IMD Game Lab Mentioned in Daily Trojan

The Daily Trojan featured us in a brief article this past week.

An Excerpt:
"There are several different facets in gaming the school hopes to improve, such as going beyond classic video game types, and creating new mechanics and player relations, Fisher said. It also expects to advance simulations and storylines in an effort to appeal to a broader audience and to obtain a wider range of emotions in players, he said."

Full Article

"BiReality: Mutually Immersive Mobile Telepresence"

i know we have our own talk tonight, but thought id spread news. figure people here knew of this work in some respect or another. its at harvey mudd college (hmc) out in claremont.

---

"BiReality: Mutually Immersive Mobile Telepresence"

Norman Jouppi, HP Fellow
HP Labs

Wednesday, September 29
Galileo Hall, HMC
7:00 p.m.
Free and open to the public
Lecture followed by a dessert reception

BiReality uses a teleoperated robotic surrogate to visit remote locations as a substitute for physical travel. The goal is to create, both for the user and the people at the remote location, the sensory experience relevant for face-to-face interactions. The second-generation system provides a 360-degree surround immersive audio and visual experience for both the user and remote participants, and streams eight high-quality video streams totaling almost 20Mb/s over wireless networking. The system preserves gaze and eye contact, presents local and remote participants to each other at life size, and preserves the head height of the user at the remote location. This talk focuses on some of the human factors addressed by the project, and includes a short video demonstration.

Norman P. Jouppi is currently a staff fellow at HP Labs in Palo Alto, California. From 1984 through 1996 he was also a consulting assistant/associate professor in the department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University where he taught classes in VLSI, circuits, and computer architecture. He received his PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1984, and a M.S.E.E. from Northwestern University in 1980. He currently serves as ACM SIGARCH vice chair.

His research interests include audio, video and physical telepresence as well as computer architecture. In recent years, he has contributed to the architecture and implementation of advanced graphics accelerators, including Neon. Before that he was one of the principal architects and implementors of the MultiTitan and BIPS microprocessors implementors of the MIPS microprocessor, as well as a developer of techniques for CMOS VLSI timing verification. He holds more than 20 U.S. patents and has published over 80 technical papers.

'the invisible train'

from here:

"The Invisible Train is a mobile, collaborative multi-user Augmented Reality (AR) game, in which players control virtual trains on a real wooden miniature railroad track. These virtual trains are only visible to players through their PDA's video see-through display as they don't exist in the physical world. This type of user interface is commonly called the "magic lens metaphor"."

through waxy

personally, almost too close to chojo to make me unnervous.

IM Forum Speakers for 9/29/04: Jim Rowson & Kurt MacDonald

This week's speakers will be Jim Rowson,Prinicpal Scientist in HP's Consumer Applications and Systems Lab, and Kurt MacDonald, 3rd Year MFA student, Interactive Media Division, USC School of Cinema-Television.

Title: Custom Television and the Phiz Network

Abstract: One of HP Lab's new projects, custom television, is attempting to look at consumer digital entertainment beyond TIVO. Being a new project, we'll be largely framing the problem and outlining our social, business, and technical approaches. Kurt MacDonald will be summarizing his summer intern work designing and mocking up custom television shows and entertaining discovery methods for the (fictional) phiz network. He will be illustrating his approaches with example video and showing how to configure custom shows, generate them using templates, and build effective photo videos using tried and true cinema techniques.

Bio:
Jim Rowson is a Prinicpal Scientist in the Consumer Applications and Systems Lab within HP's corporate research lab. Jim is currently investigating applications and technology to support HP's intentions in the consumer digital entertainment area. Prior to HP, Jim spent about 20 years building software tools for hardware, semiconductor, and software engineers. He has a BS in engineering and an MS and PhD in computer science from Caltech.

Location: USC Zemeckis Center, Room 201
Time: 6:30pm-9pm, 9/29/04

Related Readings:

1. Marc Davis @ UC Berkeley has some interesting ideas about metadata for video

2. Paper on "virtual channels"

3. Personalization of TV workshop series
[Workshop on Personalization in Future TV, 2001]
[TV'02: the 2nd Workshop on Personalization in Future TV]
[TV'03: the 3rd Workshop on Personalization in Future TV]
[TV'04: the 4th Workshop on Personalization in Future TV - Methods, Technologies, Applications for Personalized TV ]

indtv hiring

from boing-boing:

"INdTV, the media company founded by former Vice President Al Gore and entrepreneur Joel Hyatt, is hiring talent. It looks like they're specifically trying to recruit "young adults" with or without any experience -- but with an affinity for low-budget digital production, and a desire to learn. Video-bloggers or would-be correspondents comfortable with the idea of indie soup-to-nuts newsmaking will write, shoot, and edit their own segments."

from their site:
"Last May we acquired an existing television network that is currently available in almost 20 million U.S. homes. In 2005, we will debut a new network, a network featuring programming created by and for young adults INdTV is seeking emerging creative, journalistic, and production talent to join the network as Digital Correspondents (DCs). DCs will think, write, shoot, edit and potentially appear on-air. They will work in a fast-paced, competitive environment, alone and in teams, out in the field and traveling the world. They will work with some of the best programmers, producers and editors in the business. And some of the content they produce will become a part of our network programming."

whats interesting is that on thurs night from 7-8 in lucas 201, they are doing a recruitment event. not sure i can make it (presidental debate), but im tempted to hear what they have to say.

Unreal Scripting Demo

This is an open invitation to anyone interested.

This Wednesday (29th) at 9 pm after the seminar, there will be an Unreal Tournament 2004 scripting tutorial held in the IML by Prasan Samtani from the ITP 380 game programming course. All interested may attend. It will be about an hour in length and will contain the basics of coding in the Unreal Script language. This is beind done in conjunction with my thesis project for my final year, entitled "Clownerstrike" Please check my blog or the website clownerstrike.com for more information pertaining to the goals of this fine seminar!

