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Thursday, June 30, 2011

Nice Post (or manifesto!) Pachube :: blog: YOU are the "Smart City"

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By Ed Borden

"Do you buy this "Smart City ®" that is being peddled to you? Do you feel the magnificent effects of BigGov and BigCo overhauling urban infrastructure with "Smart City ®" connected traffic lights, energy meters, and surveillance systems? Does knowing where the "Smart City ®" subway is in real-time BLOW YOUR FREAKING MIND??

Here's a newsflash: (Dramatic pause.......) Using computers and the internet increases efficiency! Of basically everything! Even cities!

Blistering cynicism aside, let's face it, BigGov missed the boat big-time on this one. Shouldn't they have delivered on the "Smart City ®" a long time ago? I mean, it's 2011. People are building their own flying drones out of cell phones and Arduinos. People are consolidating all the world's information onto Wikipedia. People are using Twitter to stage national revolts.

And BigGov is busy connecting garbage cans.

Just like the M2M dinosaurs are on the brink of extinction in the commercial world, BigGov has become irrelevant in the public sector, eclipsed by someone with a supercomputer in their pocket, open source hardware and software at their fingertips, and a global community of like-minded geniuses at their beck and call: YOU.

YOU are the Smart City.

While BigGov is bickering over what datasets it might want to release for the use of developers and entrepreneurs, people like Leif Percifield are climbing down into the sewers and getting data that BigGov doesn't have. A massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami causes one of the worst nuclear disasters in history to occur on his home soil, so Shigeru Kobayashi leads an effort to crowdsource radiation data that BigGov wasn't providing publicly. Jeff Starin has jumbo jets flying over his house at low altitude all day long, so he starts publishing ambient noise data that BigGov doesn't even want to see, let alone make available themselves...."

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The Lego Barad-dûr: 50,000 pieces, 2 months to build, pure AWESOME

FlipReport | Insight on Transmedia | Starlight Runner Entertainment

Too Lazy for Google? Try Asking Twitter's Lazyweb [INFOGRAPHIC]

Like....Banana Camera Company - Retro Apple Accessories

That's Cool: Clever Foursquare Hack Turns New York City Into A Giant Game Of Risk

5 Ways the Advertising Industry Is Preparing for a Digital Future - 5 Themes from Cannes

5 Themes from Cannes

1. A New Wave of Experiential Marketing
2. Content, Not Ads
3. The Shift from Communities to 'Collectives'
4. The Rise of the 'Creative Technologist'
5. The Gaga Effect

#4 video is above! Video demos for each on the original post

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‘Red State’ Comes To VOD Labor Day, Will Have Digital Q&A & Podcast In Theaters | vis SlashFilm #infdist

By Germaine Lussier:

Excerpt:

The innovative, controversial but undeniably successful distribution of Kevin Smith‘s Red State will enter its next phase this Labor Day. On Smith’s morning Smodcast Plus One Per Diem Tuesday, he announced Lionsgate will exclusively handle the video on demand and Blu-ray rights to the film and that audiences can watch it beginning this Labor Day. Then, when the film opens in October, theaters showing the film will follow the screening with a live, digital, interactive Q&A and a live Hollywood Babble-On Smodcast. Read more info after the break.

Smith’s full explanation of the plan is on The Red Statements. He explains why he’s doing this, goes through some of the history and more. Basically, Video on Demand will cost about $10 in September for a few weeks. Then in October, it won’t have a traditional wide release. It’ll play selectively – at whatever theaters agree to Smith’s wild idea – which means screening, satellite digital Q&A then a live podcast that the audience can watch all for about $20.

Here’s Smith with more about the theatrical side (bolding and links are all Smith’s):

Any good business person tries to limit their costs to maximize their profits. If I accompany the film at all public exhibitions, then I can charge what any movie theater would consider a premium, because I’m giving the audience real 3D – me, answering their questions right there in the third dimension – as opposed to that murky bullshit they’re overcharged for this summer. I refuse to buy my opening with millions of dollars when I can accompany the film into the world and return more profits to my investors than fellow Sundance 2011 alumnus Cedar Rapids can return to Searchlight (this is not me slagging on Cedar Rapids – the Fox Searchlight flick that followed us in the Eccles that night at Sundance; like every flick Miguel Arteta directs, Cedar Rapids is worth your time)...."

