128 gigabytes with read and write rates reaching 60 megabytes per second. (Being a solid state drive, though, it's true speed is in the seek time, which is negligible.) The drives are also only 9.5 millimeters tall, making them easily stackable and expandable. No word on price, but assume it will require a second mortgage, considering their 8GB CF card was selling for $6,000 last year.

Press Release [SimpleTech via DesignTechnica]
More from SimpleTech: 8GB CompactFlash card [Gizmodo]

Via Gizmodo

Why The Long Tail of video is about to get longer

Via CyberJournalist.net

Adding more metadata to .torrents

7:license
d
     5:about
     43:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ 
e
4:tags
l
     11:hello world
     10:folksonomy
     11:another tag
e

Film Financed By the People, For the People

There's a new type of connection being formed between people and the products they buy, including film and television audiences. Books like the Cluetrain Manifesto have identified how people have built communication networks to establish this connection. As customers, people are becoming more and more involved in the creation and promotion - they're interacting in ways we haven't seen before. And now there's the opportunity to contribute to the development and financing of independent film in small doses. Movieforthemasses.com is looking for small contributions to their projects and allowing input into which projects move forward. It's an interesting idea - financially contributing to someone elses passion so that you can partake in the end result. Are people ready or willing to actually do it? I don't know, but if people start to consider how much they're spending for a movie ticket and what they're actually getting, they may appreciate the idea of contributing less to the movie house and potentially gaining more from the experience.

Statement from movieforthemasses.com
Home of IBI
Full Story from Hollywood Reporter
Blurb from HLA

Via ploosh!

Exploding Radio II

This week has brought more evidence that radio is an industry in the midst of disruptive transformation. The big news was that Viacom is planning to split off its broadcasting side, including the troubled Infinity radio division. But there were many smaller signals as well that radio as we know it is about to change. For instance:

* Arbitron and comScore Media Metrix released the online radio ratings for January, which for the first time include Live365. Led by Yahoo! Music, AOL and MSN, the four top streaming radio sites now have nearly 5m listeners a week. That's not only a lot, but it means (if I'm reading the stats right on the "persons using radio data" here) that the top Internet radio sites have more listeners than any US radio station.


* The WSJ had a great page one piece (inspired by our own cover package, I suspect) that discusses how the trend to ever-tighter playlists is now reversing as stations play more music. With listenership at a multi-decade low, they recognize that the quest to keep listeners by using market research to pick the perfect top 40 has now proven a failure. Instead, more stations are playing more eclectic, even iPod-like, mixes. They're also starting to cut down on ads, which today make up an oppressive 22 minutes per hour for many stations.

Meanwhile, there's been a lot of interesting Exploding Radio commentary and analysis around the web this week:

* Barry Ritholtz, a good financial analyst, adds an interesting perspective to the WSJ piece:

One thing I note as missing is a discussion of the long term generational effect, and the threat to a possible radio recovery: Since 1996, radio's decay has led to an entire generation of listeners who have essentially written off radio (at least, when it comes to music).

The other key issue: Radio as a source of new music, and its relationship to the labels. It used to be part of the draw -- a relationship with a trusted DJ who plays music you like, combined with introducing you to new songs (trust is the key component in granting someone taste-maker status).

* Technology Liberation Front, a blog worth subscribing to, has an excellent analysis of why concern over Clear Channel's radio "monopoly" is so misplaced. It also notes an amazing (and very encouraging) new white paper from the FCC:

"[T]he Scarcity Rationale for regulating traditional broadcasting is no longer valid.” So begins a stunning new white paper from the Federal Communications Commission. In the paper, “The Scarcity Rationale for Regulating Traditional Broadcasting: An Idea Whose Time Has Passed,” author John Beresford, an attorney with the FCC’s Media Bureau, lays out a devastating case against the Scarcity Rationale, which has governed spectrum & broadcast regulation in the United States for over seven decades.

* The Pew Internet Project released a report that finds that the Internet surpassed radio as a source of political news for the first time last year.

* NPR's "Here and Now" show had a segment on exploding radio, based on our issue (I was a guest). You can listen to it here.

* Fred Wilson, a NYC VC who has written some of the best analysis of radio's future, disagrees with my flip assessment that radio is "hosed". Two responses: 1) I meant "radio as we know it" 2) That was "endism"--exaggerating decline for rhetorical effect--and it's okay.

New media for the Mobile

People that have been wondering what ever happened to Macromedia Flash on Mobile Phones beware. After visiting Macromedia at 3GSM and CeBIT I downloaded the Flash Lite Player to my 6630 and started developing some content and was thrilled. It's as easy as any Flash authoring and integrates nicely into the phone UI. Within minutes I had the first app up and running and the possibilities for developing content are nearly limitless. Now if you think of the tens of thousands Flash developer out there, only one challenge remains: Macromedia must get the Flash player on every mobile. And they have signed deals with Samsung and Nokia to do just that. There is no doubt that a new wave of multi media content and applications will come to a mobile near you. So stay tuned and if you really cannot wait, you can purchase and download the flash player for your mobile from the Macromedia website and see for yourself.

We thank Christian Ehl for writing this article.

Wikimania Call for Papers

The announcement speaks for itself:

Wikimania 2005 - The First International Wikimedia Conference will be held in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, from 4 August 2005 to 8 August 2005. Wikimedia is the non-profit organization operating Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wikinews, Wikiquote, Wikispecies, and the Wikimedia Commons. We are now accepting papers and other submissions (from everyone within and outside the Wikimedia and Wikipedia communities) for presentations, workshops, and discussion groups. We are also accepting nominations for speaker panels and keynote speakers, and suggestions for other activities. Mail all submissions to cfp@wikimedia.org. For more conference information, see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Main_Page

Via Smart Mobs

Blogs Get Prime Exposure on CNN

USA Today: Mainstream media continue to be wary of Internet bloggers because the reporting and opinions on their Web sites are often not subject to journalistic checks and balances, such as editing and rules on sourcing. But Jon Klein, a former CBS News producer who jumped to an Internet venture before being tapped to run CNN a few months ago, says that there's no sense in ignoring the "blogosphere," which is why he has created a daily, four-minute segment on Inside Politics.

Via Micro Persuasion

BBC sees potential in downloads

Via Lost Remote

Netflix Close to 3 Million Members

This image was at the top of the Netflix Web site:



I wonder if they'll be giving out Reed Hastings bobbleheads this time.

Here come the VJs

Of all the radical ideas that I've pitched over the years, none gets more criticism than the notion that a broadcast newsroom can run efficiently and more like a newspaper if we (mostly) abandon the idea of 2-person crews. Video Journalists (VJs) are individuals who shoot with small, consumer digital cameras (like Sony's PD-170 and Canon's GL-2) and edit on laptops with Final Cut Pro software.

This concept is sweeping Europe, thanks to the efforts of Michael Rosenblum. His vision is a newsroom where everyone is a VJ, and local television in England, Sweden, Germany and other countries are adopting it quickly. But not in America. Why? Good question.

That may change now that two VJs from the WashingtonPost.com have won National Press Photographer Association (NPPA) TV News awards. The loudest objections to the VJ concept have come from station photographers, many of them NPPA members. Now that their association has given their stamp of approval to the work done by VJs, it's just a matter of time before U.S. TV stations move to Rosenblum's system.

If you're currently employed in a TV newsroom, I suggest you approach this with an open mind.

(Back in my public broadcasting days we had a name for our one-person crews. We called them 'underfunded.' I think the unions called them 'illegal.' ;) -kc.)

Context: Journal on Media, Community Intersection

The Winter 2005 edition of Context, produced by the UCLA Center for Communication and Community, devotes this issue to the rise of community voice and the grassroots organizing and the technology that is helping advance the movement.

Via PJNet Today

CyberJournalist.net - New citizen journalism site, NowPublic, to launch

A new multimedia "citizen journalism" site called NowPublic is getting ready to launch. The site will allow readers to "assign" stories to reporters; sign up to be a reporter; file photographs, video and MP3s; and "build your own newsroom" and follow the news with "watchlists."

According to the beta version of the site, which is now password-protected, here's how the site will work:

First, a member logs in and opens an assignment for a reporter. Once the assignment is opened, it appears on the homepage of all reporters (provided they are logged in) in the area. Once a reporter has filed a photograph, video or MP3, then the assignment becomes a news story and appears in the developing news section and within the appropriate categories.

Via del.icio.us/tag/journalism

A Look At The FCC’s Scarcity Policy

From this page, FCC, Media Bureau Staff Research Papers Affecting Media Policy and Regulation, you can get to John Berresford’s Scarcity Rationale for Regulating Traditional Broadcasting: An Idea Whose Time Has Passed which has garnered a certain amount of comment (CoCo, Freedom to Tinker, The Technology Liberation Front, Progress & Freedom Foundation Blog)

Abstract

This paper concludes that the Scarcity Rationale for regulating traditional broadcasting is no longer valid. The Scarcity Rationale is based on fundamental misunderstandings of physics and economics, efficient resource allocation, recent field measurements, and technology. It is outmoded in today’s media marketplace. Perhaps in recognition of the Rationale’s flaws, many variations of it have been attempted, but none fares much better under sensible, factual analysis.

Jumping off from National Broadcasting Co,. Inc., et al. v. United States et al.; 319 U.S. 190 (1943) and Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC; 395 U.S. 367 (1969)

Via Furdlog

What's a hit worth?

Jerry Romano sent me a short news clipping, "19 Entertainment owns the format rights to Pop Idol, here known as American Idol, and pulls in an estimated $1 billion annually in merchandising, ad sales, sponsorships, etc." along with a simple personal message,"WOW!" What is more remarkable: the fact that American Idol is can gross $1B annually or the fact that it is a simple talent show with a slight twist?

I think the lesson to be learned from 19 Entertainment is that there is nothing more powerful than a simple, time-tested concept, well executed. Reinventing the wheel is fun, but perfecting the packaging is genius. We know the old adage, "Artists create, pros steal and genius steals from itself." The international distribution and protection of the Idol format is truly genius and the revenue is simply a measure of how well the company has executed its plan.

There's not much else to learn from this. Their success is unique to their team and execution. You can intellectualize the idea that you need to have a hit, but you can't manufacture them. Hits have one component that can not be intellectualized ... magic. You can call it what you want, but magic, an extraordinary power or influence seemingly from a supernatural source, will do just fine. Consumers make hits, not producers. So, kudos to 19 Entertainment for a job well done, but following their business plan will not guarantee you the same results.

Bitmunk lets you make a profit with legitimate P2P

Back in August we reported on Bitmunk, a new music service a la iTunes Music Store or (the new) Napster. Details were few back then, but now it looks like Bitmunk is up and running, and here’s the twist: When you buy a song from Bitmunk, you can turn around and sell it to others, with a part of the transaction going to the artist and the rest going into your pocket (as demonstrated by the scary cartoon on the right, from Bitmunk’s official documentation).

Bitmunk seems to have gotten most (all?) of its music through a deal with CD Baby. Unfortunately, the site is fairly dismal when it comes to finding good music, with an absence of user ratings, Top 10 lists, or even a search button, and the process to get started buying and selling music looks pretty convoluted, but if they can get their act together, they just might be on to something.

Via The Peer-to-Peer Weblog

QuickTime Latency

I have done exhaustive research regarding this in the past but I still have persistent problems with latency when using QuickTime or MPEG-4 streaming in my projects so I am doing the research again (and posting it here so I can find it later).

Here are the links for further examination (from Apple's Mailing Lists):
Latency on Streaming Server - Some information - How to change a setting on the QTSS that controls one aspect of latency created by the server.
Re: latency problem - Explains the reasoning for the latency from Apple's point of view.
Re: Instant-On & double frame rate - Gives a rundown on editing the server config to reduce latency.
Re: Video conferencing - More of the same
Getting real-time streaming to be more real-time - interesting note regarding specifing time stamp increments in video/audio samples to reduce latency. A major hack.
Re: I found there are more than 7 seconds time delay between the real live - More about what the latency is all about.
Re: Getting real-time streaming to be more real-time - Change the SDP file to set the default buffer on the player lower.
Re: Streaming latency between two separate computers - Use multicast
Re: Request for User-Configurable Latency Parameters - One of the original emails quoted above for changing latency parameters.
Re: buffering time - Changing buffering time in home made QT playback app (using QT API, should therefore work with QT4J).
Re: buffering time - More of the same.

Last: Use these libraries to build own streaming server and client: LIVE.COM Streaming Media: RTP/RTCP and RTSP Open Source Libraries

Ok.. now to try out all of the possibilities..

Self-healing networks

John Borland profiles some research out of Cornell University on self-healing P2P networks (where "network" includes the people as well as the software+hardware). The goal is to permit network users to root out spam, but Credence could also easily be used to remove the various spoof and decoy files that the Cartel has used to pollute the P2P waters.

