Posts
Monday, February 28, 2011
BAD BAD BAD BAD. Facebook To Share Users' Home Addresses, Phone Numbers With External Sites
Facebook will be moving forward with a controversial plan to give third-party developers and external websites the ability to access users' home addresses and cellphone numbers in the face of criticism from privacy experts, users, and even congressmen.
Facebook quietly announced the new policy in a note posted to its Developer Blog in January. It suspended the feature just three days later following user outcry, while promising that it would be "re-enabling this improved feature in the next few weeks."
In response to a letter penned by Representatives Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) expressing concern over the new functionality, Facebook reaffirmed that it will be allowing third parties to request access to users' addresses and phone numbers.
Facebook noted that it is considering implementing controls that would more explicitly highlight the personal nature of the information being transmitted to applications and explained it is "actively considering" whether to restrict users under 18 years old from sharing their contact information with third-party developers.
"We expect that, once the feature is re-enabled, Facebook will again permit users to authorize applications to obtain their contact information," Facebook's Marne Levine, vice president of global public policy, wrote in the letter to Reps. Markey and Barton. "[H]owever, we are currently evaluating methods to further enhance user control in this area."
Facebook has attempted to tread a fine line with regard to privacy issues even as it has continuously pushed users to share more information, both on Facebook and beyond the social network.
The plan to open up users' address and phone numbers to third-party sites and services marks the latest frontier in Facebook's often controversy-fraught efforts to encourage users to be more liberal in sharing their data and online activity.
AdvertisementEven if the revamped feature were to include improved notifications and protections for minors, privacy experts warn the feature could imperil users' personal information and increase their risk of being targeted by scams, spam, and identity thieves.
Though Facebook prohibits applications from selling users' information or sharing it with advertisers and data brokers, malicious, rogue apps spreading phishing scams and other ruses are not uncommon on the social network. With just a few errant clicks, an unsuspecting user could potentially hand over her home address to a scammer peddling diet cures or free iPads in an effort to compile credit card data and other personal information.
"[Scammers] might be able to impersonate you if they had your phone number," said Norman Sadeh-Koniecpol, a professor at the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science. "They're saying, 'Please give us your phone number,' but they're not telling you whether they'll share it or whether they'll sell it or use if for malicious purposes. In fact, you don't know who you're dealing with."
Others are concerned with what they see as Facebook's willingness to change the rules of play--first encouraging people to share personal information with a more limited group of friends, then allowing that data to be accessed in new, unexpected ways.
"People never thought when they were posting this data [such as their phone numbers] that it would be accessible to anyone but friends. There's a real mismatch of expectations around that," said Mary Hodder, chairman of the Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium. "Even if Facebook comes back with new protections, they're still saying, 'Hey, get over it, your data is public.' I feel sad for users that Facebook's approach is 'You give us anything and it's all fair game.'"
Despite the social network's intentions to make addresses and phone numbers accessible to developers, Rep. Markey offered Facebook measured praise for its response, while stressing the necessity of protecting younger users.
"I'm pleased that Facebook's response indicated that it's looking to enhance its process for highlighting for users when they are being asked for permission to share their contact information," Rep. Markey said in a statement. "I'm also encouraged that Facebook is deciding whether to allow applications on the site to request contact information from minors. I don't believe that applications on Facebook should get this information from teens, and I encourage Facebook to wall off access to teen's contact information if they enable this new feature."
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Super Smart. Shigeru Miyamoto behind Nintendo 3D gaming with adjustable 3D slider: BBC News
Click to play
Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, the man behind Donkey Kong, says 3D is the future of gaming
via bbc.co.uk
Very Interesting. Website Uses Dictator Game for (Mostly) Charity
via mashable.com
Excerpt from Zachary Sniderman's post on mashable.com:
"There aren’t a ton of websites out there based on complicated thought games that are based on experimental economics. Part of that may have to do with the difficulty of turning thought experiments into viable websites. But what if that game could net you cash on a regular basis?
The Moral Experiment, a website developed by John Bushell, is part pyramid scheme (although he reasonably argues against that), part The Dictator Game, part online-giving app and part ethics study..."
