My friend Cielito and I hung out in Ajay’s car with voice controlled functionality. His speech recognition system is set it up with 4 mics, two of which capture his voice and the other two cancel noise interference. With the windows wide open in traffic, Ajay was able to boss around his media player to search and play specific music files and adjust the volume with voice commands that left his hands free to drive. My favorite part was when he tried to confuse his computer and the computer started asking clarifying questions! With a full-on snazzy computer in the trunk accessible through the 7-inch touchscreen, Ajay’s project is just beginning. What other applications will he find for the voice controlled computer in his car?
Lately my neighborhood has been getting a lot of press. About five or six blocks away from our apartment, the Capitol Hill Massacre happened. I used to teach at Meany Middle School and my old classroom is almost kitty-corner to the house where all the killing happened. I went for a walk to go check it out with my neighbor and found the corporate media camped out on the corner taking photos of mourners. What a weird gig to stand around all day taking pictures of people crying and being upset. I took pictures of the media instead.
I used a new contraption-cell-phone-camera. I gaffer-taped a fisheye to my Nokia 7610 and I’m really happy with the results.
Phonetagger is a superhero who helps you get the most out of your cell phone. Phonetagger shows you how to use cool applications and programs on your cell phone. I created Phonetagger to have a place to explore my current obsession with cell phone applications. It’s been a lot of fun to set up and Pop Astronaut sorted out the css so that there would be an awesome mobile style sheet which makes it easy to read the site on your cellphone.
So go check out Phonetagger and leave me a comment and give me feedback. If you’ve got an application that you love to use on your cellphone, let me know so I can review it and post about it!
Update: I forgot to mention that behind Phonetagger is the superstar photographer Kris Krug.
Update: They are all gone! Thanks!
I’m cleaning up the studio and I’ve found a lost stash of unworn Pink Bunny T-Shirts. I’ve got 5 of them all packed up with labels on them all ready to go to the post office for the first five people who send me an email with a mailing address. Make sure to put your ideal size in the email and I’ll do my best to send you one that will fit! I screen-printed these by hand so they are top-notch! I even have a few random kid and baby sizes!
New! You can now find The I Make Things Video Podcast in the itunes and fireant directories and leave a review.
While in Austin for a weekend of SXSW adventures, I had the chance to hang out with Seven, who’s a maker interested in exploring a wide variety of innovative projects. Recently he’s been making musical instrument hybrids. While hanging out, Seven showed me a musical instrument he’s made called “The Boar.” The Boar is a bass guitar made out of a boat oar. Seven’s also made another cool hybrid instrument a cool called “The Stump.”
Besides making instruments, Seven also has had a healthy obsession with high voltage electricity lately and recently he made a jacob’s ladder in his kitchen!
I first heard about ShoZu from Roland, Shozu’s number one fan. Roland should know, he’s shot thousands of photos with the cellphones he’s had over the years.
If you shoot video on your phone you can set it up to email the video to your account over at Blip.tv or Buzznet where they’ll transcode your movie into Flash and splash their logo all over it. Blip is really the way to go, but they have not added mp4 to their list of usable formats for email upload so if you’ve got a super snazzy phone like the Nokia N70, then Buzznet is your choice.. For now over at Blip, the video you send has to be 3gp.
While at SXSW, i had a chance to hang out with Andy Tiller and we shot this interview on a Nokia N70 phone, and uploaded over the air with ShoZu. It’s 352 x 288 pixels and 560 kbits/sec. The phone records at about 4 MB. Here’s a link to the origional footage straight out of the phone.
While shooting this video we explored Nokia’s Director Application which has the capability to turn your photos into slide show movies.
If you want to share any photos from your phone, ShoZu is the must-have application. As a bonus, ShoZu also syncs your contacts and downloads any comments you get on your photos.
Recently I hung out with the Bryght guys from Vancouver. They just released an internet platform for musicians around the world to use. It’s called “Backstage” and it’s a service for musicians to easily manage their online presence, interact with their fans, share their performance dates, and basicly do everything a band needs to do online. Check out the features they’ve already set up.
If you’ve got a band, I’d sign up, they are in free beta and even though it’ll eventually cost a monthly fee, it’ll be worth it to have an awesome, easy to update website that screams “RAWK!”
Update: They are all gone! Thanks!
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