Digital Hat Tricks

For all you hockey fans, in today's NYTimes:
Endangered NHL season to hit ice via video games
David Becker, Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: September 27, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_2100-1043_3-5384290.html

As a tussle between players and owners threatens the National Hockey League's 2004-2005 season, cable network G4techTV is promising to make it happen one way or another by staging video game versions of the games...

"Millions of die-hard hockey fans on both sides of the border are upset," Charles Hirschhorn, CEO of the network, said in a statement. "Until the lockout ends, G4techTV will be there." Video games have frequently been used to re-create key games in real-life sports, with faux Super Bowl and World Series events common--and sometimes uncannily accurate--in predicting real-life results."

Pet Phone!

Phew.. Now I can get a dog! If I can just find a doorknob, I'll finally be able to get a house..


Petsmobility

Command Kerry's Swift Boat

Kuma Reality Games is planning to release a game that sends players on a simulation of the Swift Boat mission that won the Democratic presidential candidate the Silver Star.

The game is the latest in a series of missions from the New York-based company that allow users to reenact actual battles mainly modeled on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Other titles include "Uday and Qusay's Last Stand" and "Battle in Sadr City."

2 more interesting articles

Campus Life Comes to Second Life

College professors are taking advantage of Second Life's fully three-dimensional virtual world and are the first to teach classes in a world where the students can fly, change body types at will and build fantastical structures that can float in the sky.
Read More @ Wired News

Better Health Through Play

"Games and game technology have become much more capable," said Ben Sawyer. "There is a lot more appreciation in the health industry for what games can possibly do. And there's the money in health care looking to develop games. I think we're beginning to see a critical mass."
Dozens of games have been developed in recent years to train physicians, educate patients, improve fitness and help treat the addicted and the mentally ill.
"We need a vision or plan as to how to make progress," Howell said in a statement.
Read More @ Wired News

PSX failure: Do consumers want convergance?

The dream, as far as anyone outside the company can gather, is a household where a server-like system based on the PlayStation 3 architecture sits in the living room, feeding content and connectivity wirelessly out to smaller, dumber PS3 units and portable PSP units spread around the rooms of the house and the pockets of its inhabitants. This is what the battle for the living room is all about.

However, the reality seems to be diverging from the vision, and PSX is the biggest blow it has suffered to date. Although the system has its problems - it was hit with some extremely bad PR when it launched without a number of promised features, for example - it's still a pretty good product, with a very competitive price, but the Japanese consumer doesn't seem to be interested.

Read More

kurt macdonald dominates at rainbow 6

on wed, sept 23, 2004, kurt 'veganboy' macdonald tried to dominate 'rainbow 6: black arrow' on the xbox (live) console.

while he consistently had the highest number of kills, his team still managed to lose.

his team, made up of silicon valley employees, just failed to capture the flag. (the game is called retrival.)

'i cant explain it,' kurt said. 'i busted ass and they just let me down. it's like playing with amateurs. this isn't why i pay for an xbox live subscription. i pay 5.83 dollars a month to win. not lose.'

there is no word on whether this wed night spectacle will expand to other members of the im division.

###

New German Mobile Phone to Detect Bad Breath

A German telecommunications company said on Tuesday it is developing the first mobile phone that will alert users when their breath is bad or if they are giving off offensive smells.

The phone will use a tiny chip measuring less than one millimeter to detect unpleasant odors, a spokeswoman for Siemens Mobile said. A research team in the southern city of Munich is developing the device using new sensor technology.

"It examines the air in the immediate vicinity for anything from bad breath and alcohol to atmospheric gas levels," the spokeswoman said. "Some people take smelling good rather seriously."

source: http://www.mobiledia.com/forum/topic17927.html

Nintendo DS

Nintendo DS Launches on Nov. 21 in North America -- At $149.99!

I'm psyched. Just got to scrape together the loot to get ahold of this device. @ E3 Nintendo was saying it wasn't due out in North America until first quarter of next year. I had a VIP pass and made it inside to play with the system. The games where simple but showed so much potential! I really have a lot of confidence in this device to break some great new ground.

Here are some snippets from Nintendo's article:

Nintendo's newest innovation, Nintendo DS, will make its worldwide debut in North American stores on Nov. 21, and then in Japan on Dec. 2. Nintendo DS will become the company’s first system ever to make its sales debut outside of Japan.

Nintendo DS is the dual-screened, hand-held video game system redefining the idea of interactive entertainment. One screen allows for touch input using a stylus, while the unit includes both voice recognition and multiplayer wireless features.

Read more @
DS Release Announcement

About The System

Blog Politics

An article from Sunday's LA Times Op/Ed Page
On MEDIA
Sept 19,2004
Bloggers' 'Moment' Doesn't Make for a Revolution
It's an Internet win, but far from traditional journalism's death knell.
by Ben Wasserstein

"...there is little doubt that a few people using their computers certainly gave CBS News and anchor Dan Rather a beating. Right-wing blogs — "blog" is short for web log — and forums such as Power Line, Little Green Footballs and Free Republic were the first to question the authenticity of four memos released by CBS News, purportedly written by Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, who supervised George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard unit in the early 1970s. The memos were part of a "60 Minutes" story reported by Rather, questioning President Bush's fulfillment of his Guard service. The buzz created by the blogs became deafening and the story moved like lightning onto the Drudge Report, and from there to talk radio, cable news and newspapers' front pages — and it's not over yet.

Bloggers cheered that the new-media David had slain the old-media Goliath...."

The URL for the entire article is here: The LA Times site requires registration.

ZML Hardware Notice

The firewire ports on zmlmac04 seem to be fried. zmlmac04 is the only current machine that has max-msp/jitter/softVNS working. so, the hardrives between zmlmac04 and zmlmac03 have been swapped so that a camera can be used with that software. zmlmac04 will have to go out for repair, so anyone with files on the zmlmac03 hardrive (that's not in mac04) should get them off.

