An Art and Technology Cocktail

What happens when you mix together Artists, Engineers and Scientists? A recent course at Purdue undertook this experiment and produced results that can be seen in the show "Images of Nature" which opened last Friday night and runs through April 29.

With installations as varied as dance routines with motion tracking that explore the effects of prosthetics and disabilities on movement, to a Greenhouse constructed of recycled windows, there is something in the show for everyone.


One of the interesting things about this show is that the blog from the class is public, so you can get insight into the influences and progress of the projects during conception and construction.

If you are in the Lafayette area over lunch or right before dinner in the next 10 days, be sure to stop by the Frontier building at 7th and Main and see what mixing together technology and art can produce. It is a result both sweet and intoxicating.

For more information on the class, see the overview video.  For more of the sights and sounds, you can click through on the slideshow to see my photo album.

 

Green until death

Marketplace has an article about Resomation-a new treatment for corpses that is being pitched as the green alternative to cremation. By dissolving the body, they are really only accelerating the natural decomposition process, but this is not always the way that people want to think about what happens when they die. It seems that there are some who are also opposed to this alkaline body dissolving solution because they are worried what will happen to the post treatment liquids. We have entered a time when death is so removed from life that even thinking about having to interact with something that has been part of death is frightening.

If we are really worried about the carbon emissions of cremation, perhaps it is time to return to the old tradition of the dead being laid out on a pyre to be consumed by birds. This does get a bit messy( and the smell is not good) so perhaps the use of dermestid beatles would be a cleaner, most clinical way to dispose of cadavers without the use of any energy at all. The resulting clean bones could be ground into bone meal and returned to fertilize the soil.

No matter what path we choose for disposing of our dead loved ones, we would all be better to remember that we are part of the cycle... and there is no life, without death.

location, location, location.... NOT

With the glamour of new technology approaching seeming magic, we are being drawn into location applications "just because we can". Foursquare and GoWalla are battling it out in the location tracker app service, but they are just the first big players to the plate... the hoards are following, but more like lemmings than with any sense of value. I contend that the value for end users is not in location, but in action or intent.

Undeniably, the ability to tag into GPS( or other location data) and place yourself on the map is cool. The apps are fun to play for a while. But the value add for the users ends quickly as the newness wears off. I was one of the first on both services in my small town and had fun making marks and then watching as other users came along and found them. And then that got pretty boring. Do I really care who has been to other places? Not really. What I care about, what draws me in-- is what they are doing there.

Certain that there is some use case for a location based social networking app, I have pondered this inside out, but I am stumped. Consider the following:

1) Using it to connect with people at a conference or event. Yeah, not so much. Someone I know checks into a talk or an event? OK. but I want to know what the event is, or WHY they are there before I decide to go. If they are a good enough friend that their mere presence draws me there, we are already text msg, twitter or god forbid calling each other to coordinate.

2) Using it to build an ego presence as a regular at a location and get cool discounts? OK, maybe-- but really- if you are a regular, the store will know. Loyalty cards, etc.. give the same benefits.

3) Using it to find other people who like to go to the same places you do. Nice idea, but doesn't really work that way. Yes, I can check into a location and see who else has... but really have no mechanism for connecting with those people in any meaningful way. Even given that.. is the fact that we shop at the same grocery store going to be a friendship building point-- or the fact that we both love to get the same brand of sauce for our BBQ?

Am I missing something? What really cool use have you fallen in love with a location based social networking application for?


There is a point and a usefulness to location apps- I love being able to log in in a new location and seeing what is nearby. But there are tons of services and applications that allow me to do this ( still waiting for the best of breed to emerge, honestly...) and this does not in any way build a social network. James Burke entranced us all with the fact that the things we do impact others-- and build connections. Connections 1 (5 - Disc Set) While there is amusement and entertainment in the "George Washington slept here" impact, it is short lived. George Washington Slept Here [VHS]
Map overlay does not have lasting human impact.

The one application that I think could come close to this, but has not yet is @getglue. They recently released an iPhone app, but I am waiting for the android version for my Evo. If I could take a picture of the cool new gadget in BestBuy ( or scan the bar code) and see an overlay of reviews from people who bought it/used it ( regardless of location)- that provides real value. And if I buy it and love it, I can choose to connect with other people who loved it as well. Will we become friends? maybe, maybe not- but there is more of a reason to believe that a network of people with shared interests will last. Will you really care who else stood in the same spot as you on some other day 6 months from now?