Via Copyfight

PSP Video 9 - PSPcasting

(Also check out iPSP. Good find, Josh. -kc.)

Hint: It's Hyperbole

A predictable uproar will soon erupt in the blogosphere over Tina Brown's latest column (reg req) for the Washington Post. The piece, after rambling around a bit, ends up being a useful exploration of why our society has become so dangerously risk-averse, and notably so in our private lives.

Bloggers are already starting to complain about one sentence in this paragraph:

We are in the Eggshell Era, in which everyone has to tiptoe around because there's a world of busybodies out there who are being paid to catch you out -- and a public that is slowly being trained to accept a culture of finks. We're always under surveillance; cameras watch us wherever we go; paparazzi make small fortunes snapping glamour goddesses picking their noses; everything is on tape, with transcripts available. No matter who you are, someone is ready and willing to rat you out. Even the rats themselves have to look over their shoulders, because some smaller rat is always waiting in the wings. Bloggers are the new Stasi. All the timidity this engenders, all this watching your mouth has started to feel positively un-American.

Via Dan Gillmor on Grassroots Journalism, Etc.

MSNBC: "HERE COME THE VLOGS"

MSNBC: Ready for your close-up? Here come the vlogs is a great snapshot of videoblogging by Michael Rogers. He namechecks all our favorites including Rocketboom, Ryanne, Jay, Human Dog, Steve Garfield, and Dylan. He also mentions the tools making it easier to find videoblogs, such as ANT and MeFeedia. And, inescapably, Serious Magic's Vlog It! software, which nobody I know actually uses.

Check out Rocketboom's aggregation of SXSWi video/audio/pics/text and the official video coverage of SXSW for all the geekery you'd ever want to munch on.

If you're just looking for fun, please immediately watch Dylan's latest vid, Toys of Our Lives, where Dylan's dolls engage in sick and hilarious romantic shenanigans. Then why not see me "shake my thing" (am I saying that right?) on 6th Street in Austin for DanceFlash - it was like a mini-Burning Man.

Via Blogumentary

Avid to buy Pinnacle

Via Lost Remote

Yahoo Acquires Flickr (And They Better Not Screw It Up)

Via PaidContent.org

Ourmedia Launches

(at the moment, their servers aren't fully handling the new load, but ourmedia is a service to keep an eye on. -dm)

Micropayment Smart Codes

At first glance, Micropayment Smart Codes: New Online Payment System to Help Artists Make a Living seems like a jillion other schemes out there. I'm interested in this one, however, because the author, John S. James, proved himself to be a profound thinker and hands-on innovator when I first began exploring social cyberspaces more than 20 years ago. In Tools for Thought, I wrote about Origins, a practical spiritual practice that popped up on one of the first sophisticated BBS systems, CommuniTree. Yesterday, twenty two years after I stumbled on it, I heard from John James, who created CommuniTree and ORIGINS in 1978. He offers his Smart Codes plan under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license.

I designed a new way of making small payments online, with advantages over current systems such as credit cards or PayPal. It uses secret, computer-controlled ("smart") payment codes that can reproduce any number of "children" codes, through any number of generations, creating family trees that inherit options, properties, and services. Anyone with a smart code can pay anyone else who has one. And anybody who buys or is given a smart code can use it immediately, like a universal gift card that can receive money also -- without ever registering, logging in, giving personal information, or having a user name or password.

This payment system could help artists sell downloads of their work at low prices through social networks worldwide, with little or no startup expense or hassle. It could help solve the download-copy problem by allowing supporters of the artist or the art to buy download permissions in bulk and give them away to selected communities, which could pass them on -- so that most downloads could be free while the artist still gets paid for every one. Also, smart codes will help organizations raise money -- especially for causes likely to be recognized as historically important (for reasons explained below).

The estimated processing cost per financial transaction with smart codes is about a tenth of a cent.

Via Smart Mobs

Blogspot Eclipses NYTimes.com in Traffic

More fun with Alexa, this time from Rick Bruner. Collectively the blogs hosted on Blogspot (e.g. most Blogger blogs) get more visitors than NYTimes.com.

TiVo's going to Japan

All we have now is a headline that reads "TiVo to launch in Japan by 2006 - report" and this short blurb:

TiVo Inc. is expected to launch its digital recording service in Japan as early as next year, according to a published report Sunday. The Alviso, Calif.-based company will form a Japanese unit and is looking to partner with local cable television networks and Internet providers as part of the deal, reported the Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

We believe the headline to be an imperative statement, telling reporters to do their job and publish some details on this story; there's not a lot more in the new about this story yet. We'll update this post when new details (by which we mean any details) emerge. One question remains: do the Japanese even like gadgets?

Via PVRblog

Re-Mixable (videoblogging) Stock Footage Repository

(I hope they don't mind us sharing this with the rest of the community. Drop me a line if we should pull this back ;) -kc.)

Via videoblogging at Yahoo! Groups

Streaming Media East 2005: - May 17-18 2005 - New York, NY.

Streaming Media East 2005: New York, NY
The exhibitors list has been published.. Some interesting things, like Webcast in a Box (although I think it is Real only). What I don't understand is why companies continue to market themselves and their products as "proprietary". For me, a streaming media professional, this means, stay away, far away..

Via sLop

StreamTranscoder

This command line application was designed to provide opportunities for broadcasters to support multiple types of formats/bitrates/samplerates for their streams. It will act as both a listener client (for many different types of streams) AND as a source client (for many different types of streaming servers.

AFP Sues Google Over Google News

Via PaidContent.org

Notes on Internet Movie Financing

The holy grail of independent movie financing will be the ability for independent movie makers to utilize the internet to raise funds for their movies, collecting a dollar here and a dollar there from a prospective mass audience.  To contribute to the overuse of the 'Long Tail' meme, let's call it the 'Long Tail' of movie financing.  I've seen a few nascent attempts at this, with Civilian.com's Ethan Hawke movie being the most prominent.  MoviesForTheMasses is a new entry in the category and it will be interesting to see how successful they can be without any recognizable names.

Hollywood Reporter

TiVo 30-Second Commercial Skip Hack

eCoustics has instructions on how to program a button on the Tivo Remote to act as a 30 second skip button, like the ReplayTV has. I still remember the days owning a ReplayTV 5000 series that automatically skipped commercials.

Details on how to get your Tivo to have a skip button visit eCoustics.

Amateurs vs Professionals

In yesterday's discussion and in Charles Leadbeater's discussion the day before, there was a lot of talk about the rights of amateurs, the "pro-am revolution" and other arguments about how amateur content and creativity was important. I described how in the blogging world, it's mostly the people who create content who "pay" in contrast to the professional content world where it is the creator who gets paid. I talked about how Creative Commons was really helpful for amateurs who were more passionate about having their works widely accessible than making money. This is not to say that Creative Commons isn't useful for other things of course.

There was a bit of slippage in the discussion in the afternoon when several people pointed out that maybe I was suggesting that amateurs shouldn't/couldn't become professionals. The point, if I understood it correctly, assumed that most amateurs wanted to be professionals and that somehow amateurs were proto-professionals or professional wannabes. At least some of them.

I think this is a mischaracterization and maybe a reason to dump the word "amateur". I think that in the case of many amateurs such as many bloggers, Wikipedians and most open source developers, the amateurs are happy being amateurs and don't feel that they are in any way inferior to their professional counterparts. Many of the heads of open source projects have a day job, but probably believe that they are superior to comparable professionals at Microsoft or other software companies. I doubt that many Wikipedians wish that they could get paid for what they do. There are very few people who prefer professional sex to amateur sex. (I think I got this example from Steve Weber's book.)

My sister pointed this out to me last week by IM as well. I think the answer lies in the mode of production. Money creates a power relationship between the payer and the payee. I think cases where the production is happening in some sort of enterprise or a "firm" where having a manager and having access to resources allows production to be more efficiently, financial relationships and "professionalism" seem to "feel OK." On the other hand, when working in what Yochai Benkler calls "commons-based peer-production," the "professionalism" is replaced by amateur passion as a primary driver.

I pointed out several times yesterday that I don't want to impinge on the rights of professionals, but I believe that monopolistic professional organizations such as rights collection agencies, the Hollywood lobbies and Microsoft are hurting the ability for amateur artists from participating by creating technology and legislation that focuses exclusively on protection instead of the sharing of creativity. I think it is the role of government to call into question the practices of these monopolies which are the unfortunately byproduct of an unchecked free market economy and prevent the passing of legislature that increases the power of these monopolies such as software patents and extension of copyright terms. Instead, they should be focusing on activities that make it more difficult for such monopolies to form such as focusing on open standards and open source and whenever possible, preventing proprietary standards from being funded by public funds.

Comment - TrackBack

Remote Vjs control

For the VJ who wants to join clubbers on the dance floor and still keep control over the video, Belmer Negrillo has imagined Go Dance . So far, there's only a prototype. But the concept is brilliant.

The tool would allow Vjs to control the video mixing remotely, without wires, and with more natural gestures (than keyboard, mouse and sliders).



People could also use the tool in a kind of simpler "user mode" to play with the video in the screen, learning how it works on the fly by looking at the visual feedbacks.

The prototype consists in a wrist brace, 8 pin-buttons (in fact RFId tags) with icons that identifies basic commands for VJ and a box connected to the computer by USB port.

The pin-buttons, which can be attached to the garment by pins or Velcro, are basic commands (play or increase speed). Besides, the VJ can use arm and body movements to produce analog and continuous changes into the video properties.

Video scenario.
Related: DJHammer.

Via we make money not art

Kaiser Foundation Survey: Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-olds

The Kaiser Family Foundation has just released the results of a survey of media use among 3rd through 12th graders. More than 2,000 youth participated in the project, which comprised answering detailed questionnaires and, for nearly 700 self-selected participants, maintaining seven-day media diaries.

The survey, Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-Olds, found children and teens are spending an increasing amount of time using “new media” like computers, the Internet and video games, but without cutting back on the time they spend with “old” media like TV, print and music. They manage this by media-multitasking.

Via morph

MovieSeer and IFILM Provide 3G Video To Asia

Movieseer has licensed video content from iFilms for distribution in 13 countries and territories in Asia. The content includes “more than 20,000 pieces of digital media including short movies, video clips, movie trailers, TV clips and music videos”. “MovieSeer will create a portal of select properties from the IFILM catalog reformatted for distribution across all mobile phone platforms”, and the service will initially launch in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia.

Microformats could describe online news intelligently | Holovaty.com

A lot of the buzz at South by Southwest was about the concept of microformats, which are lightweight, informal standards for adding metadata to Web pages by using existing XHTML elements. Tantek Çelik and Eric Meyer both spoke enthusiastically about the idea, and I'm grateful I had a chance to speak with both personally.

A good example is XFN, a way of identifying human relationships within a Web page's code by putting a rel attribute on <a> tags. (I've written about XFN previously.) For instance, I'm friends with Simon Willison, so I put rel="friend" in the link to his Web site, and services such as rubhub do cool things with the aggregated data.

It works, because it's easy for humans to understand, easy to implement, uses existing infrastructure (XHTML) and solves a small, specific problem.

Measuring the Blogosphere's Influence

Technorati's David Sifry writes that the following chart shows the most influential media sites on the web are still well-funded mainstream media (MSM) sites, however, a lot of bloggers are achieving a significant amount of attention and influence. Blogs like Boing Boing and Instapundit are highly influential, especially among technology and political thought leaders, and sites like Gizmodo are seeing as much influence as mainstream media sites like MTV.com.

Via Micro Persuasion

MacKinnon's "Blogging, Journalism..." roundup at The Nation

Via The Media Drop

Help defend bloggers’ rights to keep their sources secret

Boing Boing is going into bat for the California 3 in the Apple v Bloggers case and needs your help:

Boing Boing will be signing onto a bloggers’ “amicus brief.” Our lawyer is Stanford’s Lauren Gelman, and she needs your help for the brief. She writes: “I need links to news stories broken by bloggers– things a court can look at and say ‘this looks like what we traditionally think of as journalism.’ I am particularly interested in examples of stories based on sources, but any news will do. I will use these both as facts for the brief and I want to attach printouts from the blogs as attachments to it. I’m looking for as many as 50 examples, but I need at least 10.”

If your able to help email your comments with links to gelman@stanford.edu.

Via The Blog Herald: more blog news more often

Podcast advertising RSS metadata

Via Scripting News

Replicating Rapid-Prototyper

Adrian Bowyer, from Bath University (England), envisions a make-it-all machine that would enable you to design and manufacture yourself plates and many other consumer goods.

The idea is based on the "rapid prototype machines" used by industry to make plastic auto parts. A concept is detailed in 3D on a computer, and the machine manufactures the item automatically.



Bowyer thinks the machines, called Replicating Rapid-Prototypers, will even manufacture themselves, as little robotic factories could be instructed to make copies of themselves, and the clones would make more, and so on until the price of each became reasonable.

