moving

Will post a short snip of some of the test audio (wireframe audio, as I heard it referred to today) that I've been working on for my thesis.

I'm liking the way, just going through this mock-up process, of the way that compositions can be experienced as someone moves through space. If you can get the play/stop functions to work well, without abrupt pauses, etc., then you get this really amazing experience, this fluid control of the sound that I'm really enjoying. The difficultly is in dealing with gps accuracy and wireless connectivity. I've dealt with these problems in previous posts -- solutions which I hypothetically like a lot -- but they still are worth mentioning.

By the end of this week I should have my 2nd development unit running (so I don't have to pry the other one away from my engineer).

This means that I'd like to try and start seeing if anyone is interested in trying it out (with the caveat that this this is still in early development).

I will post more about said trial runs later this week, or early next...

Game B-Sides

I'm linking to an interesting article I found over at Waxy about the game industry including "B-sides" in major game releases.

I think this sounds like a really excellent idea -- easily integrated into the existing market structure -- and a great way to get exposure for potentially more interesting, unique (read: student, experimental, etc.) games.

B-Sides have worked really well in the music industry towards exposing this type of material, I think. Sure, some B-Sides really do just sound like tunes that didn't make the cut, but often times you'll hear really great stuff, stuff that the artist clearly was experimenting on, or something different, etc. -- but stuff that maybe the record company was less than enthusiastic about including on the record.

Sad as it may seem, things are getting so big, so dependent on huge marketing budgets, and non-creatives have a huge role in what gets distributed, we need to start thinking of novel ways to get experimental, innovative stuff out there.

infrared

Nothing particularly exciting here -- just some nice infrared images from terraserver.com. I've really been spending way too much time with this service, but it's really fascinating. that is all.

sycamores = privacy

Been using terraserver.com a lot lately to grab high resolution, color, aerial maps of LA, but I was bored this afternoon to I decided to see what my house in Salt Lake City looked like from the air. The Red Dot tells it all. Those crazy sycamore trees -- not only good for shade, but good for privacy!

beasts

Saw this floating around some Blogs today, and it reminded me of Todd's thesis project for some reason. It's not really your standard architecture, but more like sculpture with a highly architectural style. These robots seem very compelling visually, and fit in with the algorithmic aesthetic that Todd has been working around.

link via we-make-money-not-art

The Movie Business Book

Just starting to get through this book by Jason Squire, who heads up the internship class that Kurt, Erin and I are taking this semester. Squire is totally cool -- old school hollywood guy who knows everything about everything. It's amazing to see guys like this, who have been all stars in one particular field, but totally and completely understand everything, and can easily wrap their heads around why that thing is important, or relevant, etc. Anyway, even for those not in this class, I would highly recommend this book from what I've read so far.

data

starting to think about the sharing / web aspect of my thesis project, and built up a simple, clean interface to preview the sonic layer, etc. I've tried to do some sound-world building this week, trying out different music, etc. and testing it to see if anything in particular stands out. What I've sort of come up with is a 3 (probably 4) tier system of how audio is layered on the world. the 1st layer (demonstrated in this demo) is a composed music space. I've tried some stuff out, and am getting a feel for how this layer might be organized. The 2nd tier would be a 'user contributed' section and would be more stuff like sound fragments -- bits of recorded speech, etc. (less composed). the 3rd tier would be the hold music stuff I described last post, and this switch would be activated when the system cut out -- like, indoors, bad wifi areas, etc. The 4th tier would be mobile nodes that travelled around slowly (or quickly..) forcing the player to chase it. Anyway, these are all just ideas and protoypes... trying to experiment and see what works the best. My major concern is activating / interacting with the space, rather than simply listening to sound and being disconnected. we already have systems that do that.

Link to flash

elevator / hold music

so I'm trying to come up with a good method of handling "GPS free" zones (as I've been politely calling spaces like: buildings, dense forests, new york city, underwater) in my thesis project. (FYI: my thesis involves streaming audio to a PDA via wireless and in some form related to your current x,y position).

My current solution, and one I'm pretty happy with, is to keep a series of 'hold music' clips on the PDA. When a person is moving around, the system not only tracks which audio clip to stream, but also keeps tabs on the nearest 'hold music' node, such as a building, etc. If the GPS cuts out for some reason, or the wireless cuts out for a moment, the PDA will begin streaming the 'hold music.' I think maybe the GPS-loss sounds will be different than the wireless-broken sounds, as I see the former as more a part of the system (buildings are in fact part of campus, I've heard) than the latter, which I feel is similar in nature to the "technical difficulties" slides that TV networks broadcast when someone has totally blown it on air, or a feed has cut out or whatever.

Anyway, here's some clips. I think I like the idea of "broken" music right now, so I made a bunch of really slick background / elevator / hold music pieces, then broke them. These are all prototypes. I think I will describe them like I saw some of the real shit like this described on-line.

"Glistening Ocean" [.MP3]

"Glistening Ocean" [BROKEN .MP3]

Description: Light, airy guitar and keyboards are punctuated by soft background effects for an ethereal feel.

