One of the topics for the unconference part of CyborgCamp is exactaly this. Every year, we’re teased by science and technology magazines, advertisements, and news shows. They tell us that in a few years, we’ll all live forever, or that we’ll all have flying cars. But when has a sceintific or technological prediction actually come true? Where is the future that was promised to us?
M.T. Richardson of Vidoop (where we’ll be having the pre-CyborgCamp party) first suggested this as a topic at the Inverge afterparty. It’s been stuck in my head ever since.
But what about you all? What invention have you been promised that hasn’t panned out? For me, it is definitely awesome computer interfaces. We can’t even touch data today! I suppose we’ll be hearing all about it on Saturday, December 6th.
If you haven’t already, please purchase your ticket for CyborgCamp. This ticket covers food and lets us know you’ll be there.
It’s important that you register as early as possible, the ticket costs $10 person before Wednesday December 3rd, 2008, at Noon. If you register afterwards, the ticket before $20. The form is secure and accepts credit cards.
Important: Ticket deadline is December 3rd at Noon. Afterwards, ticket price is increased to $20/person.
The $10 ticket is for food, and because we want to know how many people to order food for.
Formal conference speakers (BIll Derouchey, Ward Cunningham, Hideshi Hamaguchi, and Lia Hollander) and Sponsors do not have to pay or register, but can if they can if they wish to contribute to the CyborgCamp fund/food items (if you’re a sponsor and have already purchased a ticket, I can refund you if you wish).
All unconference session speakers must pay.
5 student tickets are available. If you’d like one, please contact me (see contact info below).
The reason we’re charging $20 on the 3 days before the vent is simply to get you to register before then. We’d still like people to be able to register — but we want to know how many people are going to come to the event 3 days before we have the event.
If you’re tuning into the live streaming, there is no need to register.
If you’re not registered, you won’t be able to attend the event. Plus, we won’t have a badge for you. This will be sad. Registering on Upcoming is only for approximation purposes and does not count as real registration.
A lot of times we wait around for technology to just “appear” like we see in films. But if we continue to do that, nothing will get built. Thankfully, people are out there filling in the gaps.
Zigelbaum showed me what he was working on during the first night of MIT’s Futures of Entertainment 3. When he told me about it, I knew it was the thing I had thought about before when the opportunity to visit MIT had presented itself.
All of this was apparently built off of the original prototype system used in Minority Report. What made me happy was that the UI was exceedingly smooth and enjoyable to use. It was a relief. A complete and total relief.
A tremendous thanks to Jamie for letting me take pictures and showing me the lab. He is a very interesting and awesome person and I highly recommend his existence to you.
These are new gloves (he said that eventually they wanted the gloves to not have to be worn, and for the device itself to be able to recognize gestural movement.
G-stalt – the rules for interacting with the system. A set of a new sign language for controlling movement from a distance. It was great to have these up on the wall when I tried on the gloves to interact with the system. Very intuitive and simple to learn. Especially with the rewards of being able to move things across the room without touching them.
Sensor/Cam: part of the set of twelve needed for the full control of the system. Less can be used, but the resolution of movement suffers with each lost sensor.
Here are Some Moving Pictures For You
And here’s the tiny amount of video footage I was able to get (in chunks, in between furiously deleting old videos from my camera to make room for the new. Hopefully it conveys the excellence of the system).
Zigelbaum also showed me something secret that I can’t say anything about (yet). Let us just say that it was very cool, and that it will be public soon enough.You can read more about Gesture Recognition on Wikipedia if you want. Or you could run into me somewhere and hear a lot of hot air on what I’ve been calling “8 bit haptics”.
Anywho, this stuff rocked. The Media Lab was ultimate. I can’t wait to go back.
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Jamie Zigelbaum is Ph.D. student in the Tangible Media Group at the MIT Media Lab. His research interests include the social implications of physical interface media, frameworks for next generation interfaces, and tangible interfaces for abstract digital information. He received a B.A. from Tufts university working with Professor Rob Jacob. At Tufts he created a multidisciplinary major in HCI, drawing from neuroscience, psychology, computer science, and human factors engineering.
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Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist who also posts over at the Makerlab Blog, which is something you might enjoy reading if you enjoyed reading the post above. It’s about more experimental tech and activities related to pushing the limits of art and technology. If not, you can always follow her on Twitter @caseorganic.