The researcher says he'll put his plans in stages over the next four years on the Internet, so anyone can build one of these self-cloning devices.

The idea is not new. Bowyer's device, if he succeeds, would be a techno-child of the never-built Universal Constructor, proposed in the 1950s by John von Neumann.

Via LifeScience. More details in PhysOrg.

Via we make money not art

Free AV Mixer with Effects (Mac)

Neuromixer Pro is a full-featured DJ style video mixer designed for live performance visual artists and musicians. With NM Pro, you can change playback speed, select loop range, set cue points, forward and reverse on two seperate video banks. The ability to control NM Pro via MIDI hardware such as a MIDI keyboard frees you from the restrictions of the mouse, allowing total control over the videos.

Can’t We Just Make The Internet More Like TV?

This Register article, Don’t let etopians define net literacy, is based upon a larger paper, Influence and Control: Getting Citizens to Behave in a Digital Society, part of Manifesto for a Digital Britain from the Institute for Public Policy Research. While the Register article is something of a muddle, the paper has a clearer, albeit surprisingly disturbing, message:

The current state of the Internet is often characterised as being in the midst of a battle between anarchy and control: a fight between proprietary models and the open source movement, consumers and producers, rights-holders and the “copyleft,” and moral guardians against misbehaving users. The outcomes of these battles do have important public policy ramifications, especially for the intellectual property regime and the mere conduit status of ISPs, which should be taken seriously. It is important the Government consider in the long term the choices we are currently facing and that, should either side win outright, the public is likely to be the loser.

For the majority of the public, the battles go unnoticed, and bear no direct relevance to the every day workings of their lives and we should not lose sight of this. In so far as it is the role of regulation to protect the public, we need to find a policy approach which navigates a way through anarchy and control, does not compromise the functionality of the Internet for all but only provides choice where choice is needed. […]

[…] If media literacy is about empowering consumers and enabling them to go online with confidence then providing so much choice will lead to failure. Instead there is a strong argument for limiting choice, in Internet terms the number of available sites to visit, with a focus on fitting the services to the citizen. This is not to recommend the World Wide Web as a whole be filtered to provide only government-endorsed services citizens feel safe with, but instead to recommend the provision of a ‘walled garden’ service aimed at adults, and with a non-commercial bias that can provide access to functional services –– e-banking, local government information, news etc. –– limit choice and empower citizens to use the Internet in a way which works for them, rather than being forced to consider the ‘battles’ that may rage in the wider Internet world. […]

[…] A ‘‘limited’’ World Wide Web in the sense suggested above, combined with an eBay-like rating system, would provide a guarantee of safety and validity of content accessible within the walled garden. It would thus reduce chances of individuals accessing harmful or undesirable content accidentally and could limit calls to the government to further censor the Internet using ‘cleanfeed’’ technology.

Of course this system may not meet all of the future challenges the entirety of the Internet poses. However it limits the panic that suddenly people will have no idea what and when to watch programmes with the absence of a watershed. Even in the absence of such a longstanding regulatory tool it is likely that people will continue to stick with known brands, such as the BBC, Channel 4 etc. and watch output created by them. They may do it at times more convenient to them, and powerful brands may not remain the BBC and Channel 4 for long, but nonetheless consumers will not be thrown into a frightening wilderness without assistance.

“Panic?” And here I thought that the perception was that the US policy paradigm was too paternalistic. This is spooky stuff, arguing that we need to regulate the internet for the good of the mass consumer.

And, although she asserts that the copyright/control fight is somehow beside the point for the majority of online users, I would argue that a large number of the agents responsible for the “panic” among online users are acting specifically to advance their position in the fight between copyright and information anarchy.

Extreme Usability

A month ago I participated in the Open Source Usability Sprint.

For me it was revelatory. Something I started doing last August and September with Tantek Celik, at Technorati (I used to work there). We would sit, side-by-side, working on the usability of the site, where we picked through about 50 little niggling problems that I'd found over the previous 9 months (yes, I'd found more.. but fixing 50 was great) to make those little problems go away. We started out deciding just to fix a couple of things, so I took him through the user's perspective about why something might be broken from their perspective, and it was boring, tedious, time-consuming to do this.. and yet.. immediately as we refreshed the changes, we would both see the improvement and understand how users would like the change. So we fixed another and another.

These were problems that I knew about, had documented, or had found in several rounds of user testing. I did what is common in usability, documenting these issues. The engineers would read the reports, comment on them in conversation, quote the user's, and generally agree. But then, nothing would change. And that's not to say that these engineers at Technorati, or the ones I've worked with elsewhere, weren't brilliant or personable, or desiring of good usability and user satisfaction. They are.

But the reality is, written reports, while read and interesting to engineers, are hard to translate into change. But this extreme usability (we didn't call it that then) actually worked (though I left Technorati just after so it didn't continue there that long).

One thing to note is that this sort of extreme usability takes different forms depending on the stage of engineering development. I have worked with it at early state needs assessment and prototyping, in the form of rapid iteration during development of working software and web services, and even well after a site or software has been in use. What is important to know though, is that all the usability work that would normally be done, whether needs assessment, user profiling, interviews of one sort or another, or led discussion focus groups, has to be done on the usability side, and reporting and documentation is still necessary. But after that, extreme usability or pair programming with engineers is very effective, just as engineers will spend time coding and developing before they get to the pair programming session with a usability person.

This fall, I worked with several engineers, and I just insisted we sit down, and pick through the problems side-by-side. Wow, they said. This is fantastic, we are making really good progress and users are responding quickly and favorably to the changes!

By the time we got to the Usability Sprint in February, where we did this for three days, and named it as extreme usability, I have become fully convinced that this style of usability and engineering partnership is really key to the next generation of interface and information architecture development. It's pair programming. And I highly recommend it.

Berners-Lee: Web Design Hampers Mobile Internet

Via PaidContent.org

Blog reader survey

Last year, 61% of responding blog readers were over 30 years old. This year, 75% are over 30 years old.

Last year, 40% had family incomes greater than $90,000. This year, 43% exceed that figure.

Year over year, some figures are remarkably stable. One reader in five is a blogger. As was the case last year, exactly 1.7% are CEOs. Almost the same number (44%) spend more than $500 for air tickets. 86% purchased music online, last year and this. Last year, 79% were men. This year, 75% are men.

Glossary of TV downloading terms

Setting up your BitTorrent client to scour RSS feeds for new episodes of your favorite TV shows (as described in Philip Torrone’s great Broadcatching How-To) is a great way to break free from the shackes of TV executives’ scheduling whims and put off buying a Tivo, but the jargon can be a little challenging to the beginner. To remedy this, Slyck News has put up a quick guide called Lingo of the TV Downloading Scene. Do you want HR-HDTV or PDTV? What’s a LOKi? Now you know.

Via The Peer-to-Peer Weblog

Record Every Phone Call on your Nokia Series 60

Israeli company, Natural Widget, has launched Natural Recorder, an application that automatically records every phone call you make or receive.

If you have a Nokia Series 60 phone, you can download and install the software for $11.95. Thereafter, all your calls are recorded until you choose to delete them.

While recording a phone call isn't that difficult, what's actually clever about this is the memory management system. It claims that you'll never run out of memory, as the phone automatically deletes the oldest messages to free up more space - unless you've specifically saved them.

This is a great app for say, clarifying a previous conversation you've forgotten the details of. But, it's one more reason to get a shag phone if you don't want your partner listening to all those calls that you've forgotten to delete.

It also means that we'll have to assume that, like email and sms, voice calls will potentially live forever and be able to listened to by everyone else in the world.

So be careful with those endearments and indiscretions. They may well come back to haunt you.

Story source: Israel 21 C

Via The Mobile Technology Weblog

Radio joins the "tagging" phenomenon

Yesterday, a team from BBC Radio showed how it allowed listeners to "tag" songs using their cell phones - thanks to Phonetags - and they pointed out how this information helps to organize songs in different ways -- suggesting new playlists for DJs, but also helping people find other songs, albums, or shows of interest. In their own words: With Phonetags you can 'bookmark' any song you hear on BBC 6 Music. Just text X to 64046 when you hear the song. Then rate, tag and share your songs online.
This is the kind of next-gen thinking I was talking about in my Vertical Listening essay. [via SmartMobs]

Via Tod Maffin's I Love Radio .org

Samsung to launch monitors for color blind

Samsung will launch this year an LCD monitor with color correction technology for people with dyschromatopsia or color blindness.



The color correction technology, named Magic Vision, allows users to control red, green, and blue at 10 levels so viewers with impaired color vision can adjust the intensity of colors that give them difficulty.

Via Digital Chosunibo.

Via we make money not art

Emerging Technology Conference on Folksonomy

Tim Finin reports "Folksonomy, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mess was a panel [yesterday] at the O'Reilly

Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego that included Clay Shirky, Stewart Butterfield (of Flickr) , Joshua Schachter (of del.icio.us), and Jimmy Wales (of wikipedia).

Cory Doctorow has an 'impressionistic transcript' (I'm not sure what that means -- I guess he's not promising word-for-word accuracy.)

It's pretty interesting, as panels go, and includes some discussion of RDF and the semantic web".

thank you Tim !

Via Smart Mobs

+he Future Beautiful: 10 Lessons for First-time Documentary Filmmakers.

I stopped updating this site for a little while and consequently got something done. The result is a little documentary about two NYC street artists and their global guerilla project: fake sneakers. I think they’re the future. Spend 12 minutes (QT, WMV) with them and make up your own mind. Then go to IndTV (a new cable channel set to lauch in late summer) and vote for your favorite video, by which I mean vote for our video, +he future beautiful :: skewvile (5 minute cut). It’s been selected by IndTV as a finalist for best short video. But the public picks the winner; like an American Idol for documentary filmmakers. So show us the love, America.

When you’re back from voting, here are some important and umimportant notes for first-time documentary filmmakers....

(Good stuff in there. Go check out the rest of the list at octomoto.com -kc. )

Lessig Revises Book With Public Wiki

Via Slashdot

My (Videoblogging) Phone Bill

So.. I finally received my phone bill which reflects all of these vlog posts from my phone.

Here is the breakdown from my bill:
ADDL DATA $0.03/KB 986 KB(S) 29.58
MULTIMEDIA SNT 5 EVT(S) 2.00
>100KB MLTIMEDIA SNT 12 EVT(S) 9.60

So, deciphering this, I got charged almost $30.00 for data usage, $2 for 5 MMS messages that were less than 100KB and almost $10 for MMS messages that were greater than 100KB. Setting aside the data usage for now (because I think that is from some streaming tests that I was doing), the MMS messages are either $.40 or $.80 per message. Considering that I am using this for video blogging, almost all of these messages are going to be greater than 100KB (my phone/ATTWireless has a 300KB sending limit) and therefore will cost $.80 each.

Now for the rant: I attempted to change my wireless plan with ATTWireless online. Unfortunately, in order to change my plan, I have to "migrate" to Cingular who recently been bought ATTWireless. This in itself isn't so bad but low and behold, I would have to get a new phone, pay an activation fee for the privilege and signup for an another year of service. Yeah!!!!!!!! I love wireless providers (not).

Ok, so after calling the wonderful 611 number they provide, I talked to someone who had no idea what MMS is. In any case, I found that I could change the optional services on my account and for $2 more than what I am paying for text messages already I could add 20 "picture messages" to the service. So I went for it..

Now, I still have some concerns:
The main one is: Will I still get charged more for MMS messages that are greater than 100KB?

In any case, as Jay brought up to me, first, I need a WiFi phone with Skype and second, micropayments suck since I need to decide whether or not I actually want to pay for posting a video to my blog each and every time I shoot one.

iDive digital video shoebox

RSS Feed for Cinema Minima

Why haven't the news media mobilized to advocate journalism?

Researchers from the University of Connecticut recently released the results of "The Future of the First Amendment," a two-year, $1 million research project commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. After questioning more than 100,000 high school students, nearly 8,000 teachers, and more than 500 administrators and principals, they came to the conclusion that America's high schools are leaving the First Amendment behind, that educators are failing to give high school students an appreciation of the First Amendment's guarantees.

Well, duh. Public schools systems have long been grappling with tight finances and now must divert funds, time and effort to fulfill the requirements of No Child Left Behind. It's no surprise that civics lessons are no longer standard curriculum. So if school boards aren't going to take responsibility for teaching the First Amendment, who is?

At the Whose News symposium at Harvard, we spent a lot of time collecting ideas on how to save journalism. The discussion was very newsroom-focused, very "What can we do?" to win back credibility and public trust and to save journalism values. Someone - I believe it was Merrill Brown - pointed out that it was not all about newsrooms, that it was also very much an external problem: Public understanding of the role of the journalism in a democratic society has eroded, and no matter what changes news media make, they are unlikely to bring back audiences who just don't care. This begged the question of why the news media have let this happen, which, unfortunately, no one asked.