Apple's Parenting Habits Breed Incompetent Kids

There is nothing more frustrating than having some pretty good brains in a room beating around an interesting idea and then stopping a hair short of the truth and leaving it hanging in either conspiracy theory or coincidence.

It was so frustrating this morning that I found myself yelling at my radio as the podcast played ( good thing 26 was quiet and nearly empty this morning). I was listening to the most recent "Cranky Geeks" episode, and they were discussing Rob Enderle's article ( Rob was on the show, btw) about how it seemed an odd almost conspiracy that ex-Apple employees were causing the ruin of many Apple competitors. He calls it Apple's Fifth Column with a bit of tongue in cheek. He does end the column with the observation that this is most likely not true, but just a case of companies needing someone in charge to keep them from doing stupid things. In the show discussion, Rik Myslewski points out that this is generally the CEO.Although Adam Curry is pushing for conspiracy theories ( of course-- and I say that lovingly, I enjoy NoAgenda, btw) The discussion ends in chuckles and they move on before they get to the important analysis.

The truth is, in most really large companies, smart, proficient CEOs surround themselves with executives and charge those executives to fill top management positions with people who are good at making decisions. In most large companies, there are too many ( and perhaps too disparate or too complex) decisions that need to be made for a single person to have control of all of them. You need bright, independently thinking, creative, insightful execs who are good at business- even if it is a tech company- to stay at the front of the pack once you hit a certain size.

Apple does not do this. Steve surrounds himself with technically great people who will do what he tells them too without too much argument, and does not care if they understand why. It always feels ( from the outside) like he runs the company like a helicopter parent. The people following his directions are smart and from the outside appear brilliant, get hired by other companies hungry for Apple brilliance- and they fail-- often spectacularly, as Rob points out in his article- as they try to repeat some of the things they saw Steve doing, but never really understood.

A good company, like a good parent, helps its employees "grow-up" to the best of their capabilities. This sometimes means giving people the chance to make mistakes, the chance to fail and putting more energy into it than if you had just done it yourself-- much like teaching your kid how to do laundry. Companies who just do the laundry for their employees because it is easier and safer that way end up with employees like those college kids who ruin entire wardrobes their first week at college because they have no clue what they are doing.

John? Next time-- push discussions like this all the way to their natural end--- the conclusions are much more interesting than conspiracy or Occam's Razor.

HTC Evo Photo comparison

I have been playing around with the back camera ( 8 Megapixel, dual flash) on my Evo. So far, I have been pretty impressed with what it can do, considering it is a cell phone camera. Low light is a challenge, but the flash does well for objects not too far away. Shade gives a little focal issue,

From Drop Box

but it is so much better than the camera on my BB ( which got used a LOT) that I am stunned and more than pleased. Our household camera is a Kodak Z950, which is a good little all purpose point and shoot for us. the other night, we were goofing around on the deck, waiting for a storm to roll in and so I decided to do some side by side shoots for comparison. All of the pictures are untouched.

This is the shot from the Kodak, no flash at all from across the deck toward the fireplace under construction. You can see it was pretty dark out.

From DeckStormPics

The Evo with Flash manages to light up the area pretty well, but the flash causes some pretty bad washout.

From EvoDeckStormPics

Flash on the Kodak caused less washout.

From DeckStormPics

Rearranging the lantern the boys had inside the fireplace gave better clarity with the Evo,

From EvoDeckStormPics

and even gave pretty good results when zoomed all the way in as far as the Evo could:

From EvoDeckStormPics

.

The Zoom on the Evo still can not touch that of the Kodak ( no surprise), so it will not be completely replacing our family camera.

From DeckStormPics

I was pleasantly surprised that the Evo did not give me a complete blur when I shot the boys climbing out of the fireplace from across the deck with only the flash:

From EvoDeckStormPics

All in all, don't be surprised to see me whip out my cell phone and grab a quick pic.

[video test and review soon to follow]

@foursquare (or @gowalla ??) meet @gencon

Gencon is August 5- 8 in Indianapolis. For those of you who do not know, Gencon Indy is a huge ( tens of thousands) gaming convention that runs for 4 days. There are thousands of events, and hundreds of vendors and companies there. Almost everyone there is a geek.

