Feb 27 2009
The STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University is presenting an Art and Code Symposium on March 7-9, 2009.
The STUDIO for Creative Inquiry is an center for experimental and interdisciplinary arts.
The symposium will explore programming environments for artists through a series of workshops and panels devoted to several different programming tool kits for artists.
The event is open to the public and is geared to artists and designers interested in creating art through programming, and who want to work with tools beyond off-the-shelf software or create their own.
Feb 26 2009
It might seem like an odd concept to sit down and listen to your favorite movie. But there’s a Web site -- of course -- where you can do just that: It’s Listen to a Movie: For the Cubicle Workers of the World.
There are more than 1,400 movies in audio form, along with selected TV episodes of “The Simpsons,” “Arrested Development” and “Ricky Gervais Radio Show.”
Movies come in all genres, and from all time eras -- from current hits to early ‘30s classics like “The Thin Man.”
And if the site visitor decides that they’d really like to see the picture too, there’s a link to purchases DVDs.
Among the top most-listened to movies: “The Godfather DVD Collection,” “Goodfellas,” “Reservoir Dogs,” “Da Ali G Show,” “The Office -- The Complete Collection BBC Edition,” and “This Is Spinal Tap.
Feb 25 2009
It had to happen. Someone with way more free time than most of us will ever have thought he discovered the lost continent of Atlantis off the coast of Africa using Google Earth.
Google Earth is Google’s global mapping software, which was recently enhanced with Google Ocean, which maps the planet’s underwater surfaces. Here’s a recent Cybertainment article on the Google Ocean launch.
The Google Earth image below shows a grid-like pattern thought to have been city streets in lost Atlantis. Other Web chatter speculated that they were plow marks proving that aliens are farming on the bottom of the sea.
But as usually happens, there’s a rational explanation for the lines.
According to the official Google statement: "What users are seeing is an artifact of the data collection process. Bathymetric (or sea floor terrain) data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the sea floor. The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data."
It’s time to point our Google Earth software at the next big X-File. Does anybody know the coordinates for Loch Ness?
Feb 24 2009
We are glued to our three screens -- the big one in our homes, the little ones in the palms of our hands and the ones we’re supposed to be working on at the office.
According to The Nielsen Company, U.S. video consumption hit an all-time high in the fourth quarter of 2008. Those figures show that the average TV viewer spends 31 percent of their waking hours (151 hours a month) watching video in one of the three forms -- on the Web, on mobile handsets or on TV.
The survey isn’t great news for productivity. Online video viewership peaks during the 9 to 5 weekday hours, with 65 percent of online content streamed when people are supposed to be WORKING.
No surprise here: older viewers tend to watch TV, while Internet video peaks with young adults (18- to 24-year olds watched more than five hours online per month, followed by 25- to 34-year-olds at four hours/month), and mobile video is highest among teens: 12- to 17-year-olds watched more than six hours/month on their mobile devices. Mobile video viewing increased 9 percent in the fourth quarter.
Time spent watching on digital video recorded video, or time-shifted viewing, increased 33 percent over the previous year.
Go here for the full report.
Feb 23 2009
Here’s a stat designed to make your head explode: Every minute, another 10 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube alone, according to video Web site eGuiders.
By the time you finish reading this, there’ll be 10 more.
And that’s not counting the growing collection of professionally produced videos sprouting up every day on sites like My Damn Channel and Funny Or Die.
You can’t possibly wade through all of it, and you won’t be missing much. But you might be missing something, which is where eGuiders comes in.
The newly launched site has recruited a lineup of industry insiders to vet Web content and steer viewers towards the good stuff. eGuiders spotlights online video in several genres, including comedy, drama, documentary, animation, music, viral video and TV and film spin-offs.
The Site will also have guest eGuiders, including Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, NPR correspondent Margo Adler, “24” executive producer and director Jon Cassar and writer Zack Whedon of “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” fame.
Feb 22 2009
Watching the Oscars is a spectator sport, and everybody has their Oscar picks.
While you’re sitting around this afternoon mulling over your predictions, head on over to the official Academy Awards site, where you can sign up and post your picks before the show starts. As the Oscars action unfolds this evening, you'll be able to check in and see how you rank among the other players.