IM Forum Speaker for 9/22/04: Peggy Weil & Scott Fisher

This week's speakers will be Peggy Weil, Adjunct Professor, and Scott Fisher, Chair, Interactive Media Division, USC School of Cinema-Television.

Title: First Person Media

Location: USC Zemeckis Center, Room 201
Time: 6:30pm-9pm, 9/22/04

Further Readings:
1. “What’s Your Perspective”
By Richard Rouse III in SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Newsletter, August, 99

2. Lifelog

September RESFEST in LA

This month Resfest LA celebrates the art of film title design with special guests Kyle Cooper (Prologue Films), Karin Fong (Imaginary Forces) and David Peters (Design Films, San Francisco), who will contrast recent works with groundbreaking titles from the 1960s. A conversation will follow the screening. Also on tap: new music videos from Air and Zero 7, Intro's Prodigy video, plus the latest from Michel Gondry and Ruben Fleischer.

Go to Resfest LA for more information.

Mobile Design - Lessons from Sci-Fi

From The Economist (PDF), we learn of a mobile device that uses WiFi for proximity-based connectivity, location awareness, voice over IP, and speech recognition to route communications intelligently.

It seems that “Star Trek” has done it again. This month, American soldiers in Iraq will begin trials of a device inspired by the “comm badge” featured in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. Like crew members of the starship Enterprise, soldiers will be able to talk to other members of their unit just by tapping and then speaking into a small badge worn on the chest. What sets the comm badge apart from a mere walkie-talkie, and appeals to “Star Trek” fans, is the system's apparent intelligence. It works out who you are calling from spoken commands, and connects you instantly.

LIFE 7.0 International Competition - Call for Participation

Announcing the sixth edition of the competition on "art and artificial life" sponsored by the Telefonica Foundation in Madrid. We are looking for outstanding electronic art projects employing techniques such as digital genetics, autonomous robotics, recursive chaotic algorithms, knowbots, computer viruses, wetware, embodied artificial intelligence, avatars, evolving behaviours and virtual ecosystems.

An international jury -- Chris Csikszentmihalyi (US), Daniel Garcia Andujar (Spain), Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (Mexico/Canada), Jose-Carlos Mariategui (Peru), Fiona Raby (UK) and Nell Tenhaaf (Canada)-- will grant four cash awards totaling 20,000 Euros.

The competition's website at http://www.vidalife.org has the guidelines, application form, and information on the previous award-winners, including texts, videos, images and links.

Deadline: Wednesday, November 3, 2004.

febreeze scent stories

i don't know how this slipped by me. but im sitting here watchin vh-1 while coding and theres an ad for febreeze's 'scent stories'. you load in a disc and it releases smells over 30 minute increments. a quick google search yielded a small story on boing-boing, which makes me really wonder how i missed it.

ALT+CTRL

ALT+CTRL is happening at the Beall Center in early October -- a festival of independent and alternative games. More generally, check out the Beall Center for Art + Technology's current calendar for a great lineup of works that last until next summer.

Earthdance 2004 LA

http://www.earthdance.org/la/

EARTHDANCE:: LA:

24 HOUR OUTDOOR CAMPOUT

Join us for the Planets largest synchronized global music event and unite with over 120 cities in 51 countires at the 8th annual Earthdance gathering for world peace. Experience 24 hours of forest adventure on a 160 acre private ranch just 25 miles North of Los Angeles.

<><><><><>
WHEN: SUNSET til SUNSET
OPENING CEREMONY :: SAT 18TH :: SUNSET (6PM)
CLOSING CEREMONY :: SUNSET (6PM) :: SUNDAY 19TH
WHERE: GOLD CREEK RANCH (ANGELES NATION FOREST)
<><><><><>

A Southern California musical adventure.

Earthdance is an all ages Festival of Life. All people, cultures, artists, healers, drummers, dancers and performers welcomed!

• Featuring over 60 DJ's, Live Musicians, Dancers, Visual Artists and Performers.

• TWO music area's with awesome Turbo Sound, Intelligent lighting, fx & decor.

• Ambient, World, Breaks + Down beatz area brought to you in the special Lotus Lounge (decor provided by the DO LAB).

See you all on the other side.

cool ass GPS camera hack

(picture source: engadget)

looking at engadget today and found this sweet GPS camera hack. Of course, in other parts of the world (cough, japan, cough...) these are pretty ubiqutous. but you have to respect the ugliness of this system.
link via engadget

Lots of other cool stuff there today, so check it out.

The "I found your life" thing is pretty strange, and relates to some of the privacy / personal ethics issues we were discussing in mark(co?) bolas's class yesterday.

words to the wise

So, my security threat level has risen significantly in the past week, but this time with no thanks to the Bush administration. Not only did I get malicious adware called "outhost" that digs it's heels into your registry and is so hard to get rid of I'm just going to format, but a windows bug surfaced that can infect you through a trojan JPEG file (article and fix) (goodbye to IE for good, hello Firefox), and today I learned that Kryptonite bike locks can be picked by inserting the non-writing end of a Bic pen (article).

Visiting Speaker for 9/20/04: Aditya Dev Sood

The IM Division is hosting a brown-bag lunch talk this coming Monday by Aditya Dev Sood from Bangalore, India. His work has looked at ways to use mobile phones for education in remote and tribal areas in south asia and also developed an outreach program that works with leading urban media artists in India to provide access and support to emerging technologies.

Title: Sharing Media: Social Capital and Technology Design in an Emerging Economy

Abstract: This presentation explains the importance of shared and sharable experiences in defining how non-traditional users value diverse kinds of media devices. The physical sharing of media devices in a public location such as a kiosk, and the realtime mutual experience of voice, text and image represent two alternative means of creating social capital. Using examples from on-going work by CKS in urban and rural India, this presentation shows how such user-oriented data can serve as a resource for the design of new information products, interfaces and features.

