Archive for February 2008

OK - this one is definitely for a Friday afternoon. “So, suppose you’re out walking your dog late at night, or taking out the trash - should any problems occur…”

The cover of this month’s Sanlian Life Week reads: “3,527 screens worth 5.1 billion RMB, China Cinema Recovers Lost Ground.” With growing flexibility on content and a growing base of moviegoers, annual revenue for domestic films has been increasing 25% for the past five years. However, Danwei.org’s translation of interviews from directors and industry professionals reveals disagreement on the quality and future of cinema in China.

Among the interviewees is Jiang Wei, general manager of EDKO Film Distribution, who straightforwardly states, “the vast majority of movies should not be filmed.” As opposed to the disciplined, producer-centered Hollywood where responsibilities are carefully planned, Wei points to the concentration of power as a problem for Chinese cinema’s development. Wei explains:

Over here, writing and production is director-centered, to the point that the screenwriter, director, and producer are sometimes a single person. You cannot deny that some individuals may be all-around geniuses, but this speaks to the fact that things are not professional and detailed enough. For us, film production is stuck at a relatively early stage; for true commercial-oriented operation, we must break the director-centered system. If we wish to move in the direction of the market, then we need to give support to all areas of professional experience, and this is not doable if we rely solely on the ideas and abilities of a single individual.

Danwei: Boom times for Chinese film, but what comes next?

According to MSNBC, Google have announced that they are offering every homeless person in San Francisco a phone number and voicemail to help them get back on their feet. The number given will be theirs for life and messages will be able to be picked up from any phone, with no indication to the caller that the service is different from any other voicemail system. Working with the City of San Francisco, Google launched the scheme at a Project Homeless Connect event on Wednesday.

Mayor Gavin Newsom and Google said they want to empower people. “How do you communicate as a homeless individual? ” Newsom asked. “How do you expect your life to turn around if you can’t even get information or if someone can’t even get in touch with you?”

“It just seems exactly like any other voice mail,” said Craig Walker, senior project manager of Google. “There’s no stigma attached to it that ‘hey this is a temporary thing’ or ‘this is an 800 number.’ It’s really just a local number owned by the user.”

“We’re firm believers in the power of technology to improve the daily lives of individuals and communities as a whole, and we recognize that access to phone and voicemail services is one way that Google can help San Francisco’s homeless stay connected with family, friends, social workers, health care providers, and potential employers.”

If the program is successful in San Francisco the plan is to offer it to homeless people in cities across the state and country.

However, it looks like Google might be making good promotional use of the already succesful Project CARE (Communications and Respect for Everybody) Program created by clever number aggregation service GrandCentral that Google acquired last year. Project CARE first hit the news in April 2006 offering the same free voicemail number for life service, and by October had registered more than 1,000 of the estimated 7,000 homeless in San Francisco. So the question is- is this just a Google PR stunt, or a case of poor journalism at MSNBC?

MSNBC: Google gives all SF Homeless Free Voicemail

Neww of youths getting involved with underground farming typically suggests the illicit and causes a bit of concern… but not this time! Inside a former bank vault hidden beneath a high rise building in Tokyo’s Otemachi business district, a square kilometer of subterranean soil has been planted with rice. There are also different rooms for growing tomatoes, lettuces, strawberries, and other fruits and vegetables, as well as flowers and herbs.

The facility, Pasona O2, was built as a training facility for wanna-be farmersto create job opportunities in the agricultural sector. The project is targeting “freeters,” a Japanese expression for people between the age of 15 and 34 who lack full time employment or are unemployed. The facility is open to the public and encourages businessmen and office workers to drop by and experience hi-tech farming on their way home from work.

[via marukuwato.multiply]

There’s some discussion on the blogs about the fate of quarterlife, a web show we mentioned back in 2007. Last November, NBC acquired the rights of the show that was airing on MySpace to show on TV.

When the show finally aired on network this week, comparatively it didn’t do very well and has since been moved to cable. There’s some discussion about the content out there but some defenders of the show suggest that it doesn’t matter that the show’s audience figures were much lower because the show was so much cheaper to make.

Maybe one of the problems is that NBC still sees TV as fixed length shows and that their thinking hasn’t evolved to see a show could be a multi-platform affair - in a way Lost hinted was possible. The Quarterlife surely already offers a lot of possibilities, no?

Quarterlife

The LINC phone concept allows users to replace and upgrade their phones consciously. It’s an interesting idea to feature here because although the time most folks take to swap is growing, people are often compelled to buy new urged not only by mobile makers messages and also just by the human fascination with the new and shiny (and a few other reasons, we’re sure).