Women's lifestyle Web site Betty Confidential will have exclusive video coverage of the ceremonies and after-parties, including The Night of 100 Stars Gala.
During the broadcast, many will be sending out Oscar tweets via Twitter.
Among them -- movie review site Rotten Tomatoes, which will have its own Oscars Twitter feed.
Feb 22 2009
The comedy stylings of John McIntire and Gab Bonesso are back — on the virtual airwaves, at least.
They’ve launched a new podcast — “Political Pop,” which McIntire describes as “a fusion of pop culture and politics.”
Its non-stop banter is similar in content and style to their short-lived afternoon show on former talk station WTZN-FM (The Zone), only without FCC regulations and a seven-second delay. So expect to hear words and material more suited to a comedy club than a radio broadcast.
In one episode, they take a recent Web fad — those annoying Top 25 lists everybody and their brother have been posting on their Facebook accounts, and kick it up a notch: The topic: “The 25 dead celebrities whose brains I would like to eat to be more like them.”
Two half-hour episodes have been posted. It’s available as a stream or download through TalkShoe, which is hosting the podcast, and through iTunes and RSS feed.
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It’s hard to wrap your mind around this one, but try. In the expanding universe that is the blogosphere, imagine what it would be like if conservative pundits Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh were blogging for the hip-hop community.
Russell Simmons of Global Grind, a site devoted to hip-hop culture and entertainment, has extended the invitation to start a blog to O’Reilly, Limbaugh and to columnist/critic Stanley Crouch — all of whom have voiced criticisms of hip-hop culture.
“For far too long Bill has used ‘The O’Reilly Factor’ on Fox News to spew inaccurate statements and ideological taunts about hip-hop,” Russell said on his Global Grind blog. “Rather than speaking indirectly to us using the code of right wing rhetoric, I am giving Bill O’Reilly a straight-up opportunity to come out of the Spin Zone and speak to millions of hip-hop supporters and leaders about whatever he may feel is important.”
Global Grind currently has a roster of celebrity bloggers, including artists and music industry people.
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The iPod Classic and Nano must feel left out while their rich cousins — the iPhone and iPod Touch — get to play with all those cool toys in the Tunes Apps store.
But Notescasts is opening the door for applications developers and users for the other iPod models. Notescasts’ apps will work on iPod Classic, Nano and 5th Generation models. Content is downloaded to the iPod’s Notes feature.
Notescasts will offer health, lifestyle, reference, travel guides, sports and more. There’s not that much available yet through this site, which is still in beta mode.
Some, including Walt Disney World Resort and Sheraton Maui and other travel destinations are using it to extend their web marketing to mobile devices.
The system is designed to make it easy for people — even non-programmers — to write their own apps for these iPod versions.
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Blockbuster will become a one-stop online destination for both movie and video game rentals online and through the mail.
The video/game rental giant announced that it will launch a video game rental service, similar to its Total Access online movie rental service, which competes with Netflix for the online rental market.
Blockbuster will debut a pilot program for some of its Total Access subscribers in the second quarter.They’ll be able to rent games by mail as part of their subscription plan. The game rentals are scheduled to launch nationwide in the second half of the year.
Games will be available for Nintendo Wii, PS2, PS3, Xbox and Xbox 360 platforms.
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They’re handing out awards all over the place these days, and these could be overlooked in the Oscar stampede.
Web video network Webcastr announced its 2009 Webcastr Online Video Awards winners. The winners were both top viral and short form videos released throughout the year.
The guy doing that funny little dance with people all over the world took top honors. Matt Harding’s “Where The Hell Is Matt?” was number one.
The Presidential campaign inspired many of the winners, including Will.i.am’s “Yes We Can Song,” which was second, Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, Obama Girl’s “I Got A Crush on Obama,” JibJab’s “Time for Some Campaignin,’ ” Hugh Matkin’s “Barack Roll” and that memorable shoe throwing incident involving former President George W. Bush in Baghdad.
Here’s the list of winners: http://vote-it.webcastr.com