Aditya Dev Sood is Founder and CEO of CKS Consulting, a user research and interaction design firm based in India. A former Fulbright Scholar, he has published widely and maintains a multidisciplinary interest in social research, education, technology, and design. With foundational training in Design and Critical Theory at the University of Michigan, he is also completing doctorates in Anthropology and South Asian languages from the University of Chicago.

Location: USC Zemeckis Center, Room 201
Time: 12:30pm-1:30pm, Monday 9/20/04

Election 2004: The Missing Mobile

The 2004 Presidential Election is very hotly contested - if you keep up with a site like Electoral-Vote.com, you can watch the so-called "Battleground States" shift from blue to red as volleys of advertising are fired over the airwaves.

Polling is a huge part of these politics - driving strategy and coverage. And, it turns out, political pollsters don't count mobile phone users - making the 170 million mobile devices in the USA the largest mystery voting block in modern politics.

George Lucas on THX 1138: "That's the real me."

"For years, I've been doing the pretend me,'' Mr. Lucas said. "I've been successful at it. But my true nature is really "THX" and that's the kind of movie I thought I was going to be making the rest of my life and that I wanted to make and just never - I got sidetracked with all these opportunities. I just sort of got trapped into this thing, which I enjoyed doing a lot, but it's not completely reflective of what I like to do. I never thought I'd get stuck doing kids' films for the rest of my life."

from yesterday's opening of THX 1138 at the Guggenheim Museum, New York.

more

TRACING THE DECAY OF FICTION

TRACING THE DECAY OF FICTION: ENCOUNTERS WITH A FILM BY PAT O¹NEILL

3 screen installation is part of the exhibition ³Pat O¹Neill: Views From Lookout Mountain² at the Santa Monica Museum of Art
September 11 - November 13, 2004

Opening reception: Saturday Sept. 18, 2004 7-9pm
Schedule for Saturday, Sept. 18, 2004
4-6 pm Removals, Inclusions, and the Margins of Memory
A panel discussion on the work of Pat O¹Neill moderated by John G. Hanhardt, Senior Curator of Film and Media Arts, Solomon r. Guggenheim Museum.
Participants include: Paul Arthur, Professor, Film and Literature, Montclair State University; Elizabeth A.T. Smith, chief curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and Erika Suderburg, Professor, College of Arts and Humanitites, CRiverside

Admission: $10 Members: $5
Limited seating: please pay at the door

6-7pm Members¹ Preview: exclusive exhibition walk-through with guest curator Julie Lazar and Pat O¹Neill

7-9pm Public Opening

Santa Monica Museum of Art
Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Ave.
Santa Monica, CA 90404
310 586-6488
www.smmoa.org

IM Forum Speaker for 9/15/04: Michael Lew

IM Forum Speaker for 9/15/04: Michael Lew
Title: “What is happening to the film form as the medium becomes computational?”

This week's speaker will be Michael Lew, Adjunct Professor and Visiting Scholar, Interactive Media Division, USC School of Cinema-Television.

Location: USC Zemeckis Center, Room 201
Time: 6:30pm-9pm, 9/15/04
Abstract:
As media-reading devices are all starting to have computational power, the vision machine (camera) and the Turing machine (computer) are converging. Recorded media comes along with code or behaviour that defines how to read it. The editor becomes an interaction designer. The problem with film was that the time flow was imposed. But now that footage has freed itself from the one-dimensional linearity of the celluloid or tape substrate, film has exploded as a constellation of shots on a multi-dimensional narrative space that can be explored at the viewer's own pace. Elastic timeline, multiple windows, levels of depth allow interactive narration to achieve cubism in cinema. We will discuss the implications of these ideas on interactive film for one or two users, video on stage in theatre and live improvised cinema in performance.

His work " Office Voodoo" is an interactive film installation for two people.
More info here.
Bio here.

POD (Wind Array Cascade Machine)

Nice installation from this year's ISEA:

Steve Heimbecker

POD consists of an array of sixty-four movement sensors on a roof in Montreal, Canada and sixty-four corresponding light sculptures at Kiasma. As the wind blows across the roof in Montreal, the sensors gather real-time data and transmit it over the Internet to the light markers in Kiasma. The lights illuminate according to the pressure waves of the wind, showing the audience a visual representation of the pattern related to the amplitude, direction and wave motion of the wind.

Video here: www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/stage.php?NumPage=369

[via GTA post here with good reviews of many other ISEA works]

Certain Traces, New Dialogue Los Angeles/Prague

@POST: LYNN ALDRICH, ERICA BORNOVÁ, JITKA HAVLÍC?KOVÁ,  JAN JAKUBKOTÍK, ALENA KOTZMANNOVÁ, KARL MATSON (+), PERFORMANCE BY TOMAS RULLER, LELAND MEANS, JAN MERTA, PETR NIKL, S?TE?PÁNKA S?I MLOVÁ, LIZ YOUNG

Reception: Friday, September 10, 7 – 10 PM
Exhibition Dates: September 10 – October 9, 2004
Gallery Hours: Saturdays 12 - 6 PM and by appointment

POST
1904 East 7th Place
Los Angeles, CA 90021
213-488-3379
www.post-la.com

Certain Traces
Dialogue: Los Angeles/Prague, 2004

artists:
Kim Abeles (USA), Lynn Aldrich (USA), Deborah Aschheim (USA),  S.E. Barnet (USA), Barbara Benish (USA/CZ), Maura Bendett (USA),  Erika Bornová  (CZ),Jiri Cernicky (CZ), Tomas Cisarovsky  (CZ), Martin Durazo (USA), Jitka Havlickova (CZ), Eva Jelinkova (cz), Ivan Kafka (CZ), Habib Kheradyar (USA), Vladimir  Kokolia  (CZ), Jan Kotik (USA/CZ), Alena Kotzmannova (CZ), Daniel Martinez (USA), Karl Matson (USA +), Leland Means (USA), Jan Merta  (CZ), Vladimir Merta(CZ), Christian Mounger (USA), Petr Nikl (CZ),   
Tomas Ruller (CZ),  Stepanka Simlova (CZ), tyler stallings (usa), Margita Titlova (CZ), Marnie Weber (USA), Alexis Weidig (USA),  Liz Young (USA)
      
