Maker Faire 2011 in Bay Area

Maker Faire Bay Area 2011 mashes items possessing an On/Off switch with old-fashioned human curiosity, resulting in a round up of robots, musical Tesla coils, fresh-squeezed sunflower oil, futuristic chariot races, antique pinball machines, super-sized Lego projects, and more neon, flame, and brightly gaseous glows than are normally seen outside an MIT lab. Whoah Nelly. But yes, it's all that and more.

Maker Faire combines the best of Burning Man's sizzling creativity with the hottest creations of the DIY community and serves it all up in a dazzling two-day event guaranteed to engage every member of the family. Now in its sixth year, Maker Faire Bay Area runs May 21-22 at the San Mateo County Event Center and will host some 100,000 visitors as they learn from and play with over 600 crafters, makers, engineers, vendors, and artists who come from all over the country to exhibit their particular brand of genius.

Produced by MAKE Magazine and O'Reilly Media, Maker Faire's geek culture flourishes with droids, DIY kits by kids for kids, and mobile land sharks roaming in the dark. Longtime favorites the Flaming Lotus Girls return, this time bringing their fiery Mutopia pods. The SF Model Yacht Club has "Race and Shoot" games not to be missed; the Stanford Solar Car Project soaks up some attention; the Madagascar Institute whips things up with their zany chariot races; and robotics and animation engineer Dr. Mike Regalbuto showcases his Posables, lifelike forms that literally bend to your will. None of this would be complete without rockets, bikes, food, and a huge children's area for young dreamers and makers.

Focused on making education so fun as to be seamless, Maker Faire Bay Area 2011 embraces the universe, loosely titling the weekend "From Maker Space to Outer Space" in honor of a recent collaboration with MAKE, NASA, and Teachers in Space in which students conceive experiments to be conducted during suborbital flights. To purchase tickets, including weekend passes, go here: http://makerfaire-marketwire.eventbrite.com.

Interactivity and You: Which TRIBE do you BELONG to?

The National Film Board of Canada was at SXSW as part of the IDFA DocLab and unveiled its online interactive web-doc My Tribe Is My Life which was created by Myriam Verreault & Alex Leduc.

The showcase combines documentary storytelling with digital technology. It begs the question: What Tribe Do You Belong to?

Through the eyes of eight style-conscious music fans from My Tribe Is My Life, an interactive web-doc examines their distinctive worlds in a way that allows you the viewer to see the impact of the Internet’s impact on their interpersonal relationships and how they construct their personal identity.

As a player in this interactive experience, you can choose an avatar and find out about the Internet’s impact on you, allowing you to engage in an analysis of virtual networks and to question attitudes about these new social realities. 

You will encounter eight diverse characters and have the opportunity to observe them as they go about their day-to-day activities. Through a series of questions, you will be invited to think about the role of the Internet in your own life. When you create an avatar, you can personalize its style, characteristics, accessories, etc., as well as comment on the film and chat with other participants.

The 8 Characters include: Patrick, a Goth loner who lives in his parents’ basement, and has built up a network on a forum dedicated to “vampire” style; Heythem, who organizes reggae parties, and views Facebook as the post-modern address book; Jimmy, a rapper in Abitibi, and a member of Quebec’s hip hop community; Janis (a.k.a. DJ Monochrome), an insurance broker by day and a passionate player in Quebec’s electro music scene by night; Laurianne from Sayabec in the Gaspé, who refines her Goth ethos in daily forum discussions; Sébastien, a Goth dandy/loli and a great admirer of the Japanese Harajuku culture, who regularly uploads photos of himself in his exquisitely constructed clothing ensembles; Pierre-Luc from St-Félicien, a provocateur through his “public private diary,” which has become his Facebook profile; and Shana, an emo teenager from Maliotenam on the North Shore, who derives her sense of identity through her friends, live chat rooms and a penchant for lip-synching videos. 

To each his “tribe:” Goth, emo, reggae, rap, vampire. . . . Music is often more than a simple cultural product; it can be a means of constructing identity. Online social networks allow Web users to share music, information, images and feelings; in seeking out their own “kind,” they can discover a tribe that speaks to them. And, in exchange for expressing themselves through sharing and posting, they hope to receive comments, opinions and gestures of approval, all of which serves to validate their identity. 

The film trailer can be found here.

Levy's WIRED Piece: Larry Page wants to Return Google to its Startup Roots

Steve Levy's Wired piece that came out today is a must read. Entitled Larry Page Wants to Return Google to its Start-up Roots, it takes us back to 12 years ago when Google was first funded.

