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Elektrischer Reporter

I’ve had a bunch of fun watching what the producers of German hyper new media & TV show Elektrischer Reporter have done with the footage I’ve shot for them. It’s all in German so I can only guess as to commentary with their copious English references to Twitter, Creative Commons and backgrounds of retro animated mainframes w/reel-to-reels. Lots of fun clips sourced from the Internet Archive help visually create a nice retro future tech mood. My german speaking friends say it’s really well put together and informative in kind of a hip NPR kind of way.

In this segment on nerd culture, you can see Doctor Popular laying on the nerd thickly with his classic yo-yo moves and some speak-n-spell jamming, all while dubbed in German. Yes, that is the Hat Factory where I shot these frames of Doc.

Elektrischer Reporter – Nerds: Weltretter mit Hornbrillen?

I shot an interview with Pandora founder Tim Westergren for this segment:

Elektrischer Reporter – Vorschlagsysteme: Mit den besten Empfehlungen

For this one, I was hired to shoot an interview with EFF‘s Danny O’Brien at their San Francisco offices:

Elektrischer Reporter – Urheber 2.0: Jeder Nutzer ein Pirat?

I’m guessing this segment is about mobile communities, since those words are in English and there’s plenty of shots of mobile devices, location based services and maps. I shot the interview with Tony Jebara of Citysense at Etech in San Jose.

Elektrischer Reporter – Mobile Communities: Unterwegs und unter Freunden

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My RoboGames piece is live on Current TV

Many moons ago, I was commissioned by the fine folks over at Current TV to do a VC2 piece on RoboGames, the annual event for all things related to robot fight competitions. The piece follows the team behind Beer Bash, a “special” kind of robot, as they prepare it for competition at RoboGames. It’s airing all week in heavy rotation I’m told, so lemme know if you see it. It’s also on Current’s site and embedded below.

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C-64 games I once loved

Came across these Commodore 64 game playthroughs on the Archive. I spent way too many hours glued to the 64 when I was kid. Here’s a few of the more memorable games I recall wasting my youth with.

M.U.L.E.

Impossible Mission

Radar Rat Race

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Multi-touch to the future

Last night, I stopped by Obscura Digital‘s holiday party where they were demoing some of their cool projection toys. Just inside the entrance was a life size “3-D” reflective glass video projection, similar to what you might see in Williams’ Pinball 2000 series of hybrid video pinball machines (Revenge from Mars), but writ large. Apparently this is an old technique, though still pretty cool to see on such a large scale. Next to that was a geodesic dome used as a projection screen inside. A projector was positioned on the floor in the center with a fisheye lens facing straight up. Kicking back in a lounge chair, the effect is like being in an IMAX planetarium.

Another thing that caught my eye was a cool interactive multi-touch screen. Here’s Jay giving it a whirl, checking out some of Obscura’s previous projects.


Jay interacts with the touchscreen from ekai on Vimeo.

Obscura has also done some amazing large scale projection projects on the sides of cities. Bright, multiple building projections in New York City and Dubai. The videos on their site will keep you entertained for awhile.

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Burning Man on the bay

This is freaking pimp. The White Holly, a boat normally used for research did a bit of Burning Man style research on the high bay waters off Sausalito this past weekend. Fire art, blinky lights, a pulse jet, Dan Das Mann sculptures, fireworks, a loud ass Victory Siren and an upside down Telsa coil! From Megavolt2‘s description of the video below.

On Saturday December 13, 2008 the former navy ship White Holly, now a privately operated scientific research vessel run by Captain Vince Backen, was entered into The Sausalito Yacht Club “Parade of Lights” held in Sausalito, California in the San Francisco Bay. Boat parades will never be the same… the event was organized by Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito in collaboration with Jack Schroll and Black Rock FX (El Diablo – jet engine fire effect, Chrysler air raid siren, smoke generator and methanol mines,) John Behrens and Omega Recoil, (upside down Tesla Coil,) Epiphany by Dan Das Mann, Karen Cusolito and Pyrokinetics (Danya Parkinson and Jo Bard,) Headless Point Studio, American Steel Studios, Flaming Lotus Girls (Mini Mega Junior – fire poofer,) Camron “Teiwaz” Assadi and The Crucible of Oakland California (flame cannons on the upper poop- deck,) Bonefire Bob and over 150 others! All of this so they could have a good time for approximately two minutes…

Burning Man long ago escaped the playa, so it’s no surprise to see some of the best stuff make it out the serene waters of the bay. I hope I don’t need to buy tickets next year.

You need to watch the above video in HD. Then check out this other great video of the action. Geeked.info has some more info and links to other videos and photos.

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Tickles the keys and play me a drink

I’m finally plowing through the massive amounts of footage I shot at Roboexotica in Vienna. This cocktail robot, the K&K Kavalier Klavier by students at FH Joanneum in Gratz, is a piano that allows one to “compose a drink”. You’ll notice a bunch of liquors and mixers mounted at the top. They connect to a series of tubes in the back that connect to valves controlled by a microcontroller that magically determines the right mixture of liquids based on the song you play. Here’s Astera making Red a drink with a little Bach piano concerto.


Astera plays a drink on the Kavalier Klavier from ekai on Vimeo.