2 Wheel Motion

The warmer weather's got me thinking about getting my bicycle out of the garage.  And while the $100 I spent on my budget Huffy still ranks as one of my best investments ever, I sure wish I was riding this electric piece of beauty.  Word from Engadget is the frame is "composed completely of a conductive carbon fiber weave that allows the bike's body to not just pass electricity to the motors, but actually store it like a giant capacitor."  I want.

More on the HMK 561 electric bicycle concept @Engadget

3 Titans "The Life of a Scholar" (feat. Menahan St. Band)

Radiohead Audio Videos

A while back on the blog I mentioned Radiohead and their 'pay-what-you-feel' pricing structure for In Rainbows.  Along with their "open source pricing" they also let loose the wisdom of the crowds by releasing each songs unmixed stems allowing fans to remix each of the albums songs, as well as asking fans to create and upload their own album covers.

They also did some great stuff with their music videos.  This first was created and submitted by a fan, winning the Aniboom In Rainbows Animated Music Video Contest.  Fantastic animation and a great concept.


This 2nd video was created by a favorite digital artist of mine, Aaron Koblin, using the Processing program.

They also released the code used to create this video, allowing people to create their own animated versions, two favorites here and here.

Good ad

It's not often I post commercials, but this one kinda worked on me. Nice looking car too.

Social Media Week: Social Media & The Haiti Disaster

Live Blog

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5:54: ===END=== Time for dinner and a drink!
5:53: Wrapping up

5:46: RT @rachellehoude: Twitter and YouTube are removing the financial value of information and its control through citizen sharing. Awesome & responsible. #smwnyc

5:45: AC: My father told me "What is true is not always fair."

5:41: More Q&A from the audience.

5:36: EP: Tweeting info while others weren't able to 'file stories' because of electricity outages.

5:32: "Take this, in case I don't live through this shit" EP as he hands over iPhone before climbing into rubble of a building.

5:31: Watching EP video from the first minutes after quake. Powerful.

5:28: First hand account from Rob Mackey Erik Parker who was in Haiti at time.

5:26: AR: Haiti may be tipping point of using social media to save lives.

5:26: First use of "tipping point"

5:25: DWB: Use social media/crowd sourcing to pinpoint where needs are

5:18: AC has become "gatekeeper" with what she retweets... AC: "Everyone wants to use you"

5:16: AR: "global consciousness"

5:15: AC: Reporting has gone from "look how terrible this is" to "look how terrible, now do something!"

5:14: AC: Group of people with niche knowledge will drive interest from old media.

5:14: AC: "Niche knowledge"

5:13: AC Twitter joined broader community in raising and capitalizing awareness on a way that's useful. Sms donations

5:11: AC: How do we get people to know/care about stories that aren't "trending"?

5:10: Personally, I'd like to hit pause and explore "narrative arc" more.

5:09: AR: create hashtag #dontforgethaiti

5:09: "Narrative arc" - Insightful!

5:08: Create narrative arc via social media - to keep new audience engaged. Use 'grounds' to keep telling people what is actually happening ie: post-op care, surgery still needed, etc. Stories that effect people's lives long term.

5:07: DWB: Definitely going to leverage social channels to maintain support.

5:06: Yes, can exert pressure on government.

5:05: Ras: Can we use social media to keep attention / maintain support on Haiti?

5:04: Ras: Wikipedia page became 'hub' of Haitian Earthquake information, communication

5:04: AC: give people information and you give them power.

5:03: Rasiej: Most journalists describe themselves as journalists, not 'information hounds' - not in the information business, in the journalism business

5:00: Just thought of the web of communication used within minutes of the crane collapse in 2008. No Twitter, but SMS, email, phone to reporter, reporter to web - all within first hour.

4:58: AC: Many people in journalism have misunderstood the power of Twitter. "Why would you limit any opportunity to convey information to people directly?"

4:58: First use of "top-down hierarchy." Regarding 'old media' dismissing Twitter.

4:56: AC: Twitter needs to be used how "people who use Twitter want it to be." BF: There was a Wired article on this recently...

4:54: Rasiej "Can we look forward to the potential of "Twitter Pulse"?

4:53: AC: What happens when 9/11 type event is tweeted? Reading people's last words via a public forum. MAybe help investigators.

4:52 AC: with Iran images "really thought we crossed a line" No news organization would have run images that were tweeted.

4:47: AC: Twitter contacts became "overwhelming" and "very difficult" when Tweets started becoming personal ie: Need water __here__. "Wall" between reporter, audience broken down

4:46: AC: Twitter added "another layer" to reach out and connect in 'real world'

4:44: AC: dig at AT&T service in Haiti - inadvertent? Who knows, crowd laughed.