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Demand McSweeney’s: The Goods! in a Newspaper Near You!
From the site (the beautiful McSweeney's site!):
The Goods is a gallimaufry of games,
puzzles, comics, and other diversions, appearing in
newspapers across the U.S. and Canada. Each week, a
cavalcade of artists and writers from the world of children’s
books will contribute amusements that will enthrall kids and most
adults. Thoughtfully conceived and visually stunning, every issue of The
Goods will deliver a new collection of recurring features and new work.
(Technical note to newspaper editors: The Goods is a paginated feature that can run as a half page in broadsheet newspapers, or as a full page in tabloid-sized papers.)
Yoza: Stories delivered by cell phone raise the interest and literacy of African youth: Design Observer
Excerpt from original post:
By Meena Kadri
“I must admit that I wake up extra early to read the chapters (blushing) I never use to go to the library but… i feel like i have a library on my phone and its great , YAY!” — Yoza reader
Designed to encourage reading, writing and responding, Yoza engages African youth with stories and social issues. The project, which was spearheaded by Steve Vosloo, a technology researcher in Cape Town, and financed by South Africa’s Shuttleworth Foundation, is dedicated to a participatory culture hungry for micro-doses of literature that are accessible as pixels not paper.
Officially launched last September, Yoza is based on Vosloo’s observations that African youth are book-poor yet mobile-rich. An estimated 90 percent of urban South African youth have access to cell phones, and 70 percent of those phones are web-enabled. In stark contrast, more than half of South African households own no leisure books and only 7 percent of public schools have functional libraries..."
This is a Great List: The Kickstarter Blog - Kickstarter Awards: By the Numbers
Most… Everything?: TikTok+LunaTik Multi-Touch Watch
Kickstarter 2010 Statistics:
Total Successfully Funded Projects: 3,910
Total Dollars Pledged: $27,638,318
Total Pledges: 386,373
Total Rewards Selected: 322,526
Total Pageviews: 50,234,521
Total Visits: 15,766,248
Total Visitors: 8,294,183
read the full awesome list on Kickstarter's blog:
http://blog.kickstarter.com/post/2686751109/kickstarter-awards-by-the-numbers
Smart Take on a Changing World: Humans Are The Routers
via techcrunch.com
Excerpt from Shervin Pishevar's article on TechCrunch:
On January 7, 2010 I was ushered into a small private dinner with Secretary Hillary Clinton at the State Department along with the inventor of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google and a few others. We were there to talk about technology and 21st Century Diplomacy. As we mingled I noticed next to me the small table that Thomas Jefferson wrote the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence. I was inspired by the history around us as we discussed the unfolding history before us. I was sitting in front of Secretary Clinton and when she asked me a question I said, “Secretary Clinton, the last bastion of dictatorship is the router.” That night seeded some of the ideas that were core to Secretary Clinton’s important Internet Freedoms Speech on January 21, 2010.
Fast forward almost exactly one year later to January 25, 2011—a day that shall live in history in the company of dates like July 4, 1776. Egypt’s decision to block the entire Internet and mobile telecommunications network was one of the first salvos in a war of electronic munitions. In this new frontier humans are the routers and armed with new technologies they can never be blocked or silenced again.
I was staying up for days sharing and tweeting information as they happened. I had two close personal friends of mine in Egypt who were passing me information when they could. The day Egypt blocked the internet and mobile networks my mind went back to what I had said to Secretary Clinton. The only line of defense against government filtering and blocking their citizens from freely communicating and coordinating via communication networks was to create a new line of communications technologies that governments would find hard to block: Ad hoc wireless mesh networks. I called the idea OpenMesh and tweeted it.."
read the full post on techcrunch.com
Sadly, disturbingly true: As freedom blooms in the East, it's withering in the West - The Globe and Mail
One of the great ironies of watching the uprisings across the Arab world and Africa is witnessing them struggle and bloody themselves to achieve basic human rights, while across the U.S. and Britain hard-won liberties are shrinking like a bar of soap left in a shower.