Two excerpts from his piece:

"Now, after a 10-year run in which Google’s revenues grew from less than $100 million to almost $30 billion, Page is finally CEO again, a role he always felt he could handle. The general public may not appreciate the magnitude of the change—to most, Page is just one of the seemingly interchangeable pair of wacky “Google guys.” But Page is sui generis and could potentially have the kind of impact Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have had. Nobody better encapsulates Google’s ambitions, its ethics, and its worldview. At the same time, Page can be eccentric, arrogant, and secretive. Under his leadership, the company will be even harder to predict."

And, on what Google 'could' look like with Page back in the CEO position: 

"If history is any guide, Page’s idealistic impulses could result in a vaster, more sprawling company. In 2008, Google participated in an FCC auction for radio spectrum to be used for mobile broadband. By the terms of the auction, if the spectrum was sold above a certain price, the winner would have to allow other companies to run devices on their networks—something Google strongly favored but that telecom companies dearly hoped to avoid. Google executives worried that the telecoms would conspire to keep bidding below that baseline price. So the company got involved in a high-stakes game of chicken. Google would bid on the spectrum, high enough to get it over the threshold, and then bow out. It left Google potentially vulnerable; if nobody else topped its bid, the company would be stuck with a multibillion-dollar piece of spectrum that it was unequipped to exploit. “Google definitely wanted to lose,” the company’s chief economist, Hal Varian, says. To Google’s great relief, Verizon did top its bid, and the company was off the hook."

Head over to WIRED to read the full article.

 

Charlie Rose interview with Ray Kurzweil, Ptolemy to air March 8 and 9

The postponed Charlie Rose interview with Ray Kurzweil and director Barry Ptolemy regarding the movie Transcendent Man is scheduled to air on PBS Tuesday March 8 (check schedules here for your zip code) and on Bloomberg TV Wednesday March 9 (find showtimes in your area here).

Transcendent Man by Barry Ptolemy focuses on the life and ideas of Ray Kurzweil. It is currently available on iTunes in the United States and Canada and on DVD. Screenings in Washington, D.C. and Boston are sold out, but tickets to London and San Francisco screenings in April are available.

 

Facecake Hopes to Transform Online Buying & The Dressing Room #democon

Facecake (cool name isn't it?), was on the DEMO stage today showing up Swivel, a new service slated to launch in May that will allow you to try things on in your own closet using a virtual application that allows you to see what they look like in various outfits.

You can give yourself a complete cosmetic makeover, such as having the experience of going from a blonde to a redhead. You can also visualize yourself losing weight, see your home in a rainbow of colors, purchase accessories for your pets, or try a cosmetic procedure with just a simple click. Just upload your image and you can "try on" a product, or "try out" a service without ever leaving home in a photo-realistic manner that's the next best thing to driving to the store or doctor.

Says the founder on stage, "you can share with swivlets with other users online - in static or dynamic moving scenes." Swivel transforms the 'changing room' by making it virtual, making the dressing room smarter not just for users directly but their plan is to bring it to eCommerce as well. "We think we're changing the way people will shop," says the female CEO and founder. 

Above, the CEO is demoing the service on stage. You can see how she is testing out purses and dresses virtually, visually being able to see what she looks like in various outlets before buying them all while allowing you to share your experience with others. Could this be Fashion 3.0? I love it. Below, Matt Marshall chats with the team about its various applications and use cases in the future.

Enterproid Wins Qualcomm QPrize on DEMO Spring Stage

Matt Marshall talked to Qualcomm on the DEMO Spring stage this morning in a one-on-one chat. He talked about the QPrize competition they've been working to uncover innovative technologies in different regions of the world, including India, China, Europe and the U.S. Qualcomm awards $500,000 in seed financing across the finalists, the winner in each region gets $100K and the winner overall receives an additional $150K.

The QPrize has been so successful that Qualcomm has decided to expand the regions and they've now added Israel and korea and expanded the funding to $750K. The technologies range from clean technology to healthcare and mobile technologies. 

After listening to the six finalists from various pockets of the world (North America, Europe, China, India and elsewhere), listen to video below, enterproid was announced as the winner. An app that enables professionals to consolidate work and personal life onto a single device without compromises, tey'll present on the DEMO stage tomorrow.