4:43: AC: "Road paved" "connections made" w Twitter contacts

4:41: DWB: Turned to Haitian radio to get message out to Haiti public, to dispel rumors. Old models still apply - must be evaluated in case by case basis.

4:40: DWB: Able to maintain a dialogue when they otherwise wouldn't have.

4:40: DWB: Chaos allowed more freedom to the information they were putting out

4:39: Also annoying, baseball people using the term "lights out" when describing a pitcher.

4:38: Personal question "Is there a better term than twittersphere or Blogsphere? Those annoy me like "Redzone" annoys John Madden.

4:37: On the projection screen www.tweetgrid.com - "Whoa, that's a lot of info!"

4:36: Rob Mackey/NYT: Iranian protest brought the "verification & identification" issue to the forefront

4:34: Andrew Rasiej - "Readers, I like to call them partners" reader/partner interaction

4:33: Network can verify

4:32: Twitter more so than web has 'degree of trust'

4:30: Does this change the news media ecology?

4:29: AC: "Twitter is teaching people the power of information" "positively as well as negatively"

4:25: Ann Curry: Twitter contact -> Phone Call -> Phone Interview on NBC Nightly News

4:22: Users starting to understand diff between 1st person and "hearsay" - location feature becoming valuable for verification.

4:21: How to filter through all the information, "remove all the chaff"?

4:20: Doctors were going to Haitian markets to purchase saws for amputation!

4:17: DWB -> NBC's Ann Curry -> US Airforce via Twitter in matter of minutes.

4:15: DWB and Haiti airport conversing via Twitter feeds

4:15: Cone: For us it's really changed the way we think about social media - 7,000 FB fans to 20k since disaster. Most important place to interact w public"

4:13: Twitter instead of press release to publicize obstacles DWB encountered - able to make noise about difficulties of plane landing, stir up support.

4:10: Comm. Director for Doctors w/o Borders is on the panel - Jason Cone. Let's make it good.

4:08: Follow this on twitter: #smwnythaiti

4:05: 15th Floor of the NY Times building, a hush has fallen over the crowd composed of internet geeks like myself.

Audio / video

I've mentioned the Decode: Digital Design exhibition I saw in london previously.  Here's another piece that was featured focusing on audio-response, entitled Solar Rework, designed by Robert Hodgin.  You can read about how it was built, here.


Solar rework from flight404 on Vimeo.

Dear Google,

Dear Google,
Now that I've condensed my mail, docs, photos, videos, bookmarks and blog onto your servers, please don't be evil with my data.
Thanks, Ben.

PS. Way to go re: China's censorship.

Data Privacy Day is an international celebration of the dignity of the individual expressed through personal information. In this networked world, in which we are thoroughly digitized, individuals are asking ‘How can I protect my information from being misused?’ Read more.

Social Media Week

Social Media Week conferences take place simultaneously in multiple cities around the world. The aim of each event is to advance the use and understanding of social media in the corporate, public and non-profit sectors.

The second annual conference will take place between February 1st – 5th, 2010 simultaneously in New York City, Berlin, London, San Francisco, Toronto and São Paulo. The five day conference will explore the profound impact that social media has on culture, business communications and society at large. LEARN MORE.

I'll be attending Social Media & the Haiti Disaster, should be interesting and hopefully insightful.

DJ Shadow - 6 Days

Six Days by DJ Shadow from 'The Private Press' LP. Video directed by Wong Kar-Wai, available on Vimeo.

www.djshadow.com

Design by Numbers

On my latest quick trip to London, I made some time to head to the Vitoria & Albert museum to see a new exhibit entitled Decode: Digital Design Sensations, produced in conjunction with onedotzero, a digital arts organization.  Touted as "the latest developments in digital and interactive design, from small, screen-based, graphics to large-scale interactive installations."

It was a very interesting combination of a number of different art/technology mediums, using computers to collect, react and interpret collections of data.  Along with the interactive pieces which allowed for immediate interaction, my favorite piece was a digital interpretation of flight patterns by Aaron Koblin "an artist specializing in data visualization. His work takes social and infrastructural data and uses it to depict cultural trends and emergent patterns."

Using a program called Processing - available via open source distribution - Koblin took FAA data of flight plans to produce a 24 hour time lapse map of flights over North America.  The final product is a visually stunning piece of art you can view below.


I highly recommend clicking here to view it in full screen.

When you start digging deep enough, there are all sorts of little treasures on the web, like Kobin/Processing produced Radiohead video for 'House of Cards' or the hundreds of videos in the Processing group on YouTube.  Watching these made me think of an earlier post featuring a Jay-Z video.

Atleti, Atleti...

My new favorite team on the continent:

But how long until I can meet the Mets?

Ten years of BlackBerry

If you know me, you know I love my Blackberry.  Believe it or not, it's been a decade since Research in Motion first jumped on the scene, and Engadget has a comprehensive article on the smartphone makers who IMHO have gotten it right.

