Girls at Google

A query less ordinary: " Posted by Emily Nishi, Diversity Program Manager

Did you know that it's National Engineers Week in the U.S. -- and that February 23 is Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day?

Throughout this week, several Google offices... have been hosting a couple of hundred girls from local middle schools and high schools to come visit us for the day. The girls have the unique opportunity to shadow a Google engineer or two...

We hope these girls get a real-life sense of what it's like to work here, and more important, that we've piqued their interests and ultimately help steer them toward future careers in math, science and engineering. Let's hear it for the girls! "

Bloglines offers new features

"The popular online feed reader Bloglines just announced a number of new features intended to help users manipulate their feeds easier and better deal with information overload.  They look like good changes: drag and drop, privacy, sorting and more efficient mobile use.  The company says this is just the first set in a series of changes to be made.  The competitors at Newsgator Online made some similar changes earlier this month.

Bloglines seems to me to be successful in large part because of its great usability for people new to feed reading.  I wonder whether these changes will be appreciated or whether Bloglines is headed for feature overload.  I don't think that's the case, these seem like changes that will only streamline current practices of users."(source)

MPAA Expands War on Illegal File Trading

PC World reports that Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is sueing search engines and news groups affiliated with peer-to-peer networks that offer instructions on downloading films.

Video Use at Carleton

Watch the video
Video is used in so many ways these days: internet, broadcast, archiving, personal..... the list could go on and on. Come check out this one minute clip to explore how video is used at Carleton College.

Sources

Lewis Weinberg, Carleton Media Technologies Coordinator

Alissa Pajer, Carleton class of 2008

Jeremy Sairsingh, Carleton class of 2008

Jesse Saucedo, Carleton class of 2008

Making a T-Shirt

Flickr user beatm shows us how raw cotton turns into a tee shirt.

Launch Prep Hyper Go (and Video Bomb updates)

Here is an article by Participatory Culture.

Launch Prep Hyper Go (and Video Bomb updates)
Nicholas Reville
We’re all in over-drive here trying to get the Windows version of DTV ready for the launch tomorrow. But not just that, we’re also fixing things on the Channel Guide (design and functionality), we’re updating the icon for the app, and we’re trying to get out an updated Broadcast Machine release. But not just that, either: our two biggest non-DTV projects right now are a totally new website that will be homebase for the video player as well as the related tools like Video Bomb and Broadcast Machine, and we just made a bunch of key updates and fixes to Video Bomb.

Two new Video Bomb features: you can now email videos to a friend and you can also see other popular videos in the sidebar when you’re looking at one video. A couple nice additions that will help videos spread. Most importantly, we also added some basic functionality that will let people bomb videos from DTV– you’ll be able to try it tomorrow. It’s simple for now: when you click the bomb, you’ll switch to a browser that will take you to Video Bomb. Simple, but it works pretty well– we think it will get a lot more people bombing and sharing their bomb channels with their friends.

Now’s also a good time to give some shout outs to people that have swarmed around this release helping us get things in line: Dean has been kicking ass on the Channel Guide, adding channels and fixing problems for people - Andy has swooped in to fix Channel Guide bugs (even though he lives on a bus with his band!) - Morgan has heeded our call for some emergency design help on the new site and came through fast - Mike has been touching up the Channel Guide design to get things in place - Matt has been holding down channel moderation like a pro - and Tom is helping us get the new icon going. And that’s not even mentioning how much ass all the full-timers have been kicking– staying up all night, handling ten different projects at once. It’s been fun actually and I guess tomorrow is not going to be any slower…

Six Apart gets $12 million

Investment Dealer's Digest reports that Six Apart, San Francisco-based creater of social networking sites such as Live Journal, Moveable Type, TypePad, and Project Comet received $12 million from undisclosed investors.

See what Paul Kedrosky and Om Malik say about this.

Chris: Pocket Rocket FX

Watch the video

Have you ever wanted a trampoline in your office? Then go work for Pocket Rocket FX in Minneapolis, MN. Their trampoline is one way they get their creative juices flowing so they can do all of their awesome visual effects for feature films. I visited them on Thursday and while I was there, I got to chat with Chris, co-founder (with Ben Pierre) and executive producer of Pocket Rocket. Check out this two minute video to get a taste of some of the cool things they can do.

Go to Pocket Rocket's website to learn more about them and see more of their reel.

P2POD HDTV Media Player

" AHT International introduced the P2POD HDTV media player, a device that uses peer-to-peer technology to download and stream HDTV programs from the Internet. This nicely-designed unit reportedly has a user-friendly interface intended to make it easy to manage the thousands of channels now available. It could get much better, too, because when more of these proprietary P2PODs are in use, all of the other P2PODs benefit. More peers, more speed.

