The app, which is still in development but has been unveiled to tie in with tomorrow’s Grand National, would link GPS data with images from a mobile phones camera and picture recognition.
Once the horse is identified, the app augments the moving images with odds, form, star-rating and other relevant information.
Read the complete story at The Telegraph
The bloom is off 3D this year at CES (formerly the Consumer Electronics Show). It’s as if last year’s CES, where 3D TVs were all the rage, never happened. How did 3D–in one short year–go from darling to dud?
The answer is a combination of things such as a dearth of 3D content, a technology that has not evolved fast enough, and the arrival of more-compelling HDTV tech for TV makers to push over 3D.
The big TV makers–LG, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, and Vizio–are noticeably grounded in 2D here at CES. Instead of touting new 3D tech, they are pushing new OLED display technology, promoting new content delivery services, TV-based apps, and features such as voice commands for couch potatoes too lazy to pick up a clicker.
The truth is that 3D isn’t dead, it has just gone into a hibernation of sorts. I’ll get into why, but for the time being, expect 3D technology to be pushed to the background for the next year or two. But don’t you worry–3D is coming back, and when it does, it will be with a vengeance.
The 3D Dilemma
For the last two years, 3D technology has been crammed down our throats with varying degrees of success by HDTV makers. Why? For manufacturers, 3D has been a compelling feature on multiple grounds. Number one, it gave consumers a reason to upgrade their HDTVs to something undeniably cool–3D. Also, once TV makers had developed the 3D technology, they were able to add 3D functionality to their sets at little cost to them–but more cost to us. And even better, if you’re a major consumer electronics company, such as Panasonic, you can use those 3D TVs to sell 3D cameras, and push smartphones and tablets.
Read the complete article at PCWorld.
View video at OCA
Although some have argued that the politics of the street has been replaced by new media politics, it seems that the public sphere within which politics takes place is now defined by a specific mode of bodies interacting with media. Hannah Arendt once argued that there could be no exercise of freedom without the creation of a ‘space of appearance’ and even ‘a right to appear’. How do we understand those new forms of democratic insurgency that form alliances that are not in coalitional forms? Who is the embodied ‘we’ on the street transported through media, and yet in place and at risk?
This year, Entertainment Weekly has partnered with NowLive to stream coverage from all three days of Comic-Con 2011. EW will also be providing videos of the panels it’s hosting, as well as photos and other breaking news.
Read the complete article at Mashable.
Beginning tomorrow, thousands of geeks, nerds, and geeky nerds will descend upon San Diego for the biggest geek-fest known to mankind.
And those who are lucky enough to have an iPhone can be more prepared than ever with the release of the official Comic Con 2011 app.
The app will be updated live throughout the event to keep users as informed as possible with all the many goings-on at the event – which no ordinary human would be able to do on his or her own.
It also has links to the con’s official Facebook and Twitter accounts….
Read the complete article at TG Daily.
Over 126,000 people will make the annual trek to the pop culture Mecca known as San Diego Comic-Con this week. With some of the big Hollywood studios like Warner Bros., the Weinstein Company, and DreamWorks Animation sitting out “The Con” this year, there’s an even larger opening for video game publishers to stake a claim at the comic book convention.
“Videogames, like toys, television and movies, play an important part at Comic-Con,” said David Glanzer, director of marketing, San Diego Comic-Con. “While the main focus remains comics with every major comics publisher at the show, we have seen an enthusiastic reception by our attendees of videogame companies, and some choose to debut properties at Comic Con.”
Capcom is using Comic-Con to unveil a brand new game, rumored to beUltimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. The Japanese game giant will have developers on hand for media interviews, panels and fan signings. The new stand-alone game is expected to add a dozen new fighter to the mix, including Marvel’s Doctor Octopus and Capcom’s Frank West and Strider Hiryu. Traditionally, a game like this would be unveiled at E3 or Capcom’s own press event, Captivate. But Comic-Con has become such a huge press event that it allows game companies to unveil new games to both the media (both mainstream and core gaming) and public at the same time.
Read the complete article at Forbes.