It would seem to be the perfect opportunity to really test out some very cool locations features in Foursquare and/or GoWalla (sorry GoWalla until you actually have a BB application and not just a mobile website, Foursquare will be my preference)- or even for some very smart, ambitious startup to make a mark.

Here are some of my top ideas on cool, useful things could be done at an event like Gencon:


1. Check in to vendor booth in the great hall. Allow vendors to set such that visitor #x ( 100, 200, 300, etc) each day gets a coupon or a special free giveaway

2. Check in to actual events/rooms for gaming sessions so your friends know how to find you. Let vendors running events see who came and send out coupons later to those who checked in.

3. Check in to actual events/rooms for gaming sessions and receive instant freebies of some sort of point/weapon/bonus for your character to use during that session.

4. Check in to actual events/rooms for gaming sessions and receive special promo material at the end of the event from the vendor running it.

5. Check in @ parties and general open events ( costume contest, after hours, etc..) to help promote them ( think SXSW style checkins) and/or receive special badges.

6. Check in #true Dungeon to get special extra tokens

7. Check in @ local restaurants ,hotels, etc.. as a Gencon attendee for special deals.

For any location based service, there are 10s of thousand of geeky gamers decending on Indianapolis in a few months-- how will you leverage this event and offer great services beyond new badges for the users??

Data Collaboration: a Google Wave Vision

Instead of working in isolation out on the Google Wave Sandbox, I finally got an invite to the public preview, where all the cool kids are getting their feet wet. It has led me to ponder if all technology/software innovations are a case of the chicken or the egg.

The first obvious Wave application is chat.. and so chat happens. and happens and happens. ( even when it doesn't make sense). People start speculating about what this technology will replace, what will "die" as a result.

Someone "saw" that waves would be interesting for an RPG, made a dicebot and the word got out. Now there are all imaginable forms of RPG gathering in the waves... many still to just discuss and make character sheets, rather than ongoing campaigns.

Someone made a sudoko gadget and there are a multitude of waves where people are collaboratively or competitively playoing sudoku.

The Google Wave infrastructure is truly a case of "build it and they will come". What is missing is a groundswell of the public asking for functionality. It is all experimental and folks are still building toward Ah Ha moments, so perhaps there will be more of this in the weeks to come. Here is the the thing I wish more people got: Google Wave is not just about real time collaboration. Google Wave is the first functional separation of data from application.

Data exists. I can create it in a Wave, embed it in a blog, share it on twitter, entangle it with a word doc, a presentation or a spreadsheet. It does not matter which application you use to view or interact with the data, you will see the same data, the same updates and the same edits. Because the data is separate from any one application, it is very easy to pass the data to other applications, transform it, visualize it or sync it to other data streams.

This is the truly mind blowing fact that seems to be slipping through the cracks because the functional demonstration of it is not quite finished. What will you do with your data when you can have it any (and every) where?

Email: The Nail in the Coffin

I have been musing for a while now about the seemingly imminent death of email, but last night I became convinced that personal email is already dead, we are just hammering the nails in the coffin.

Yes, there is no doubt that business email is still alive ( and broken and annoying)- but that is another post. Let's focus on Personal email.

I was on a phone call with my mom when the ringing of the hammer sounded clearly.

"We decided to talk to Verizon and get off of AOL and just use our Verizon email."

Excellent news! AOL ( stop cringing) was the right choice for my parents back in 1990, when the web was new and there were not many user friendly email interfaces. Now, it just inevitably led them to clicking on links in ways that launch that horrid AOL browser and things were broken. Plus, it is spending money on a service they really don't need. Times are tight and money is not free.

"Your Dad was reluctant and is concerned about how the email will look, but I told him it really did not matter, hardly anyone we know uses email any more. When I look at my email, it is almost all junk or ads or things people forwarded me. We don't have many people who send us stuff any more- you all moved to Facebook".

Wow. Astute for a basically computer challenged person who strongly resists change of any kind. She was not happy about the shift, mind you- ( I did not even want to boggle her with the plethora of social networks where I have a home... we will just leave it as Facebook for now).