In addition to video, the P2POD is also able to receive and transmit over 6000 Internet radio broadcasts directly to a home entertainment system. If you can't find what you want on the Internet, you can also transfer media files to it via USB 2.0.

Expected to be rolled out in the third quarter of this year, the most astonishing fact is its price, under $150. We're just wondering how we might hack this sucker so it can be used with BitTorrent. Yes, we know, BitTorrent transfers its files differently, but still...."

My Source
Original Source

A 'Video' Stamp!

Netherlands Debuts First "Video" Stamp
"The Netherlands has issued the first lenticular “video” stamp, using a special printing process on a stamp-sized piece of plastic. Each stamp sells for €.39 (46 cents US), and before you think that's crazy, keep in mind that these are not flat panel displays that we're talking about. How does this work, you might ask? The technique is a variation on those little plastic decoder rings you might have seen as a kid—as you tilt the stamp to the left and right, the series of images appear to play back in sequence. Here's how Outer Aspect, the company that printed these video stamps, explains it:

“ Lenticular is a specialised printing process that can show depth, motion, HD video, film or combinations of these. The lenticular material is made up of tiny ridges or lenses (hence the name 'lenticular' printing). We take raw images and process them through a computer algorithm, which matches the lens surface of the lenticular material. When the two work together it enables the image to be replayed back to you. The printing is always on the reverse side of the Lenticular lens material, as this is where the focal point is, allowing the images to be replayed back to the human eye as the viewing angle changes.”

This technology can also be used for 3D graphigraphics and lots of other jaw-dropping stuff.

MySpace Content Used to Punish MN Students

WCCO reports that two students were suspended from extracurricular activities after school officials discovered pictures of the students drinking alcohol on their MySpace pages.

I have similar, but not identical, sentiments as 17 year old Leah. She says, "if you're not of age, its pretty stupid (to post pictures of yourself drinking) but I don't understand how it's right for somebody to get punished for a picture." I say if you're not of age, it's pretty stupid to drink, and isn't it the responsibility of parents and coppers, not school officials, to hold students accountable for what they do off of school grounds?

The Democratization of Media... or not...

Is media now really for the people by the people or is it still controlled and forever will be by a select few? Tristan Louis wrote The New Gatekeepers in response to a Wall Street Journal article about FON advisors that are blogging about FON.

Chuck Olsen comes to Northfield

Chuck came down to Northfield today to screen Blogumentary at Carleton College. Blogumentary is the first feature open-source documentary that covers the rise of the blogging phenomenon. It is highly personal and spans a wide web of material from Rathergate to Power Line to other personal bloggers.

Learn more about Blogumentary.

Rex Sorgatz explores how Chuck Olsen took first-person documentary into the blogosphere in Open-Source Me.

Rob Nelson at Mother Jones reviews Blogumentary.

SELK’BAG

What?! A sleeping bag that you wear?!!!! Santiago de Chile based Müsuc House has come out with a padded, full body sleeping bag in human form. This Gumby-esque gear is called the selk’bag. It claims maximum mobility and comfort in and out of sleep and allows the wearer to stand, walk, and cross arms and legs without any trouble. The user controls the fit with ties and adjustment belts so the shape can be adapted anyone’s exact body shape. Campers no longer have to dread getting out from under the covers on cool frosty mornings, all they have to do is stand up and go.

I would just add two things: either grip bottoms or removable feet and built in ear phones for your mp3 player or cell.

Extratasty: your taggable wet bar

Extratasty: your taggable wet bar: "Finally, a highly pragmatic Web 2.0 service -- Extratasty is a social drink recipe site that lets you find new mixed drinks (or remember the ones you learned and promptly forgot) by search or by tag, see what newfangled concoctions your friends are trying, and rate recipes you've tried as well a see others' ratings. It's got a cool feature that takes the list of ingredients in your bar and narrows the search subset to drinks you can actually make with the materials you have at hand. I vote this tool Most Likely To Be Accessed Repeatedly At Web 2.0 Launch Parties.

Chuck is coming....

Ultimate Geek Multi-Tool

Swiss Memory USB
Check this out, a swiss army knife with a usb flash drive!!! Way cool! although not very practical since I would think the knives would actually be used and get wet and dirty and no one wants wet and dirty near their memory.

Samson USB Microphones

Samson continues to change the way the world records audio. Last year they released the C01U USB Studio Condenser Microphone, the first studio quality condenser mic with a USB out-put. Now, at the 2006 NAMM Show in Los Angelos, Samson introduced the C03U Multi-Pattern USB Studio Condenser Mic and the Q1U Dynamic USB Mic. These microphones allow direct-to computer vocal and acoustic instrumental recording. Now that's hot!

The C03U and Q1U should be produced and ready for sale this spring.