…
Synopsis
Arriving by boat at her family’s Louisiana lake island cabin, Sara (Sara Paxton) and her friends quickly strip down to their swimsuits for a weekend of fun in the sun. But when star football player Malik (Sinqua Walls) stumbles from the salt-water lake with his arm torn off, the party mood quickly evaporates. Assuming the injury was caused by a freak wake-boarding accident, the group realizes they have to get Malik to a hospital on the other side of the lake, and fast.
But as they set out in a tiny speedboat, the college friends discover the lake has been stocked with hundreds of massive, flesh-eating sharks! As they face one grisly death after another, Sara and the others struggle desperately to fend off the sharks, get help and stay alive long enough to reach the safety of dry land.
Read the complete article at dread central.
GamesBeat features a competition for gaming companies that have some kind of innovative or disruptive technology. This year, the competition features a lot of cool hardware and social games.
The winner gets a free iPad 2 from Trinet to is enrolled in the August round of Yatizen’s game accelerator class. That is similar to incubators like Y Combinator, which offer companies advice and a little bit of funding to get the company rolling.
Here are the participants for VentureBeat’s GamesBeat 2011 conference startup competition:
Metal Compass: The Israel-based company develops “real world” first-person shooter (FPS) games that use augmented reality. That means the phone serves as a “lens” for the game, turning the camera into a cross hair. When someone presses on the screen, it shoots a paintball wherever they are pointing the phone.
The company also develops toys that can transmit commands between the toy and the smartphone. The player plugs a smartphone into a toy — like a gun. The toy then registers a gunshot when the player pulls the trigger on the toy.
Haptify: This company adds haptic feedback — basically vibration — to smartphones and tablets. The application taps into the notification vibrations of the phone and then adds that to games. The application can produce more than 10,000 types of vibrations by tweaking the notification feature — like over-accelerating it or “breaking” it.
It’s funded by Immersion Corp, the company that brought “rumble” vibration technology to video game consoles like the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation. The company launched in march 2011 and is currently available for Android devices.
Read the complete article at Venture Beat.
VentureBeat’s GamesBeat 2011 conference is coming up fast. Get ready to find out about the latest innovations, opportunities and pitfalls in gaming in the two-day event this coming Tuesday and Wednesday at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. You’ll be able to network with the hottest gaming startups as well as veteran gaming innovators and investors. It’s an event you won’t want to miss. We’ve pulled together 79 of gaming’s brightest thinkers to give you the best possible view of where the next best opportunities lie.
Read more about the conference at Venture Beat.
Image source: Daily Mail
By Eduardo Navas
Note: This text was previously released on the Huffington Post on August 31, 2012. A week before the NFl began their official season.
The NFL prepares for its upcoming season, and during exhibition games on television, as wide receivers go deep for spectacular catches, I cannot help but be reminded of exciting moments from the London Olympic Games, particularly in track & field — when Usain Bolt ran to take three gold medals in the the 100 m, 200 m and 4×100 m relay.
Coincidentally, there has been speculation that Bolt may transition to professional sports such as football in the NFL, although he may prefer soccer. The main reason behind his potential future in either sport is not because he is a good ball handler, in fact, the ball is hardly mentioned. What matters is that Bolt is fast.
Image: Huffpost
By Eduardo Navas
Note: This entry was updated on August 19, 2012 with an extra commentary at the end of the main text.
As an educator in higher education and researcher specializing in remix culture and authorship, when I first learned about Zakaria’s admission to plagiarism, I was very disappointed in him, and thought that there was no way around it, that his admission of plagiarizing parts of Jill Lepore‘s work on gun control written for the New Yorker puts into question his intellectual integrity.
I thought that his apology was quick and to the point, but that somehow it was not enough. I thought that it was necessary for Zakaria to come forward and explain in as much detail as possible the reasoning for his behavior. And I thought that I wasn’t alone in hoping for this to happen–that if an actual explanation was delivered, it would all serve the constructive purpose of discussing the seriousness of plagiarism with students while providing a concrete example of a public intellectual who committed such an unacceptable act.
Image source: Washington Post
By Eduardo Navas
Note: This text appeared previously on Huffington post. Since its original publication on August 8, 2012, NBC decided to at least make available live streaming of the closing ceremonies. Other than this, much of what is observed in the following commentary remains relevant.
