We can argue about the delineation between types of virtual world, games and social media and their popularity with users, press, business etc. However it does seem there are some interesting developments that feel like a rejuvinating step. For those of us in the industry and still passionate about it it is good news as we can help all the people just discovering all the wonderful benefits, the interesting challenges and sparking new ideas on how to communicate live online.
The first biggie is the birth of the web based (Facebook) virtual world. Cloud Party. In the very early few weeks of this I could not easily get in on my Mac, teething troubles with sockets etc. So I left it to settle a little.
Now I have at least visited. I popped into the environment, did a little bit of customisation on my avatar(no green hair by default 🙁 ) and had a chat with a fellow Metaverse Evangelist Joja Dhara, so it was like old times just in a new place.
With in seconds I was trying building from the mesh palette.
Of course it is well known in the metaverse world that Cory Odrejka the former CTO and co-creator of Second Life is high up in Facebook. So this was bound to happen 🙂
In other news we saw announcements about Google having another go a co-creation and virtual world spaces.Combining with Lego to create BuildWithChrome which is starting to look interesting after the demise of Lego Universe Online.
Also the the former Nortel Web.alive, now AvayaLive is finally working not Macs too. It is less live user generated content but it does let user move around and talk with the VOIP working very well and is one to watch for what is a yet untapped corporate market for online communication that is richer than those telecons and powerpoints.
I feel I have said that before a few times 😉
So lets see how this wave pans out, our seed of evangelism coming to fruition? Then we can get on with the next innovation 🙂
The future of Maker Culture – Redbull style
It seems Redbull manage to spot and engage with movements pretty quickly. They obviously sponsor a lot of mainstream sport, and also lots of the cooler extreme sports but they are also promoting maker culture, even themeing an Arduino called the Bullduino which forms the basis of the competition to make something interesting. This is a drinks company engaging in the future and on the cutting edge of what is happening in society.
The competition running out of the US is called RedBull Creation and even its home page has an interest twist with an very homebrew look to the windows it shows.
I think this points out that a lot more people are taking notice of maker culture in ways that are much more mainstream than anyone would have thought. It is a wave and one that collects up all the interesting technologies and social changes. Hardware and software creation and engineering, gaming, virtual world and 3d design and of course rapid fabrication with 3d printers.
It is maker culture that needs to be nurtured in schools now that ICT has been scrapped. This is because it encourages the STEM subjects and the new engineers but also blends that with other creative forces and ideas. Rather than split things into one subject or another, one hobby or another the generalist concept of Maker culture fits much better. It is filled with a can do, can hack attitude that is going to be really refreshing to see it develop.
Yet more future arrived in the post – Raspberry PI
This has been a good week , first my Makie arrived, and now the Raspbery Pi has arrived on my doorstep. I was a little behind ordering it so ended up in one of the later waves. It is odd seeing it in the flash as I originally wanted to feature it nice and early on The Cool Stuff Collective as it is an important development. That didn’t workout. Still here is it now.
I suffered a few technical hitches though.
Firstly I couldn’t find any USB keyboards, nor adapters for a PS/2 keyboard to USB. Then I thought I would risk my desktop wireless logitech, though I figured that would be a non starter it was worth a go. Secondly my card reader was not happy with the 4gb flash card, so I ended up using my wifes newer MBP as its built in one worked fine. (You have a flash card to put the Operating System on). Having sorted that I took the power supply out of the box to find it was a euro plug not a 3 pin UK one. The one travel adapter that works backwards, didn’t. Again I was saved by my wife’s Blackberry charger with mini USB.
I followed some instructions that suggested that fedora was the place to start, got it up and running
After a bit of messing with the config.txt to fit the cheap HDMI TV I was plugging into I was all set to get going, but it refused to accept any of the passwords I had set. A quick google I found that i was working on some out of date info and that the Debian instance of linux was the one to use. The joy of open source is choice, but it is also its curse.
A few minutes later, a new image on the card and away we went.
At the time out house was full of kids on holiday running around and screaming, so I did not do anything “serious” but I had to try the Commodore 64 emulation to bring things full circle.
Next up is finish the 3d printer (reprap) and print a case for the RPi, and see what makes sense to let the predlets loose on. At the moment it is an operating system tinkerers paradise, just instal x with y and of course don’t forget z. Still it all has to start somewhere.
A suitable kid friendly instance that doesn’t need lots of arcane command lines known only the linux gurus or that need another machine to constantly Google for best practice will no doubt appear.
It’s a good start.