"I am going to have to get on Facebook if I want to keep in touch, and just when I learn it, you will all probably move someplace else. But there is no doubt that email is just dead."

This from a 64 year old woman who is far from a computer analyst and does not know Facebook at all, apart from her grandaughters talking about it and the little bit we showed her over the Easter Holiday.

If she is not on Facebook soon, I have no doubt she will be on by the end of my daughters' week-long visit with them the first week of June. Honestly, I think she will like it better than AOL email.. but for my sanity and hers, I hope someone solves the interoperability/open authetication/platform communication before they leave and migrate to the next great social networking platform and leave her behind on Facebook wthout a linkage.

The Future of Email is Bleak

I am battling to not fall into a generation communication/media gap. I have noticed for some time now that email use is declining, especially amongst teenagers. I honestly wanted to write this off as one of the follys of youth- "they can play around with their social network messaging now, but once they grow up and enter the real world, they will have to adjust to email". It was a comforting thought to help me through the annoyance of logging into multiple social networking sites to check messages. I can not fathom my future spent in such an annoying way ( and I do still believe that the way that social networks interact will have to change for them to survive) .

Having my parents here over the past weekend and spending more than one discussion/argument over the shift from paper communication to digital/email has really made me accept that the shift to social network messaging is not just a folly of youth, but the next evolutionary shift in digital communications. It does not mean that email is dead. The generations of people and businesses heavily invested in email are not going to disappear overnight. But the change is coming and if you have a business or an interest in being able to continue to communicate to the next generation of adults, you had better be prepared. Just as my generation sends paper communications less and less, my childrens' generation uses email less and less. This does not mean that I think that social network messaging is better than email, just that the current shift is rapidly moving away from it. For my part, it means that I am going to stop haranguing my children to check their email and trying to convince them that email is important to their future.

How do you communicate with the teenagers in your life? How is your business adapting to accomodate the shift in communication?

Not your father's email...

I love email. There is no denying it. The first time I discovered email (back in the 80's...) I can remember a rush of electricity running through me. "the delivery time just went to zero" I remember thinking. "And I can CC: people... it is like a private bulletin board". You can imagine how long I laughed when my daughter recently looked at me and said "Mom, email is dead- no one reads email anymore". I tried to explain to her that I processed several hundred emails each day, there is NO way this is going away. Then I stopped and wondered if the people who used carbon paper on a daily basis felt the same way once upon a time. Was it possible that I was buried so deeply in my habits that I was not seeing a coming change in usage? I decided to take a moment, step back with an open mind and pay attention to how the teenagers around me were communicating electronically. Here are some of the insights I have gathered about our future workforce:

1) All electronic communication is one-on-one. Some communication is private and some is personal, but it is all on a one to one basis. I saw this first hand recently when I was drafting my 14 year old to assist with getting comments on an article in the HP Magic Contest on Chris Pirillo's site. I asked her to contact her friends on Facebook and ask them to read and comment on the article. When I tackled this task, I wrote one message, CC'd it to any of my friends on Facebook and hit send. When she tackled this task, she typed up a message and sent it to one friend. Then she typed something slightly different and typed it to another. Then she typed a new message and sent it to another friend. Then she typed... you get the picture. I asked her what the HECK she was doing.. which led me to observation number two.

2) Only spammers CC: people. Laugh all you want at the naivete in this statement. I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. Who in business today does not CC: ( or even BCC:) people on a daily (hourly??) basis? Once you stop laughing, stop and think about this. If an entire age group of people think and believe a certain way, isn't it likely to come true in the future? This is not just a misunderstanding of email, this is a philosophical stance being taken by a generation. What they believe and act on is the idea that all communication, even electronic communications, are personal interactions.

3)Messaging is ubiquitous, not a separate application. Email as an entity does not really exist. There is just the concept of messaging. Sometimes you send a private ( or public) message on Facebook, or MySpace. Or maybe you send a message in Flickr, Geeks.com, or from within a game you are playing. It might just be a text message on your cell phone. The concept of opening up a new application or web page JUST to do email is beyond silly (the actual term was "ridiculous") to the upcoming generation.