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales

Spike Jonze's launching Scenes from the Suburbs on mubi.com - Echoes of MIA's Born Free #infdist

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Social Media Revolution 3 (4:15 version via Erik Qualman)

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New Alternate Reality Game Halo 4 Related? I Love Bees REboot?

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June 28, 2011, By Nicholas Davis via devicemag.com

Excerpt:

"One of the biggest announcements during Microsoft’s press conference during E3 2011 was Halo 4. The announcement of the game was a surprise to all but what was even more surprising was that Microsoft and 343 Industries are starting a new Halo trilogy. Halo will always be the franchise that receives the most hype and some give that credit to the world wide success of Bungie and their fine tuning of the Halo franchise. It was not only the gameplay that added to the Halo experience, but the Alternate Reality Games that preceded some of the title. ILoveBees.com (ILB) and 42 Entertainment were the most known and really caused a stir in the industry and amongst gamers. ILB was an Alternative Reality Game (ARG) that served both as a real world experience and a viral marketing campaign that was commissioned by Microsoft. If you haven’t been to the website recently, now may be the time to check it out again. There’s a brand new countdown...."

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THE MICROBUDGET CONVERSATION: CROWDSOURCE…NOT OUTSOURCE | #infdist

Excerpt from Jesse Borkowski guest post:

"...The MicroBudget Conversation: Crowdsourcing

My take on utilizing crowdsourcing with regards to micro-budget filmmaking is not about how to use it as a business model to reduce production costs and save money. To me, that falls under outsourcing. Instead, I am interested in exploring how crowdsourcing can be used to create opportunities for audience participation and how the power of the crowd might be leveraged to bring more diversity and collaboration into the filmmaking process.

Engram: Crowdsourcing Memories

Engram is an alternative-narrative, micro-budget, sci-fi epic that explores human emotion through a combination of both fictional and documentary storytelling. The film takes place in the post-Future and focuses largely on the discovery of the Engram 2000, a satellite that contains recorded emotions and memories from all of humanity.

In the film, the Engram 2000 serves as the holy grail of emotional content, and for the storyline we need this satellite to contain dozens of on-board memories for our main character to experience. However, as we began developing the script and structuring the film, we decided not to write the memories ourselves. Instead, we chose to use crowdsourcing to gather real memories, from real people.

Extending the depth of Engram’s narrative structure through the use of primary source documentary material was appealing to us for several different reasons. For one, I have always believed that the structure of a film should match the content of the film whenever possible. So, it just made sense to me that a fictional satellite could contain real memories, from real people, living all over the globe. The Engram 2000 was supposed to contain humanity’s memories, so we decided to let it do just that...."

Read the full post on John Yost's filmmakermagazine.com

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THIS LABOR DAY, LIONSGATE WILL RUN RED! | The Red Statements - Kevin Smith #infdist

Excerpt:

"Six months ago, I stood on a stage in the mountains, brandishing a hockey stick, announcing (in a rather dramatic and long-winded-though-not-nearly-as-long-winded-as-I-am-on-the-podcasts fashion) that I didn’t believe in my flick’s ability to earn out after ridiculous marketing costs were attached. I told folks my weird little opus wasn’t commercial enough to punch through the din of a thousand other theatrical releases. I said I was tired of spending ridiculous amounts of money to make the audience aware the film was coming...." I said I wanted to try something else.

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12 Trends from Cannes 2011 - #1 Social TV #infdist

DVDs are no longer the world's favourite movie medium - here's why — Transmediator #infdist

Excerpt:

"...DVD sales are dwindling because it’s no longer the most consumer-friendly format. Geo-restricting DVDs by making them region-specific was the kiss of death. And now they are geo-restricting digital downloads. Has anybody learnt anything?

