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The Mediaburn Radio Weblog
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Saturday, May 7, 2005 |
On datacloud
Manipulate Time With Their Hands. In Doug Pray's documentary Scratch, Naut Humon described turntablists as being able to "manipulate time with their hands." Khronos adds space to the mix. SIGGRAPH 2005 paperon Khronos, a video playback system that allows users to scrub video in bizarre ways, temporal and spatial. Too cool. A classic video-tape allows a simple control of the reproducing process (stop, backward, forward, and elementary control on the reproduction speed). Modern digital players add little more than the possibility to perform random temporal jumps between image frames. The goal of the Khronos Projector is to go beyond these forms of exclusive temporal control, by giving the user an entirely new dimension to play with: by touching the projection screen, the user is able to send parts of the image forward or backwards in time. By actually touching a deformable projection screen, shaking it or curling it, separate "islands of time" as well... [datacloud]
11:31:48 AM 
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Traveling
Soft watches and traveling Saturdays.  | Inspired by the theory of general relativity, this iconic painting, by iconic Catalan painter Salvador Dali, inspires reflection on this traveling Saturday. - Time slip...
- You pack up a tiny part of your normal life and leave all the rest behind.
- Time slip...
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An airplane holds you in limbo for many hours.
- Time slip...
- Sunrise and sunset in Barcelona are six hours earlier than in Cambridge; you re-set your watch.
- Time slip...
- But local mealtimes also differ--lunch is at 2 p.m.; dinner at 10 or 11.
So what time is it? Is it time to eat? to sleep? or (of course) to blog! |
[Betsy Devine: Funny Ha-Ha or Funny Peculiar?]
7:35:27 AM
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Friday, May 6, 2005 |
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Thursday, May 5, 2005 |
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Wednesday, May 4, 2005 |
Pre-WiMax Network
Speakeasy Networks Pushes Pre-WiMax from Top of Space Needle.
 Dramatically, Speakeasy Networks had its formal press announcement for its dense downtown Seattle pre-WiMax network on the observation level: I was there this morning when executives from Speakeasy, Intel, and Alvarion described the components of the new five-building-top pre-WiMax network that blankets downtown Seattle. The network is live today with early customers and will go into a fully available service with 48 hours from order to live network June 15, according to today's announcement. (View photo gallery on Flickr.)
Read the rest of the story at WiMax Networking News.
[Wi-Fi Networking News]
8:56:58 PM
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Tuesday, May 3, 2005 |
Surfrider Foundation: Fifth Annual Art Gala - May 13
The San Diego Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation cordially invites you to the Fifth Annual Art Gala to take place on Friday, May 13th at the Del Mar Powerhouse from 6pm to 10pm.
Listen to the sound of crashing waves while admiring the artwork of local artists. Enjoy gourmet food and sip on your favorite Stone Beer, or Mount Palomar Wine while mingling with other ocean-minded people. Sound like fun?
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This environmentally inspired event includes silent auctions of ocean inspired artwork from renowned artists including Tom Keck, Leroy Grannis, Aaron Chang, Al Scholl, Micheal Cassidy and Art Brewer.
The auction also includes airline tickets, hotels and resort stays, spa treatments, museum passes, dinners for two, surfboards and other exciting luxury items! The evening features live music with an international theme, an awards ceremony, and a slideshow. Sponsors include JetBlue Airways, Sun Diego, Surfshot, Stone Brewery, Rusty, Mt Palomar Winery, Southcoast, Pacific Coast Grill, L'Auberge Del Mar Resort and Spa and many others!
Proceeds from the ticket sales and auctions fund the chapter and local programs including water quality testing, education outreach, beach cleanups, pollution monitoring and advocacy efforts.
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Tickets are $65 for a single ticket and $120 for a pair of tickets.
Tickets are limited to the first 150 Surfrider supporters who purchase them.
Tickets can be purchased online: or call (858) 792-9940.
8:02:26 PM
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'The Future of Radio'
Rogers Cadenhead: "I'm giving away four author's copies of Radio UserLand Kick Start, each in new condition and completely untouched by my catdog."