"Sunsets We No Longer Share" [.MP3]

"Sunsets We No Longer Share" [BROKEN .MP3]

Description: Sustaining, expressive orchestration provides a poignant and meditative base for romantic guitar. Minor elements of nature add hopeful note to this sentimental track.

also: is it just me, or does the title "sunsets we no longer share" title seem a little depressing. I can imagine some guy on hold for like, 3 hours listening to a track like that and jumping off a cliff or something.

here's a link to the "inspiration"

typekey test

hey - can someone with a registered typekey account pls. try and comment on my inter-web log? I think I got the s fixed, but time (and someone trying this out) will only tell...

trying something new

I was talking with Tripp yesterday about the blog and decided that those of us who are online all the time spend too much time in this space basically just blogging like we were an editor for reblog or something.

Actually, there are a number of people on our site who don't do this, and their posts are typically most interesting, I suppose. Link dumping is not something I'm particularly fond of, and I'm not sure exactly why I've sort of regressed to doing it -- probably lack of energry to write things consistenly in this space. links are much easier, but less engaging.

I say all this with the caveat: linking to projects relevent to personal or related research is definitely still important, but it needs to be contextualized with a description -- how does this relate to my / our projects or research?

So my goal is to no longer have any post that is simply a blockquote followed by a link.

dancing shoes

in the context of an earlier conversation I had with Kurt about the coolness of Get Smart (and the cooresponding cool-osity of his shoe phone), comes the Sensor Shoe, designed by Professor Joe Paradiso, MIT Media Lab.

Electronic sensors are built into this ordinary shoe to pick up foot movement and changes in pressure. The short antenna at the back of the shoe transmits data from each sensor to a nearby computer. The computer is programmed with a set of rules that map the data to particular sounds. A digital music synthesizer produces the sounds, which are then heard through speakers.

here is a link of NYC dancer Mark Haim.

Speaking of Get Smart -- that bastard isn't out on DVD yet. Damn. All night I've been wondering: How can I help? The answer: sign an online petition!!! to get these things produced in stunning digitality.

Side note #1 - Carl, your complete Get Smart page is wicked bad.

Side note #2 - this post quickly turned into about how I think Get Smart is totally wicked bad.

halloween costume

I'd like this as my halloween costume this year, for sure.

pixel moon

isometric moon.

link via reblog

timeline

a little flash app built as a timeline tool for my thesis project. Will be up soon...

view

for now, here's my weekly task timeline for my thesis project in xml format.

schedule.xml

SMS novel

"Weighing in at a mere 4,200 words, "Out of the Fortress," is like a marriage between haiku and Hemingway, and will be published for its audience of cell phone readers at a bite-sized 70 characters at a time, including spaces and punctuation marks, in two daily installments."

Link via Smartmobs

Name that sound

Awesome audio trivia game on PBS.com: play an audio sound from a retro game and choose which game it came from.

link via we-make-money-not-art

personal life recorder

Don Norman speculated about a "Personal Life Recorder" (PLR) type of device back in his 1992 book "Turn Signals Are The Facial Expression of Automobiles". He theorized that these PLR's would start out as a device given to young children, called the "Teddy". The "Teddy" would be given to us as children and record all of our personal life moments, and as we mature, the data could be transferred to new devices that matched out maturity level.

USA Today reported that a newly developed type of computer memory, called MRAM could make the vision of a PLR-type device possible, as well as "instant-on computers" and "longer battery life for pervasive devices".

link from smartmobs

video game revolution to be televised by PBS

Link

Citi-Tag

Cool GPS tag game.

Link via Coin Operated

maybe this is only funny

maybe this is only funny because it's 2:30 am.

Rest in Pieces

A note from the deceased. My family forced me to write this, selfishly shying away from the thought of collecting my life's fragments and puzzle piecing them together. They also insisted that I write in the third person, as the thought of my words springing from the sunday paper one day, seemed a little too personal to them. We bargained down to a 1st person forward followed by a 3rd person account of my dirty life and times (to quote warren zevon). So, on this sunny september morning, I swipe a quick look out the window, long enough to see my dog terrorize the neighbors, then take a step back.

William Carter departed this world on October 10, 2050, while descending a trail in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. At the age of 70, he couldn't go up anymore, but if somebody got him to the top, he could still go down. He must have gone too fast this time. Sigh.

Will is outlived by his father, and looks forward to not being called "wilson" anymore.

He lived the way he wanted to live, exploring new paths as they come into view and never getting bored. His career reflected those values, reflecting an ambition and desire to contribute, the best way he knew how, to his field and the world at large. Moving fluidly between entertainment, academica, and research, he was happy to explore, create, and work hard his entire career.

He destroyed pop-up ads, started calling flight attendants stewardesses again, and lived through 3 80s revivals. Eventually he stopped working and devoted himself to reading more and seeing what was left of the real world.

Amendum:
Oh, and he was also a rock star. Being a rock star was awesome for him.