I can't remember the last time anyone mentioned Wisconsin outside the confines of football or various cheese-producing activities – before this month, that is. Now it's a battleground, where the Republican governor, Scott Walker, is attempting to severely restrict the collective-bargaining rights of public-sector unions. He says the measure is necessary to patch over the state's deficit; the thousands of people protesting in the streets of Madison say that he has created the deficit himself through unnecessary tax cuts to corporations and that the whole thing is camouflage anyway, the thin edge of a (cheddar-shaped) wedge: Republicans want to disembowel unions because unions traditionally support the Democratic Party.
Read Elizabeth Renzetti's full article on theglobeandmail.com
Love this work: Street art scales down: why Cordal and Slinkachu are masters of miniature | The Observer
via guardian.co.uk
Excerpt from Tom Lamont's article for the GuardianUK:
"Most urban artists find the biggest obstacle to their work is Johnny Law – that ill-timed arrival of a policeman interrupting a graffiti epic mid-completion, a complicated installation having to be abandoned to flight. Not the case for artists Slinkachu and Isaac Cordal, who specialise in "miniature street sculpture": for them the biggest dangers are roadsweepers, heavy-shoed pedestrians and jackdaws.
Since 2006 these two London-based artists have been (independently) installing tiny dioramas in cities around the world, taking photographs – then leaving their work to be kicked or ignored or taken away. In one striking piece, Slinkachu constructed a scene of children bathing in a discarded chicken tikka takeaway in east London; in another, he positioned a group of riot police posing for holiday snaps in front of the Acropolis in Greece. Cordal put a row of suited men emerging from a grate at ankle height in Brussels, and a suicidal-looking figure on a high beam in Hackney. No individual sculpture by either is more than 5cm in height.
"I don't hang around to see what happens to the work," says Slinkachu, 31, a London-based former art director who prefers not to reveal his real name. "I don't want not to know. But there is a strange kind of buzz to abandoning your creations on the street."
Next month he will exhibit photographs of his past work, as well as installing some purpose-built new pieces at the Andipa Gallery in London for his show, Concrete Ocean.
Spanish-born Cordal's work, meanwhile, will be collected in his first solo book, Cement Eclipses, published by Carpet Bombing Culture in May..."
Brilliant: Crowdsourced translations get the word out from Libya - tech - 25 February 2011 - New Scientist
- 18:01 25 February 2011 by Jim Giles and Jacob Aron
The oasis town of Al Khufrah lies deep in the Sahara desert in the far south-east of Libya. Lying almost 1000 kilometres from its nearest sizeable neighbour, it is not somewhere foreign journalists tend to visit.
But on 23 February, news from the town reached the English-speaking world. "Greetings this is an urgent message from Kufra," said the anonymous source. "Young people have taken complete control of the city, they hoisted the flag of Libya and Gaddafi down the flag."
The message arrived by an ingenuous route. It started with a voice message in Arabic left on a phone line operated by Google. Software managing the line published the message on Twitter, from where it was picked up by the website Alive in Libya. The tweet went out to Alive's army of volunteers, who provided an English translation for the site. It is just one of around 170 reports, from videos to tweets to audio recordings, that Alive in Libya has translated since it started on 19 February.
via newscientist.com
Crowdsourced software could stop SMS spam - tech - 26 February 2011 - New Scientist
Is your cellphone buzzing with unwanted text messages? A system that filters out SMS spam by enlisting the help of your friends could calm things down.
In the western world, receiving an illicit text is a minor annoyance, but it's a major problem in developing countries like India. In that country, it is estimated that 100 million spam messages are sent every day, according to a report issued last year by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
"That was one of the big motivations for us to start looking at this problem," explains Ponnurangam Kumaraguru, who developed the software package, SMSAssassin, with colleagues at the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology in New Delhi, India.
SMS filtering is not a new idea, and existing methods work much like email spam detectors. They all learn to identify spam messages by examining known spam, but this is less effective for SMS messages because their brevity makes it hard to identify features unique to spam. Abbreviations and regional words, common in text messages, make this even worse.