The future just arrived – in the post – Makie
Just as the Queen was arriving at St Paul’s for her Diamond Jubilee celebration another major event happened a little closer to home. The doorbell rang and the DHL man delivered my Makie. For those of you who have not been paying attention Makie’s are custom made 3d printed action figures and are in alpha here
Being an early adopter and exploring both what technology does and what it actually feels like it is important to be in these first waves. In 2000 I emailed and ordered a small 3d printed tub from a multi-million pound printer as a sample, in 2006 I got my avatar from Second Life printed, as a solid piece. Now, in 2012 I have designed a face, picked eyes, hair and clots and have a 10″ fully articulated 3d printed figure. Printed close to home in the UK. He, as it is a he, has a hollow head ready for a lilypad arduino and a hollow body suitable for a battery. He is also number 31 out of 100 from the very first alpha run. So he is physical proof that the future is here, and he will be coming on tour and to conferences to prove that very point. It is quite an advance over the past 12 years, and hard to ignore the physical evidence or progress.
He arrived in a very nice tube.
Everything neatly packed in that tube, look you can see his head…. lets loose that analogy!
And here he is, modesty covered by the ownership certificate.
I went a bit elven with the ears, and went for solid colour eyes and the grey wig (I would have gone for the usual green hair, but there is always dye 🙂 ) The eyes can hair can of course be swapped out as this is a modular design.
Once dressed in his g33k science lab coat (one of the early clotehs designs that clearly appeals to the target market) he gave the Queen a quick wave.
These early alphas are labelled as over 14’s only something the Predlets were in awe of, as they have got used to checking the age ratings on games and alike and knowing if they are allowed new them. They were amazed still that he came from a 3d printer and that it was a one of a kind. Predlet 2.0 even gave him a little peck on the head to welcome him 🙂
I wonder what I will be having printed and where in another 6 years time?
Flags, Flashbacks and Graffiti – The Royal Jubilee
Back in 1977 there was a Royal Silver Jubilee. I was 9 going on 10 and I do remember it as quite an event. Though 1977 was a good year for lots of other things too. Punk and Star Wars as an example. I remember all the flags being out, street parties and lots of pomp and circumstance. This weekend is likely just the same. A 4 day weekend in the UK to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.
The predlets school is having a red white and blue day, combined with some parades and a re-enactment of the coronation. We have some parties to go to and everywhere you look there are union flags. I popped to London on wednesday and it was obviously fully decked up.
What was interesting though was that I don’t remember any good graffiti in 1977. It was just tagging and general vandalism but London had some great graffiti celebrating the Queen’s reign. Which seems a little odd and mainstream, yet still is part of a counter culture.
All this got me thinking to what it was like for tech and life in general when I was 9. It was even before the Atari VCS console. We had amusement arcades but we were just on the cusp of the video game age and the arrival of Space Invaders.
The technology I was being influenced by, that shaped my future was Captain Scarlet, Joe 90 and Star Trek on the TV and in comics it was the start of the mighty 2000 AD – Judge Dredd, Harlem Heros and Flesh. These were all things lots of us liked, played out, talked about and things that connected us kids. They, like punk, separated us from the older generations who thought this was all stuff and nonsense.
I can’t help thinking that all the tech and maker culture around kids today is naturally going to lead to an explosion of ideas and creativity that will leave many people behind just as these other popular culture revolutions did. In many ways the backlash against social media in some quarters is a “turn down that noisy racket” parental response. It is good there is that to rebel against, to rebel against spoon feeding of brands and products and allowing creativity to thrive around them.
So we are way past 2000AD in 2012, but I think we have ended up with an even more exciting future, sure we are not all in space and flying cars around but the tech we have at our finger tips would have been just as amazing in 1977 to us 9 year old would be geeks and gamers as anything that we read or saw on TV.
The future is a cool place isn’t it? 🙂
Virtual worlds getting a fashionable boost
I was honoured to be asked to write a piece on Virtual Worlds for this great online magazine Flush the Fashion. There is lots to see in the magazine but if you notice pages 98-101 I have explored the adoption path form Moshi Monsters and Binweevils to Opensim and alike via Minecraft. It looks great and they have done an awesome job 🙂 See what you think 🙂
Here is a direct link to the article
Also thank you for the opensim photos – The others images are all from my accounts.
and last but not least tidalblog
Making from anything – MaKey MaKey
It looks like this kickstarter project has raised loads of money.
It aims to make it easy to create interfaces from everyday objects and help anyone instrument the world, just by clipping with alligator clips.
It is called MaKey MaKey which is a great play on words and deserves funding just for that.