What is PowerPoint Karaoke? It is an ironic mutation of Toastmasters, one of the original and most successful ways to have fun while overcoming the fear of public speaking. It basically entails giving a humorous PowerPoint presentation to random slides generated by someone else.
Process
Simply get a small group of people together and have everyone assemble a PowerPoint or Keynote slideshow consisting of 10 slides. Then tie all of the presentation slides together and load them onto a computer attached to a projector.
Then, each person in the group gives a presentation to the slides of another person’s randomly hashed together slideshow without seeing the slides beforehand.
The results? Pure hilarity and enjoyment.
Example Presentation
This is an example PowerPoint Karaoke Presentation. This one does not have text, in order to increase the narrative flexibility of the speaker.
PowerPoint Karaoke way to learn how to give presentations on the fly. It is a fun and enjoyable practice that was first started in 2005 by a group of German artists. Now, the practice and experience of PowerPoint Karaoke is ubiquitous across many geek gatherings, and is increasingly a part of Unconference proceedings such as BarCamp (we’ll feature a session of PowerPoint Karaoke at CyborgCamp).
Tips
PowerPoint Karaoke is often best played with a slightly inebriated group of 6-8 interesting people.
Slideshows with funny pictures that are either completely random or part of a theme are the most amusing.
Slideshow presenters that try to be really serious about completely silly subjects often highly amuse their audiences.
Give your group a very short amount of time or a limitation in order to keep them from fretting about formatting.
Avoid slide transitions, unless you feel they would add ironic enjoyability (and surprise to the one giving your slideshow).
Want to play before CyborgCamp? Simply come to a Portland Makerlab meeting on Sunday or Tuesday, where we’ll be playing with tech, ideas, and projects — as well as having PowerPoint Karaoke breaks. See the MakerLab website for contact information and time, or simply ask @caseorganic on Twitter.
Sometimes graphs are really fun to make. This one was especially fun and easy to make (read how to make your own below). It gives some info on topics that CyborgCamp may touches on.
To make this graph, I simply went to the ‘About Page’ of the CyborgCamp site and selected all of the text. Then I pasted it right into the text box on Wordle.net/create. Wordle is an especially useful tool to use if you want to examine the word volume on your website. Just copy and paste, and Wordle generates a sweet graph.
Hideshi Hamguchi describes himself as a concept creator, strategist + designer who cannot draw pictures. But as a “self-proclaimed diagram-lover, Hamaguchi uses visual models to bring what he calls “simplexity” and “structured chaos” to the process of brainstorming, helping businesses generate creative ideas and strategies in various industries & businesses” (Wikipedia).
On Thursday, Bram Pitoyo and I met with Hideshi Hamaguchi at a small tea shop near Ziba Design in NW Portland. To say that we were excited to meet him is an understatement. He talked to us in graphs and images, and we saw a little into how his brain worked. We were blown away by how he considered the world, and how he represented it on paper.
Workshop on Idea Creation
We’re excited to announce that Hideshi will be hosting a workshop on how to think and be creative. We’re looking forward to learning with him.
History
Hideshi was born in Osaka, Japan, majored in “Physical Chemistry” at Kyoto University, likes “Business Chemistry” loves “Human Chemistry” and has been living in Beaverton / Portland for eight years, so he is “10% Oregonian -not concentrated-” so far (if he will live up to the age of eighty).
Before starting up LUNARR, Hideshi was Director of New Business Planning Group, Matsushita Electric Works (known for their Panasonic and National brands) in Japan, and Executive Vice President of Panasonic Electric Works Laboratory of America, Inc (R&D company in US). Also, From 1998 to 2000, he served as a strategist at Ziba Design in Portland, which gave him the opportunity to consult with its clients and help them develop new products and services.
Hamaguchi has led more than one hundred projects, from corporate vision to the product strategy or manufacturing process levels for many companies.
On Could you describe your secret process to come up with unique concept / strategies for variety of businesses?
Step 1: Get information – as minimal as possible Step 2: Draw and play with lots of diagrams Step 3: Touch, think, talk, and thank. Step 4: Take a walk Step 5: Shake head, squash hair, hit the wall Step 6: Take a shower Step 7: Enjoy the moment of “what if…!?” and “a-ha!”
The key is; Keeping the think-mode at “Structures Chaos” and using both right brain [ intuition ] and left brain [ logic ].
We at CyborgCamp are interested in discussing things like the future of Robots. In our opinion, the future has to be fun, or humans won’t be interested in adopting it.