Venues & Dates:

In Los Angeles:
Pomona College museum of art August 31-October 10,     
Reception: Saturday, September 11, 3-5 p.m.  Music: “Strings of _umova” /Performance: Liz Young
S.C.A.P.E. September 4- October 10
 Reception: sept. 4
CzechFront Gallery September 8-October 10
Reception: Wednesday Sept 8 , 6 p.m.
Post September 10-october 9, 2004
 Reception: Friday, September 10, 7-10p.m.
 Performance: Tomas Ruller
Sam Francis Gallery@ Crossroads Sept. 9-october 9
 Reception: Thursday, September 9, time 6-8 p.m.
Barnsdall September 8-october 24
 Reception: Sunday, September 12, 2-5 p.m.
Music: “Strings of _umova” /Performance: Tomas Ruller & Habib Kheradyar

 in prague
Kampa Museum=November 16-December 31
 Vernissage=November 17, 2004 /time?
 Performance: Tomas Ruller & Habib Kheradyar
Karlin brewery=November 15-december 15
 Vernissage= November 19, 4 pm + performances/music

Certain Traces:
Dialogue Los Angeles / Prague 2004

LOS ANGELES, July 15, 2004 – A series of exhibitions at six different Southern California venues will feature painting, sculpture, installation and performance by 14 artists from the Czech Republic and 14 artists from Los Angeles beginning on August 31, 2004 at the Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA.   

Exhibitions will also be on view at the Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Park, Hollywood; Post Gallery in downtown Los Angeles; Guggenheim Gallery; S.P.A.C.E. in Corona del Mar; the Sam Francis Gallery at Crossroads in Santa Monica, and CzechFront Gallery on Wilshire.  On November 17, the exhibition will open at the Kampa Museum and the Karlin Brewery in Prague.

“Certain Traces, New Dialogue Los Angeles/Prague” is a 15-year commemoration of the historic Dialogue: Prague / Los Angeles show of 1989/1990 that defied Communist sanctions and presaged the final dissolution of communist Czechoslovakia. As an anniversary event, Certain Traces celebrates the achievement of the original show and expands the original concept of open dialogue to explore the meaning of creative discourse for a diverse group of artists from Los Angeles and Prague in a newly defined open society.   

The original show gathered 12 Czech artists willing to risk official sanction to take part in an open artist exchange with 12 Los Angeles counterparts.  While 15 years has brought immeasurable change to the political and cultural landscape in both countries, the basic notion that inspired Dialogue: Prague/Los Angeles that a creative discourse in the arts might rise above national border to promote artistic innovation, mutual understanding and goodwill remains unchanged.  This is the starting point for Certain Traces:  Dialogue Los Angeles/Prague 2004.

Under the auspices of the Czech Consulate in Los Angeles, the  exhibition is curated and organized by Barbara Benish, Los Angeles artist who has been living in Prague for the past 11 years, with the generous assistance of Pomona College Museum curator Rebecca McGrew. Ms Benish’s work is also included in the exhibition.  The exhibition in Prague is co-curated by art historian Sarah Brock, Prague resident since 1993.

The prestigious Museum Kampa overlooking the Vltava, will exhibit a selection of both Czech and American artists and an alternative, artist-run warehouse space in Prague – in keeping with the original grassroots character of the original Dialogue show – will provide the second venue for the November opening in Prague.

For further information please contact the gallery.

The New Games Day

I am currently organizing a Field Day to test outdoor physical games proposed by The New Games Movement. Please refer to my latest entryfor details.

!! EA Event Planning !!

I would like to invite all project leaders for the Sep 14th event to a team meeeting on Friday at noon (ZML). Please let me know if you cannot make it. We have to orchestrate setup, assign equipment and work out a setup schedule. Xtra bodies welcome. We can use all the help we can get.

Natalie Jeremijenko at Telic

Natalie Jeremijenko

'A Game Goose'

Saturday, September 11, 2004, 7pm - 9pm

Telic
975 Chung King Road
Los Angeles, CA 90012
T: 323.962.5069 or 323.664.1220
http://www.telic.info

A *Game Goose:

An aquatic robotic goose allows you to approach and interact with actual non simulated geese in situ. These biological geese are fully unpredictable and capable of exceedingly rude, challenging and interesting behavior. You are invited to pilot the robotic goose, play with, follow, and attempt communication with the other geese. Try various goose calls and your own goose imitations for your mutual cultural enrichment. See if you can persuade the geese you are worth talking to. If you succeed in any meaningful interaction upload your interpretations. [http://xdesign.ucsd.edu/ooz/goosespeak/]

Goosing--playing goose--uses repurposed hunting decoys for a technology of approach and reciprocity. This robotic goose interface is part of OOZ, a zoo backwards and without cages. This project produces technological interfaces to facilitate interaction and re-script human non-human relationships.

*In hunting terms GAME, as in, wild animals, birds, or fish hunted for food or sport, implies similar scripts of interaction to those used in computer games, as in, first person shooters. Yet GAME also manages to retain a certain ready-and-willingness, as in "game for a swim". This project retrieves some of these less played games into the telic imagination.

Los Angeles Art and Technology Hacker Club

The Los Angeles Art and Technology Hacker Club at c-level this Sunday September 12th 2004, 8pm.

1) Casual chatting while waiting for stragglers

2) Meeting announcements + planning.

