August 24, 2004

virtual girlfriend

bbc is reporting on a virtual gf that lives on your cell phone.

i cant decide if this is better or worse than calling the internet your girlfriend.

Posted by tripp at 09:09 AM | Comments (2)

August 22, 2004

thesis scenerio

here is an explanation of how a system like the one i am building could be used, how the system might function. sorry the screenshots are so small, ill see if i can post larger ones up. i don think youre missing anything though - the important stuff should be fairly easy to grasp in them.

Download file (pdf)

Posted by tripp at 08:32 PM | Comments (0)

August 17, 2004

bullet list

so heres a bulleted list of a lot of the stuff im working towards. this should at least give an overview of all the notes and thoughts ive been collecting the last couple of weeks regarding my thesis. more later im sure.

  • Main pieces of project
    • A system with POV 24/7 video, publishable to the web.
    • A UI for the end user, as the time and energy required to sort through such a glut of data/video is overwhelming.
    • In addition to the system, the narrative possibilities for such a system are extremely strong and I want to focus on them as well.
      • See Applications, I plan to focus on the Bloggers and Hyper Real Fiction Sections
  • System
    • Treat movies as photos, grouped by time/location
    • By incorporating a button with the camera, the author is able to tag moments during his/her day as 'important'. Software can analyze video for changes in scenery and lighting which further breaks apart video into separate scenes.
    • Can display pieces of movies as stills on the web within a DHTML interface.
      • Easily tweaked
      • Requires no plugins or special code
    • Use MyLifeBits codebase for publishing, UI and movie analysis/processing.
      • Must confirm camera format and ability to process frames within movies. (Requires non-web coding. Red flag.)
  • Applications
    • Bloggers
      • Travel diaries>
      • Family History
      • Time Capsules
    • Entertainment
      • Hyper Real Fiction
        • Non-edited
        • Continuous Shot
        • Meta-Fiction – reality and fiction overlapping
      • Pornography
    • Training Videos
      • Surgery
      • Flight Training
      • Any repetitive action that is dangerous to learn in the real world
    • Soldier commands
      • Remote leadership
    • Anthropological Studies
      • Artists/Notable personalities
      • Location experience
      • Community studies
    • Replay Events where perception and POV impact outcome
  • Other Research Areas
    • Social networking and interlinking videos
    • Privacy issues
    • Permissions and editing
    • Personal Cinema
    • Hyper Real Story-telling
    • Linking Electronic Documents To Video (MyLifeBits)
    • Meta-data analysis (SenseCam and pattern-matching)
    • Audio Analysis
    • GPS/location mapping
  • Research Links

  • Committee

    • Scott Fisher

    • Mark Bolas

    • Steve Drucker

    • Rudy Rucker


Posted by tripp at 12:28 PM | Comments (0)

August 09, 2004

simple steps

1. investigate interface, sensecam and mylifebits
2. strip down mylifebits to something more manageable, add publish button, deal with links
3. add sensecam, ui for pictures (directX/drucker ui), links and metadata for pics
4. (time permitting) look into video, treating it as stills with user defined 'x' frames between stills, using the same ui as the sensecam, ignoring audio.

during all this, develop matching content.
This looks more like a digital life auto-blogging tool which could easily lead to video blogging once these steps have been met. (audio is purposefully avoided here.)

(Get enough info on manipulating mpgs and its simply pulling out frames and then displaying dhtml divs that open the file up to a specific point in it. some processing on each end to be sure, but doesnt require an insane activeX plugin or anything.)

Posted by tripp at 06:13 PM | Comments (2)

August 08, 2004

updated google search

i did a google search for "video blogging" on march 22.

3,560 entries then.

searching today, the same term has about 15,700 now.

i think i picked the right topic.
now if i can just get it done before the wave breaks.

there will be a flood of thoughts, notes and information posted about my thesis project in this next week. as always, comments will be more than welcome.

Posted by tripp at 03:38 PM | Comments (0)