Rogers is cleaning house and it's your best chance to pick up a great book on Radio. Hit that link, leave a comment and maybe you'll pick up a sweet copy.
I used the book for several months after it's release and it really helped me grasp some fundamentals about Radio's content management system, scripting language and more. Good stuff and worth the money at full price. [house of warwick]
7:11:29 PM
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Steve Gillmor's Inforouter
Tablet Tales. I'm back on the Tablet again--and loving it once more. Whatever I think of Microsoft's slipping grip on the rest of the network OS, there's no doubt that the Tablet continues to go where noone has gone before. As those of you who downloaded the Podshow strategycast now know, I've signed with Adam Curry and [...] [Steve Gillmor's Inforouter]
7:08:17 PM
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Snap News
Snap Has a News Site. News to me....it's driven by search, and rather interesting in that it does not try to be all things...allows you to filter by date and time, title, source, and general keyword search. Rather cool, I have to say, on first glance.... [John Battelle's Searchblog]
6:38:24 PM
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Monday, May 2, 2005 |
Go Ahead, Say It...'Shockpodder'
Adam Curry Signs with Sirius. Howard Stern, move over. Shockpodder Adam Curry is
coming to Sirius. Actually,
there’s nothing shocking about Adam Curry; I just wanted to type “shockpodder.” Curry, widely credited with inventing
podcasting, and certainly the person who made it easy, is set to host a daily, four-hour show about podcasting on
Sirius satellite radio. Yikes, four hours—good luck with that grind. Presumably, Curry will lean on podcasters for
content. This makes the second highly
publicized instance of radio reaching into podcasting for material. At this rate, podcasting will become the fastest
developing new road to stardom in history.
[The Digital Music Weblog]
7:03:29 PM
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Jon Gagan on Steinberg
How Rock and Roll!.
Impromptu performance in the Lucasfilm cafeteria sometime around 1991. Jon is playing my brother's Steinberg bass. Davo went into the kitchen and fashioned drums out of pots and pans. Afterwards we got to see a scene from T2 which was being mixed at Lucasfilm and met James Cameron. By (Ottmar). [Ottmar Liebert]
6:27:47 PM
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From Wi-Fi Networking News
Muni Round-Up: Cities Want Broadband--in Various Ways.
A plethora of municipal broadband news, as seems to be increasingly typical: Let me run you through the latest stories.
Now this might be a little churlish: why no major operators? Did they say no?: The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the upcoming Digital Cities Convention in the city in which liberty was forged runs today through Wednesday, but doesn't include any of the incumbents who have been fighting municipal broadband. It's a curious omission but they may have said, no, thanks.
San Francisco gets more free hotspots paid for by AnchorFree: The company has found a great PR vehicle for gaining attention while providing a service for free through its SF hotzones. (Note to self: It's not Frisco, but "ess eff.") While the city of seven hills considers whether to build its own network, the legislature considers blocking publicly funded Wi-Fi networks. The article notes that MetroFi, a private firm, has managed to build networks that span Santa Clara and Cupertino with Mountain View and Sunnyvale to follow. (Any users out there? How's the service?) The article quotes David McClure of the US Internet Industry Association. I have found that I like a fair amount of what he says about implementation, but not about public policy. The association doesn't disclosure membership (only founding members) nor funding. Verizon is on its board. McClure notes that taxpayers shouldn't bear financial risk for municipal networks; the latest city proposals take note of that and offset risk to private or non-profit entities.
Texas Senate to review municipal broadband bill...eventually: The bill approved with one "nay" vote in the house offered a lot of sops to those who complained about its total ban on municipal networks--a ban that would have probably led to airports dropping Wi-Fi service (but not cellular contracts, which would still have been allowed). The Senate might allow competition over municipal power lines. Senate hearings haven't been scheduled. Dallas wants to bring free hotspot zones online that are primarily focused on public safety and secondarily offer outdoor-only Wi-Fi service.
Down the road a piece from the State House in Austin, Michael Dell is backing municipal broadband: Dell knows that the bill is apparently lobbying directly to legislators. Leading pro-municipal advocate Adina Levin says in the article that the currently approved House Bill would damage Texas businesses' ability to compete. A spokesperson for the cable association in Texas says, "We're concerned about using taxpayer money to compete with private businesses." I would still like to see an accounting of taxpayer dollars paid to cable and telco firms as well as tax relief given them to build their networks. This statement also ignores the variety of models that have emerged to avoid using taxpayer money.