The video shows the potential of it really well
Of course this is not strictly speaking some little back room project these are MIT media lab students who live and breathe this stuff. When I was at university we never had anything as forward thinking as MIT courses. I can imagine the horror of our lecturers, “you are going to connect people up to bananas and make noises!”. Back then we were radical because we chose to program in C not Modula-2 for one of our team projects 🙂
Two fingers up to computers
No this is not referring to our fine “archers salute” though it will be interesting if that gesture now becomes a universal dismissal of an application with yet more gesture based interfaces on the horizon. One of the more interesting ones is the USB plugin device that will turn any machine into a very responsive gesture controlled device with more precision (it claims) than the Kinect. The Kinect of course is doing full body tracking and face recognition and multiple bodies but this device the Leap Motion looks like a small box that sits by you machine and costs a whole $70. its not out until December but it is a good sign I think.(sorry no pun intended)
Advertising vs Chasing – Finding Customers and Investors
In all the Facebook IPO to and fro there has been a lot of discussion about advertising and whether it is viable as a way of keeping an advertising provider afloat and if it is worthwhile for those advertising in the first place.
That got me thinking about what I do to advertise myself and Feeding Edge and where that is going to go in the future.
Up until now most pieces of work have come via reputation and contacts, or responding to other shouts for help on social media. i.e. monitoring and going with the flow of serendipity. I much prefer this for the sort of work I do, as that after all is what this is all about. However not every person in every industry knows what I do do they?
So along with all the various startup pieces of work (of which there is a lot) I also try and keep my CV out there in case there is an interesting opportunity that fits well. That includes full time roles with companies too. I try and keep an open mind.
In the TV space I have, as I may have mentioned, attempted to get an Agent. That however seems even harder than just going to get a job. In a world full of celebrity, and willing first timers it seems that a moderate amount of experience with 3 series of TV doesn’t float that much interest from TV agent types. That pretty much is the same for headhunting agencies when they see my CV and the weird diversity of things I do to so I do understand 🙂
So, whilst my general business of consulting and developing I leave to a more ad hoc presence advertising, being here and there on line, helping as many people as possible and doing lots of conference speaking I decided to pay a little to list myself on a site for TV presenters. The “basic” account only lets you use text and mention you website and or agent, you have to pay more for links and video. However as I am a tech company I have my own site and links to the video so it seems odd to pay extra for hosting what is actually normal web. Also I am not sure how much traffic the listing gets as that is not easily verifiable. Still if you need me I am on GetPresenting.com I am not sure if that is going to work out, and it seemed odd to be paying to list as everything else, linkedin, twitter, Facebook , speakerfile (though not paying means no public profile!) and even the cv sites like Reed are all free as a basic account ( though in Reed I can’t just add a sharable link to my profile/CV it seems) . I figure that my activity on them and my willingness to share and engage is payment enough, after all that is the main business model. Being places online, lots of them, engaging in activity and experimenting with how that works all adds to my base of knowledge to share with people, and lets people also know who I am and what I do as a whole. This seems much more relevant than a single page CV, though I have that too!
So we shall see if that yields anything. It is actually easier to advertise as a TV presenter in Tech and games, or any other subject as it is an easily identifiable role. It is less easy to point out that much of what I do is production and research too to create the items. General TV presenting can be turn up and read the scripts and provide some pazazz and personality. I can do that too, as I like talking and enthusing.
As for the other stuff…. building, sharing, writing, exploring and helping are a very flexible “product” but a little harder to pin down, but as that is who I am am and what this business is “Taking a bite out of technology so you don’t have to” that’s how it has to be 🙂 I don’t think I will be taking out a Facebook advert to prop up the sure price just yet 🙂
I was described way back as a gun for hire, that makes it sound very simple doesn’t it!
Update – In a weird quirk of serendipity it seems I was writing this post as a lot of people I follow on Twitter are at The world employment conference 2012 check out the hashtag #ceitt2012, I guess that’s another conference I should have gone to speak at!
Makie Alpha – 3d printed custom dolls
Today Makies went live as an alpha. In case you had not been following this exciting new startup it is one that blends 3d printing with design. It lets you wizard up your own customised figure (lets say doll). The bulk of that figure is then custom 3d printed, but then some of the elements like clothes and accessories are added using more traditional methods. The site is in very early adopter mode as whilst you can design lots of Makies there are a subset of clothes available on checkout. Also this is the first limited edition run of 100 (I think I got in at number 50)
If you want to know who is behind all this then check out the team at MakieLab. I first got to hear about this because Alice Taylor (who as then at Channel 4) was going to come to one of our BCS animation and games development SG events to talk about how they used games at Channel 4. She was unable to come and do the talk at the last minute and had to be a little bit vague as she was in the process of resigning to go start Makielab up, but I didn’t know that 🙂 So when I saw her next we chatted a bit and got an tiny insight into what might be going on.
So, as an early adopter, 3d printing fan and as a sometime children’s TV presenter this really intersects a lot of things. So Feeding Edge is going to be the proud owner soon of a cute Makie.