g-speak Spatial Operating System

I learned about this on geekbrief today.

Oblong Industries is the developer of the g-speak spatial operating environment. From their website:
"The SOE's combination of gestural i/o, recombinant networking, and real-world pixels brings the first major step in computer interface since 1984; starting today, g-speak will fundamentally change the way people use machines at work, in the living room, in conference rooms, in vehicles. The g-speak platform is a complete application development and execution environment that redresses the dire constriction of human intent imposed by traditional GUIs. Its idiom of spatial immediacy and information responsive to real-world geometry enables a necessary new kind of work: data-intensive, embodied, real-time, predicated on universal human expertise."

To me, it just looks like Minority Report coming to real life and the hope that I will one day NOT have to use a mouse (sorry, my memory is too poor to remember all the keyboard shortcuts!). This is truly amazing...


g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

Stealth Marketing Web2.0 Style

I was reading a friend's blog post today and she mentioned a cool online generator called Yearbook Yourself. So being one who HAS to try these things out I hopped on over. This takes a photo of yourself that you upload and transforms you into yearbook shots from 1950 to 2000. It is very entertaining.

I thought it was just a cute online toy the first few steps - select your gender, upload a picture, and then it said "Please Select Mall". I had NO IDEA what they were referring to, so I just chose one from the list. Up came results and then suggestions of where to shop for the products they mention. Then it hit me - Stealth Marketing - GOTCHA.

This really is quite genius. Turns out Taubman Centers, a network of US shopping malls is behind all of this. You can read about this marketing campaign here.

Well, they got me and they got me good, but I sure did have fun:

Go ahead and guess the years or use the links below to cheat. Truly genius use of Social Software to market!

1. 1952, 2. 1958, 3. 1960, 4. 1962, 5. 1964, 6. 1966, 7. 1968, 8. 1970, 9. 1974, 10. 1982, 11. 1984, 12. 1990, 13. 1994, 14. 1996, 15. 1998, 16. 2000

You Have a Dewey Number

I stumbled on this yesterday and flagged it to blog. Then I saw Jennifer's post today and figured I had to do it too. Go ahead and give it a try.

Stephanie Zimmerman's Dewey Decimal Section:

012 Bibliographies of individuals

Stephanie Zimmerman's birthday: 4/3/1969 = 43+1969 = 2012


Class:
000 Computer Science, Information & General Works


Contains:
Encyclopedias, magazines, journals and books with quotations.



What it says about you:
You are very informative and up to date. You're working on living in the here and now, not the past. You go through a lot of changes. When you make a decision you can be very sure of yourself, maybe even stubborn, but your friends appreciate your honesty and resolve.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

Great Uses of Digital Tutorials for Librarians

I just finished another great WebJunction Webinar entitled 24/7 Librarianship: Reaching Patrons with Digital Tutorials - look for it on their archive page.

During the presentation, this great example of Library Promotion was featured, gotta love it!

Technology-Related Collection Development Resource

The Tech Static -
from the About page:

"The Tech Static’s creator, Rachel Singer Gordon, wrote Library Journal’s “Computer Media” review column from 2002 until it was retired in October 2008. She launched The Tech Static in November 2008 to fill the resulting gap in the library literature; few library-oriented publications currently review computer books.

The Tech Static is focused on technology-related collection development in libraries. To this end, it contains:

• Reviews of current computer books
• Reviews of technology-related titles targeted at librarians
• Collection development articles (weeding, “must-haves,” balancing a computer book collection)
• Prepublication alerts
• Publisher press releases
• DVD and ebook reviews
• … and more!

Contact Rachel with questions or comments at rachel@thetechstatic.com."

Electing a US President in Plain English

Common Craft has explained to me in 3 min and 43 sec what I have never truly understood - how votes are counted to elect the President in this country. Seriously, I don't think I every "got it" until now. Yes, I know it's sad, but THANKS CommonCraft for enlightening me:

Twitter Vote Report

I was watching a Rocketboom episode from last week where Joanne reported on Twitter Vote Report. There is also a very good blog post about this on FastCompany's site. Here is the sample note from the site to spread the word - go ahead, use Twitter and be a part of democracy!

"Friends,

On November 4th 2008, millions of Americans will go to over 200,000 distinct voting locations and using different systems and machinery to vote. Some voters will have a terrific experience, and others will experience the same problems we have been hearing about for years - long lines, broken machines, inaccurate voting rolls, and others will experience problems that we haven’t heard about before. That’s why a new citizen-driven election monitoring system called Twitter Vote Report (www.twittervotereport.com) was just launched. Using either Twitter.com, iPhone, direct SMS, or our telephone hotlines, voters will have a new way to share their experiences with one another and ensure that the media and watchdog groups are aware of any problems.

And YOU can help! Be a citizen journalist! Submit a report about conditions at your polling place.

Four ways to submit reports to Vote Report:

• Twitter: include #votereport and other tags to describe the scene on the ground
• SMS: Send text messages to 66937 (MOZES) starting with the keyword #votereport plus other hash tags
• iPhone: We have a Twitter Vote Report iPhone app in the App store!
• Phone: Call our automated system at 567-258-VOTE (8683) to report about conditions, using any touch-tone phone

And if you would like to talk to a human to report bad conditions you’ve observed, please call our partner 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

As news outlets and blogs will report on Election Day stories, www.twittervotereport.com is an invaluable resource for thousands of voters to get immediate help. From questions like “where do I vote” or “how do I make sure that my rights are being upheld,” Twitter Voter Report augments these efforts by providing a new way for voters to send text messages (aka tweets) via cellphones or computers which will be aggregated and mapped so that everyone can see the Nation’s voting problems in real-time.

Imagine a nationwide web map with pins identifying every zip code where Americans are waiting over 30 minutes to vote or indicating those election districts where the voting machines are not working. Collectively we will inform each other when the lines are too long and ensure that media and watchdog groups know where problems exist.

For more information, go to www.twittervotereport.com. The complete list of tags or keywords that you can include in your reports is listed there. And please help to spread the word — send this to everyone you know!"