Viewers well versed in media expect delivery-on-demand for major events. This has created a peculiar tension when viewing prime-time Olympic coverage consisting of competitions that previously took place throughout the day, but which were not broadcasted live on TV. After the first week of events, it appears that audiences are tuning-in to NBC’s evening broadcast in larger numbers than previous Olympics, and this has become the network’s main justification for holding out on selected events until prime-time.
Image source: E News
By Eduardo Navas
Posted on August 1, 2012 on The Huffington Post
Social media spoilers are inevitable when the broadcasting network decides to block-out selected events and save them for primetime. This became evident to me as I experienced the Olympics during the first three days.
It began on Friday when I settled to watch the opening ceremony. At this time I briefly considered the fact that the broadcast was not live on the East Coast of the United States, where I live. I also realized that people on the West Coast would see the opening extravaganza three hours after me.
I said to myself that it did not matter because viewing a delayed broadcast of an opening event, sure to be considered historic, would not change my viewing experience. Such a situation is equivalent to one’s willingness to watch a television series knowing that it is a recorded production.
Things were different when I selectively viewed the first events on Saturday live on Bravo, CNBC, MSNBC, and NBC Sports. The multiple broadcasts were also complemented with apps for mobile media, well supported with the nbcolympics.com website.
Throughout the day I checked twitter and Facebook for updates and comments. I soon learned that Michael Phelps took fourth place in the Men’s 400m Individual Medley, while Ryan Lochte took first, winning the gold. However, I was not able to experience the historic moment until primetime on NBC. At this point I was more interested in knowing how it happened, and was no longer invested in the event as I would have, had it been live.
The same thing happened again on Sunday when Lochte and Phelps participated in the men’s 4×100-meter freestyle relay only to come second to France. Again, I learned about this in the late afternoon, but I waited to view it during primetime on NBC.
The decision by NBC to select certain events, from earlier in the day, and broadcast them during primetime began to be discussed as soon as Saturday, and by Sunday, stories were written on different online publications. Entertainment Weekly, in particular, ran two extensive stories. NBC apparently made its decision in order to attain higher ratings during its primetime broadcast. Understandably some people are quite unhappy about NBC’s decision, which is why, as I write this, the hash tag #nbcfail is still going strong with rants.
After viewing the events on Sunday night, however, I don’t think that the problem for NBC is that selected events are shown well after they take place. The problem, in my view, is that NBC appears to be selecting the wrong events for delayed broadcast at night.
To be specific, both on Saturday and Sunday during primetime, NBC went back and forth between gymnastics and swimming. When swimming came on, I could not help but think that I was about to see something which had already taken place. But with gymnastics, I did not mind the delayed broadcast at all. Why, I thought? I came to the conclusion that it has to do with the type of sport.
Swimming is an action sport, which deals with extreme physical performance dependent on time. It is defined by exciting moments such as when your favorite athlete does not even take third place. Add to this the possibility of breaking a world record, and you are sure to have a nail-biting experience as a viewer. Such thrill is unlikely to happen with a delayed broadcast of a major swimming competition such as Lochte’s and Phelps’ once it has been spoiled earlier in the day due to social media and online news sources.
Gymnastics, on the other hand, is a sport about physical strength, precision and gracefulness. Add to this the fact that it depends on points given by judges who, in large part, rely on aesthetics, and we have a dynamic that is closer to viewing a theatrical performance, and not so different from viewing the opening ceremony. Gymnastics is one of my favorite categories in the Olympics, and I don’t think I have ever experienced them live.
NBC’s situation actually makes apparent the fact that major networks need to better understand how to create a worthwhile experience for viewers who are likely to know already much about sporting events that took place early in the day (in this case the Olympics) which they decide to deliver during primetime.
If a network decides to hold out on a sport defined by its physical excitement, such as swimming, then an effort should be made in creating a viewing experience about how and why something happened and not “what will happen.” This approach would then make the juxtaposition of swimming and gymnastics a better fit given their differences as I explained. With this more realistic approach Bob Costas will not have to say “no spoilers” as he introduces the taped segment of Lochte winning gold while Phelps takes none, hoping that the viewers will have a thrilling experience. I did not.