I can only imagine a world where I can effortlessly download/stream films to whatever device I happen to be using at the moment – WITH ONE CLICK. Oh, yes, there is such a place… it’s called Pirate Bay.

And the industry wonders why DVDs are dying…

What was insightful about this experience is that the Studios still don’t understand the needs of consumers. They presume that tying digital downloads to DVD purchases will halt some of the piracy but then they encumber the digital downloads process with all the same nonsensical restrictions that they place on DVDs. This is a bad band-aid. It won’t fix the problem.

Here’s the mantra again: anything, anytime, anywhere.

If you don’t give people what they want, they will find an easier way. And, I’m sorry to say, pirated content is by far the easiest way. It’s easy to find with search. It’s one-click. It’s generally pre-formatted to the widest common denominator. It doesn’t have licensing restrictions. And, it’s free...."

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales

It's a MATH ARG! Whoot! Six to Start and BBC Team Up for “The Code Challenge” Transmedia Experience | ARGNet

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June 28, 2011 · By Kris Nordgren

"Six to Start and the BBC have teamed up to create a transmedia experience tied in with BBC Two documentary The Code, expected to air at the end of July. The Code is presented by Professor of Mathematics Marcus du Sautoy (Horizon on BBC2, The Beauty of Diagrams on BBC4) and explores how the world around us conforms to and can be explained by mathematical codes. Six to Start are next-generation storytellers with plenty of experience creating storytelling projects for different clients, often in the form of alternate reality games or treasure hunts. They’ve worked with the BBC before on projects like Spooks: Code 9 and Seven Ages Quest. As a first for the BBC and possibly a world first, an interactive experience called The Code Challenge has been seamlessly integrated in the writing and filming of The Code since inception. Viewers can participate in an engaging treasure hunt which will take place before, during, and after the series that will extend their understanding of basic mathematical principles.

The Code Challenge begins well before the airing of the actual show. Soon, 1000 people in the UK will receive a secret message with one of the first puzzles of the challenge. For a chance to be one of those 1000, keep an eye on Twitter @bbccode and apply via Twitter or e-mail. A few weeks before the show airs, several Flash games containing clues, puzzles, and more information about the Code will also appear online. The series itself is expected to air at the end of July and will be split into three 60-minute episodes: Magic Numbers, Nature’s Building Blocks and Predicting the Future. Six clues are connected to each episode. Three will be hidden in the programme itself, which can be watched live on BBC Two or on BBC iPlayer. One community clue can only be solved by working together with a group of players. Two further clues will be revealed on the blog and through a Flash game. Players can then enter the six answers they found for each episode into the ‘codebreaker’ to receive three passwords with which they can unlock the ultimate challenge.

The Code Challenge is conceived so everyone can play, even those with no prior understanding of maths or ARG experience, although the final stages of the treasure hunt will be increasingly challenging...."

Read the full post on argn.com

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The future of TV is social & the revolution is coming! A Must Read Article from David Wasserman Digital Culture Blog « WCN TRANSMEDIA GROUP

"Named last year as one of the ten most important emerging technologies by the MIT Technology Review social TV is fast rising as one of the hottest topics since group buying. Ynon Kreiz, CEO of the Endemol group the largest independent production company in the world responsible for Big brother said Social TV is going to be huge.
“The ability to create content that will enable people to interface with each other, to connect, to recommend, to share and experience over television, is going to change the landscape of the industry.” 
But will social TV really live up to the hype? In this article we take a look at what social TV is, what the main trends are shaping TV, the challenges and the opportunities going forwards for media companies, businesses and marketers alike.

What is social TV?