The news media, as individual professionals and as corporate entities, continue to devote substantial resources to supporting local, state and regional press organizations and to maintaining powerful associations like the Newspaper Association of America and the National Association of Broadcasters, which address career and business interests. But if news is more than a job and more than a business, and public apathy or ignorance is part of the reason news businesses are losing audiences, why aren't there institutionalized, industry-wide and industry-supported initiatives that work with school systems, government institutions and civic groups to raise public awareness and understanding of speech and press freedoms and to educate younger generations? Why haven't the news media mobilized to advocate journalism?

Via morph

U. S. Digital Media Consumers Rights Act of 2005

The Digital Media Consumers Rights Act of 2005 (DMCA) attempts to restore the historical balance in copyright law, to re-establish the Betamax standard, and to restore valid scientific research. The text of the bill will be available soon at http://thomas.loc.gov. [INDUCE Act (IICA)]

Via Cinema Minima

iChat at 60 MPH

Via Lost Remote

Comcast Chairman/CEO on the future of TV

Via Lost Remote

Drupal module : Creative Commons license

We have just released the first version of our Creative Commons licensing module for the open-source CMS Drupal (which powers the DigitalBicycle community). This module allows users to assign a Creative Commons license to their content when they post to the community or upload files. It also allows a site administrator to assign a license to the entire web site.

The module uses the Creative Commons API and can automatically update when new Creative Commons licenses are available (for example, the more recent sampling licenses). Admins can restrict the licenses available to users, as well as require specific metadata be included.

This version is a release for Drupal 4.5.x, and the current CVS is tested and working under Drupal 4.6. If you are using Drupal, then download the latest version from Drupal.org and let us know what you think.

(All right! Nice job guys! -kc.)

Via DigitalBicycle

ETECH Notes: Emerging Massive Media

Audiences are acquiring media under their own terms, or more frighteningly for the incumbents, acquiring it from their own suppliers on the networks. Broadcasters broadcast to active, self-commissioning audiences, who decided on their own the what where when and how.

Prosumers are becoming the mass media -- but what about the massive media? How do they compete with their audiences for attention?

For many massive media orgs, the competition is viewed as heavily weighed in their favor. Every time Wikipedia trounces yet another massive media org (e.g. the NYT yesterday) it creates ripples of doubt in the massive orgs.

Last year Joi Ito gave a keynote at a TV con, to international TV execs: he said: "Re DRM: you will win. You will convince your audiences not to use your content." When Patrick Kennedy VP of Sony Digital Networks said, "Get your stuff out there any way you can, youngsters don't even know who you are anymore. Worry about the business model later." Massive media orgs aren't comfortable anymore.

Via Boing Boing

iPodder 2.0 Release Elevates Podcasting

internetnews.com: "iPodder 2.0 Release Elevates Podcasting". Update: a Japanese language version of the same article.

Via Andrew Grumet's Weblog

MMS Launched Too Early?

Cellular News carries a story about a recent mobile (un-named) event in which a panel of experts concluded that perhaps (very tentatively) MMS was launched too early and that's the reason it hasn't taken off. The panel consisted of senior people in operators and analysts.

What they actually mean is that they launched it (backed by many millions of wasted advertising dollars) before it worked. You couldn't send MMS across networks and very often the settings on new phones didn't work as they left the shops.

This is like a fizzy drinks manufacturer launching a new fizzy drink which doesn't have any carbonation and where the cans can't be opened without a tin opener and a sledge hammer.

So, yes, they may well admit sheepishly to launching too early.

There's also no mention that MMS is too highly priced, the end-user benefit is unclear, the marketing is still poor (what are the benefits? where are the trial offers?) and the usability is pretty poor too. It should be template driven, with loads of content available for free.

ISEA 2006 - Interactive City Early Call For Proposals -- DUE 23 APRIL 2005

ISEA 2006
Interactive City
San Jose, California, USA
1-14 August 2006

EARLY CALL DUE: 22 April 2005

ISEA INTERACTIVE CITY CFP:
http://www.urban-atmospheres.net/ISEA2006/



GENERAL INFO ABOUT ISEA 2006:
http://isea2006.sjsu.edu/

ISEA (International Symposium on Electronic Art) is a large, international, two week long, conference and festival situated at the critical intersection of art and technology (see http://www.isea2004.net for last year's festival details). In August 2006 the 13th ISEA will be held in San Jose, California. ISEA spans a broad range of work from critical theory and application papers, interactive demonstrations, videos, installations, performances, and emerging music to name a few. In 2006 ISEA will feature four themes: Interactive City, Community Domain, Transvergence, and Pacific Rim. Each theme will of course manifest itself at ISEA in the form of papers, demos, performances, etc. Each of these topics will also feature a 2 day event immediately preceding ISEA to further focus the topic and go into more critical depth. This announcement is for the early call for proposals within the scope of the Interactive City.

Via USC Interactive Media Division Weblog

Napster's CEO on the future of music delivery

While I was out of town yesterday, Engadget ran my interview with Napster CEO Chris Gorog. Lots of reaction so far:

• 61 comments attached to the interview;

• MacDailyNews dissects the interview, with 60 or so readers chiming in;

• a dozen or more blogs

Gorog was fun to interview -- smart and savvy about the music business (an impression you'd miss if you skipped the interview and went directly to the comments posted beneath the article). Excerpt:

Gorog: The point is simply that people are going to value instantaneous access to anything they can think of anywhere anytime. That’s what they’ll place value in rather than ownership — I own this CD, I own this track I downloaded. Because in the digital world, everything is available.

So it’s really a paradigm shift for people to recognize that the music collections they’ve carried around with them on their back, all of this stuff doesn’t matter anymore. Because for a monthly fee they can have access not only to everything they’ve collected in the past, but everything they don’t even know about yet that they can still discover. It’s a very different model and extremely attractive, once you get used to it. ...

Via New Media Musings

The Buddha of Blogging Speaks

iMedia Connection has posted oodles of Jeff Jarvis' blogging wisdom in two parts. Go read it if you're interested in citizen marketing/journalism and blogging. You wont be sorry.

Pepsi ad campaign nixes TV

Via Lost Remote

Human Blackbox

Via MAKE: Blog

MSN Attacks the Web-based RSS Aggregator Market

MSN just started testing their own standalone web-based RSS aggregator, in addition to the already existing RSS functionality within the main MSN portal.

Available at Start.com, the new aggregator takes a lean approach to RSS feed aggregation, which in fact might be welcomed by many users looking for simple ways of aggregating RSS content through web-based services. There isn’t much to say yet, except that I like the fact that no registration is required to start adding your own feeds.

On the other hand, adding “one more aggregator” to the mix is sure to add to the confusion many people new to RSS are already experiencing.

Fiona Apple Teaching Sony A Lesson About The Long Tail

Via Techdirt

Kevin Martin, the new FCC head

Kevin Martin has been named the new head of FCC by President Bush. “I am deeply honored to have been designated as the next Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, and I thank President Bush for this distinct privilege,” he said in a statement. “I thank Chairman Powell for his excellent stewardship of this agency, and I look forward to continuing his efforts in bringing the communications industry into the 21st Century.”

The good news is that he is going to push hard for broadband deployment and VoIP and other new technologies. The bad news is that he is going to be watching the television guys with a hawkeye and will be the digital nanny who is tougher than the outgoing FCC chairman, Michael Powell. The murky news is that he is going take sides with the incumbents and push for a rewrite of the Telecom Act of 1996. “He will soon take a front seat at the technology revolution. Ultimately, everything the FCC does must serve the public interest and benefit consumers, and I am confident he will be vigilant in pursuing these goals,” Chairman Powell said.

Via Om Malik on Broadband

Eye-controlled video camera

Here’s a last-minute gem from CeBIT — a video camera controlled by the eyes. We’ve seen stuff like this years ago with eye-scanning viewfinders that track focal points, but this working prototype developed at Munich’s Ludwig-Maximilians University does full camera movement. It is expected to have applications for psychology and market research — not to mention the obvious fashion uptake we can expect from it.

Via Engadget

Mobility is the next Big Story: Los Angeles, CA - April 26-29, 2005

Last year’s Big Story was blogs. The next big story is mobility, which is unfolding at lightning speed. So of course, The Media Center is all over it, and I hope you'll think about joining us.

Media Opportunities and Strategies for the Mobile, Broadband Generation will take place in Los Angeles, April 26 to 29, 2005.

This executive program will demystify mobile and wireless broadband, exploring the business opportunities, emerging technologies and new consumer behavior quickly evolving at the crossroads of media, technology and society.

And if you're a Trekkie, please note that we'll be visiting the Integrated Media Systems Center, part of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, where researchers will lead our group in a look at what's next in a world of ubiquitous broadband communications. I was told to seriously think Enterprise holodeck...

So far, the following people have confirmed they will serve as discussion leaders:
o Gilles Babinet, CEO, Musiwave
o Steve Cistulli, Panasonic Mobile Communications
o Rob Enderle, Columnist and President of the Enderle Group
o Scott Fox, CEO, Global View Partners
o Brian Gratch, Principal, Gratch & Associates
o Dewayne Hendricks, CEO, Dandin Group, Inc.; Member of the FCC Technological Advisory Council
o Susan Kaup, aka "Sooz"
o Susan Mernit, Senior Vice President, 5ive
o Andrew Nachison, Director, The Media Center
o Dean Newton, Vice President, Entertainment Media, Infospace Mobile
o Scott Rafer, CEO, Feedster
o Scott Smyers,Chairman & President,Digital Living Network Alliance; Vice President,Network and Systems Architecture Division, Platform Technology Center of America,Sony Electronics
o William Weiss, Chairman & CEO, The Promar Group

If you want to know more, go here.

Via editorsweblog.org

Reinventing Radio: Enriching Broadcast with Social Software

Many-to-Many Radio

How could you enhance a one-to-many national radio station by building in the many-to-many-style interactions of Flickr or the weblog community? How might lessons from social software further blur the distinction between listeners and broadcasters by pushing interactivity beyond the phone-in or the online poll?

(1) The "Ten-Hour Takeover" used SMS technology, pattern matching, and statistical analysis to give the British public control of BBC Radio 1's musical output. For ten hours, there was no planned playlist--every track was chosen by listeners via text messages. We turned these messages into a navigable information space of artists, tracks, and listeners that the DJs could interact with directly. Moreover, the loosely coupled component-based infrastructure has allowed us to deploy new mobile-based products (SMS and MMS) quickly and easily.

(2) A component-based architecture also allows us to hook together SMS, track now-playing, and show scheduling systems with each other and with third-party services. BBC R&Mi are using this as a basis for exploring social software models of interactivity: the potential of Flickr/del.icio.us-style tagging for radio; the possibilities of combining buddy lists with media players; new applications for SMS; and concepts like "100 Composers"--DABJava applications on PDAs that can have data trickled to them over broadcast radio.

The session presents work from BBC Radio & Music Interactive's Technical Architecture and R&D teams, including demonstrations of existing software and working prototypes of new projects. [from the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference] [Related]

The Long Tail of PayPal

While setting up the contribution mechanism at PayPal, I got to thinking about how PayPal is (or certainly has the potential to be) a Long Tail business. With lots of features, extensive documentation, tons of implementation examples, and no up-front fees, they make it so easy to sell anything to anyone worldwide that the cost of doing business for individuals and small businesses is almost nothing. My friends Tamara and Julie make soap in their apartment and sell it online for a few bucks a bar, with PayPal handling the checkout process and some of the order fulfillment stuff as well. And there are millions of little cottage industries like this scattered across the web, businesses enabled by PayPal each selling maybe a few items a week or month.

However, there are a couple of issues with PayPal's attempt to harness the Long Tail of online retail. Shipping costs are proportionally more expensive for less expensive items...it's roughly the same price to ship a $350 iPod as it is to ship a $20 book or tshirt. PayPal's fees are a bigger percentage of the total sale for cheaper items as well; they take $0.30 right off the top. That doesn't sound like a lot but for a merchant selling $3.00 items, that's 10% less profit, which could be a bit of a deterrent in wanting to sell cheap items through PayPal. It'll be interesting to see if PayPal sees a Long Tail effect benefiting their bottom line and tinkers with the fees to encourage more cheap offerings.

Interactive TV Advertising conference: London, May 24-25, 2005

Via informitv news

Who's Investing for the Future? Plenty of Us

UPDATED

The Project for Excellence in Journalism's annual media report is online and loaded with fascinating data and conclusions. I want to point to one item -- a section called "News Investment" -- and this paragraph:

It is part of a larger trend in American journalism: much of the investment and effort is in repackaging and presenting information, not in gathering it. For all that the number of outlets has grown, the number of people engaged in collecting original information has not. Americans are frankly more likely to see the same pictures across multiple TV channels or read the same wire story in different venues than they were a generation ago.