I have to admit that I am still struggling to imagine my life without gmail or Outlook or Thunderbird, but if I am honest, I have to admit that a change is coming. This is a topic that will continue to watch and discuss with the teens who cross my path- and I will be writing more on this in the near future. In the meantime, I have to admit that although my business usage of an email application has not changed, my personal use of email has become more and more limited- more an more of my one on one communication in my personal life takes place on facebook or twitter or through blog coments and not via email.

Is your email usage changing? What would your digital life look like without an email application ??

Teens and issues of media legality

Let me try to defuse some of the potential inflammatory comments:

1. DRM is evil.
2. The RIAA is not only evil, it is stupid.
3. Pirating media is not only illegal, it is morally wrong.
4. Artists deserve to be able to make a living from the art they create.


Back story:

I have friends and family who are artists and make money from the art they create. I have long been a proponent to everyone I know that if you enjoy art, you should be willing to pay a reasonable price for it. No question, organizations like the RIAA go in wrong directions and to far extremes, but I am willing to pay for art I enjoy and have always encouraged others to do the same.
As a parent, I have held to my guns on this one. My children have been taught copyright, the idea of creative value and that illegal media is not tolerated in this household. I am the parent who would not give them blank CDs to give to their friends to make copies of movies and music. I was the one who informed teachers that making copies of "Kid Music CDs" for fun is NOT an educational fair use and they should not be requesting blank CDs from home for it.

Limewire is banned. We buy or rent movies, we do not download them. My kids get iTunes allowances as part of a Christmas Present. I have worked hard to instill this in my kids. Honestly, there is a grey area that if I were in a house alone, I would live in that includes some violations of this principle. But when you are setting an example, you tread more carefully than when no one is watching. And Kids? they are always watching.

While they were younger, this was successful. But now they are older, independent thinkers. Plus we have broadband connections. Broadband= streaming media.

I can say with much confidence that my children do not, will not and disagree with downloading illegal copies of music and movies. They do not want to possess it, they know this is a good way to behave as a citizen consumer of the arts. You pay for what you own.

But what about the illegal videos on YouTube.. and the myriad number of sites that are available on the internet. It happens.. I know they do it, they even tell me about it without thinking about the wrongness of how that media is uploaded.

Then again, is it really wrong? Illegal, YES. But wrong? Watching something on the internet will not stop a bunch of teenagers from paying to go see something again. And in some cases, it goes deep into the gray area- video footage that they would have no access to, or outlet to pay for, if they were not watching it stream.

I want them to respect artist's rights and means of life. But I do not want to be such an "enforcer" that they never talk to me or tell me what is going in their lives, either. It is a very delicate balance. Is it OK to condone things that I might participate in myself if kids were not watching? Where do you draw the line with your children?

The Roku Review

I have had my Roku Netflix box for about 2 weeks now and so far the Pros far out weigh the cons.

Setup was so easy that I am comfortably considering getting my parents one of these for Christmas and knowing that they could open the box and set it up themselves. Take it out of the box, plug it in, power it up and follow the set of simple onscreen instructions.

Connectivity is excellent, I have had playback over my AT&T DSL without glitch, hitch or hiccup.

The software interface is clean, easy to use and you can easily browse movies in a "cover flow" style, get details on the movie and jump back to the flow without difficulty.

Because the box only displays the items in your instant view queue, and does not browse the entire instant view library, you will need to either spend some time building up a long queue, or be satisfied with just a few choices when you use the box. Since I can never be sure what anyone will be in the mood for, I now have an instant queue that is 334 titles long and manually organized by movie genre. This was not a fun process and takes time to maintain when new movies are added to the queue.

Allowing profiles to have their own instant view queues and being able to select a profile from the Roku home screen would simplify this. Since we have a wide range of tastes ( elementary school boys, teen-aged girls and grownups) the titles I had to put in the queue vary widely and you have to wade through everyone else's possibilities to find the ones you might be interested in. I do not like that I have to either closely monitor the kids and make sure they do not choose the more adult content in the queue, or else add and subtract it all the time to keep them out of it- but this is not a killer issue. I will just keep my fingers crossed that since they are officially keeping profiles on the regular queues, they will soon let us have multiple instant watch queues. Having a search feature to be able to search through the queue ( by title, by actor, by director, by genre) would be a great addition to the interface as well. I believe that Roku and Netflix think that people are going to put about 6 movies in their queue and dynamically change it all the time. I don't see this happening. It is much more useful as a sort of streaming video on demand box with a broad list of options to choose from. Once you get more than about 20 movies in the queue, you really start to wish for search.