Simply put, it’s about merging your social media networks to the TV.  It’s making TV social–again. It’s about taking the water cooler effect and making this virtual, it’s about the empowered consumer viewing content when and where they want, deciding who they want to share it with and being able to do this all in real time.In essence it is a term that describes technology that supports communication and social interaction in either the context of watching television, or related to TV content.Viewers are now using social media to connect with the TV with content that matters to them. Then, as the MIT study shows, they are engaging in massive real-time conversations around those shows and learning to be a part of that conversation and it is a participatory culture as well as a personalised one.TV always been social and on the face of it TV and social media seem like a natural fit but if the TV industry is going to make the most of the opportunities it is going to have change quickly and learn the lessons of the music industry...."

Social TV Figure
Figure 1 The Core elements of Social TV 

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Simon Pulman on Pottermore: Understanding and Leveraging “Potter Points” | Transmythology

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Simon Pulman's breakdown of Pottermore's potential gamification:

"So we know that Pottermore will contain a “gamification” layer, whereby users will be rewarded for completing certain tasks with “house points.” These points will be awarded for reading the ebooks, interacting with certain site functionality and -almost certainly – for participating in limited time “events.” They will also be attributed by “house” (Gryffindor, Slytherin etc.), thus replicating the system depicted in the books and movies.

This begs the question: once users have started to accumulate these points, what can they use them for? Sure, gamification always tends to create positive associations when a little notification pops up and a pleasing sound effect plays (see, e.g. XBox Live), but it would strike me as a missed opportunity if the points were not then meaningful in some way.

1. Status
2. Virtual Items
3. Real Items
4. Story"

I (Siobhan) would add - what about fan-based social activism? move away from what can 'I' get? to what can we do in the world re. questions of social justice? social change.

See the Harry Potter Alliance - a fan-based social justice group acting on Rowling's principles in the real world

thehpalliance.org/

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Great Crew launch New Project! » » Gaming Privacy (or, Privacy: The Game! For Ages 8 and Up)

We are tickled to announce that we were one of eight recipients to be awarded a generous grant from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s Contributions Program to create a pervasive/crossmedia game for kids, with kids as co-creators. The goal of the project will be to leverage children’s existing awareness regarding privacy to create a game that develops privacy literacy skills for ages 8 and up. We think this project is unique and critically important in its approach in a time when many efforts to protect children’s privacy are heavy-handed, alienating and ultimately counterproductive. These approaches tend to ignore the knowledge children have about the online world as well as the fact that a child’s privacy can be inadvertently compromised by his or her parents. By working with children as co-creators, we hope to create a respectful, engaging and fun game that teaches privacy literacy in through critical thinking and advocating for oneself. And, as a bonus, we get to help to launch a new generation of game designers!

"...an amazing advisory team comprised of some the top minds in Toronto (and beyond)’s indie game making and research communities:

Sara Grimes, Assistant Professor, University of Toronto; gender, gaming and education researcher
Adrian Hon, Founder, Six to Start (creators of Smokescreen)
Melanie McBride, Research Associate, EDGE Lab; educator and gaming researcher
Nick Pagee, Consultant on Gaming and New Media, TIFF Bell Lightbox; Programmer, Sprockets Toronto International Film Festival for Children
Jaime Woo, Co-Founder, Gamercamp and Gamercamp Jr.

read the full post on Atmosphere Industries

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Cool Idea: Geolocated Movie Clips with Augmented Reality Cinema -Toronto will be AR loaded!

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Arcade Fire, 'Super 8,' and the Trouble With Sci-Fi Kids - by Spencer Kornhaber - The Atlantic

"In somewhere U.S.A., at sometime post-2011, suburbia is at war. Patches of tract-home sprawl have incorporated into private companies. Militarized barricades separate them; night raids by ski-masked soldiers recur. What's the fighting over? Light pollution from shopping centers. The placement of golf courses. In other words, the NIMBYs have picked up guns.

This is the reality imagined in Scenes From the Suburbs, the short film "presented by" Canadian indie-rock act Arcade Fire and directed by Oscar-winner Spike Jonze (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich). Jonze has taken a literal reading of lyrics about "suburban war" from Arcade Fire's 2010 Grammy-winningThe Suburbs—even though vocalist Win Butler had been using the metaphor to talk about battles over culture and age, not zoning. But war really isn't the focus of the 30-minute clip, which premiered online Monday after a few film festival showings. Rather, the action lies with a band of kids. Around 15 years old each—impossibly pale and gaunt, the picture of Arcade Fire members-in-training—they bike and skate and tote airsoft guns around town. They party, they fight, they bullshit, they stare yearningly into the sky.