So, while business might appear prosperous, beneath the success lies a perplexing reality. Many of the news organizations that make most Web site journalism possible, either through their dollars or the work of the journalists reporting for their traditional products, are in some combination of strategic, journalistic and financial peril. It is those organizations that make large-scale Internet news sites viable. In a world of dwindling resources, a world of falling daily newspaper readership and fragmented television news audiences, who will produce the journalism of scale and importance that informs citizens about national political campaigns and international conflict? Bloggers? Citizen journalists? The software developers who produce RSS readers?

ViewSonic Xtreme ClearMotive LCD Displays with 4ms Response

Via Digital Media Thoughts

Compro VideoMateTV DVB-T USB Stick HDTV Tuner

Photo: Digitimes EverythingUSB reports about a DVB-T HDTV Tuner on a USB Stick from Compro.

Quote:

"Taiwanese company Compro plans to squeeze a DVB-T TV tuner into a size of a large USB stick form factor. Called VideoMateTV DVB-T, the stick could easily be mistaken as a first generation USB flash drive, but it is actually a bus-powered HDTV tuner, which requires at least a 2.4Ghz for just viewing. There's also another version that supports analog, which requires just 600Mhz for TV viewing."

More details on EverythingUSB.

Girls who are boys who like boys to be girls

Excerpt from a Gamespot interview with Sheri Graner Ray:

SGR: Men play female characters. I don't have the exact numbers, but a huge percentage of males play female characters. The number of females playing male characters is so small as to be not worth counting. And they'll tell you, "I don't play a male character because it's not comfortable."

When you're in a stand-alone game, you often don't have a choice--often you are a male character.

SGR: Right. Or you don't play. On my women's mailing list, you'll find them all the time that say, "I didn't play Fable because there wasn't a female character to play." So it's one of those barriers. It's one of those doors that stops them from ever playing the game.

Now, if I get the chance, I ALWAYS play female, and usually one that looks like me (given the option): petite, dark-haired, light on the muscle. In D&D, I try to play a version of myself as much as possible... which usually ends up being a Bard/Rogue type character with a high Persuade but negligible combat skills.

But I also played Fable, and loved it - and had three wives in three cities, including the dark Lady Grey. I played Prince of Persia and loved it. I suppose you could say, perhaps, that there is a difference between the action/adventure and the rpg. The rpg really asks you to put yourself in the character's shoes. But then, Final Fantasy 7 and 8 have a large female cult following. I don't think it's a problem to experience a story from someone else's point of view.

I read books with male narrators and male protagonists. I watch movies with male heroes, told from a male point of view. The important things are character, story, and emotional depth, and those can belong to anyone, any sex or any color.

I think the problem is just that there isn't enough diversity. What if all books we had on shelves were written by John Updike or Phillip Roth? I love their writing, but I'd be bored out of my mind sifting through so many pages of self-reflective upper-middle class male-ness. It's good to have a Richard Wright in there, a Virginia Woolf, a Zora Neale Hurston. I'd like that for videogames, too, obviously.

But what Graner Ray says is interesting. Is it really true that women vastly prefer to play women, while men are more fluid in their gender-identity? I've wanted to conduct a study on this for years, but I lack the social science research skills. Maybe someone out there wants to help out.

Via game girl advance

Looking at the Subscription Model Value Proposition

But the commercial raises a good question: Will you rent albums the way you rent TV programming? If it makes financial sense - and if, armed with that knowledge, you can avoid the competing allure of iPod style and the Apple brand - you just might.

[…] Parents with children ages 10 to 20 know how costly the digital music revolution can be. If you look the other way as they download music using … let’s call them gray-market techniques, your PC becomes irreversibly crippled by spyware. But when you try to encourage them to pay for music instead of stealing it, you quickly discover that even a two-album-a-month allowance adds up.

When used to its fullest extent, Napster to Go lays iTunes flat, financially speaking. For the $15 monthly fee, you’re allowed unlimited downloads. You can put them on up to three compatible portable players, and log in and listen on up to three PC’s. (Napster to Go does charge by the song, however, to burn music to a CD.) Sure, there’s an initial investment, and in homes with more than three listeners they’ll have to share, but for a low fixed price they can all download as many songs as they want, most of which they will soon forget about anyway.

The value proposition is in place. I know I can get tons of music, but can I get tons of good music? There are bands not yet online at all, like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC. But with Napster to Go there is a new discrepancy: songs you must purchase outright, ones that aren’t part of the all-you-can-have subscription deal.

I hit Napster thinking that maybe half of the tracks I’d want would be “buy only.” To my amazement, it was less than a tenth. […]

{…] For the most part, however, the software and the players do their jobs. So let me ask a question that some may consider heresy: How necessary is the iPod?

[…] Though it seems like a lopsided deal - paying less than what Target charges for a CD and getting almost any musical wish granted instantly - the record industry is lobbying hard to make subscription services the next phase in the digital revolution. The labels are using them to get the attention of 15- to 25-year-olds, the group most responsible for the sharp decline in CD sales over the last few years (not to mention the rise of illegal file sharing).

Content Providers Vs Telcos: Who Holds The Leverage?

Via PaidContent.org

I want my MTVlog

Let's all come up with our own interpretation of a song, through video.
I would love if we can use any song... but if we did, i would not suggest openly distributing it and violating copyright...
Unless privately traded.

But, I do suggest we dig into the creative commons and public domain music resources. One such music pool is at http://opsound.org and also you can refer to http://ccmixter.org or http://remixreading.org/. Of course, there are other resources... a friend helps run http://mp34u.com which is decent source.

Know of any others worth mentioning?

High.tv

Via Edibletv Weblog

Vloggers take over the world

: I'm installing the latest version of Serious Magic this weekend (I used the earlier version for my now more-than two-year-old primitive vlogs.)

Via BuzzMachine

music production games

I love the term media games. As media production becomes a social activity, and becomes something we all do as part of our day to day lives, games will become places where we make new things, express ourselves, and share ideas. Check out the new Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. The game comes with a set of bongos that are the controller. Nintendo says, "Sure it uses the DK Bongos Controller, but Donkey Kong Jungle Beat isn't a musical game at all, tap the right bongo to make DK stroll right, tap faster and he'll run, whack the left bongo to go left, beat his chest or send out an enormous, landscape-rattling shockwave. Cool combos have DK swinging from vine to vine, climbing chasms by leaping from wall to wall and pounding remorselessly on enemies." Sounds like you'll be playing drums to me. I wonder if the DK Bongos Controller is available for third parties to develop games with?

I have this music and media production game I'm making where kids compete to mix and mash songs and videos. I pitched it to MTV2 in November. Their concern was how fast and cheap could we make a pilot. It's interesting. The ability to rapidly prototype large scale community interaction and multiplayer situations is going to be essential in this next phase of media and entertainment. (Social networking cycles on-demand maybe?) Either way, media games are going to be driving force of news, TV, and film in the 21st century- games where participants can make, watch, or do just about anything. And if you're working on things like this, or know of anything new out there, please let me know.

Gear for guerrilla filmmakers

Stephen Olmstead of Vigilant Studios sends links for more gear for Guerrilla Filmmakers (is there any other kind?) including a Camera Stabilizer and Guide Book for Guerrilla Filmmakers. Ron Dexter has a great site with tons of advice and plans. It looks like DV Moves is now the reseller for Dexter's equipment designs. DV Moves also sells proprietary equipment. Cinekinetic also has budget dollies, mounts, jibs and accessories. They're a bit pricey but worth it. Why do I keep writing about budget equipment? Because I get so sick of "TALKING HEADS" Independent Film. Do your audience a favor, move the camera!

Via Cinema Minima

User Based Innovation

Via Techdirt

EFF opposed Apple in case of bloggers and secrets

The EFF has come out against Apple's pursuit of two blogs for their publication of corporate secrets.

EFF opposes Apple's discovery because the confidentiality of the media's sources and unpublished information are critical means for journalists of all stripes to acquire information and communicate it to the public. Because today's online journalists frequently depend on confidential sources to gather material, their ability to promise confidentiality is essential to maintaining the strength of independent media. Furthermore, the protections required by the First Amendment are necessary regardless of whether the journalist uses a third party for communications.

There's more here:

Online journalism, whether in the form of blogs, email newsletters, or websites, is a growing part of our national discourse. The democratization of media inherent in the Internet allows any individual to reach out to a vast audience, without the constraints of traditional media. Blogs gain in importance and readership by the content and currency of their news, not their affiliations with the media of old...



If Apple's subpoenas to Apple Insider, PowerPage and Think Secret are allowed to proceed and the Apple news sites EFF is representing are forced to disclose the confidences gained by their reporters, potential confidential sources will be deterred from providing information to the online media, and the public will lose a vital outlet for independent news, analysis, and commentary. We can't let that happen.

Via Smart Mobs

ATI Introduces New IMAGEON

ATI announced their new media processors, the IMAGEON 2282 and 2182. The chips offer something of a package deal to cell phone manufacturers with 3 megapixel camera support, hi-fi digital audio, and a digital camcorder with streaming video and video conferencing capabilities. Although nothing spectacular from an individual feature standpoint, the chips act as media processors for the phone, taking the load almost entirely off the host processor. The ATI press release goes on to mention that the 2282 (the higher-end model) offers picture-in-picture support to help with video conferencing. I'm not using PIP on my 32" living room television, so the chances of me using it on a 2" screen are slim, but it's innovative nonetheless.

Press Release [ATI via HardOCP]

Via Gizmodo

Yahoo 360 Fuses Social Networking and Blogs

AP reports that Yahoo is preparing to introduce a new service that blends several of its Web site's popular features with blogging and social networking. The hybrid service, called Yahoo! 360°, won't be available until March 29, but the promotional web site is live now. I was able to log in to a page with more info using my Yahoo! ID, but was unable to actually try the service. Mike Liedke from AP writes...

The service is designed to enable Yahoo's 165 million registered users to pull content from the Web site's discussion groups, online photo albums and review section to plug into their own Web logs, or blogs, the Internet shorthand used to describe online personal journals.

With Yahoo! 360°, you'll have one place to keep the important people in your life connected to you. And one place for you to stay connected to them.

Easily invite your friends and family

It's very easy to plug all of your people in. With just a few clicks you can invite any -- or everyone from you Yahoo! Messenger friends list, you Yahoo! Address Book or (after beta) from Microsoft Outlook to connect to you.

Brave New Box Office

Several new online startups are trying to provide innovative ways for people to view movies.  Akimbo Systems allows customers to buy movie downloads for playback on TVs (via an Akimbo set-top box) or PCs.  EZTakes users will be able to download movies to PCs and burn them to disc. (Service is currently available only as part of a test.) ObjectCube lets you rent or buy movies for playback on TVs (via a set-top box), PCs or Xboxes. Movies can be downloaded, streamed or delivered via disc. For now, only "adult" films are available.  Finally, Peerflix allows surfers to trade used DVDs via the Web.

Via HOLLYWOOD LIBERATION ARMY

"The Office" debuts online

Via Lost Remote

Video Cameras In Iraq

Via Futurismic

4000 CD sales funds one year of East Village music club

via DigitalMediaWire and the the New York Times comes word of a new model for musical and economic sustainability. The Stone, a new live music venue in New York City being launched by composer John Zorn, that will provide 100% of ticket sales to artists, and support itself through the sale of exclusive CDs online. The Stone, which will open at Avenue C and Second Street in the East Village in April, plans to pay its rent and insurance through limited-edition CDs released and sold online by Zorn's Tzadik record label -- the first of which will likely feature Zorn, Mike Patton and Bill Laswell. "We can sell 4,000 copies at $20 and run the place on $80,000 a year," Zorn told The Times. "This is about a community coming together. The downtown scene is so diverse that it eludes classification, but it functions as a community, with people helping each other."

SUNSHINE Week: On The Importance of Open Government - March 13-19, 2005

"Opening a dialogue about the public’s right of access to government information is the focus of Sunshine Sunday and Sunshine Week: Your Right to Know, which kick off March 13, 2005 and continue through the following week.

Participating daily and weekly newspapers, magazines, online sites, and radio and television broadcasters will feature editorials, op-eds, editorial cartoons, and news and feature stories that drive public discussion about why open government is important to everyone, not just to journalists.

“This is not just an issue for the press. It’s an issue for the public,” said Andy Alexander, ASNE Freedom of Information chair, who is chief of the Cox Newspapers’ Washington bureau. “An alarming amount of public information is being kept secret from citizens and the problem is increasing by the month. Not only do citizens have a right to know, they have a need to know."

Collective Action Games Embedded in Social Networks

Draft of a paper by Yen-Sheng Chiang (2004) of the Department of Sociology on the University of Washington.