[Wi-Fi Networking News]
6:20:38 PM
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Web 2.0 Weekly Wrap-up
Web 2.0 Weekly Wrap-up, 25 Apr - 1 May 2005. sponsored by:
This week: Google turns up the heat, Yahoo burns to be a media bigco,
Microsoft's 64-bit light at the end of the tunnel, blogging media empires warm their
hands by the advertising fire, Craigslist - GoogleMaps make a combustible combo.
Google's Preemptive Strike
In the Mojo Cold War, Yahoo took the initiative from Google at the start of 2005 and
the propaganda machine has been in full force since then (backed up by solid products, it
has to be said!). This week Google released two major updates to their online advertising
services, which account for 97% of Google's
revenue. This no doubt launched a rocket up Yahoo!
i) Firstly Google
gave advertisers more control over their ads. Advertisers can now select which sites
get to carry their ads (Google calls this "site targeting") and advertisers can make
better use of graphics. Some punters took the latter to mean Google is becoming a banner advertising
company. Google is also introducing an auction-style system for determining what
advertisers pay to have their ads shown.
While the changes obviously benefit advertisers the most, small niche-focused Web
publishers may find it increases their revenue too. Probably the group with the most to
lose is big publishing and media companies, because advertisers can now bypass the bigco sales reps and buy site-specific adverts direct from Google.
ii) The second big Adsense news of the week was that some sites are now testing Google
Adsense in RSS feeds. Ironically a Microsoft
Longhorn blog was the first on board, but blog-publishing company Weblogs Inc wasn't far
behind.
Advertising in RSS feeds is a contentious issue. Some people don't want RSS feeds to be sullied by capitalism, while others think RSS Aggregators will enable users to filter out ads anyway. My own view is that RSS feeds
are a first-class content citizen on the Web, like HTML, and so essentially there's no difference between
putting ads in RSS and putting them on a webpage.
Yahoo Eyes Media Market
As well as competing with Google for online advertising business, Yahoo is busy on
another front - Hollywood. In a
recent interview with MediaPost, ex-Microsoft MSN honcho and now VP of "content
operations" for Yahoo, Scott Moore, outlined his vision for Yahoo Media. His job is to
develop content strategies for Yahoo, under Lloyd Braun, so what he says is a good
indication of where Yahoo is headed. Moore pinpointed storytelling and
user-generated content (e.g. blogs) as two key areas of Internet media.
Moore talked about harnessing such content "in a way that allows the highest-quality
content to rise to the top." That's consistent with my own (market) view of blogs and
user-generated content, so I'm encouraged to hear this coming from a media
executive!
Microsoft Hypes 64-bit Computing, Longhorn
Lately the Microsoft PR corps has been wheeling out its big tech guns, Bill Gates and Jim
Allchin, in order to hype up Longhorn - the next generation Windows OS. Allchin mingled with bloggers a
couple of weeks ago to preview Longhorn. And he recently fronted a press release that
waxed lyrical about 64-bit computing, Longhorn, and the history of Windows.
If you're curious what 64-bit computing is... don't be. It basically translates to
enhanced computing performance, which according to Jim Allchin "makes a big difference
for digital content creation and editing scenarios."
Media Empires
I feel a bit guilty for focusing so much on the Big Internet Companies (Google, Yahoo,
MS). There's so much great innovation happening in Web 2.0 currently. From now on I will
try and pick a 'niche' in Web 2.0 and highlight it in my Weekly Wrap-Up. I'll start with
an easy one... blogging media empires. PaidContent.org mentioned a slew of them in a
recent post - and not just the usual suspects (weblogs inc, gawker, etc).
One thing PaidContent.org didn't mention though was the humble individual Blogger,
many of whom are making a decent living (usually via online advertising) and building
their own solitary brand of "media empire". Darren
Rowse from Australia is one of the more successful of that breed. It's similar to the
Stand
Alone Journalist concept that Chris Nolan wrote about recently in PressThink, which
Pressthink owner Jay Rosen defined as "the self-sufficiency of the individual provider,
made plausible by the Web." If that isn't Web 2.0 (Web as Platform), I don't know what
is...