Kumaraguru's team worked around these limitations by relying on crowdsourced spam markers. SMSAssassin learns in the same way as other spam filters, and the researchers hope toone day allow users to share spam keywords with one another through a central server or by creating a distributed network via Bluetooth.
The team say this will let the system react quickly to new kinds of spam or messages tied to certain time periods, such as the Diwali religious festival. For now they are gathering user data by asking users to contribute their spam through a Facebook page.
Read the full post on newscientist.com
Saturday, February 26, 2011
That's great - Homeless Daniel Morales finds daughter by Twitter - BBC
via bbc.co.uk
They had been apart for a decade, but in the end all it took to reunite a homeless father and his daughter was a few 140-character messages on the social networking site, Twitter.
Daniel Morales, 58, was taking part in a New York project in which homeless people are given a prepaid mobile phone to keep a record of their lives.
He had been updating his 3,000-odd followers with regular Twitter updates.
Three weeks into the scheme, he decided to use it to track down his daughter.
"Hi thi is to let yo people know that in lookin eoq my daughter her name is sarah m rivera," he tweeted on Thursday.
He followed the message up with others posting his mobile number and a photo of his daughter, Sarah, 27.....
read the full story on the BBC
Crowdfunded Canadian Documentary: The Secret Trial 5
via secrettrial5.com
The Secret Trial 5 is a new crowdfunded documentary that examines the human impact of Canada’s “war on terror”; specifically the use of security certificates, a tool that allows for indefinite detention, with no charges, and secret evidence. Over the last decade, 5 men have been held under security certificates in Canada. They spent between 2 and 7 years in prison each. None of them was ever charged with a crime...
Friday, February 25, 2011
Worth the read: Paul Krugman dissects Wisconsin's Scott Walker: Shock Doctrine, U.S.A.
As many readers may recall, the results were spectacular — in a bad way. Instead of focusing on the urgent problems of a shattered economy and society, which would soon descend into a murderous civil war, those Bush appointees were obsessed with imposing a conservative ideological vision. Indeed, with looters still prowling the streets of Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer, the American viceroy, told a Washington Post reporter that one of his top priorities was to “corporatize and privatize state-owned enterprises” — Mr. Bremer’s words, not the reporter’s — and to “wean people from the idea the state supports everything.”
The story of the privatization-obsessed Coalition Provisional Authority was the centerpiece of Naomi Klein’s best-selling book “The Shock Doctrine,” which argued that it was part of a broader pattern. From Chile in the 1970s onward, she suggested, right-wing ideologues have exploited crises to push through an agenda that has nothing to do with resolving those crises, and everything to do with imposing their vision of a harsher, more unequal, less democratic society.
Which brings us to Wisconsin 2011, where the shock doctrine is on full display.
In recent weeks, Madison has been the scene of large demonstrations against the governor’s budget bill, which would deny collective-bargaining rights to public-sector workers. Gov. Scott Walker claims that he needs to pass his bill to deal with the state’s fiscal problems. But his attack on unions has nothing to do with the budget. In fact, those unions have already indicated their willingness to make substantial financial concessions — an offer the governor has rejected.
What’s happening in Wisconsin is, instead, a power grab — an attempt to exploit the fiscal crisis to destroy the last major counterweight to the political power of corporations and the wealthy. And the power grab goes beyond union-busting. The bill in question is 144 pages long, and there are some extraordinary things hidden deep inside.
For example, the bill includes language that would allow officials appointed by the governor to make sweeping cuts in health coverage for low-income families without having to go through the normal legislative process.
And then there’s this: “Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state-owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b).”
What’s that about? The state of Wisconsin owns a number of plants supplying heating, cooling, and electricity to state-run facilities (like the University of Wisconsin). The language in the budget bill would, in effect, let the governor privatize any or all of these facilities at whim. Not only that, he could sell them, without taking bids, to anyone he chooses. And note that any such sale would, by definition, be “considered to be in the public interest.”