Abstract: The paper presents a model that synthetically incorporates several paradigms of collective action theories to bring up conditions when different types of collective action games would occur. Different from past literatures, the paper focuses on the analysis when various types of actors are allowed to play games interactively. The designation of game-playing partners follows the three mechanisms of network formation incorporated in the paper. A computational simulation is adopted to show how some parameters such as network density and heterogeneity influence the final contribution of collective goods.

(..) "I propose different conditions when a collective action can be presented as a privileged game, prisoner dilemma game or assurance game. The existence of different types of games, especially assurance game, inspires me to explore the possibility what if different types of players play the game interactively. It turns out the theoretical insight is quite consistent with empirical research about the competition between social movements and countermovements. Some theories of network formation provide mechanisms determining how people decide their game-playing partners".

another study by Chiang, Yen-Sheng is, "The heterogeneity in collective action and social networks"

Via Clippings.reblog

The FCC Opens the 3650MHz band

The FCC says in this letter (pdf), that the 3650Mhz band (3650-3700Mhz) is being opened for nationwide, non-exclusive licencing. The licencing is a new approach to open-spectrum - a mix between licenced an unlicenced spectrum. The band is specifically for the delivery of wireless "broadband" data networking. The use of "contention-based" protocols, including Wi-Max, are explicitly allowed.

All base stations operating in this band must be registered with the FCC and there is no limit to the number of licences that will be issued. Mobile stations must be within range of a registered base station before transmitting in order to avoid interference with grandfathered use of this frequency. This implies that only mobile-to-base-station communication is allowed and not mobile-to-mobile communication. Fixed stations have a power limit of "25 watts per 25 mhz of bandwith" and mobile stations have a limit of "one watt per 25 mhz of bandwith."

CeBIT Video Coverage with Archos PMA430 and Head Camera

Nicolas Charbonnier (Charbax) from Archosfans walked around CeBIT 2005 with a Archos PMA430 and a headmounted mini video camera connected to the Archos PMP.

He recorded about 3 hours of video footage and published them here via bitorrent. The Videos show products from Siemens, KISS, DivX, Sony, JVC and much more.

This is a great use of the PMA430. The comvu webcasting software for the Axia Smartphones could make this task live and without less effort in publishing the video footage.

Video Webcasting from an Axia A108 Windows Smartphone

We reported about the Axia A108 tiny (Axia says Worlds Smallest) (110x48x22mm) Windows Smartphone last November.

At the CeBIT Fifth Media announces the availabilty of a service that lets users webcast video from the Axia smartphone. Axia licenses the ComVu PocketCaster, which leverages AXIA’s onboard 1.3 Megapixel CMOS camera, and Freescale i.MX21 processor, to transmit real-time MPEG 4 video to ComVu’s automated server network. With ComVu’s PocketCaster, the AXIA A108 is an active live streaming transmission device, rather than solely a passive receiver of video content.

I think this is pretty cool. Enabling anybody to transmit live video to a large audience from anywhere. Question remains how much the service will cost.

More details on myaxia.com and comvu.

TVForUs: online tv broadcasting for broadband users

"Tvforus is a portal to free live online tv broadcasting and other streaming content for broadband users.

Since the 4th of February, Tvforus provides you with links to more than 200 broadband channels a big selection of the best quality online television streams found on the net. In the "Sites" section you will find links to broadcasters that stream live tv exclusively on their site."

Via del.icio.us/tag/broadcasting

Web Sites Try Offering TV Shows

Via Broadcasting

Biting the media in the ass

Here's the latest wonderful missive from George Simpson:

Before the Internet enabled private citizens to do the kind of research that only academics and journalists had the time (or inclination) to do, big media news lived in an impenetrable castle with only sources and reporters allowed inside. Outside the walls were the great unwashed masses, otherwise known as their audiences.

Although those inside the castle said the formula for what they did was very simply outlined by who, what, where, when, and how, wrapped in a foil of objectivity, the people outside the castle often smelled a rat. When they said, "We thinks we smells a rat, we do," the people inside the castle said, "That is because you do not understand our business."

Now the rat is biting those in the castle on their arses.

Via The Pomo Blog

From commercial message to public talking point

South London based art activists CutUp tries to disrupt and raise awareness of the colonisation of public space by reconfiguring billboards, by turning these commercial message bearers into public talking points. Street adverts are a privileged form of address and the space they commandeer is disproportionate. Advertisements and the mass media depict life and how we should live it in a spectacular way. We find it increasingly difficult to know how to express our inner thoughts and feelings, which seem mundane in contrast to the emotional saturation in the plethora of advertising surrounding us.



CutUp's billboard are created by slicing up a billboard and then collaging all the pieces into a newly ordered image. The results are portraits of people who are suffering or have suffered under the strain of this spectacular society. They are accompanied by slogans expressing thoughts that are not usually articulated aloud.

First exhibition of CutUp at Kemistry Gallery, 43 Charlotte Rd, Shoreditch. on 5 April - 30 April 05 (via Artshole and Design Week, March 3 edition)

Via we make money not art

BitTorrent May Prove Too Good to Quash (washingtonpost.com)

Via DigitalBicycle

NATPE: Using the Internet to Predict (TV) Programming Success

"

Drawing a standing-room-only crowd to its NATPE 2005 seminar Predicting the Next Big Hit, TVtracker.com, the online resource for television programming development and information, along with Initiative, one of the country’s leading independent media service companies, and Trendum, an Internet monitoring and analysis software developer, unveiled PropheSEE™ , the latest tool in the growing arsenal of research created to help producers, networks and advertisers understand today’s discerning television viewer…"

SXSW Report: Ben Walker on 'Net Censorship in China

Yesterday at SXSW: a presentation on blogging and censorship, with Hossain Derakhshan, prominent Iranian-Canadian blogger, and Benjamin Walker, radio host and Berkman Center for Internet and Society fellow, who just got back from China last week. Hot on the heels of this March 4 New York Times article on censorship of blogs in China, he refuted what he defined as several misconceptions of the western media on how the Internet is being used there.

Misconception 1: We in the west assume that millions of Chinese are searching for information to aid their revolutionary struggles.
Truth: Most Internet users in China are looking for the same thing most Western users are looking for. Porn.

Misconception 2: Information from the outside gets blocked at the national level, especially on oppressed movements such as Falun Gong.
Truth: Chinese get flooded with unwanted email about this and a lot of other things, and just like users in the west, they consider it spam.

Misconception 3: There are 30,000 to 50,000 "Internet police" who do nothing but monitor people's email, web surfing, etc.
Truth: This is a number invented by officials for official propaganda missives, aimed at the national media, not Western reporters, who nonetheless take up information ministry press releases as legitimate and use them as source material.

Misconception 4: Only the most tech-sophisticated kids know how to use proxies to get beyond the firewall and onto "banned sites."
Truth: Lots and lots of users regularly use proxies to not only get to more content, but to avoid extra pay-per-service charges. (Although, apparently even this does not manage to evade the highly effective national censoring of porn content.)

Misconception 5: Censorship is all happening at the government level.
Truth: Censorship is more prevalent at the personal level, with bloggers omitting or removing references to certain ideas or issues in order to avoid trouble with the authorities. Service providers in China also must cooperate with the authorities on screening for certain words and phrases and intervening with those who post them, but the active hand of the government with individuals is rare.

According to bloggers Walker interviewed, the Chinese blogosphere is evolving, with bloggers carefully testing the openness of the system. There are different levels of censorship--new tools might help users move towards freer use of blogs for more sensitive topics. For example, on Google China, blogs are starting to rank higher than official web sites on searches about "city reconstruction," a phrase that signifies development in the countryside. It's a significant shift in information resources, that points at the potential for bloggers to reveal more of the truth about life in China to each other.

All very interesting to me -- I've been reserved in my trust in the "blogosphere" to foment social revolution in places like China, where it seems like it was too easy to stop up the pipe -- a view definitely influenced by what I've read in papers like the Times. Walker's POV is that we need to look a lot deeper than what mainstream press is reporting about blogs, the Internet and China.

(Posted by Emily Gertz in Global Culture – Art, Music, Fashion, and Travel at 04:11 PM)

Social networks: All around the Net, but underused by news sites

(Interesting overview of how social software can change journalism - dm)

Ted Leung on the air : Power laws and plugins

"Let's say that you want to build an application that has a potentially broad market. How do you decide what features should be included? I bet that the graph of application features versus users of a feature follows something shaped like a power law curve. At the "short head", you have all the "basic features", which all people are likely to use, which makes them uncontroversial and therefore in the product. In the "long tail", you have features that each are of interest to some small constituency. If you can't decide which of these constituencies you will support, you either include no features from the tail, or you try to include all of them."

BrainStream: TIVO: Listening to Podcasts on your Tivo

"Until Tivo has software to use and record from a USB AM/FM tuner, why not create a Podcast application that, in addition to downloading shows for someone's iTunes player, also queues them up to the Tivo Home Media Environment for listening to."

intercasting launches rabble

Via PaidContent's MocoNews, Derrick Oien's Intercasting Corp. just launched their product/service, called Rabble. Congrats from the unmediated crew Derrick! From their press release:

Rabble is one of the first enhanced mobile blogging applications built on QUALCOMM's BREW solution. The application takes web-based blogging's simple approach to content publication and adds location awareness, proximity and camera phone integration to create a truly mobile-specific tool to capitalize on the burgeoning demand for user-generated content and community. With Rabble, mobile content is tagged with location information and other descriptive data that enables users to find each other based on the media they create and where they create it. Users can create their own channels, where they collect and store content to inform, entertain, interact and connect with the surrounding environment.

Gallup: Blogs Not Yet in the Media Big Leagues

I think this provides some interesting statistics, but I don't really know how important they are. I also hesitate to jump to any conclusions that my worldview might come, to a large extent, from living in a sort of bloggers' bubble.

The effects of blogs can be more subtle than, say, those of TV; the Gallup poll refers to "direct impacts" but these might be of limited importance. Blog-type media serves a valuable role as a media feeder and people don't necessarily need to read them directly, or even know what a blog is, to be affected by reports from the blogosphere. I'm also curious as to how many people happen to read blogs from time to time, but don't know that some people call them "blogs" and not something like "websites"...

According to a recent Gallup poll:

The apparent effect that blogging is having within media and political circles is far ahead of its direct impact on the American public. Relatively few Americans are generally familiar with the phenomenon, and fewer still are reading blogs with any frequency. Even among the most blog-conscious demographic -- 18- to 29-year-olds -- frequent blog reading is the exception.

It's also interesting that the poll was sponsored by 2 old-media organizations - USA Today and CNN. I'm not saying the poll is necessarily suspect because of this, but we must take into account where the poll is coming from.

Cinequest, a P2P Movie Fest

RSS Feed for Cinema Minima

TV needs link-love, too

I've been doing these MSNBC Connected blog reports for a few weeks now and I've noticed something interesting happening: Folks who get mentioned are mentioning it on their blogs... but only if they have something to link to. Trey Jackson, Crooks & Liars, and Ian Schwartz put up the video or I put up links and then people have something to link to and they do, giving this new show the publicity it wants. The moral to the story: TV needs permalinks, too. TV news operations should be putting up every story -- not show, story -- with text and links so they can join in the conversation.

AMD's answer to the Centrino, the Turion launched

Anyone reasonably well versed in AMD’s current mobile chip lineup knows what an awful mess it is. They’ve got the Athlon XP-M, Mobile Sempron, and Mobile Athlon 64—three totally distinct processor classes that are totally mind boggling for the average consumer. And now, despite their decision to phase out some of these products before introducing new ones, they’ve officially launched their new Turion 64 processor lineup, which they intend to give Intel’s Pentium-M (aka href="http://www.engadget.com/search/?q=centrino&submit=Go">Centrino) a run for its money. Their chips, which are clocked between 1.6 and 2.0GHz (compared to Intel’s 1.5 to 2.13 GHz chip lineup) will undercut Intel’s wholesale prices by between 10 and 45%, a very substantial margin. But will they be successful? Well, we hope so, but seriously AMD, you’ve got to pull it together!

New Models for Sustainable Cinema

• Hollywood Profits: The Big Picture — and the Small: Hollywood's continuing struggle with profitability is a systemic problem deeply rooted in the studios' legacy business model. This presents independent filmmakers and financiers alike with new entrepreneurial opportunities
• Frontiers of Film Financing: New Tax Incentives and Creative Financing Strategies. Glenn will explain new federal and state tax incentives and creative financing structures for independent filmmakers and their investors, as well as developing trends in film distribution
• The Filmmaker as Startup Entrepreneur: Key Lessons from Silicon Valley. What can a filmmaker learn from a successful entrepreneur? What are the compelling qualities a venture investor looks for in an investment opportunity?

Via Cinema Minima

Website to profile media/democracy innovators

Know of a media/democarcy project worthy of more attention? This from Bill Densmore at Newshare:

The Media Giraffe Project, hosted by the journalism faculty at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and funded by private donations, will be spotlighting individuals making innovative use of media to foster participatory democracy and community.