3) Adam Overton, a sound and performance artist from Atlanta, has been developing a series of sitting meditation performances that use homemade EEG, ECG, and respiration sensors, along with custom sound software developed in the open source programming environment, SuperCollider. He will be giving a short performance and demonstration.

4) Jeff Cain will present details from RHZ amateur radio network, a project for REBEL REBEL at the New China Town Barber Shop. RHZ is an experimental peer-to-peer radio station aiming to create an open source broadcast from a legal network of micro-radio stations that share content over the internet. RHZ is designed to follow the parameters of FCC regulation, abide by copyright law, and use only free open source software to distribute information, while simultaneously allowing the network to grow limitlessly with each new participant.

5) Free form mingling and problem solving for those who brought stuff, working or non.

The Los Angeles Art and Technology Hacker Club is an open group formed for people interested in doing cool things with electronics. All levels of experience are welcome to attend and participate. The group meets some sunday early every month, at 8pm, at c-level, in Chinatown Los Angeles. To sign up for the discussion and announcement list, visit http://www.c-level.cc/classes/hackerclub.html

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

Directions to c-level:

1. Find yourself in front of "FULL HOUSE RESTAURANT" located at 963 N. Hill Street in Chinatown. 2. Locate the alley on the left hand side of Full House. 3. Walk about 20 feet down the alley (away from the street). 4. Stop. 5. Notice dumpster on your right hand side. 6. Take a right and continue down the alley. 7. Exercise caution so as not trip on the wobbly cement blocks underfoot. 8. The entrance to C-Level is located 10 yards down on left side, behind a red door, and down a black staircase.

for more information email info@c-level.cc or visit http://www.c-level.cc

'la plays itself'

im on a roll!

tomorrow night at 7.30 at the egyptian theater, there is a sneak preview of 'la plays itself'.

(following this, adam freeland and freq nasty are spinning at the el rey. prob only of interest if you like dancing to nu skool breaks, but youre more than welcome.)

kurt and i are going to try to hit both, though the movie is 169 minutes long with a q&a afterwards. both should be awesome and you should attend. only one is easily within the realm of 'interactive stuff'. ill let you guess which one that is.

maybe ill see you there....

chojo demo filming

looking for extra tomorrow morning, 9.30am at lucas loading dock. should be fun and pretty basic, lasting no more than an hour or so. (didnt mean to belittle or dismiss production films/homework this evening; was trying [and failing] to say this was more 'departmental-like' filming.)

hope a few of you can make it; it would be nice to see some people outside of the platoon of third years i see every day.

court rules against unlicensed sampling

already breaking my 'let's not repost stories' rule (but going along with discussions tonight), from /.:
An anonymous reader writes "Looks like there is no room at all for *any* sampling of "commercially protected" music. According to the open and future-looking judges, 'Get a license or do not sample. We do not see this as stifling creativity in any significant way.'" As the article puts it, this includes "minor, unrecognisable snippets of music." The decision was in the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Ars Electronica 2004

Dancers Robert Tannion and Desiree Kongerod play with projected lines in the Austrian composer Klaus Obermaier's "Apparition."

Ars Electronica, the world's oldest and largest art and technology festival, ended yesterday.

Here are some early reports:

Ars Electronica Asks What Will Be Next (New York Times, today)

City Survives Art Geek Invasion (Wired News, Sept 7)

On the Danube, art, technology and society converge (International Herald Tribune, Sept 6)

Have 25 Years of Progress Helped? (Wired News, Sept 1)

Oh, yeah, I guest curated the symposium and "timeline±25" exhibition and website.

D. Jean Hester Guest Speaker in CTCS 505 - Survey of Interactive Media

From time to time I will be having notable guest speakers who have something compelling to say about Interactivity. This Thursday in the Ron Howard Screening Room at ZML, D. Jean Hester (a CNTV BFA!) will be presenting work and discussing insights on Interactivity.
The announcement for our guest is available here:
D. Jean Hester Announcement
Guests are more than welcome, of course. CTCS 505 meets from 2-6p in the Ron Howard Screening Room at ZML, and includes a lecture along with the guest speaker's remarks, so please keep in mind that this is proper class session.
If you're interested in what the week's lecture will discuss (week 3), as well as what our tentative list of future guest speakers looks like, please see the syllabus here:
CTCS 505 Course Page

Cell Phone With 1.5GB HD

Seoul, Korea -- Consumer electronics manufacturer Samsung, the world's third-largest maker of cell phones, announced on Tuesday that it will begin selling the first mobile phone with an embedded 1.5GB hard disk drive in Korea later this month. The phone will feature a mexapixel digital camera, 2.2-inch display and MP3 player. It will also offer an enhanced microphone, and dual speakers that create the feel of 3D sound. The company did not provide pricing details or announce plans for a North American release for the hard drive phone, which could spur more interest in downloading music and video over wireless networks.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?P3BA22C39
http://www.samsung.com

IM Forum Speaker for 9/8/04: Perry Hoberman

IM Forum Speaker for 9/8/04: Perry Hoberman
Title: “Recycling Post-Consumer Media Content”

The first speaker for this semester will be Perry Hoberman, Research Professor, Interactive Media Division, USC School of Cinema-Television.

Location: USC Zemeckis Center, Room 201
Time: 6:30pm-9pm, 9/8/04

Living Room Candidate

The Living Room Candidate - Presedential Campaign Commercials 1952-2004 is a wonderful electronic media archive of Campaign Ads essentially since Television became a medium relevant to campaigning. Amazing. It would be great to have access to those this election's campaign ads that only make it to the "swing" states.

Ped-Rage - It Was Inevitable..