If this sounds to you like a perfect setup for cronyism and profiteering — remember those missing billions in Iraq? — you’re not alone. Indeed, there are enough suspicious minds out there that Koch Industries, owned by the billionaire brothers who are playing such a large role in Mr. Walker’s anti-union push, felt compelled to issue a denial that it’s interested in purchasing any of those power plants. Are you reassured?
The good news from Wisconsin is that the upsurge of public outrage — aided by the maneuvering of Democrats in the State Senate, who absented themselves to deny Republicans a quorum — has slowed the bum’s rush. If Mr. Walker’s plan was to push his bill through before anyone had a chance to realize his true goals, that plan has been foiled. And events in Wisconsin may have given pause to other Republican governors, who seem to be backing off similar moves.
But don’t expect either Mr. Walker or the rest of his party to change those goals. Union-busting and privatization remain G.O.P. priorities, and the party will continue its efforts to smuggle those priorities through in the name of balanced budgets.
via nytimes.com
We Live in Amazing Times: Crowdsourced Documentary 'One Day on Earth' Yields Footage Out of Libya
“One Day On Earth,” an online project designed to capture video footage of life around the world on a single day — October 10, 2010 — is now turning into a host for videos and photos documenting current events in Libya. The country, which has become a hotbed of violence amidst a revolt against leader Muammar Gaddafi, is largely closed off from foreign media outlets, meaning submissions from Libyan members of the “One Day On Earth” community provide unique perspectives of what’s taking place within the country’s borders.
Executive producer Brandon Litman says those behind “One Day On Earth” reached out a couple of weeks ago to community members in areas of conflict, asking them to report back with any information they could provide.
“Literally within 30 minutes of engaging the community, we heard back,” Litman says. “And we started getting information in within a couple of hours.”
Litman has blogged some of the footage that has come out of Libya so far. This includes a conversation between those organizing the Libyan uprising, images and video (embedded below) of a mass burial in the nation’s capital, Tripoli, and additional images of violence. The “One Day On Earth” team has used its media connections to its advantage, feeding some of the videos and images it receives to various outlets.
“We were in touch with a number of news sources as we were producing the 10-10-10 event,” Litman says, adding that the crew had contacts at the likes of Reuters, the BBC, CNN and more. “I actually saw the [Tripoli mass burial] clip on CNN’s [Anderson Cooper 360°].”
In fact, Litman says the burial footage has received the most traction out of the photos and clips “One Day On Earth” has sent to the media — based on the number of hits the blog post received, it seems that people in at least 93 countries have viewed the clip. And now, more people are signing up to join the site. In a February 24 e-mail, Litman said, “In the past 24 hours, we have had people from over 30 countries sign up to the ‘One Day On Earth’ community.” He feels this is a sign that the platform is going to evolve into a community where people share perspectives and stories on a more regular basis — not just stories that take place within the same 24-hour period.
Litman and his team are staying in touch with Libyan contributors through a variety of means, including via telephone and the Internet. They’re also trying to get satellite connections.
“I would say that the success ratio is about 50 to 1 for every attempt to actually get through. But we’re staying vigilant in making sure we’re in touch every single day in getting information about what’s happening,” Litman says, adding that they’re expecting more uploads and encouraging Libyan community members to continue feeding information and videos as long as they can do so safely. He also says it’s interesting that social media is usually first to knock down the walls placed in front of traditional media outlets.
“Social media, local filmmakers and citizens armed with cameras are a key source of information in today’s media, especially in situations like what is happening in Libya and the Middle East,” Litman says. “With filmmakers and video enthusiasts in every country in the world, we are uniquely positioned to help break that wall down when it comes up.”
Image courtesy of One Day On Earth
via mashable.com
Kidlandia Raises $2.5 Million To Create Personalized Fantasy Maps For Kids
Kidlandia, the awesome site that lets you create your own personalized fantasy maps for your kids, has raised $2.5 million led by Alsop Louie Partners with GRP, Net Discovery, Ivan Sutherland and Jim Sandler participating. This brings the startup’s total funding to $3.5 million.