In Jonze's capable hands, the tale is beautifully—though perhaps too preciously—told. And it's a simple tale: One friend falls out with the others, for reasons as inexplicable as reasons for such things often are. Dystopia merely serves as a handy backdrop for a straight portrait of what it's like to grow up in a tribe. Time passes, people change, friendships are savored, and politics are forgotten. "When I think back about that summer, I don't think much about the army," narrator Kyle says in the short's first few moments. Viewers may just say the same when they think back about the clip.

But isn't this what always happens with fictional kids in fictional sprawl? It's impossible to watch Scenes From the Suburbs without being reminded of Super 8, the wide-screen J.J. Abrams/Steven Spielberg joint that opened to acclaim and box office success earlier this month. Like the Arcade Fires flick, it lovingly documents a clique of suburban children and their foul-mouthed banter with one other. We know the kids, we recognize the kids, we like the kids. And then a supernatural beast comes along, soon followed by camouflage-wearing troopers. Suburbia is again at war, but as audience members, we wish it weren't. We just want to hang out with those kids more. As The Atlantic's Chris Orr wrote in his review of the film, "The further the central mystery unfolds, the more you may wish you could fold it back up again."..."

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales

Sandra Guadenzi updates on installation i-doc: “6 billion others” .:. Interactive Documentary

"I just went to Brussels and I was lucky enough to get there on the last day of the exhibition of “6 billions others” – by  Yann Arthus-Bertrand (see my comments on the whole project  in my archive).

The project has been going around the globe since 2008, both as a website and as a moving exhibition (not to mention the book, the DVD, the poster, the postcards and all the relevant merchandising). I have played with the website a lot of times, but I had not seen the exhibition yet… so I was very excited to catch it in Brussels…

The archive of footage is indeed mind blowing. And the fact of watching faces coming from the whole world, speaking to you about  personal things, is really touching. Interviews have been devised by themes (family, war, women, fear, happiness, religion etc…) and each theme is projected in a hut (or in Brussels’ case there were lots of small rooms). As a result one browses through a gigantic space, coming in and out from viewing rooms, and moving from a woman speaking about death in an Indian village to a man speaking about love in Canada. If some times the experience is a little too “easy” (is it enough to cut back to back people just sharing a topic?)… I have to admit that the justaposition of themes and people can create some interesting contrasts...."

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales

Big LOVE: Invisible Cities, a geocoding social activity project by Christian Marc Schmidt & Liangjie Xia

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From the site:

"A project by Christian Marc Schmidt & Liangjie Xia

By revealing the social networks present within the urban environment, Invisible Cities describes a new kind of city—a city of the mind. It displays geocoded activity from online services such as Twitter and Flickr, both in real-time and in aggregate. Real-time activity is represented as individual nodes that appear whenever a message or image is posted. Aggregate activity is reflected in the underlying terrain: over time, the landscape warps as data is accrued, creating hills and valleys representing areas with high and low densities of data.

Invisible Cities maps information from one realm—online social networks—to another: an immersive, three-dimensional space. In doing so, the piece creates a parallel experience to the physical urban environment. The interplay between the aggregate and the real-time recreates the kind of dynamics present within the physical world, where the city is both a vessel for and a product of human activity. It is ultimately a parallel city of intersections, discovery, and memory, and a medium for re-experiencing the physical environment."

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales

Like: Branding Is About Creating Patterns, Not Repeating Messages |Mark Shillum for Co.Design

Excerpt:

"...To succeed in a more agile world, a brand needs to think less about defining a fixed identity and more about creating coherent and flexible patterns.

