[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thjy5plN5xY[/youtube]

Rachel Zevita-American Idol 6
Old news but had to post. This girl rules!

VideoVets: Garret Reppenhagen   

Which VideoVets video should be a TV ad? Vote at http://pol.moveon.org/videovetsVideoVets.org is a website where Iraq veterans and military families use YouTube videos to push back against Bush supporters who say ending the Iraq war is anti-troop.” -MoveOn

The Wind Shaped Pavilion is a design proposal conceived of by designer/artist Michael Jantzen for a large fabric structure that can be used as a public or private pavilion. As a lightweight fabric structure, the wind slowly and randomly rotates each of the six segments around a central open support frame. This continually alters the shape of the pavilion, while at the same time generating electrical power for its nighttime illumination.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIPkWaR7jDw[/youtube]

The Axiotron ModBook is a MacBook that’s been morphed into a Mac tablet starting at $2,280. The Modbook is the only portable Mac solution that features an optional built-in Global Positioning System (GPS).

Converting an Apple MacBook into a TabletMac™ using the Axiotron ModBook conversion kit is best performed by a trained technician and will void the original Apple MacBook warranty. The Axiotron ModBook is therefore exclusively assembled and manufactured by Axiotron Authorized System Manufacturers (AASM) who not only perform the conversion, but also include a comprehensive 1 year warranty covering the complete solution. Every AASM also offers optional 2 year warranty extension plans, providing added ease of mind.

Destroy Television Returns for NY Art Exhibit
Posted Friday, April 20th, 2007, at 6:30 pm Eastern by Mark Wallace

[…] from May 23 to June 2. Curated by the excellent Annie Ok of the GHava{SL} Center for the Arts in the virtual world of Second Life, the show will be designed by Electric Sheep Jerry Paffendorf and Christian Westbrook, and will involve Destroy Television, the interactive avatar-bot designed as a research project of the Electric Sheep Company, who streams live images of Second Life to her Web site (although that seems to be dark at the moment). Just what form the exhibit will take has yet to be revealed, but the show will take place simultaneously at the Fuse Gallery in New York (at 93 Second Avenue, between Fifth and Sixth Streets), and in SL at the GHava{SL} Center for the Arts […] More >>>

Early images of Destroy Television on Flickr

“Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities”
Researcher Luis Bettencourt and colleagues used mathematical models to chart how several unexpected aspects of city life will get faster, bigger, and more expansive in coming years.

“we explore possible consequences of these scaling relations by deriving growth equations, which quantify the dramatic difference between growth fueled by innovation versus that driven by economies of scale. This difference suggests that, as population grows, major innovation cycles must be generated at a continually accelerating rate to sustain growth and avoid stagnation or collapse.”

article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

The HD-RH1 from Iconix is a 2-inch cube weighing in at 2.5 ounces and has fiber-optic output along with a remote control panel (not wireless yet). With the new RCP-160 remote, you’ll be able to connect up to 6 RH1s to one another. can film in 35 different formats and frames including true High Definition from 1080p, 1080sf, 1080i, 720p to NTSC and Pal and is now capable of direct camera unlocking via an SDI (Serial Digital Interface). The camera head comes with mounting holes on the top and bottom of the head. These mounting holes permit attachment with the Iconix tripod mount which attaches to standard ¼ mounting screws.

The device is operated by a single-source HDTV controller unit, measuring 8.4-inch x 1.8-inch x 12-inch and weighing 3.5 lb. It has already been used to capture some of the planet’s most fearsome predators in National Geographic Television’s “Planet Carnivore” documentary.

The updated model of the HD-RH1 will be available this June, while the remote panels are likely to be shipped in early Fall 2007.

Iconix, via GadgetLab

We are currently collaborating on a project with Sean Capone and the above video titled Pop!Garden is a new piece he recently showed at the 20th anniversary Images Festival in Toronto.

“The piece is video wallpaper as part of his Exhuberant Nature/Hidden Nature series, 2007. This work employs computer animation to create a large-scale video projection which reflects on the use of media as a contemporary form of architectural ornamentation. The aesthetics of graffiti patterns, urban gardens, and traditional decorative motifs are referenced and reformulated as a dynamic environmental surface display. The palimpsest of growth and decay allude to the ongoing natural processes of erasure and regeneration within the evolving visual field of the city.” -Sean Capone

Philip Zimbardo carried out the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment and has recently authored a new book. Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (Random House, 2007)

Forum radio program on Mon, Apr 9, 07

Rob Schoeben, VP of Apple Apps and product Marketing speaking at Apple’s Lights Camera Apple NAB keynote event.

Introducing Final Cut server: Media asset management: catalogues 100 file types, proxy generation, keyword searching, access controls. Workflow automation: workflow templates, watch and respond system, review and approve tools, automated encode and publish — “It’s an event-based system.” - for $1999 it’s unlimited concurrent users.

“Let’s turn our attention to Final Cut Studio. We’ve been working hard to make this the biggest upgrade we’ve ever seen seen in professional applications at Apple. Final Cut Studio 2. Final Cut Pro is version 6, and we’re introducing ProRes 422.” Can compress full raster HD quality video from 1TB to 170GB.

Comparing ProRes and uncompressed video, 127MBps vs 19MBps.”Visually indistinguishable.” The screen is split between the two formats, looks pretty freaking amazing.

Bandwidth efficient, portable, color space headroom, and next gen device support. Including Sony’s new HDCAM SR 1080p60 storage system introduced here at NAB… that explains those Sony peeps!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ymt4QGoapA[/youtube]

Red Digital 4K Presentation

You can take 4k files, plug it directly into a MacBook Pro, and see and edit them right there. You will be able to work with this whole new breed of moviemaking.”

IO-HD: $3495 | “You can edit HD on location on your MBP — it’s everything in and out from ProRes. It’s really a new paradigm in post-production. It’s really made possible by Final Cut Pro, ProRes, and the IO-HD . I think it’s going to be another Apple earthquake that shakes things up in the post-production industry.”

“We took some of the great technology in Shake and brought SmoothCam down to Final Cut Pro, removes camera shaking. Now we also have editable Motion templates, access Motion templates without leaving FCP, update all instances without having to use Motion. It’s all integrated.”

Auto upscaling of lower-res clips, resolution and bitstream independent — showing 960 x 720 5Mbps video upscaled right next to 1080p at 125MBps.

Motion 3: — this year we’re embracing 3D, extended all the familiar tools into cameras, light sources, navigation of 3D space… create the kind of graphics you want to create. We’re adding paint. Particles, video, pictures, pen — speed, pressure sensitivity — and throw behaviors on the strokes to bring that paint to live. Something shockingly complicated in the past is now easy: match moving.”

The above is a slightly modified post from engadget by Ryan Block Apr 15th 2007 1:24PM.