As we’ve reported in the past, Kidlandia lets parents and kids create maps of a fantasy land, where the child is King or Queen of their own eponymous fantasy kingdom. You can insert family members or friends names into the map, so other areas of the land incorporate family members’ names. The map also features whimsical characters from Kidlandia’s brand Kreechurs.
Shortly after launching in 2009, Kidlandia signed a deal with Pottery Barn to feature the maps in its catalog, its website, and its retail stores. Since that time, Kidlandia’s reach has grown to a number of other well-known retailers including Snapfish, FAO.com, DisneyStore.com, and NickShop. The startup will actually launch a mini-store at FAO Schwarz’s flagship store in New York City in the next few weeks.
And, Kidlandia has also started to create branded maps for kids toy and entertainment companies, and are currently producing products for Disney, Nickelodeon, Lego, and Marvel.
Website: kidlandia.com Funding: $725k Kidlandia is a new web destination where parents and kids can spend time online together creating a fantasyland populated by fanciful characters and the people and places that trace a family’s story. Learn More
Information provided by CrunchBase
via techcrunch.com
Gorgeous animated short: The Thomas Beale Cipher by Andrew S Allen
via vimeo.com
From the site:
Professor White, cryptographer extraordinaire, is on the trail of the notoriously uncrackable Thomas Beale cipher—a century-old riddle hiding the location of a fortune in gold that has tormented its pursuers since inception. But White is not alone—shadowy forces are tight on his tail.
Learn more at thomasbealecipher.com.
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Watch/Play! this one: ARG The Black Helix as crowd-sourced authorship - 4D Fiction
via 4dfiction.com
Excerpt:
"...But what if the creators of an ARG, without the agenda of having it promote a brand or product for an existing IP, actually intend to package the resulting story as a product itself? In a sense, the final product would have a distributed authorship.
A new project called The Black Helix, which began today from The Design Zoo, intends to do just that. Their project, funded by the Northern Ireland Arts Council, asks players to “become part of an unwritten story”....
read the full post:
http://4dfiction.com/2011/02/the-black-helix-as-crowd-sourced-authorship/
Toronto is highlighted in John M. Eger's HuffPost piece on: Arts Integration in Canada: America's Wake Up Call
All the action integrating the arts into the K-12 curriculum is already well underway, in Canada.
Yes, in good old Toronto, the place Peter Ustinov once called "New York run by the Swiss", meaning that Toronto is a big city (like New York City), but that it's cleaner and more efficient (as if run by the Swiss). But of course, Canadians -- who clearly deserve our admiration -- actually run it.
There are of course a lot of other reasons to admire this city which is the cultural, entertainment and financial capital of Canada, and home to more than 2.7 million people, but now another accolade can be added: It has one of the most comprehensive art integration efforts reinventing education in the world.
The Royal Conservatory of Music based in Toronto, launched "Learning Through the Arts" (LTTA), almost 20 years ago, and they can claim the high ground when talking about preparing the workforce of the future.
According to Donna Takacs, Managing Director of LTTA, "programs are being implemented across Canada, in (a few places) the US and in about a dozen other countries... LTTA is one of the most extensive differentiated instruction programs in the world."
While the term art integration, often referred to as art infusion, is not well known or accepted, it is really about an interdisciplinary education using the tools of the arts.
As a unique consortium of arts organizations expressed it in a report called "Authentic Connections," www.menc.org/documents/onlinepublications/INTERart.pdf such interdisciplinary work in the arts enabled students to "identify and apply authentic connections, promote learning by providing students with opportunities between disciplines and/or to understand, solve problems and make meaningful connections within the arts across disciplines on essential concepts that transcend individual disciplines."
According to the Arts Education Partnership in Washington, D.C., the concept "has evolved over the past 15 years as school districts, state arts councils, and arts organizations have experimented with various models of implementation." Yet as the Partnership noted, "Some programs and schools have chosen not to use the term at all, although descriptions of the curriculum appear to belong in this domain. Much work in the arts professional journals that could be termed integrative is labeled interdisciplinary, perhaps because, as noted in a review of the practice, "the term evokes less controversy and challenge from within the arts professions."