Five similarities between patterns and the desired behavior of brands:

1. Patterns are both adaptive and coherent

Because patterns are composed of elements, they are reconfigurable. The elements can be reorganized to shift meaning, but this new meaning is still created from familiar elements.

One of the most reconfigurable patterns is the modern English alphabet. The Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words, but they are composed of only 26 letters. We detect words as a pattern of letters to which we give a pre-assigned meaning. Over time, we assign sub-patterns to each word, which means we begin to read patterns of words rather than individual letters.

Rseaerch icntidaes taht the oerdr of the ltteers in a wrod dnsoe't relaly mettar. Waht relaly mtteras is the frist and lsat leettr in the wrod. If tehy are in the rhgit palce, you can raed the wdors.

Consider the iPhone app grid. It allows the user to reorganize and personalize the face of the iPhone. Wobbling tiles signify the most flexible state of the interface. Each tile, although different and a brand in its own right, is recognizable as an Apple object through the use of a "glare" reflection and the standardization of form. The curved corners of the tile appear on each successive app, on the product itself, and throughout the Apple family of products. The app grid was originally introduced by Nokia, but Apple came to own it through the successful application of patterns.

The adaptability of patterns makes them perfect for iterative environments, as they can grow while retaining meaning in new contexts, allowing brands to adapt and evolve without the "shock of the new."...

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales

Monday, June 27, 2011

For Real? Awesome. Hitchcock would be Proud: Seagull stole GoPro in Cannes

Fond Memories! Revisiting 'Zork': What We Lost in the Transition to Visual Games - Excerpt via The Atlantic

by Philip Bump

What we forget, what was lost with the transition to visual games, is how literary the experience was. A quick catalog of words I learned from text adventures -- mostly from Infocom, the granddaddy of the genre: menhir, footpad, topiary, lapis lazuli. The games were written as much as they were designed; tantalizing adjectives to create a sense of the world, sometimes-obscure nouns to describe things which may not exist in real-life. They sampled from literature as well: one game, A Mind Forever Voyaging, used an excerpt from "The Raven" as an interlude.

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Managing Pottermore: Maximizing a Competitive Advantage | Transmythology

Managing Pottermore: Maximizing a Competitive Advantage

As I noted in my “initial observations” posting, Pottermore’s main competitive advantage over Harry Potter fan sites, and indeed other forms of diversion for its target audience, is its direct relationship with J.K. Rowling. Managing that connection is going to prove critical if the endeavor is going to succeed.

It strikes me that there are at least three kinds of engagement at play with Pottermore. There is (a) interaction with the site’s basic elements, including the ebook content and gamified rewards; (b) interaction with other users; and (c) interaction with and around new content from Rowling. The last one comprises by far the lowest proportion of time and content on the site, but its most important asset. Its value and influence must be maximized....

Read the full post on transmythology.com

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Fascinating! Infographic Of The Day: Can Tiny Whims Reveal Your Truest Self? | via Co.Design

Sunday, June 26, 2011

BIG Deck! Invasion Of Participatory Culture from Jeff Hurt

Online Games and Interest-Driven Learning are Transformative for Today's Young Learners - DML Research Hub

2 months ago 2 months ago: Wed, Apr 20, 2011 4:23pm EST (Eastern Standard Time)

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Constance Steinkuhler, a games and learning scholar, discusses her firsthand experiences in seeing how youth-centered learning and online gaming leads to compelling turnarounds in youth engagement.

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Saturday, June 25, 2011

Really Really Scary: Outcry in America as pregnant women who lose babies face murder charges | via The Guardian

Excerpt

"...Amanda Kimbrough is one of the women who have been ensnared as a result of the law being applied in a wholly different way. During her pregnancy her foetus was diagnosed with possible Down's syndrome and doctors suggested she consider a termination, which Kimbrough declined as she is not in favour of abortion.

The baby was delivered by caesarean section prematurely in April 2008 and died 19 minutes after birth.

Six months later Kimbrough was arrested at home and charged with "chemical endangerment" of her unborn child on the grounds that she had taken drugs during the pregnancy – a claim she has denied.