Beginning in March, the year-long research effort will seek, identify and profile individuals "sticking their necks out" using media to achieve more citizen involvement and accountability in government.

Project researchers will chronicle what's working at the local and national level via a website, "how-to" video, a book and training.

The project is being launched with the collaboration of The Giraffe Hero Project.

For more information on the project, or to nominate media "giraffes" worthy of profiling, please contact:

Media Giraffe Project
108 Bartlett Hall
Univ. of Massachusetts-Amherst
Amherst MA 01003
(413) 545-5931
mediagiraffe (at) journ.umass.edu

Two front-runners for top FCC job

Via Lost Remote

Intellectual Property and Creativity conference in Washington D. C.

Via Cinema Minima

if this makes sense to you

Sometimes the best way to find your peers is to start speaking loudly in your native tongue and see who talks back. So here's a diagram I drew after laughing at this post. I've drawn this sort of thing a number of different ways, but never as a Venn diagram. There's tons missing, but I kind of like how vague it is. Feel free to annotate it here on Flickr. Cheers:

Via ChapmanLogic

The next Xbox will be one big Live! machine

It’s inevitable that Live! will be a part of the Xbox 360. But according to this piece it looks like it will be as integral to the unit as the GPU. Gamespy continues their coverage of the next Microsoft console, with a look at how Live! is going to be integrated into the tiny silver/round-edged/spherical/whatever console. The gamer’s profile will play a key role in how the machine behaves, online and offline. The “Game Card”, a collection of your stats and preferences, will let the console start up as you want it, as well as hook you up with like-minded gamers.

The service will actually be built-in to the hardware, and it will include:

# Friends management
# Access to recent players
# Message center
# Game invite management
# User notifications
# Gamer profile
# One-on-one voice chat
# Downloads
# Feedback
# Sign-in

Of course, this means that the pressure will be on for you to subscribe to the service, making ownership of a game console that much more like owning a car. When will they start selling insurance for these things?

[thanks maneatingcow!]

Via Joystiq

Dog Vlogger

dog with video camera,
originally uploaded by pt.

Via Eric Rice

Sony Ericsson ROB-1: Bluetooth Camera Robot

Sony is showing off the ROB-1, which starts off on the right foot by naming itself after our favorite dead-end Nintendo product of yore. It's a robot Bluetooth camera, which you can control with the joystick of your phone, and even receive a live broadcast of what the robot is seeing if you use a Sony Ericsson P900/P910. Believe it or not, Sony Ericsson is actually planning on commercializing the ROB-1, so if you need a robot guard that can only work from about 30 feet away, keep an eye out around Q3 '05.

TV is 'declining in importance'

Via Lost Remote

Aboretum Releases Free Mac Audio/Video/Text Editor

Via Cinema Minima

Flash® Film Festival Finalists

The 2005 San Francisco Flash® Film Festival finalists have been posted and People’s Choice voting is open. 15 categories including cartoon, art, motion control, 3d, etc.



Via Flashforward blog.

Via we make money not art

Live from CeBIT: Siemens Prototype DVB-H Phone

Siemens is also showing off about a half-dozen of these DVB-H prototype phones, which as far as I can tell are just barely working (the DVB satellites aren't up yet for Korea, I've heard, but is Europe even getting DVB? I should start actually talking to these people instead of eating their fish). No plans to commercialize these yet, of course, but they're making a big deal of them. I have this feeling that TV on phones will be much more practical with the DVB solutions instead of trying to stream stuff over the networks.

Press Release (Third paragraph.) [Siemens]

Update: Apparently DVB has already launched in Germany. Plus, Janne writes:

Just to clarify. Europe has DVB in use as S, T and C formats. And at least here in Finland (Helsinki area) we have test broadcasts with the DVB-H. Just this weekend tested the Nokia 7710 phone with DVB-H receiver and it was very impressing.

Via Gizmodo

Unofficial SXSW Community Podcast

Via Eric Rice

Atom Films Short Becoming Vin Diesel Pic

Most people trying to break into the movie industry still think the film festival route is the way to go. Truth be told, film festivals, as evidenced by the last Sundance, are becoming stale. The new route to enter the movie business will be through the Internet. As an example, Blur Studio, makers of the short film "Rockfish" which has been playing on AtomFilms, have just announced that they are teaming up with Vin Diesel to make a sci-fi action CGI feature film based on the short. Diesel will lend his voice to the lead character. Tim Miller, who wrote and directed the short will direct the feature film.

(Fortunately, I don't see a duck in this one. -kc.)

Via HOLLYWOOD LIBERATION ARMY

Tech Firms Want New FCC Box Rule

This article by Ted Hearn was passed around my group today. I know there is a consumer advocate in here somewhere ...

An array of technology firms, including major computer and TV-set manufacturers, is pressing federal regulators to enforce new set-top-box rules against the cable industry.

Cable operators are resisting implementation of a Federal Communications Commission rule that would ban the deployment of new integrated set-tops after July 1, 2006, effectively meaning that all new boxes would need to function with the CableCARD conditional-access device.

“The time has come to end consumers’ exclusive reliance on [set-top boxes] provided by their cable company. In fact, it’s long overdue,” Hewlett-Packard Co. executive vice president Shane Robinson said in a Feb. 17 letter to the FCC.

The CableCARD mandate is designed to establish a retail set-top market, and the technology firms maintained that the creation of such a market requires that cable operators support the CableCARD in all new boxes that they provide their customers.

Cable insists that the mandate would drive up box costs without creating new value for consumers.

In a separate letter, H-P joined 11 other companies, including Sharp Electronics Corp. and Dell Inc., in urging the FCC to reject cable’s proposal that the agency should eliminate the ban or postpone its effective date by 18 months.

“The only way to ensure that consumers enjoy the benefits of a competitive marketplace is to maintain the requirement that devices supplied by cable operators rely on the same CableCARDs for security that must be used by equipment supplied through competitive retail outlets,” the companies told the FCC in a Feb. 18 letter.

An FCC source said one proposal under review called for retaining the ban but exempting low-cost boxes, but a price level defining “low-cost” was not provided. Earlier this week, a commission source said no decisions had been made.

On Wednesday, FCC member Jonathan Adelstein said it was important for the agency to move quickly because if the ban is affirmed, cable operators need time to place orders to meet the July 1 deadline.

Enclosure Extractor 2.0 (Shareware)

Via Meerkat: An Open Wire Service

TiVo to DVD via Mac OSX

Matt Kingston is a TiVo hacker from way back (I use his scripts to show what's on my TiVo) and recently wrote in:

Not finding any recent info on the web, I put together a guide on how to transfer video from a Series 1 TiVo to the Mac and edit/burn it to DVD (or VCD/SVCD).

http://www.hitormiss.org/2005/03/07/tivo-to-dvd-via-mac-osx/

There aren't many tools or guides for working with TiVo files on a mac, and Matt's tracked down all the tools that work on OS X and you can even use iMovie and iDVD at the end to edit and burn.

Via PVRblog

Grassroots Movie to Star Bloggers

What will they think of next. TheWeblogProject calls itself is the first open source, free, grassroots movie to support and promote the blogosphere. It is designed to be a completely different movie, because featured stars, producers, fundraisers and actors of TheWeblogProject movie are the bloggers themselves. They are looking for stars via del.icio.us plus wiki...

With your support, we will in fact fly to visit each one of the selected top 20 and interview them face to face. From now until April 15th you will have the opportunity to send in your personal list of the 20 bloggers you think we should interview, as they are in your opinion, the ones that have best understood the value and potential of blogging, and would be the best ones to evangelize and increase awareness about the blog universe to outsiders.

Of course, they want us to contribute and pay for this too - surprised?

Via Micro Persuasion

OJR introduces wikis on journalism skills

Robert Niles, editor of the Online Journalism Review, emails:

Today OJR introduced a new feature, a series of wikis on journalism skills, designed for bloggers, "grassroots" reporters and others who write online but who haven't formally studied journalism.

We've started with basic guides on writing, reporting and journalism
ethics. Each also includes a discussion area, where readers can ask specific questions about projects they are working on or debate controversial elements of these topics.

OJR is making these wikis available under a Creative Commons license,
the first time we've used these licenses on the site.

Via New Media Musings

Perfect use of BitTorrent

Wired News: SXSW's Torrent of Free Tunes
Legit and huge, 2.6 GB

Via sLop

Allard's Speech At GDC: Three Digital trends

Via PaidContent.org

OpenTopics

So Mary Hodder and I have been discussing "how could you do Technorati tags" = open.

Apparently it is NOT required to use the Technorati domain in your tags - but that's something people haven't caught onto and since the first generation of tagging 'plug-ins' went out without that feature - needless to say almost everyone IS now directly contributing to Technorati's link flow.

Now I really don't care about link flow, traffic, or any of that shit - but I can see why others might. I myself really APPRECIATE Technorati's contriobution to teh community - since I'm a folksonomies nut - and it was nice to see Flickr glued in there - but "where's BuzzNet? or Fotolog.net?"

And before I go on about what OpenTopics could be - here are a few comments from some Technorati peeps on my post on 'Why Tags matter' (responding to the David Weinberger post of the same name):

From from someone named Seth Russel:

I totally agree. We should find some way to eliminate the domain name from our tags. A tag is a tag is a tag, is the same tag, regardless if it is tagged at technocarti or del.icio.us or fliker or whatever. There is a simple way to do this actually ... i keep trying to write a white paper about it. But in a nutshell all it requires is that the tagging services share RSS feeds. Thanks for bringing this up !

Posted by: Seth Russell at March 3, 2005 06:01 AM

Technorati is a collector of tags, but you are not required to use the Technorati domain in your links to participate.

You can link to the Apple iPod page, the Wikipedia iPod page, or the Technorati page for the iPod tag. Each link is meant to provide a relevant destination for your categorization link. You choose the destination, Technorati aggregates the conversations, and the topics are open.

Technorati also treats the category and dc:subject elements within your RSS and Atom feeds as a post tag.

The rel value of "tag" is a W3C and IETF proposal that predates Technorati's evangelism of the usage in January.

Placing tags in your posts is decentralized tagging, open to everyone to share on their own servers and their own weblogs, wikis, etc. and open to personal definition. I believe OpenTopics is already here and content publishers are just beginning to find interesting ways to use the feature and create new ways for others to discover related content.

Posted by: Niall Kennedy at March 3, 2005 08:45 AM

Thanks, Niall, i learn something every day. But i still think that context servers like Technorati should share tags and items such that items intentionally tagged at one server would also be also tagged at other servers.

- thank you Seth and Niall - its nice to hear from Technorati peeps what's up with all that. But as I stated above - it's really too late to tell folks about that - if they've already plugged in their plug-ins and are using the system that way.

Meanwhile - so I was a Matt Mower LiveTopics user, loved what Matt and Paolo did with ENT and also LOVED eVector's k-collector product.

So how can we take those ideas - get folks using the ENT namespace (instead of some RESTful technique like Technorati nows persues) and create a truely open topic exchange. Well maybe not INSTEAD of a RESTful technique - how 'bout IN ADDITION to the RESTful technique.

That's one coolio thing about Flickr's APIs - they support XML-RPC, SOAP and REST techniques. So that's TRUELY the open, agnostic approach - support all three.

Oh yah - let's not forget Mr. Phil "I hacked it up over the weekend' Pearson. Not many people give credit for the 'link' ranking lick - which Phil's blogging ecosystem did six months BEFORE Technorati. But Phil also did something called the Internet Topic Exchange - which was the first blogging aggregator channel around topics.

So anyway all ego and credit aside - Mary and I have been trying to figure out how to get this to work. If any of you wanna participate in such an effort contact me or Mary.

So ENT is a namespace specifically designed for RSS - which would enable one to store the tags into the RSS feed. Folks should think about using that.

Thanks.

Live from CeBIT: Samsung 5.2 Megapixel Anycall Phone with Optical Zoom

I've been begging and pleading for someone to do it, and I sort of thought it might be Samsung. Here's a new 5.2-megapixel Anycall with optical zoom. Now granted, it's not the first optical zoom cameraphone—Samsung has had at least two others that I can think of—but this Anycall is fast approaching the future where we don't have point-and-shoot cameras at all. Pressing the camera button on the top and watching the zoom lens telescope out made me much more giddy than it should have.

(Gizmodo has tons more CeBIT porn including naughty shots of Samsung's 7MP Anycall. Look at that zoom lens. Ooooooooooooooooooooh. -kc.)

RSS Screensaver - NuParadigm Systems Inc.

Via del.icio.us/tag/unmediated

Online killed the video star

Call me sentimental, but I watched the last minute of the CBS news tonight. It was the first time I'd watched Dan Rather in 20 years. But then, I had a box of chicken the day Colonel Sanders died too. Nothing dramatic happened. It was just chicken.

