American Radio Works: No Place for a Woman. (The Scout Report) Many great things have come out of Minnesota, and the fine radio documentary programs developed by American Radio Works fall squarely into that category, in no small part due to their fine investigative journalism and curiosity about the world. Their latest documentary explores the experience of women who came to work in the iron mines of northern Minnesota. The documentary is divided into three segments, and on this website visitors can listen to the entire program, if they so desire. The program begins by exploring the changing context of job opportunities for women in the 1970s, and continues on to tell the stories of women like Pat Kosmach, who was an activist in the Steelworkers union during this turbulent time. The site also contains a number of fine additional features, including a section that tells about the experience of women who were called to work in the region during World War II. The site is rounded out by several reflection pieces by Catherine Winter and Stephanie Hemphill, who were responsible for researching and creating this documentary.
The Freesound Project. The Freesound Project aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, ... released under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus License. The Freesound Project provides new and interesting ways of accessing these samples, allowing users to browse the sounds in new ways using keywords, a "sounds-like" type of browsing and more up and download sounds to and from the database, under the same creative commons license interact with fellow sound-artists! Learn More.
Mercedes-Benz Provides Free Music. Every two months, Mercedes presents an exclusive selection of musical talents from around the world – right now Mixed Tape 09 with a range of urban sounds between London and Berlin. The Mercedes-Benz web site also provides downloads of their unique TV Commercials (great for study of design) and a 13 minute movie, "The Porter" a thriller with Bryan Ferry that explores the tension and suspense between dream and reality. This is the story of the porter at a 5-star hotel who one day opens the door of a car and steps straight into an incredible adventure. The site is interesting as a marketing tool and support for this German car company.
Computer games help train kids to pay attention. (E School News) In what is believed to be the first real evidence to support what is becoming a growing field of inquiry, the use of special computer games to "train" their brains improved the ability of healthy children to pay attention during scientific trials, researchers have reported. Read More.
Interview with Jon Moritsugu. (BrainTrustDVD) The anti-illustrious career of Jon Moritsugu arguably began when the VILLAGE VOICE deemed his 23-minute film "Der Elvis" one of the fifty best films of the 1980s. Considering that he made his next six features on film, it would be natural to wonder why Moritsugu decided to shoot SCUMROCK (coming to DVD and VoD later this month) on analog Hi8 video instead of 16mm or, more fashionably, DV. Why head for the gutter?
"The gutter is liberating! The gutter is freedom! The gutter is poetry!" Moritsugu says. "I think it is all a matter of pushing the boundaries and showing the diversity of the image. A corroded and decomposed and grained-out image can be as beautiful as something that is sharply in focus and of 'higher' technical standards...I actually think the low-fi, un-slick look [of television] (i.e., Reality TV, non-actors, home-movie-style footage) has positively impacted the visual schema of the cinema. It's opened the audience's minds to the whole idea of content superseding aesthetics."
Amid the growing glut of low-budget DV features, SCUMROCK went on to win Best Film at the Chicago Underground Film Festival and the New York Underground Film Festival.
Moritsugu's oeuvre was be the subject of a retrospective at the Lausanne Underground Film Festival (Switzerland) from October 12 through 16. Read the Jon Moritsugu interview online.
New Documentary explores Punk. (Apple News) Written and directed byinfluential, Grammy Award-winning director and punk icon Don Letts, the "Punk: Attitude" (2005) documentary provides a unique inside look at the reality behind the myths and misinformation that surround this significant music genre and social movement.
Contributors include Tommy Ramone (the Ramones), Siouxsie Sioux
(Siouxsie and the Banshees), Mick Jones (the Clash), David Johansen (New
York Dolls) and Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols). The soundtrack features music by The Sex Pistols, Jimi Hendrix, Lou Reed, the Buzzcocks, Black
Flag, the Clash, Patti Smith, Blink 182 and Limp Bizkit among many
others. Watch five clips from the DVD.
Halo movie recruits Peter Jackson. (BBC News) Oscar-winning film director Peter Jackson and his team will produce the forthcoming film based on popular video game Halo.