Techie Post of the Week: Craigslist - GoogleMaps combo
You've gotta love the enthusiasm in Josh Porter's post
about Paul Rademacher’s Google
Maps and Craigslist Combination (which btw needs a funky name).
Waxed Josh:
"This could be the most important interface we’ve yet seen in the early Web 2.0.
While the APIs created by Amazon, Google, and eBay are cool in and of themselves,
it’s combinatory interfaces like this that really shine. Note that anybody could
have done this!"
All I can add to that is: Holy Remix Culture, Batman - you're right! ;-)
One More Thing
Happy 50th birthday to Dave Winer! Dave was probably my biggest inspiration when I started Read/Write Web, his Two-Way Web theory in particular. So enjoy today Dave :-)  [Read/Write Web]
6:15:00 PM
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Podcasting News
Sirius to Offer 'Podcast' Show
Published: May 2, 2005
Filed at 12:44 a.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) -- Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. is latching onto the
''podcasting'' phenomenon, launching a show later this month that will feature a daily selection of the
increasingly popular do-it-yourself audio programs.
The move by Sirius comes just days after Viacom Inc.'s Infinity
Broadcasting unit said it would convert a struggling talk radio station in San Francisco to an all-podcast format.
The show, which Sirius was expected to formally announce on Monday,
will begin broadcasting weekdays on May 13. It will be hosted by Adam Curry, the former MTV personality who helped create the technological tools that allow podcasting to work. The show will be broadcast on Sirius channel 148, a talk-radio station that does carry commercials, unlike Sirius' all-music channels.
Advertisement
Podcasts are essentially audio files made by amateurs and uploaded to
the Internet where they can be shared with other listeners, either at their computers or on portable digital listening devices such as Apple Computer Inc.'s hot-selling iPod -- thus the name ''podcast,'' a combination of ''pod'' and ''broadcast.''
Podcasts are less than a year old but have become popular with the booming use of iPods. They include music and random musings on things like wine, pop culture, politics, hobbies and sports.
Some radio stations have offered podcasts of selected shows to listeners to download, but so far it's very unusual for radio stations to play podcasts on their air. Infinity claimed its station in San Francisco, KYCY-AM 1550, will be the first to adopt an all-podcast format.
The radio industry, which has already been facing sluggish growth in advertising in recent years, has been watching the booming use of iPods with growing concern.
Hoping to bring more listeners back to radio, industry giant Clear Channel Communications Inc. has been reducing the amount of commercials on its air and Infinity has been investing more in marketing and programming. Infinity parent Viacom took a
$10.9 billion charge in February to reflect the declining value of its radio stations.
Sirius is the smaller of the two players in the satellite radio field
after XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. Sirius reported this week that it has 1.4 million subscribers, while XM has 3.8 million.
Both are hoping to lure in enough customers paying $12.95 per month to become profitable, though for now both are losing large amounts of money. Both deliver dozens of channels of commercial-free music andmany other channels with sports, talk and other programs.
7:28:46 AM
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Sunday, May 1, 2005 |
2M1207b
Far Away.  BBC Science -- European and American scientists say they have photographed a planet outside the Solar System for the first time.
The European Southern Observatory group said the red image is the first direct shot of a planet around another star. The planet, known as 2M1207b, is about five times the size of Jupiter and is orbiting at a distance nearly twice as far as Neptune is from our Sun. The parent star and planet are more than 200 light-years away near the southern constellation of Hydra. There has been a lot of competition among astronomers to secure the first direct picture of an exoplanet. When the ESO group first released the picture last September there was doubt over whether the star and planet were gravitationally bound. But follow-up images taken at the Very Large Telescope facility in Chile show the two objects are moving together. "Our new images are quite convincing," said Gael Chauvin, an Eso astronomer, "this really is a planet - the first planet that has ever been imaged outside of our Solar System." (04/30/05) [Synergic Earth News]
5:23:08 PM
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