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Live Streaming Hillary Clinton Town Hall in Santo Domingo

I’m in another exotic locale again, this time in Santo Domingo, the capitol city of the Dominican Republic. I’m here working for Howcast, helping them to live stream a townhall that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is conducting on the eve of the Fifth Summit of the Americas. The Townhall takes place here on Friday and you can submit questions to Clinton in advance. The live stream will have two feeds, one in English and the other translated in Spanish, both will be viewable on the State Department’s townhall.america.gov landing page. I know, I didn’t know there was an america.gov site either! I think it needs a bit more google juice. Maybe this event will help with that. Follow me on Twitter to catch the inside goodness as it happens.

UPDATE: The archive of the the Town Hall is now online:

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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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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.

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Shooting video at Comic-Con

I’m in San Diego for Comic-Con through Sunday capturing video for sci-fi blog io9.com. I’ve never been before, but some say it’s the “Burning Man of comics” with some 100,000 attendees expected. Being a n00b, should I expect to be spanked on the way in? Is there anything that is a can’t miss experience? I’ll update with links to video on io9 as the weekend progresses.

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Gearing up for fundraiser for Todd Blair

ToddNow.org

Todd Blair, whom I’ve known since 1999 through Survival Research Labs, suffered a traumatic head injury last year at the Robodock SRL show in Amsterdam. I posted previously about it here. He’s back home in the US slowly and arduously recovering. Traumatic brain injuries are probably the worst kind of injury a human being could suffer, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. To help offset Todd’s massive medical and physical therapy bills, a fundraiser event is being held this Sunday, July 20th. It’s not just an event, but a culmination of lots of work and dedication from Todd’s friends and family with some unique creative twists.

The event on Sunday will be the unveiling of the “gear wall”. The 7′ x 8′ wall consists of 25 interlocking aluminum gears built by 25 friends and artists who have committed to raising a minimum of $500 each. I have taken on one of the gears and am currently fund raising to reach my $500 goal. If you’d like to support me and in supporting Todd, that would be super awesome. You can make a donation for as little or as much as you like through the PayPal link below. Or if you prefer to write a check, this page has details on where to send it. Be sure to mention my name when making the donation so I get credit for it. $5, $10 or $20 would be really spectacular, every little bit helps. Whether you donate or not, be sure to come out on Sunday to Rhythmix Cultural Works in Alameda for the grand unveiling of the gear wall. Thanks!! Hope to see you there.




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Help me make a film with Spike Lee and Nokia

Nokia Productions film project with Spike Lee

I’ve been asked by Nokia to help with a pretty cool collaborative promotional project they’re doing with filmmaker Spike Lee. They’re encouraging people like you to use your cell phones and send in snapshots of moments from your life that fits the overall theme of HUMANITY. Spike also wants you to think of how music helps to tell the story of HUMANITY. These snapshots will be edited together into a coherent film, directed by Spike Lee himself. Well, not just himself. I’m one of five “assistant directors” who are here to help guide people in sending stuff in. As part of that, Nokia has setup a group blog for us assistants where we’ll post examples of what to submit, answer questions and help identify the pearls in the sea of submissions that are sure to flood in.

The project is broken into three Acts. The first Act BIRTH, has already come and gone. Act II is LIFE and it just opened today for submissions. Act III has yet to be announced, though it may not be too hard guess what it is. Now through July 2nd, you can submit text, pictures, music or video via the Jumpcut platform that Nokia Productions is using to build this thing. It has its limitations and the main Nokia Productions site isn’t very well integrated into the Jumpcut platform but don’t let that discourage you. As the kids say, there’s plenty of win here!

What’s really encouraged is using your crappy old cell phone to send stuff in. Take a photo or a low-res pixelated video. Do a lot with a little. This won’t be Cloverfield, but if you were being attacked by a big space monster, how would you capture it? This doesn’t mean you can’t use more pro gear. Content from any device is totally acceptable, it just needs to fit the theme of humanity in the context of music telling a story. They’ve even sent us assistants older Nokia 3555 phones to challenge us to submit stuff with low end cheap technology. No streaming N95s here! Once I figure out how to get stuff off the 3555 on to Jumpcut, I’ll post some examples to the group blog.

This NY Times article from April digs into the project a bit deeper, addressing how it fits into the greater world of social networking and “user generated content” (I really hate that term). Check the Nokia Productions site for more details and point me to anything you’ve submitted. I’d love to check out your stuff. Oh yeah, you can also win stuff.