The director, who is reported to be an avid fan of Halo, will use his Weta production facilities in Wellington, New Zealand where the film will also be shot. Read More
Spielberg takes film magic to EA. (BBC News) Spielberg said to be a passionate and avid gamer Steven Spielberg, who worked his magic with ET, is now looking do the same with games giant Electronic Arts (EA).
The acclaimed film director has agreed to develop three original games with EA's Los Angeles studios.
Work has already started on the first of the three projects, which EA says will be a next generation game which appeals to a broad audience.
The deal is a further sign of how Hollywood and the games industry are moving closer together. Read More.
iPod Subway Maps. (The Scout Report) As more and more people use their iPod devices for a variety of uses, it seems quite apropos that there might be a website dedicated to providing maps of subway systems that urbanites and tourists alike can use at their own discretion. This particular site was designed by William Bright, and so far he has made close to two dozen maps available here. Some of the cities include Berlin, Paris, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The website includes information on how to place the maps on the iPod, and also includes information about each map for those seeking additional material. Of course, as with many sites these days, there is also a weblog where visitors can keep track of new developments and additions to the site. Visit Site.
New Video iPod. (Apple News). Last week at a special event, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the new iPod that features a 2.5-inch color screen, can display album artwork and photos, as well as play video including music videos, video podcasts, home movies and television shows. The new iPod holds up to 15,000 songs, 25,000 photos or more than 150 hours of video.
Thinner and lighter than the 30GB and 60GB iPod models they replace, the newest iPod comes in black or white, selling for just $299 and $399, respectively. And they're shipping next week. Read More.
Phone On Your Finger. (BBC News World Edition) Japanese mobile operator DoCoMo showed the fruits of some of its research into mobiles with its Ubi-Wa, a ring that turns your finger into a phone receiver.
Ubi-Wa has two meanings in Japanese - "Finger ring" and "Speak by finger" - which is exactly what it lets you do.
In noisy places where you cannot hear who you are calling, you simply place the Ubi-Wa bearing finger in the ear.
The ring converts speech sounds to vibrations. These travel down the bone and into the ear canal, which obligingly turns them back into intelligible speech Read More
Blog 101. (c|net News.com) With more than 14 million blogs in existence and another 80,000 being created each day, how is a person supposed to find the ones worth reading?
That is the question CNET News.com is attempting to answer with their first Blog 100 list. Read More.
QuickTime 7 User Guide Available. (Apple) If you've downloaded the latest version of QuickTime 7 and you want to take your QuickTime experience to the next level, delve into the juicy, newly-updated information in the QuickTime 7 User Guide.
Flash 8 Delivers Powerful Video Capabilities. (Macromedia Edge) The release of Macromedia Flash 8 provides new video opportunities. This online article provides a brief overview of the new codec and the evolved tools, along with a few notes on taking advantage of the new features. Read More.
Macworld 2006, January 9-13.(Apple) The Macworld Conference & Expo is the
world's most comprehensive event for the Mac operating system. It will be held in San Franciso next Year.
Macworld brings together such a diverse base of Mac users in
creative services, education, entertainment, application development,
enterprise and small business. Combining in-depth educational sessions
with displays of innovative products and solutions on the exhibit floor,
Macworld offers professionals and consumers alike the opportunity to
discover the latest developments and hottest products in the Mac
industry. Learn More.
Sites That Inspire. (Macromedia Edge) The "Sites That Inspire" pages presents sites have been built with Macromedia technology, the EDS Box challenges visitors with an experimental decision-making environment, The Buddy Group breaks new ground with rich media, and Fisher-Price delivers a site for SpongeBob fans. Take a look.
File-sharing suffers major defeat. (BBC News) The US Supreme Court has ruled that file-sharing companies are to blame for what users do with their software.
The surprise ruling could start a legal assault on the creators of file-sharing networks such as Grokster and Morpheus.
The case was brought by 28 movie and music makers who claimed that rampant piracy was denting profits.
The Supreme Court judges were expected to rule in favour of the file-sharers because of legal precedents set when video recorders first appeared. Read More.