David Rose on Enchanted Objects & Storification

In the first session on the TEDxBerkeley stage on Saturday, product designer and technology visionary David Rose talked about enchanted objects. He showed us how you can build and program whatever you have ever imagined, talked about what's currently happening with game play, and demonstrated how the folks at MIT have been reinventing painting among other insights.  

For years, David has been working on the reinvention of medication packaging with wireless technology. He is known for embedding Internet information in everyday objects like light bulbs, mirrors, refrigerator doors, digital post-it notes, and using umbrellas to make the physical environment an interface to digital information.

He says, "if you're in the software business, you should try to enhance animated objects. If you're in the objects business, think of objects as avatars for surfaces; combine that with gamification in order to achieve a goal."

David challenged us to think about storification.....in other words, embedding the experience into a larger narative. He says, "displaying information in multiple ways changes people's behavior."

Also take a look at the talk he gave at Lift '09 on "Enchanted Objects - How fiction foreshadows innovation" which is not the same talk he gave at TEDxBerkeley however in the talk, he does talk about enchanted objects and 'lassos of truth'....he gives examples of comics and fictional female characters 'as objects' including Wonder Woman and Snow White. He says of the invention and the fictional character, "rarely do you see the two collapse into one person."

TODAY, TEDxBerkeley Brings Leaders Together to Reveal World-Changing Projects that are Engaging the World

This morning starting at 10:30 am, nearly 1,200 world leading thinkers, visionaries, doers and students will gather for the second TEDxBerkeley event at Zellerbach Hall.

Fifteen ground-breaking thinkers and leaders in their fields will discuss issues such as: how to find personal meaning in the business world and how to scale social change in the developing world.

Within the theme of “Engaging the World”, the event will be broken down into three categories: Dream, Pioneer and Connect.

Below is a list of the 2011 TEDxBerkeley speakers. Visit the TEDxBerkeley speaker page for their detailed biographies.

• Bryan Alvarez – Doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, researching brain-based and cognitive mechanisms of a unique form of sensory-blending called synesthesia, which he also experiences.
• Jason Atwood – Ph.D. Candidate, Activist, and Director of Ethiopia ConnectED, an education initiative inspired by TEDster Sugata Mitra’s research on self-organized learning environments.
• Anat Baniel – Founder of the Anat Baniel Method and Director of the ABM Center in Marin County, California, where she and her colleagues teach professional training programs and workshops.
• Lopa Brunjes – Biochar pioneer, passionate sustainability advocate, and Executive VP of Biochar Engineering Corp, a small Colorado company defining the leading edge of the burgeoning biochar industry.
• Chip Conley – Founder and Executive Chairman of Joie de Vivre, California’s largest boutique hotel company, Author and Entrepreneur.
• Sonja Drakulich – Musician and Singer who performs Balkan and Medieval European music, as well as Persian, Turkish, Greek and Arabic; toured nationally with the Mevlevi Dervishes as singer and percussionist and in Indonesia with the Gamelan Theater Group.
• Robert Fuller – Former President of Oberlin College and Author of Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank, coined the term “rankism” and is a leader in the worldwide quest for human dignity.
• Erin Ganju – Co-founder and chief executive officer of Room to Read, an organization that seeks to transform the lives of millions of children in the developing world by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education.
• Eoin Harrington – Singer, songwriter and guitarist, described as described as reminiscent of Maroon 5's Adam Levine, James Blunt or "a grittier Elton John." 
• Walter Hood – Professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design Department. His studio, Hood Design, has been engaged in architectural commissions, urban design, art installations, and research since 1992. 
• Gopi Kallayil – Group Product Marketing Manager at Google supporting the marketing of the Company’s flagship advertising product, AdWords, in the Americas and Asia Pacific. 
• Brad Kava – Award-winning journalist, writer, blues harmonica player and co-owner of the Santa Cruz Blues Festival.
• Noteworthy – UC Berkeley all-male a cappella group unique for writing the majority of their own pieces.
• David Rose – Product Designer, Technology Visionary, Serial Entrepreneur and current chief executive officer of Vitality, a company reinventing medication packaging with wireless technology.
• Moses Sedler – Cellist & Composer of music for dance, film and concert stage, with a background in classical, improvisatory music as well as European folk and Indian music.
• David Silverman – Animator and was involved with the animated TV series The Simpsons from the very beginning, where he animated all of the original Simpsons Tracy Ullman shorts and went on to serve as director of animation for several years.
• Shore Slocum – Co-Founder of SoulNeeds, a social networking platform for the soul, and Speaker/Trainer who conducts Speakers Boot Camps which has inspired tens of thousands annually around the world.
• Marti Spiegelman – Training Professional, Mentor, Speaker, and Founder and Host of Awakening Value: Shamanic Technologies of Consciousness and Success on the VoiceAmerica Web Radio Network.
• Peter Stanley - Record producer, songwriter and guitar player extraordinaire who fronts the blues band Doghouse Riley.
• Matt Venuti – Composer, multi-instrumentalist, and TED veteran who opened the 2004 conference in Monterey with a solo. He will perform on the Pan Art Hang on the TEDxBerkeley stage.