The RE/Mixed Media Festival, now in it’s 3rd year, is an annual celebration of collaborative art-making and creative appropriation. It’s the artists’ contribution to the ongoing conversation about remixing, mashups, copyright law, fair use, and the freedom of artists to access their culture in order to add to and build upon it.
The festival – which this year will take place at the Brooklyn Lyceum – a 3-floor 10,000 sq. ft. venue on the border of the Park Slope and Gowanus neighborhoods of Brooklyn – will feature performances, panel discussions, live musical collaborations, hip-hop, sampling, film & video, DIY, food and drink, DJs, technology, interactive installations, painting, sculpture, software, hacking, and much more!
Read more at KickStarter and Remixedmedia.org
Post by Eduardo Navas
Note: Previously this entry read “book print.” This was a mistake on my part. It should be “book sprint.”
I recently read the “book print” New Aesthetic, New Anxieties by a group of media researchers, theorists and curators, who got together for three and a half days from June 17–21, 2012, at V2, in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
The concept of coming together for just a few days to brainstorm a book is certainly something worth considering as an act of creative critical practice. The book from this standpoint functions surprisingly well, especially because its premise is delivered to match the speed of change that its subject (The New Aesthetic) experiences in the daily flow of information throughout the global network. I personally find amazing that a book of this sort can be put together with some cohesion.
by Eduardo Navas
Image: inversion Facebook’s front page.
This post also appears on Remixtheory.net
Digging through my archives, I found the list of my early updates on Facebook. When I joined Facebook back in 2008, personal updates read “What are you doing?” prompted with “Your Name is … ” I liked the idea behind positioning the Facebook user in a constant state of action. It was like a performance online. Because of this set up, I found myself always thinking of what I was actually doing at the moment that I entered Facebook, and thought of creative ways to approach the apparent triviality of the updates.
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Dear community,
We are currently conducting a survey for a Remix Studies book project and we would really appreciate your help. The survey is quick and easy and should take no more than a few minutes of your time. Your assistance will be invaluable in the development of the book, which we hope will be of great use to students, teachers, researchers and practitioners of remix alike.
If possible, we would also be very grateful if you could help us to distribute the survey to anyone within your networks who has an interest in remix.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/C9MGRVV
Thank you very much for your time and effort – we value your input.
Kind regards,
Eduardo, Owen and xtine
Eduardo Navas
http://remixtheory.net
http://navasse.net
Owen Gallagher
http://www.remixstudies.org
http://www.totalrecut.com
http://www.criticalremix.com
xtine burrough
http://www.missconceptions.net
Image source: The Atlantic Wire
Written by Yong Kim
Kim Jung Il is dead. Sadam and Kadafi have been overthrown and executed. The model of the old-school dictator seems to be dying. Unfortunately, there’s a new dictator in town. Well, not really new, but its presence has never been more prevalent or obvious. This dictator is not just one person or regime. The neo-dictator is comprised of countless organizations, with its power being shifted and redistributed per agenda, so this dictator can’t ever really be killed off. Like any good tyrant, the neo-dictator is motivated by lust for money and power (the quench for which can never be sated). Naturally the neo-dictator’s most powerful tool is the law, laws like SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act), which are designed so content providers and their bed fellows could hold onto their outdated and dying business models. Perhaps it’s just a tactic to slow down technological advancement while they catch up.
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Image source: Creators Project
Written by Yong Kim
Erik Kessels’ installation shows what 24 hours of photos on Flickr looks like in physical form. The installation got me thinking about the exorbitant amount of pictures we take today. I’ve never been a big picture taker, that was until I got a digital camera. I have a little over a hundred physical pictures I’ve collected over my lifetime, but I have thousands in digital form, most of which I accumulated in a span of 3-4 years, starting about 7 years ago. My physical pictures I view once in a while, with a definite level of fondness, sometimes wishing I had taken more pictures. I took those pictures to commemorate specific events: nieces’ birthdays, the first time I went camping with my nieces, my last weekend in San Antonio before I moved back to LA, my college graduation, nieces’ high school graduations, dad’s 60th birthday, the last party I attended in Boston before I moved back to LA, pictures from my cross-country trips, when the family dog was just a puppy, and so on. Most of my digital pictures, however, are rather insignificant.
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