This is sad. Because arts integration works and the LTTA program proves it. All LTTA's programs are underpinned by academic research, which show that LATT students score considerably higher in math tests than non-LATT students. Literacy tests also improved, student engagement increased and dropout rates declined.
LTTA has done a lot of work rethinking the curriculum, and now includes lesson plans for:
· History Through Role Playing
· Multiplication Through Songwriting
· Math/Geometry lesson plans Through Visual Arts
· Social Studies lesson plans Through Storytelling
· Social Studies lesson plans Through In-Role Writing
· Science lesson plans Through Dance
· History Through Documentary Photography and Video
· Structures and Mechanisms Through Building Scale Models
· Language Arts lesson plans Through Global PercussionThe message for America is clear.
Without arts integration, America, like most developed nations, will not succeed nor survive in the new global Innovative Economy, an economy that demands creativity and innovation in the workplace.
As demand for a new workforce to meet the challenges of a global knowledge economy rapidly increase few things could be as important in this period of our nation's history--or Canada's -- than art and art-infused education.
Follow John M. Eger on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jeger62
little whoot! for Toronto!
Normative Design's mobile location research goes from Red Rover to Sousveiller with OCAD partnership
In a new project announced last month [PDF], also in conjunction with OCAD's MEIC and with support from a grant from FedDev Ontario, Normative Design is working on the Sousveiller Project, which will use crowd sourcing techniques to map the presence of security surveillance cameras throughout the city. Tirmandi says that at some point the map, which will show both the locations of cameras and the areas they are able to see, it would be possible to plot games in which participants move through the city without appearing on camera, for instance.
read full post:
http://www.yongestreetmedia.ca/innovationnews/normativedesign0223.aspx#
Normative Design's mobile location research goes from Red Rover to Sousveiller with OCAD partnership
In a new project announced last month [PDF], also in conjunction with OCAD's MEIC and with support from a grant from FedDev Ontario, Normative Design is working on the Sousveiller Project, which will use crowd sourcing techniques to map the presence of security surveillance cameras throughout the city. Tirmandi says that at some point the map, which will show both the locations of cameras and the areas they are able to see, it would be possible to plot games in which participants move through the city without appearing on camera, for instance.
read full post:
http://www.yongestreetmedia.ca/innovationnews/normativedesign0223.aspx#
Interesting. Voxora | Voicemail for Places via Foursquare (how many steps does this involve??? time???)
(It's voicemail for places)
Voxora is the easiest way to share voice messages at the places you visit. It's super simple. Check in on foursquare then call voxora and leave a message. Or call voxora and listen to the messages left by everyone else. Ready to get started?
via voxora.com
Love this! Want to be involved? Simon Pulman's A Romantic Proposal for a New Transmedia Project | Transmythology
Excerpt from the site:
Posted on February 25, 2011 by Simon Pulman
"This article began as a nugget in my mind after having been inspired by the Jurassic Park Slope presentation last night, and reaction thereto. It was going to be a theoretical discussion until I realized that I should put my money where my mouth is and actually do it. And since I can, I am going to.
Thus, I am announcing a new co-created, transmedia romantic comedy webseries to launch in Fall 2011.
Let’s break down how it’s going to work.
Story
It’s a romantic comedy told across various platforms. A webseries will act as the driving platform, but there will be heavy social networking components, which I will touch on later. I will act as a “producer” (though may not be credited as such) and will story edit – but I will need writers. Here are my criteria for the story.
The story must be based around misunderstandings between friends and romantic attachments – the kind common to sitcoms and movies, but which can be specifically heightened using social media exchanges. Vanity, ego, insecurity, jealousy and so on...."
Read (don't miss!) the full post on Simon's blog:
http://transmythology.com/2011/02/25/a-romantic-proposal-for-a-new-transmedia...