No, You Can't Walk and Talk at the Same Time
Via the New York Times

By KEN BELSON

With nearly two-dozen states now enacting some sort of restriction on the use of cellphones while driving, the random weaving and inexplicable speed variations, the short stops and sudden lateral jerks of drivers with phones tucked against their ears are slowly becoming things of the past.
But as any urban dweller will testify, the hazards presented by nattering mobile users do not begin and end behind the wheel.
It may sound insignificant, but pedestrians talking on cellphones have become a major cause of "pedlock" and subsequent "ped-rage."

Their minds elsewhere, cell walkers are more likely to step into traffic without looking, cut off and bump into other pedestrians and even confuse passers-by with their very public conversations - all of which can hinder the natural flow of human traffic along sidewalks.
And as cell-free walkers grudgingly adjust to the unpredictable ambulations of their distracted brethren, the communal bond that once linked pedestrians brushing elbows on crowded city streets, some experts say, is evaporating.
This trend is nowhere more in evidence than in New York City.
"I look forward to walking and being in my own space, but cellphones make it more difficult to do," said Oren Hellner, a 36-year-old marketing executive who walks 15 minutes each day from Pennsylvania Station to his Midtown office. "I've seen people nearly get hit by taxis, and I have to bob and weave around people on their cellphones who aren't paying attention."
Last year, 13,807 pedestrians were struck by motorists, and 170 of them were killed, amounting to almost half of all traffic deaths in the city, according to the New York City Department of Transportation.
Aware of the hazards of walking while distracted, the department this spring began a campaign, "Cars Hurt, Stay Alert," and printed posters that showed warnings stenciled on street corners reminding New Yorkers to look both ways when crossing.
"Cars Are Made of Steel," one poster reads. "You're Not."
"People are moving quickly and technology has changed the way people can use their time," said David Woloch, the deputy commissioner of transportation. "If people would be more alert by making fewer phone calls or paying attention while they are on the phone, that's what we want to see happen."
There are no statistics on the number of pedestrians injured while talking on cellphones. But Kit Hodge, the campaign coordinator for Transportation Alternatives, a group that advocates for pedestrians and bicycle riders, says the congestion caused by mindless cellphone use on city sidewalks is "out of hand," adding that she has seen shoving matches break out between pedestrians and has herself been smacked by callers who were walking and gesturing wildly.
Still, at least an accidental smack requires two strangers to acknowledge each other. The proliferation of cellphone use on city streets is also contributing to what urban planners have come to call the privatization of public space. Whether they are making calls out of a sense of necessity or as a simple means of escape, cellphone walkers are less likely to help a stranger in need, for instance, or to exchange pleasantries with passers-by. They are effectively cutting themselves off from the random encounters in public spaces that used to invigorate city living.
"The charm and excitement of the city is that it allows you to exercise freedom you can't get at the shopping mall," said Kenneth T. Jackson, a professor of history at Columbia University and a former president of the New-York Historical Society.
The incursion of technology into public spaces - cellphones, iPods, security cameras - is causing cities to resemble more closely the controlled environments of suburban towns.
"The city needs to be something else," Mr. Jackson said.
For some people, of course, isolating themselves is a way of coping, not a guilty pleasure. Cities are big, busy and sometimes scary places. Talking on the cellphone to friends about most anything can ease the stress of having to head down a street that might appear threatening or just mentally taxing.
With nearly two-dozen states now enacting some sort of restriction on the use of cellphones while driving, the random weaving and inexplicable speed variations, the short stops and sudden lateral jerks of drivers with phones tucked against their ears are slowly becoming things of the past.
But as any urban dweller will testify, the hazards presented by nattering mobile users do not begin and end behind the wheel.
It may sound insignificant, but pedestrians talking on cellphones have become a major cause of "pedlock" and subsequent "ped-rage."
"Cellphones are a way to pick something we can deal with," said Robert V. Levine, a professor of psychology at California State University, Fresno, who has studied New York pedestrian behavior, "and at the same time filter out other things. Cellphones shut people off from the here and now."
Still, cities like New York depend on the civility of their citizens, whether they are in a bus, an elevator or simply walking down the street. By sealing themselves on their phones, cellphone walkers might well be encumbering their phone-free counterparts twice: first by forcing them to duck, dodge and otherwise adjust to meandering callers, and again by robbing them of one more engaged neighbor.
"Anything that separates people from their surroundings is antithetical to the idea of a public realm," said Jerold S. Kayden, professor of urban planning and design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. "Every little brick added to the walls around people creates less of a common cause, and I don't think we need to be adding bricks."

EA Mobile Deal

BBC article

EA is joining forces with the Scottish mobile entertainment firm Digital Bridges to make more of its games available for mobile phones.

Hidden Postings

As part of the Interactive Media Freshman assault on the blog front page, I have decided to post something. I made this decision after posting on my personal blog page, only to realize that as I am not currently included in the faceroll, there would be no way for anyone to view what I had posted without specifically typing in my exact url. Thus, not to be doomed to anonymity amongst even my peers, I felt obliged to create this, which I hope will at least provide a link to the noha blog, and maybe even spur onwards a faceroll update for all of us hidden first-years...

Test Post (is this mike on)

Testing testing 123.

Bluetooth Body Blow

I have to say, three years ago I went to a technical training session on Bluetooth and was quite surprised as to the chasm between the technical hype and the technical reality of Bluetooth. Bandwidth, capacity for multiple simultaneous signalling for distinct apps, range, etc. were all gradually deflated as somewhat typical real-world operating conditions were introduced into the case studies. One guy at the session was there to figure out if his company - an outfit that manufactured monitoring equipment for hospitals - could use Bluetooth to eliminate all the wires required. He never came back after he found out that the technology would only really support a few devices within the space of a typical hospital suite.
Cross Posted from 80211report.com by way of Unwired
In a body blow to Bluetooth -- a technology which has already suffered more setbacks than successes -- Swedish company Ericsson, which 10 years ago invented Bluetooth as a cable replacement, said it would stop making new chips using the technology. The company said, "Even though large volumes are manufactured, the business case for Ericsson’s design of new Bluetooth
solutions is not strong enough." The company will form a new unit to support existing Bluetooth silicon customers, and its mobile units will continue to offer Bluetooth software. "It's not gone yet, but it is not going to make it long-term," says Craig Mathias of the Farpoint Group. "Ericsson made a
business decision -- a good one."