Hexapods
Sure they may look weird, but we’re all about embracing strange amalgamations of humans and computers. With that in mind, here are some dancing robots from the “Best of the third Austrian Hexapod Championships: Dance Category’.
A hexapod is a six-legged robot. Technologists prefers to install wheels for locomotion purpose, but nature equips its creatures with legs, which are advantageous when it comes to moving securely across uneven terrain. The video is from Hagenberg/Austria.
Just like in a “real” soccer match, the stars of the robot football European championship will be cheered on by their supporters. But these aren’t flesh-and-blood fans; they’re so-called hexapod robots.
The Top 10 in the Austrian Hexapod Championship’s Dance category will be livening things up during halftime breaks.
Running is a very complex process. Robots with six legs have proven to be the simplest and most secure variant. The Hardware/Software Systems Engineering program at Hagenberg Technical College stages an annual championship for six-legged robots. This year, 39 teams from schools throughout Austria took part. The aim is to get as many students as possible fired up about robotics.
Anyone who’s interested can get a free Hexapod 2008 DVD from the 2008 Hexapod Championships. Read more at the EUROBY2008 website.
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What does this have to do with CyborgCamp? Everything. Well, not everything. It’s just fodder for thought. Also, comic relief. Finally, we are seeing robots with enough motor control to entertain us a little more than usual. Here are robots with personality!
Yes — that’s right. You can now register for CyborgCamp online at CubeSpace’s website. Registration costs $10, and that goes to cover delicious food. If we didn’t serve delicious food, the event would be free — but delicious food is generally a good thing to keep the mind going, so we decided it was imperative to have it.
I’m not sure how many people are going to dive to register, but around 80 people RSVP’d on Yahoo’s Upcoming, so we’re expecting a sizeable amount to fully register with this official little registration button you see here. You can pay with your credit card.
If you don’t know already, Ward Cunningham is the computer programmer who developed the first Wiki. He’s one of the most interesting and brilliant people I’ve ever met. He’s currently living in Oregon and is the chief technology officer for AboutUs.org (a wiki-based guide to all websites.
Last night, I asked Ward if he’d like to give as speech at CyborgCamp and the answer was yes. Ward’s presentation will be 30 minutes long, and he’ll be participating in the unconference sessions as well. An update on what he’ll be speaking on will be posted here shortly. Needless to say, it’s going to be great to hear from him. Perhaps he’ll bring some cool inventions and programs with him too.
Ward also created Cybords, the biologically inspired computer methodology for natural kinetic sculputure shown at DorkBotPDX and MakerFair. He and his son collaborated with the Graffiti Research Lab to make the Throwie Talkie exhibited at Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria.
What Next?
We’ll keep you posted on developments as they happen. Of course, you can get really quick updates (and sweet news on Cyborgs from all over the web) by following @cyborgcamp on Twitter.
We’re honored to have Bill DeRouchey, a Sr. Interaction Designer in the Interaction Design group at Ziba Design present at CyborgCamp ’08. He is a witty, brilliant person, and a fun guy to be around. We’re all looking forward to his speech.
Is Machine Language expanding Human Language?
“As technology creeps more and more into our everyday lives,” DeRouchey explains, “the language of technology also permeates our culture. It’s expanding our language, giving us new metaphors for thinking and communicating. The play symbol, the mouse pointer, the @ sign are all examples of symbols with deepening layers of meaning and becoming true icons within our language. This session will spot trends of how humans and technology are forming a symbiotic language, hopefully leading to a fun and esoteric discussion”.
About
Bill is a frequent speaker at industry events such as the Interaction 08, Webvisions and Adaptive Path’s User Experience Week. He is also on the board of directors of IxDA, the Interaction Design Association.On the side, he’s working on his electric ukulele.
He’s the author of Push. Click. Touch, a blog tracing the past, present and future of how people and technology interact. (Formerly known as History of the Button.)
An unconference about the future of the relationship between humans and technology. We’ll discuss topics such as social media, design, code, inventions, web 2.0, twitter, the future of communication, cyborg technology, anthropology, psychology, and philosophy.
Hideshi Hamguchi describes himself as a concept creator, strategist + designer who cannot draw pictures. But as a “self-proclaimed diagram-lover, Hamaguchi uses visual models to bring what he calls “
We’re honored to have Bill DeRouchey, a Sr. Interaction Designer in the Interaction Design group at 