Peter Broderick on Crowdfunding Takes Off: Distribution Bulletin Issue #15
Intro from the site:
"Crowdfunding has taken off. The most successful film projects are now raising hundreds of thousands of dollars, when not that long ago they were raising tens of thousands. The top three films in the Kickstarter Hall of Fame are BLUE LIKE JAZZ ($345,992), THE PRICE ($161,774), and I AM I ($111,965)...."
read the full post:
http://www.peterbroderick.com/distributionbulletins/distributionbulletins.html
LOVE LOVE LOVE this: #18DaysInEgypt: A Crowd-Sourced Documentary Project
From the site:
HOW TO PARTICIPATE:
Tag your media in Twitter, YouTube and Flickr with the following tags: #18DaysInEgypt
+ the day it occurred: #jan25, #jan26, #jan27....#feb11
+ where it occurred: #tahrir, #heliopolis, #alexandria, #suez, #ndpbuilding
+ and other relevant tags about the footage : #army, #singing, #violence, #tents, #protest
Tagging the media will allow us to find you through search...just that simple!
For now, you can tag your videos on YouTube and photos on Flickr. In the coming days we will have a url uploader to capture links to your tweets and media on other platforms. We are also working on functionality so you can send us your SMS text and MMS photos/videos."
Full details are on the site!
this is great! Grazie!: Winter Is Coming. (A Transmedia Fiction Experience with J.C. Hutchins)
via jchutchins.net
I love that HBO is creating a fantasy series. Game Of Thrones is based on George R.R. Martin's novel series, A Song of Ice and Fire
Thursday, February 24, 2011
How many words for CRAZY??? Libya: Gaddafi blames Osama Bin Laden for protests. BBC
via bbc.co.uk
FROM the BBC:
Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi has told state TV that Osama Bin Laden and his followers are to blame for the protests racking his country.
In a phone call addressed to residents of the town of al-Zawiya, Col Gaddafi said young people were being duped with drugs and alcohol to take part in "destruction and sabotage".
Col Gaddafi said the protesters had no genuine demands and were being dictated to by the al-Qaeda leader.....
"Bin Laden... this is the enemy who is manipulating people. Do not be swayed by Bin Laden," he said.
"It is obvious now that this issue is run by al-Qaeda. Those armed youngsters, our children, are incited by people who are wanted by America and the Western world.
"Bin Laden... this is the enemy who is manipulating people. Do not be swayed by Bin Laden," he said.
"It is obvious now that this issue is run by al-Qaeda. Those armed youngsters, our children, are incited by people who are wanted by America and the Western world.
"Those inciting are very few in numbers and we have to capture them."
Tribeca Film Institute :: Ingrid Kop talks to Christy Dena on the Creative Potential of Cross-Platform
Here's the first part of the interview & tune in to TFI for the full post:
"We're continuing our series of blog posts asking people working in the cross-platform, new media space the same four questions. Christy Dena wrote her PhD on transmedia storytelling, so there's no denying her commitment to this field!
What makes a successful cross-platform or transmedia project? Are there key ingredients? What's the secret sauce?
Each project (and team) is different, and so there are many tips and lessons learned one applies as needed. When talking generally about cross-platform/transmedia projects though, here are some observations:
1) You can avoid of lot of headaches and dead-ends if you begin exploring your transmedia possibilities at the concept development stage, rather than after the film has been created.
2) Know your limits and interests: if you want to do a game, for instance, make sure you have at least one person on the team that works in gaming and that likes games!
3) Do whatever you can to make it easy for your audience to know about and access the content you spread across media.
4) Treat your transmedia content in different media equally – it should all be meaningful.
5) Play with what you want to do, others be damned."
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Whoot! *OUT MY WINDOW* nominated for an EMMY | Highrise
via highrise.nfb.ca
From the site:
"We are proud to announce HIGHRISE/Out My Window has been nominated for an International Digital Emmy in the Non-Fiction Category. Fellow nominees are:
Embarrassing Bodies: Live
Maverick Television / Channel 4
United Kingdom
Globo Amazônia: The Geoglyphs
TV Globo
Brazil
X Factor BEASTAR
Fremantle / TV2 Norway
Norway"
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