The TEDx Berkeley team includes: Curator Kevin Gong, a translator who has volunteered for the Global Lives Project; co-curator Renee Blodgett, founder of Magic Sauce Media and We Blog the World, co-curator Ross Evans, founder of Worldbike; Director of Marketing, Jennifer Barr, VP/Operations at Northern CA Wharton Business School Club; Director of Logistics Navi Ganancial, serial volunteer and social media marketing guru; Director of Sponsorships Brent Locks, founding COO of GreenLaces.org; Director of Web Strategies Massimo Paolini, founder of MPThree Consulting Inc.; Technical Director Rocky Mullin, production volunteer for EG and TEDMED, musician & producer  and Volunteer Manager David Allen, Berkeley student studying Neural Theory of Language.

TEDx Berkeley Coming to the Zellerbach Stage on February 19

On February 19, 2011, TEDxBerkeley will gather world-leading thinkers, makers, and doers at UC Berkeley to discuss the theme: “Engaging the World“. The audience will be a diverse yet curated mix of 1,400 students, professors, and thought leaders from Berkeley and beyond, gathering for a stimulating day of presentations, discussions, entertainment and art that will spark new ideas and opportunities for all.

If you're interested in attending, fill out the form and join us. The speaker line-up can be found here, with additional speakers and performers being added in the next few days. Below is just a glimpse - more updates coming next week.

• Jason Atwood - Cal PhD, Computer Lab in Uganda project.
• David Rose - Founder of Vitality. 
• Chip Conley - CEO of Joie de Vivre.
• Marti Spiegelman on consciousness.
• Erin Ganju - CEO of Room to Read.
• David Silverman - Producer of The Simpsons.
• Bryan Alvarez - Cal PhD and the Human Atlas Project.
• Lopa Brunjes - co-founder of Biochar.
• Gopi Kallayil - Heads of Product Marketing for Search Advertising at Google.
• Shore Slocum - Author and Speaker on spirituality and the real world.
• Bob Fuller - Author on rankism. 
• Walter Hood - Berkeley architecture professor.

Ray Kurzweil's The Transcendent Man

The Transcendent Man, the movie, is previewing starting in early February, beginning on the east coast in New York.

This documentary film is about the life and ideas of Ray Kurzweil who continues to travel the world offering his vision of a future in which we will merge with our machines, can live forever, and are billions of times more intelligent...all within the next thirty years.

Each program will include opening remarks or presentation by Ray Kurzweil, the film screening itself, a
Q&A with Ray Kurzweil and director Barry Ptolemy and of course, the program will vary slightly from city-to-city.

The schedule of where and when the movie is playing is below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday, February 3rd New York   Time & Life Building 1271 Avenue of the Americas  (50th Street & 6th Avenue) New York, NY Cocktails 5:30PM | Program 6:30PM   Sunday, February 13th San Jose   The Tech Museum  The Hackworth IMAX Dome Theater  201 South Market Street San Jose, CA 95113  5:00PM   Wednesday, February 16th Los Angeles   Laemmle Royal Theater 11523 Santa Monica Blvd.  West Los Angeles, CA 90025 Cocktails 7:00PM | Program 8:00PM   Thursday, February 17th Los Angeles   Laemmle Royal Theater 11523 Santa Monica Blvd. West Los Angeles, CA 90025  Cocktails 7:00PM | Program 8:00PM   Thursday, March 10th Washington, DC   Sixth and I Historic Synagogue 600 I Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 Program Start Time TBA   Monday, March 21st Boston   The Coolidge Corner Theatre 290 Harvard Street Brookline, MA 02446 7:00PM | Cocktail reception to follow   Tuesday, April 5th London   The Science Museum IMAX Cinema Exhibition Road South Kensington  London, SW7 2DD  7:00PM