"That shocked me, it really did," Kimbrough said. "I had lost a child, that was enough."

She now awaits an appeal ruling from the higher courts in Alabama, which if she loses will see her begin a 10-year sentence behind bars. "I'm just living one day at a time, looking after my three other kids," she said. "They say I'm a criminal, how do I answer that? I'm a good mother."

Women's rights campaigners see the creeping criminalisation of pregnant women as a new front in the culture wars over abortion, in which conservative prosecutors are chipping away at hard-won freedoms by stretching protection laws to include foetuses, in some cases from the day of conception. In Gibbs' case defence lawyers have argued before Mississippi's highest court that her prosecution makes no sense. Under Mississippi law it is a crime for any person except the mother to try to cause an abortion...."

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Overhead Bin - Virtual lovemaking may be reality in hotel room of 2030 (excerpt via overheadbin.msnbc.com)

Q: You also suggest it’ll be possible to share those dreams. How would that work?

A: If you’re watching the same video, you’re incorporating the same experiences. It can become a fully interactive experience — it’s almost as good as being there. It almost comes down to the ability to make love to someone across a dream. All the components needed to do it will exist and be in a mature state by 2030.

Q: Hmmm, sounds like a formula for virtual infidelity ...

A: It all comes down to the quality of your relationship. Do you want to be with your real partner or someone else? You could use this in the context of a stable relationship or you could be a cad and play around. It’s no different than the Internet — you could send love notes to your wife or hang out in chat rooms with everybody else.

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Always Smart Simon Pulman on Pottermore: Initial Observations | Transmythology (excerpt)

Excerpt:

"Sustained Engagement – Making it Last

Pottermore does not face a challenge in attracting attention. It is virtually guaranteed to attract several million signups in its first few days. The biggest struggle will lie with avoiding the ultimate fate of most “official” fan communities. Because IP owners are used to working in release cycles and focusing on return on investment, official communities tend to be focused around major releases. They launch with fanfare and users migrate to check out the initial content… before gradually returning to the fan sites from whence they came, frustrated by lack of updates and more oppressive monitoring of what they can say and do.

In order to succeed as a community, Pottermore will have to be more like Facebook than the typical movie website. It needs to focus on nurturing a community in the long run, and it must maintain momentum after the initial hype and ebook sales have died down. Fans, within reason, should not feel restricted or censored. Moreover, it cannot let its competitive advantage – direct contact with Rowling – lapse. While Rowling should maintain a degree of distance and mystery, she must pop up now and again at unexpected times to keep the community energized. New story content needs to be released incrementally and, ideally, should be substantial.

Moreover, “Potter whisperers” – full time employees – need to be on hand 24/7 to stoke the fires, fuel discussion and drop tidbits. All of this needs to be done within the context of a safe, secure, nurturing environment. It’s a genuine challenge...."

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Andrea Phillips' Summer Vacation! Writing A Creator's Guide to Transmedia Storytelling - Deus Ex Machinatio - @andrhia

A Creator's Guide to Transmedia Storytelling will be published by McGraw-Hill in spring of 2012.

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales

Friday, June 24, 2011

Facebook To Launch Crowdsourced Ad Format Next Week | Fast Company

Excerpt:

"But next week Facebook will launch a new kind of unit that’s innovative not just for its format, but for how it was conceived. That’s because Facebook didn’t come up with the idea itself--it crowdsourced it.

The new unit is called the “Comment” ad. It will appear in the right-hand column, like other ads. But it will be formatted like a conversation (or, as Facebook calls them, “a story”). The brand will make a statement or pose a question, and below that will be a comment box where the user can enter a response (see top right).

If the user does enter a response, the conversation then appears in the user’s News Feed, where the brand starts to reap “earned” impressions among that user’s friends. And if some of the user’s friends comment themselves, those comments can be turned into Sponsored Stories (see bottom right).

In other words, it’s the ad that keeps on giving...."