Siftables

Developed by the MIT Media Lab, "Siftables are cookie-sized computers with motion sensing, neighbor detection, graphical display, and wireless communication. They act in concert to form a single interface: users physically manipulate them—piling, grouping, sorting—to interact with digital information and media. Siftables provide a new platform on which to implement tangible, visual and mobile applications."

Almost endless possibilities, all of which chip away at the wall between programs and users.  Take a good look at the video to see what I mean.  Learn more at Sifteo.com.



One of the first applications I've seen using this sort of physical/virtual control are Musiblocks.  The physical placement and movement of the blocks affects the commands they send to the computer -> the higher the blocks are placed, the louder the volume gets.  Click here to watch a You Tube video of the Musiblocks in action.

Breaking into the 3rd dimension

One of the ideas I continue to roll around in my head is exactly how to break into the 3rd dimension when designing a website. 2D tricks of perspective and shadow can only do so much, but this is taking it to the next level.

In reality the science/math of this is "not that difficult", as long as the computer knows the angle you're viewing from, the proper computations can be made to account for perspective. Since making a splash with this video almost 2 years ago, Johnny Chung Lee's been scooped up by Microsoft to work on their gesture computing project, Natal.

FFFOUND this online.

FFFFOUND! is a web service that not only allows the users to post and share their favorite images found on the web, but also dynamically recommends each user's tastes and interests for an inspirational image-bookmarking experience!!" Pretty cool idea. I just stumbled across this animated gif, and felt like sharing. It's from the design site todayandtomorrow.net

Andrew Zuckerman: Bird

I found photographer Andrew Zuckerman's book Creature absolutely fascinating, so much so that I had to share it as a Christmas present to my niece and nephews. His new book Bird just came out last month, enjoy a stunning video.

So Soulful pt. 2: Modern Vintage

A little "classic" sounding soul from the past couple years to to take you to the end of your summer with a smile.

> DOWNLOAD IT HERE

01 Hurry On Now | Alice Russell

02 How Do I Let a Good Man Down? | Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings

03 Hiding (Quantic Soul Remix) | Breakestra

04 Valerie w. Mark Ronson | Amy Winehouse

05 Just Ain't Gonna Work Out | Mayer Hawthorne

06 Home Again! | Menahan Street Band

07 This Time (I'm Gonna Try It...) | DJ Shadow

08 Don't Joke w. a Hungry Man | Quantic

09 Pick it Up, Lay it in the Cut | Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings

10 Getcho Soul Together | Breakestra

11 Your Lovin' Aint' Pleasin Nothing | Mayer Hawthorne

12 He Can Only Hold Her | Amy Winehouse

13 How Long Do I Have to Wait... | Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings

14 Detroit Twice | El Michels Affair

15 Esma | Menahan Street Band

> DOWNLOAD IT HERE

and enjoy...

-------------------------------

More Music For You if Ya Missed it First Time:

• Summer Bummer 2009
• Summer 2007 Mixes
• June Tunes and Some Meloncholy Shit
• And a whole ton more...

Summer Bummer 2009

It's been a while since I dropped a new mix for all y'all notty headed mutha cluckers. Been sitting on a couple of em which will eventually see the light of day, but after trading a couple of tracks with the fam I was inspired enough last night to slap one together real quick.

Yes, I know they're not all 2009 songs (hell, one of the tracks is 7 years old) but they're what I've been listening to lately (and last summer as well). So download, plug into your iPod or music delivery device of choice, get yourself a frosty beverage, get out into the sun and enjoy.

Summer Bummer 2009

• Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.............................Vampire Weekend
  
• Wash in the Rain................................................A Band of Bees
• Laurie...............................................................Datarock
• Tribulations (Shallow Version)..............................LCD Soundsystem
  
• Time to Pretend.................................................MGMT
  
• Animal..............................................................Miike Snow
  
• Show Me ft. De La Soul.......................................Mint Royale
• Make Her Say ft. Kanye West, Common & A-Trak....Kid Cudie
  
• Birthday Girl ft. Patrick Stump of Fallout Boy..........The Roots
  
• I'm Yours Remix ft. Lil Wayne & Jah Cure...............Jason Mraz
• CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD
  

More Music For You if Ya Missed it First Time:

• Summer 2007 Mixes
• June Tunes and Some Meloncholy Shit
• And a whole ton more...

Jump on it, tell your friends, spread the love.

Brooklyn Go Hard

Dope Song, dope video. Jay-Z on the vocals, Kanye on the beat.
And it's for (RED), a noble effort.

Jay-Z on iLike - Get updates inside iTunes

A little prouder to be American today

Who said NY isn't 'Real America'?



NYC celebrates.

[ Photos from Union Square ]