I/O Brush (MIT) This is a unique technology-based graphics tool that works like a digital eyedropper to allow people to take the color, texture and movement of any physical object and to immediately draw with that attribute. The I/O Brush looks like a simple wooden paintbrush but is actually imbedded with a small video camera that contains lights and touch sensors that translates an object into "ink" bringing users endless creativity. The idea of I/O Brush is to let the kids build their own ink. They can take any colors, textures, and movements they want to experiment with from their own environment and paint with their personal and unique ink. This is an MIT award wining student project. Read More.
Tate Collection: Carousel (The Scout Report) The Tate Gallery in London is perhaps one of the world’s finest museums of modern art, and is well-regarded for its creative online collections and galleries. Most recently they developed a rather novel way to browse through approximately 2000 of their artworks online. They are calling it “Carousel” and this website will allow the curious user to weave their way through this large collection. As their site notes, “It’s like a random walk with a subtle guiding hand”. The works are randomly generated on the site, and visitors can highlight images by clicking on them as they appear and also add them to their “favorites” list. No doubt this site will prove most efficacious for art educators, artists, and those interested in engaging in a bit of a peripatetic online artistic journey.
Global Performing Arts Consortium. GloPAC is an international organization of institutions and individuals committed to using innovative digital technologies to create easily accessible information resources for the study and preservation of the performing arts.
GloPAD provides a multimedia, multilingual, Web-accessible database containing digital images, texts, video clips, sound recordings, and complex media objects (such as 3-D images) related to the performing arts from around the world.
Why do-it-yourself photo printing doesn't add up. (c|net News.com) Despite the efforts of manufacturers to convince consumers that printing at home is fast, convenient and fun, the evidence shows that many are tuning out the marketing. Read More.
Indian outsourcers follow a megatrend. (c|net News.com/ New York Times) Is your job at risk? If it's the type of work that can be done over a wire, then probably yes, says Nandan M. Nilekani, the chief executive of Infosys Technologies.
Infosys is India's second-largest outsourcer. After achieving success in software engineering and back-office service, it has now begun to compete with companies like IBM for more lucrative consulting work. This week, Infosys reported that its second-quarter earnings rose 36 percent. It raised its earnings forecast for the full year on stronger demand and a weaker rupee.
In a recent interview, Nilekani, a chief executive who makes $60,000 a year at a company worth nearly $20 billion, spoke about Infosys' success and the danger that it and other companies like it pose to American competitors. Read More.
Smurfs 'bombed' in UN ad campaign. (BBC News) The UN children's agency has launched a hard-hitting ad campaign, involving cartoon legends the Smurfs being blown away in a sudden air strike. The film, which aims to raise money for former child soldiers in Africa, is being shown on Belgian TV. A spokesman for Unicef Belgium said it had departed from previous policies on advertising in order to shock people, and that this tactic was working. Read More. Includes link to spot.
George Lucas Foundation mini-documentaries. These recent mini-documentaries are from GLEF's award-winning Web site Edutopia.org. There are over 150 documentaries and interviews with experts on topics such as technology in the schools, project-based learning, technology integration, and other subjects of interest to designers of media for education. Access Edutopia Videos select Documentaries tab.
Smithsonian.TV: A gateway to live online events and multimedia content. (The Scout Report) The Smithsonian Institution presents a wide variety of multimedia presentations on this section of its website. Included is the live panda cam of Mei Xiang and her cub Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005, archived arts events such as Senior Curator Richard Murray explaining the role of myth in Emanuel Leutze's historical painting Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way, interviews with Carol Burnette and Martin Scorcese, as well as virtual tours of the Smithsonian campus. For example, view the Smithsonian Libraries' "Chasing Venus" lecture series originally presented in April, May, and June 2004, on the occasion of the first of two transits of Venus - when the planet Venus passes directly between Earth and the Sun - to occur in this century (there will be another in 2012); or view performances from the National Museum of the American Indian grand opening last year. One caution to using the site – since the videos are in a variety of formats, they will not work exactly the same across all browsers and platforms - viewers may need to exercise a little patience waiting for videos to load