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Wow. Major Bonus! GameSalad unleashes HTML5 game creator — no coding required | via VentureBeat

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Excerpt:

"Game development tool-maker GameSalad announced it is releasing a suite of applications that will let game developers create a game for HTML5-powered browsers.

The company sells a suite of tools that let game developers create games with a drag-and-drop user interface. It makes it easy for users to develop their own games even if they don’t know any programming languages. It removes the barrier to entry for developing games for the iPhone, Android-powered mobile devices and now web browsers. HTML5 also works on most mobile browsers, eliminating the need to create a specific app for each mobile operating system.

The web development tools will be optimized for the latest fleet of browsers like Firefox 5 and Chrome. But they will also support Canvas, which means that web surfers on older browsers will still be able to play the games as long as the browsers support HTML5. After a developer creates a game, they can embed the game in any web site with an embed code similar to the way YouTube has embed options...."

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales

Are You Ready For Minority Report Live? g-speak platform from oblong industries, inc. makes it real

Oblong Industries is remaking the world of computers.

Our technology transforms the way you work, create, and collaborate. The era of one human, one mouse, one screen, one machine is giving way to what's next: multiple participants, working in proximity and remotely, using a groundbreaking spatial interface to control applications and data spread across every display. This is what Oblong builds. It's why we're here.

The g‑speak™ platform

The g‑speak SOE (spatial operating environment) is Oblong's radically new platform. The SOE made its public debut in the film Minority Report, whose bellwether interface one of Oblong's founders designed. But its full history extends backward to three decades of research at the MIT Media Lab. The g‑speak SOE implements the biggest advance in human-machine interface in twenty-five years. It also introduces

  • a new model for multi-process cooperation
  • a real-world geometry engine for gestural input and multi-display output
  • an athletic new network layer for data translation, encapsulation, and transport

... and a host of other crucial innovations.

It's the platform for what's next.

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales

Thursday, June 23, 2011

LOVE LOVE this!: JESS3 on Data Viz as Snackable Social Objects (love love love!)

Supercool Share from JESS3 and Eloqua on Mapping the Content Grid v2

Smart: Eloqua & JESS3's Content Grid tracks Buyer & Brand Goals on a Content Grid #infdist

Happy World: Burma, the dictatorship of the absurd - Popcorn.js hypervideo from Upian & Cinquieme Etage

J.K. Rowling's Next Chapter: A Transfiguration Spell on the Publishing Industry #infdist

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via readwriteweb.com:

excerpt:

"...Self-Publishing's Defining Moment

The books will be available exclusively through the Pottermore site, meaning that Rowling is self-e-publishing the novels. While self-publishing is, of course, nothing new, digital publishing and digital readership has helped self-publishing become more popular and, for authors, more lucrative. As we reported earlier this week, Amazon recently announced that self-published author John Locke had joined its "Kindle Million Club" after selling over one million copies of his e-books on the Kindle platform.

But Rowling's decision here isn't just another mark of legitimacy for self-publishing, nor is it simply yet another blow to the traditional publishing industry - although no doubt, both of those are true. Rowling's announcement has several other ramifications here for the publishing industry.

DRM-Free Content

Digital rights management (DRM) technology is often placed on digital content, so the argument goes, to help prevent piracy. And indeed, the Harry Potter series may already be among the most pirated books in history, no doubt because of fans' desire to read the books in a digital format. But rather than viewing that desire with suspicion about sharing, Rowling is trusting they'll do the right thing. The Harry Potter e-books will reportedly be DRM-free, although they will be digitally watermarked with purchasers' information.

Wired calls this the publishing industry's "Radiohead moment" and likens this to the band's release of its albums on its own site. "The crucial parallel between Radiohead and Rowling is the fact that they both put their faith in the fans rather than any intermediary. For Radiohead, this meant self-releasing their album In Rainbows after the end of their contract with EMI with an honesty-box pricing strategy."....

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales

Nice DIY Post: The Learning Institute Project Day 2 – Digital Storytelling « jenniferlockett