We have also learned that losing power unexpectedly will cause the box to lose it's brains and hang- luckily a simple power hup seems to bring it right back again. The power up and reload process takes about 4-5 minutes ( I have a queue that is over 300 titles long, remember...????) so this is an annoyance if you are in a hurry- but not many people are on a tight time schedule to watch a show. Since power outages here are limited to about a weekly episode during thunderstorm season and this is not a daily occurrence, it is a livable problem. A cleaner failure would be nice- the hung interface would be frustrating to most users without the savvy to figure out the power hup trick ( then again in an age when cable companies make commercials telling people to power hup their routers and modems when they have problems, maybe it is becoming a common solution).


The biggest issue is the available content. Netflix is adding new movies and TV shows to the list of titles that are available through the instant view option on a daily basis- but if you are the type of person who only watches first run movies, the current industry licensing policies will keep you from ever enjoying this little box. If you like classic movies, strange B Science fiction, really great documentaries, musicals, music specials or like to watch TV shows on DVD, you will love this little box. Since there are tons of classic movies I still want to share with my kids, I like to watch musicals and bad science fiction while folding clothes and we are a documentary hungry household, this is a good fit.

The MacWorld Point people are missing

I have been having a lot of fun remotely watching the craziness and goings-on at MacWorld this week. There are a handful of liveblogs of the Steve Jobs Keynote for this event that you can go and read. It is interesting to compare the coverage and reporting in different live blogs, what people think is interesting or not. There is a little blurb in the Engadget liveblog that jumped right out at me. It was not even reported on some of the other blogs, so small and inconsequential is it to Apple specific technology and developments. It was this excerpt from the Keynote when Jim Gianopulos ( Chairman & CEO of 20th Century Fox) took the stage [emphasis added are mine]:


10:06am - "The real back story, when Steve came to us, it was a no-brainer. It was the most exciting, coolest thing we've ever heard. VoD isn't a new thing. But there was music, and then the iPod. There was a phone, then the iPhone. Apple does things in an intuitive, insightful way... this will be a transformative version of the rental model. We're incredibly excited about it."

"There's another idea we've been talking to Steve about. There are other formats -- DVD. And there are next gen formats, like Blu-ray." Laughter and applause. "People still want to buy hard media, but we don't want to deny them the benefit of watching the same movie. So we developed a digital copy that will be on discs going forward."

Stuck in the middle of all of the hype and hoopla about movie rentals on iTunes and making this VoD for real is an interesting little tidbit. Fox intends to put a digital copy of all of its movies on the DVD. So when you buy a hard copy of the disc, you also get a digital copy you can copy to your computer, load on an iPod, put on a file server at your house and watch in a digital home video system, etc.
As far as I am concerned, this is actually a REALLY BIG deal. Some poking around on the web shows that someone with the new Family Guy DVD ( the first DVD to include this feature) confirms this functionality. There is no detail on the functionality/DRM built in. From the MacRumors report, it looks like this will require iTunes and will most likely be DRM'd. However, this is a step forward from the original Fox plan which worked only with Windows and PlaysForSure devices. It is not clear if this means they are abandoning their Windows only path, or if both types of files will be on the DVDs.

This is not the complete solution- none of this works on Linux or Unix computers, it is all still completely laden with DRM, but it is at least 5 steps in the right direction. I hate The Family Guy, but I am tempted to go buy the DVD, just to support the move. Most likely I will check the FOX releases and see what is being released soon. We are a household of media consumers, currently two of us having video capable iPods, three with laptops and 2 portable DVD players- if I can buy a disc and also get digital versions of the movie that the laptop and iPod users can play, I may actually start buying DVDs again- not just renting them. How about you?

I'll take this kind of Karma any day

The new Fiskers Karma is one sweet ride. I am not usually all about the car.. as long as it has wheels and runs without my feet touching the street through the floorboards and the heat and the tunes are functional, I am OK. But how can you not love a car like this? Pull up next to me in one of these and I would probably jump in for a ride- even if it were a deviation from my schedule. Just because it is a sweet ride, don't expect to get any further than our destination... but I bet it would make a sweet story for the Top Gear guys.