(Thanks Mr. Rather. ;) -kc.)

How to Create Your Own Podcast - A Step-by-Step Tutorial

Via Broadcasting

Bittorrent 4.0 is out

Via Broadbandreports

Business podcasts take off

WebProNews: Business Podcasting Is Taking Off.

Via Social Media

Learning Communities in the era of Ubiquitous Computing, Milano, June 13

We are organizing a workshop that might be interesting for some of you.

Learning Communities in the era of Ubiquitous Computing
http://www.idi.ntnu.no/~divitini/ubilearn2005/
Milano, 13 June 2005

in conjunction with the International conference "Communities and Technologies".

Via All about Mobile Life

The Seattle Times: Paul Andrews: Progressive peek at TV's Web potential

"Although only a few weeks old and still in beta, CommonBits.org is drawing on powerful new downloading, indexing and newsfeed technology under an activist agenda to help independent audio, video and other media find wider distribution and their natural audience. Go to the site and you find all kinds of content, from "The Daily Show" clips of Jon Stewart monologues to "Democracy Now" broadcasts."

Mediated by Thomas De Zengotita

Great segment yesterday on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show -- an interview with Thomas De Zengotita, author of Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live In It.

His basic premise is that our lives are mediated (that is, seen through the lens of various media) to such an extent that we experience reality in a completely artificial way. This makes us resemble method actors, he asserts: always immersed in our roles, always "in the moment", always knowing our "motivation".

To me, some of what he's saying seems like a de-academicized take on the model of "subjectivity" put forth by semiotics: each of us is defined in part by the kinds of discourses in which we participate, be they films, social interactions, or Gawker blurbs. Still, though, it looks like a good read.

There's also a good interview with the author on Salon.

Via Stay Free! Daily

oggment: ogg and real encoder

an ogg vorbis & real audio LIVE encoder for linux!
it simply encodes the input from your soundcard (Mic/Line/Cd) simultaneously into vorbis & real audio encoded audio data sending it to an icecast2.0 server & real audio server respectively....the idea being to let larger sites offer live content in vorbis & real in order to ween the (ab)users away from addictive commercial codecs and into the LIGHT.

Wearable Computers That Fit You Well

In "Wearable Computers You Can Slip Into," BusinessWeek Online reviews several new unobtrusive wearable devices, such as a handbag with embedded chips. When this bag becomes available for about $150 in two or three years, it will remind you to grab your wallet or to pick an umbrella before going out.

And according to research firm IDC, the clunky wearable computers which required users to be wrapped in wires like Christmas gifts are quickly becoming things of the past. The future of wearable computers is already here, especially for some health-care applications, such as a 'smart band' that collects data on your physical activities and can be used as a weight-loss monitoring tool.

Read more for other details and several illustrations about these wearable assistants.

Via Clippings.reblog

The mistake of convergence

"For those of us in research, however, particularly those of us who do "user research", the idea of convergence is quixotic. It is a distraction from explorations of things that might be more salient. This is not to say that we doubt whether people in the future will sometimes want technology to combine different functions, it is just that we think that these combinations might need to be thought through more carefully than is typically the case. It is very rare indeed that users want everything combined in a single device. It is much more often the case that the reverse holds true: users want things separated and simpler, not combined and more complex."

Doctor Who leaked onto internet ahead of premiere

(Yes, it's Yet Another P2P Leak, but what stirkes me is that people complained about the encode quality. -kc.)

Nokia Launches Handset TV Project

Nokia has launched a pilot project enabling cell phone users to watch TV broadcasts on their handsets in the Helsinki region. Besides Finnish TV programming, 500 test users in the capital region can also watch international television broadcasts, such as BBC World and CNN, and tune into radio programs.
Release: The mobile TV test uses IP Datacasting (IPDC), which conforms with the DVB-H standard. At the end of 2004, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) adopted DVB-H as the standard for European mobile television services, enabling the simultaneous transmission of several television, radio and video channels to mobile devices.

Via MocoNews.net

High Definition and the future of viewing

Disk and broadcast systems battle it out

Analysis Over the past 20 years, the potential of high definition (HD) has seen development in a number of interlinked fields - broadcasting, consumer electronics and pre-packaged content.…

Non-linear TV viewing

(Also check out Terry Heaton's insightful post, "The Unasked Question" -kc.)

Via Lost Remote

First GDC keynote transcribed for your morning coffee

Wonderland has done a wonderful job of laying out one of the keynotes from GDC. The speaker was Raph Koster, who wrote ‘A Theory of Fun’. It’s a loose transcript but it does the job of catching Koster’s enthusiasm just fine. He seems to believe that games are a lot more than entertainment. In fact, he thinks they hold the key to solutions to everyday problems - past, present and future. His conclusion launches GDC with just the right tone:

We have to figure out games that don’t have one right answer, and we face our own cognitive challenges here. Otherwise we know what the fate of games will be: they’ll be the thing you stop doing when you’re 25 and you get kids. We’ll be missing out on a chance to improve the human condition.

So what I want to see: the games about curing cancer. The games about how do we restructure Florida when it’s under water? That’s where we need to go. In the end games stand on their own as the ONLY MEDIUM THAT TEACHES FORMAL SYSTEMS IN THIS WAY. It is the only communicative medium that does this. It is the only fully experiential method of learning abstract concepts.

Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing. If you’ve been falling asleep in the flood of holiday/post-holiday titles, the speech is like a shot of caffeine.

[via boingboing]

Via Joystiq

US: blogger given White House press pass

The New York Times reports that in the wake of the James D. Guckert/Jeff Gannon White House press corps scandal, an individual blogger was granted a day pass to the coveted media room. Garrett M. Graff who blogs about the Washington news media at Mediabistro.com, decided to see just how difficult it was to get into the White House. It turned out to be a lot harder than some had predicted, but once the blogosphere, and eventually major media outlets like USA Today and CNN, picked up on the story they began pressuring the White House to give Mr. Graff a pass, pressure to which they eventually caved. Jay Rosen, journalism professor at New York University, called Mr. Graff's story significant because it "expand(ed) the definition of what constitutes the press, just as radio and television once pushed those boundaries."

Source: The New York Times through Poynter

Via editorsweblog.org

Provocative Article on Spectrum

"As I looked at pictures of the TEAMBOTICA robot on my computer, the words of Mark McHenry echoed in my ears: “Once you accept the idea of frequency-agile radios, anything becomes possible.” Indeed. Eben Moglen and Dave Hughes had said essentially the same thing. With the exception of heavyweight spectrum incumbents like the broadcasters, who are unable or unwilling to concede the end of interference, most everyone who talks about unlicensed radio uses the same vocabulary, although to radically different ends. For Moglen it is about democracy. For Hughes it is about connectivity. And for McHenry it is about money. His frequency-agile radios have already entered the military-industrial complex; someday soon, this technology will likely enter the civilian realm and forge a path not unlike the Internet, making a few people very rich, producing devices that we might come to see as indispensable, but that in the end may or may not have much to do with freedom, personal or otherwise."

Orb's Media On Demand

Orb Network, a developer of streaming media software and FilmClix, today announced a partnership that will enable mobile access to an on-demand library of independent feature films from the U.S. and around the world.

FilmClix, said to be a pioneer in the migration of the independent film industry online, through its FilmClix i-Theatre, delivers independent feature films, extreme sports, and documentaries to homes, offices, airports and dorm rooms around the globe.

The partnership with Orb Networks enables FilmClix to digitally stream video content to any Internet device, including cell phones, PDAs, and notebooks. FilmClix subscribers open a Web browser, log-in, and select what they want to view from their personal library located on a PC.

How to set up streaming audio using no-cost software

Shimon Rura has a writeup on how to set up streaming audio for a meeting using no-cost software. I just walked through it, using a single Windows XP machine for the test setup. Works great.

Via Andrew Grumet's Weblog

Google Mapping Location-Based Narratives

My colleague Ken Tompkins recently sent along a link to John Udell’s Walking Tour of Keene. The short video demonstrates how Udell used Google Maps in concert with a bookmarklet to create a walking tour of an area in his hometown that rides on top of the Google Maps UI. Waypoints are marked with GPS data on the Google map and then linked to his content (jpgs and quicktime clips). Udell explains how he did it in a followup post. Other hacks to Google Maps are being posted on a Google Maps Hacking Wiki. Although the current hack is kludgey, it suggests exciting possiblities for location-based narratives that could be delivered in a web browser via the Google Maps interface.

How to Save the Orphans

Have you been contemplating sharing your story with the US Copyright Office about obstacles to using orphan works, but haven't been sure about what they want to hear? Check out this FreeCulture.org web page showing how others have done it, and Academic Copyright, a blog where Stanford CIS copyright expert Elizabeth Townsend-Gard lists specific questions the Office is exploring.

Building a mobile, locative, and collaborative application

Nicolas Nova writes: My colleague and friend Fabien Girardin wrote a post mortem of our location based project CatchBob. It's here

The document describes the whole development process, from the technical architecture to the user perception of the game. I talk about the positioning system, the data, the communication tool as well as the user interface. It addresses a large audience.

is an experimental platform in the form of a mobile game for running psychological experiments. It is designed to elicit collaborative behavior of people working together on a mobile activity.

Running on a mobile device (iPAQ, TabletPc), it's a collaborative hunt in which groups of three persons have to find and circle a virtual object on our campus.

Thank you Nicolas !

Announce: webjay@social-computing

I'm at a loss to describe it, so here is a screen shot:

This applet is integrated with Webjay in three ways. One, there is a link to Olivier's visualizer on each playlist page. (Scroll down to the comments area). Two, there is a link on each related page; these are the pages where relationships between playlists are given, so Olivier's tool is the perfect thing. Three, and most importantly, Social-computing.com has a complete copy of the Webjay database (except for housekeeping and user accounts).

Links:

• A sample playlist, Webjay version: it's a Jazz thing, by chromegat.
• The Webjay view of playlists related to that one: 'it's a Jazz thing' -- Related Playlists
• The Social-computing version of related playlists:Webjay Maps -- chromegat / it's a jazz thing
• Discussion, comments, bug reports

Media junkie

I can highly recommend this tongue-in-cheek essay by Wall Street Journal writer Andy Kessler on satellite radio and media company dynamics. For the temporally challenged, here are the juciest bits, and my thoughts:

What do you call a media company with a million subscribers and $500 million in annual losses? A great start. Sirius Satellite Radio has set Wall Street on fire, commanding a $7.4 billion value by following in the greasy path set out long ago by the cable industry, grow first and ask questions later.

… Harassed by the FCC over unwritten additions to the seven dirty word list, the King of All Media Howard Stern was ready to escape the public airwaves. A very Sirius $500 million and an encrypted signal was all it really took to shake him (and Mel) out of Viacom’s control.

Every successful media company is based on some restriction of trade – TV was a mandated oligopoly, cable has local franchise rights, movies control theaters, music controls retailers, etc.

Via Telepocalypse

Cyberbank's CP-B300, the first DMB Pocket PC Phone

DMB, or Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (basically a standard for video broadcasting), isn’t much of a dealy over here, but it’s starting to gain some traction in South Korea, where Cyberbank is introducing the first Pocket PC Phone with a built-in DMB receiver. The CP-B300, which is compatible with EV-DO networks, also has a 2.5-inch LCD touch screen, a 520MHz processor, a built-in 1.3 megapixel digital camera, dual-stereo speakers (which we’re sure sound awesome), and a miniSD memory card slot.

Via Engadget

Welcome to CommonBits (beta) - a community directory of progressive media

"CommonBits believes in the power of BitTorrent to enable activists and political groups to share and exchange large media files. Upload your files, and we'll create and host them as BitTorrents for you. Visit our Tools page to download a BitTorrent client for your operating system.

Podcasting by public broadcasters

Mike Janssen, the Associate Editor of the Current Newspaper, passes on this excellent list of broadcasters who podcast:

• American Public Media: Future Tense
• American Public Media: Weekend America
• BBC: Fighting Talk
• BBC: In Our Time
• Canadian Broadcasting Corp. - /Nerd
• Democracy Now! - XML link
• Hearing Voices
• KBeach, Long Beach, Calif. - Strange Angels
• KCRW, Santa Monica, Calif.
• KPCC, Los Angeles - Pacific Drift
• KZSC, Santa Cruz, Calif. - The Sound of Young America
• Northwest Public Radio and Northwest News Network - RSS link
• Public Radio Exchange
• Benjamen Walker - Theory of Everything
• WBHM, Birmingham, Ala.
• WFMU
• WGBH, Boston - Morning Stories
• WNYC, New York - On the Media

NYC Subway Wi-Fi?

(A couple of years ago I learned that technologies need to go through a 7-year testing process before the NYC MTA adpots it. That means they should be getting teletypes any day now. -kc.)

Via Broadbandreports