I proposed two how to demonstrations: Machinima Kung Fu – Sure machinima looks easy – record a game, drop it into iMovie and do some voices – but there’s actually a little more to it than that. This session will cover all the tech of making machinima – from hardware and software to in-game strategies to post production issues.
Custom Video Players For Your Show – You’ve got a unique video show, why not have a player that matches? This session will take you through detailed examples using two popular Flash video players. We’ll show you how to create custom skins and get them set up on your site.
Over the last few years web apps have really transformed the way I use a computer. Every day I have less and less need for actual desktop applications. If it weren’t for all the video production I do on a daily basis I could just grab most any computer with wifi and be instantly connected to just about all of my stuff. And now that the iPhone has a mostly usable web browser, most of the time I don’t even need to take my laptop with we me anywhere. I love that.
So in the middle of watching this demo I started thinking it would be great if all the applications on your computer, not just web apps, could play together like that or maybe all your apps would be web apps (more likely) and your operating system would be the “browser.” Then you could just invoke a new view, document, video, website, virtual world or whatever and combine information in whatever way you needed to right then instead of in whatever way a particular application lets you do it. I can’t wait.
My friend Rupert pointed me to this video of Keven Kelly. It’s a really great 20 minute summary of a lot of ideas that have been floating around for awhile. The basic thing that I get from it is that we’re all becoming part of one global machine and what really makes it powerful is us being open or transparent to it.
Being open to the network is an idea that I personally find inspiring and liberating. I have a few blogs, I participate in a number of social networks and virtual worlds and I post lots of videos and photos of myself, my friends and my family online. Some people find that kind of behavior somewhat alarming – especially where my kids are concerned. But I’m looking at it from a little farther down the road. A cell phone used to mean you were on call 24/7 but now it means you have access to everyone and everything 24/7 and that’s powerful. I think for many people, putting yourself out there on the web feels like an invasion of privacy. If you were only one, I’d agree it might feel like being the only naked person in the room. But if everyone were naked, then maybe it’s not such a big deal.
I’m not saying there aren’t issues with everyone putting everything online but I’m optimistic that we’ll figure it out as we go without turning the world into some version of Gattica or 1984. Either that or the cyborgs will be showing up soon and they’ll start making their way through the list of TED speakers.
I like these new Aurora web browser mockup videos which are part of Mozilla’s push to develop the successor to Firefox (Call for participation). For the last 4 years I’ve been doing most of my work from home while relying on things like IM, video chat, screencasting, screen sharing, audio widgets, p2p file transfer, virtual worlds, Google apps and more. I look forward to having all of that be one seamless experience available to everyone.
The interface in the mockups looks a little complicated to me but I think they’ll find a way to simplify it some and people will get better with complicated interfaces. Also I like the iPhone-like hand held device in the second video. Already the iPhone let’s me get a lot of things done without carrying around a laptop. Hopefully in a few years I can ditch the laptop all together. Imagine basically that same hand held device in the video with your home computer’s apps and documents stored on it – then if you need to work on something requiring a big screen (like video editing) you could just set it next to a monitor and it will connect wirelessly to the display and keyboard (maybe I’ll make a video of this and submit it).
Hopefully this will all happen sooner rather than later and Half-Life 2 players are not as old as the couple in the second video before this thing is available!
I proposed two how to demonstrations:
Subscribe
Steal anything you want