Bluetooth has never been quite able to get out from under the mountain of interoperability and pricing problems afflicting it. What did not help was the relentless, suffocating hype which accompanied Bluetooth in its early stages -- hype which only helped to accentuate the technology's every little
flaw and failure. The rapid proliferation of 802.11, the commercial availability of UWB, and the introduction of ZigBee would likely have spelled doom for Bluetooth in any event. Ericsson's decision may well be the coup de grace.

Culver City Free WiFi

CULVER CITY LAUNCHES
FREE WIRELESS INTERNET ACCESS IN DOWNTOWN DISTRICT

Revolutionary Technology Brings Free Broadband
Outdoors to Downtown Culver City

Culver City, Calif., (September 2004) The City of Culver City is pleased
to announce the launch of free wireless internet access in Downtown Culver
City effective Thursday, September 9. This service, called Wi-Fi for
Wireless-Fidelity, is the first broadband wireless hotspot on Los Angeles
Westside. It offers laptop users the ability to log-on to the internet
without the use of phone lines or traditional wires that bind most
internet use to the office or home.

A kick-off party and demonstration of Wi-Fi in action is scheduled for
Thursday, September 9 at 12:30 in Town Plaza at the intersection of Culver
and Washington Boulevards in Downtown Culver City. Technical staff from
Wireless Hotspot, Inc. will be available to offer free Wi-Fi support and
demonstrations, along with music and refreshments. Staff will be
available through 6:00 P.M. The general public is encouraged to bring
laptops to this free event.

CULVER CITY LAUNCHES
FREE WIRELESS INTERNET ACCESS IN DOWNTOWN DISTRICT

Revolutionary Technology Brings Free Broadband
Outdoors to Downtown Culver City

Culver City, Calif., (September 2004) The City of Culver City is pleased
to announce the launch of free wireless internet access in Downtown Culver
City effective Thursday, September 9. This service, called Wi-Fi for
Wireless-Fidelity, is the first broadband wireless hotspot on Los Angeles
Westside. It offers laptop users the ability to log-on to the internet
without the use of phone lines or traditional wires that bind most
internet use to the office or home.

A kick-off party and demonstration of Wi-Fi in action is scheduled for
Thursday, September 9 at 12:30 in Town Plaza at the intersection of Culver
and Washington Boulevards in Downtown Culver City. Technical staff from
Wireless Hotspot, Inc. will be available to offer free Wi-Fi support and
demonstrations, along with music and refreshments. Staff will be
available through 6:00 P.M. The general public is encouraged to bring
laptops to this free event.

On an everyday basis, users will be able to handle e-mail correspondence,
get the latest weather, stock and sports updates, search the news
everything a person would normally expect from the internet, but for free,
anywhere they choose outdoors in Downtown Culver City.

Downtowns hotspot covers an area of approximately one square mile from
Trader Joes at Culver & Ince to the edge of the Sony Pictures campus at
Washington & Hughes five blocks west. The district includes Town Plaza,
an outdoor performance and gathering spot; a public park, the Culver
Hotel, numerous outdoor cafes and retailers, and a number of offices
including Culver Studios and Westwood One.

This new technology is as revolutionary as when phones were freed from
cords and plugs. Now, you can sit on a park bench, in a café or under a
market umbrella and browse or write to your hearts content, states John H.
Richo, Director, Information Technology, whose department initiated the
project.

The project is funded by the Citys Redevelopment Agency. Community
Development Director Susan Evans states, As an important hub of the
entertainment industry where high numbers of creative personnel are
employed, Culver City embraces new technologies that lay the groundwork
for new and more flexible ways to work.

Any wireless-equipped laptop which includes almost all manufactured from
2002 onwards - can easily access this new, free service, states Joseph
Hsieh, founder and president of Wireless Hotspot Inc., the company
retained by the City of Culver City to deploy the new technology. Even
without a built-in receiver, it is easy to buy and install a wireless card
from any major computer store.

Wireless Hotspot, Inc offers end-to-end wireless internet and network
access solutions for retail, hospitality, government and other agencies.
Wireless Hotspot is a privately funded company based in Los Angeles and
incubated by the FAME Renaissance Center. FAME is a joint effort of the
Community Development Department of Los Angeles, the Economic Development
Administration, Department of Commerce, Wells Fargo Bank, and State Farm
Insurance Company.

To implement this pioneering project, Wireless Hotspot partnered with
Firetide and Vernier Networks. Firetide is a privately held wireless mesh
technology company that develops networking equipment for large Wireless
Instant Networks, like Downtown Culver Citys. Firetide's Instant
Networking, which utilizes mesh overlays, is a technology developed by the
military and allows for identical signaling from numerous sources
simultaneously. Downtown Culver City employs this feature to allow for
continuous-stream access unbroken by interference from buildings, trucks,
trees or any potentially impeding object that could obstruct the broadband
signal.

Vernier Networks provides the technology that addresses security issues
created by Wi-Fi users inside the network. Vernier received InfoWorlds
2004 Technology of the Year Award for Best WLAN (Wi-Fi Local Area Network)
solution and 2003 Product of the Year Award from Network Magazine.
Vernier is a privately held company headquartered in Mountain View,
California.

For further information:
Alicia Weintraub
Redevelopment Agency
(310) 253-5778

Carlos Vega
Department of Information Technology
(310) 253-5975

the degree confluence project

The goal of the project is to visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures at each location. The pictures and stories will then be posted here.

Seems like a very cool project. Would be very cool to see this project completed and viewed in some sort of 3d world space.

Link via We-Make-Money-Not-Art