Recognizing that the urge to replace won’t go away, LINC offers a contract that sends you a new phone every year but takes back your old one and recycles it. Greener Grass, who developed LINC, say on their blog:

LINC is to be shipped back to a regional manufacturing facility. The device contains valuable materials like aluminum, glass, and electronic components that the producer can harvest for re-use. Typically, mobile phones contain hazardous waste that goes into a landfill or are left in a desk drawer to sit in.

LINC is designed for automated disassembly. A directed radiant heat beam targets its internal memory metal latch, releasing the assembly. In one step, LINC automatically disassembles into its few simple components, glass, aluminum and its circuit flex. The glass and aluminum, not containing any paints or adhesives, are easily recycled to pure grade materials for immediate reuse. The remaining flexible circuit contains all the electronics necessary for the entire device. It’s full of hazardous materials, but it has been safely recovered for proper disposal. Many of the chip sets can easily be pulled for reuse. Components like the graphics card are out dated for LINC, but can be used in devices like portable gaming systems.

Linc changes the entire paradigm of the production and consumption model today. If implemented, a design such as this could greatly reduce hazardous waste and improve environmental health by reducing e-waste. But we also wanted something that is very desirable and in line with the kind of gadgets todays users expect. Something that targets all the key issues of today’s gadgets and attempts to offer feasible solutions and start a discussion as to how we can do better.

Nice thinking that could possibly have been inspired by this article in the Times.

LINC / Greener Grass

[via Electro^Plankton]

It was only earlier this week, PSFK was having a discussion with the folks about whether gaming would suffer the same fate as the music industry. Our debaters suggested that the gaming industry is different because of the proprietary format of the consoles and the games and that allows a lot more control. We still argued that in the end, content wants to be free and technology will overcome. Anyway, we say all this because Engadget held up this simple DVD you put into your Wii to overcome any regional restictions allowing people to play any game from anywhere in the world.

It made us wonder if one day we’ll see such mods that mean you can play at Xbox game on a PS2.

Engadget
Wii

Brazil’s place in the web world is undisputed! Despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of its population does not have access to the internet, Brazil beats all other countries in terms of hours spent online. And maybe that’s why Campus Party came to Brazil after a few turns in Spain.

The event happened in São Paulo on the week of February 11th and convened professionals from different areas (astronomy, robotics, open source software, gaming, simulation, computer modeling, music and blogs) to discuss technology, content and entertainment. Participants camped out at the site’s location, where alcoholic beverages and drugs were explicitly prohibited. There were over 360 lectures offered, workshops and debates over the course of one week.

Brazil has hosted what some call the biggest network electronic entertainment event in the world shows how the country is bound to become an incubator of tech projects, as seen by the Center of Advanced Systems in Recife, in the Northeastern state of Pernambuco. Moral of the story: Brazil is consolidating its position as a new global technological pole.

More: here and here.

Yesterday’s Guardian Media Briefing pointed us to The Newspaper House, a public art installation as social and environmental statement currently under construction in East London. Over a one-week period artist Sumer Erek in partnership with Creative City and a team of helpful volunteers, is erecting a five-metre tall house made entirely out of freesheet newspapers contributed by members of the public. The frame for the building is currently being put in place in Dalston’s Gillett Square, built of course from sustainably sourced wood, ready for the week-long paper extravaganza which starts next Monday. The project’s MySpace page explains further:

‘ London has a growing problem with the large quantities of free newspapers that clutter our streets and public transport. Tube passengers alone discard approximately nine-and-a-half tonnes of freesheet newspapers a day.

This is a lot of paper. What do about it?

On March 3rd, sculptor and installation artist Sumer Erek will construct a (5 m3) ‘House’ in Gillett Square, out of newspapers brought by members of the public. Visitors will insert their own observations, secrets, etc into the newspapers and add them to the structure. In this way, the public connects with the Newspaper House; their action is a contribution to the building of a public project.

The Newspaper House as an interactive public artwork is an opportunity to invite the public to participate and actually be involved in creating an artwork.

The theme of the project is “the city is our home” and as well as being an art work in its own right - exploring a variety of themes around the concept of “house” and the materiality of paper, the notion of waste and value - the project also encourages people to think about protecting and improving the environment, so that we can enjoy a cleaner, healthier world, together with a sense of belonging to their neighbourhood, and a wish of all to make it a pleasant place to live in.’

Getting in on the action, online campaign Project Freesheet took to the streets last night to collect up as many discarded papers as possible within two hours. the 70 volunteers collected close to 8000 free papers- weighing in at 800kg of paper - all of which will be used in the Newspaper House, and then we assume recycled? Despite the project’s huge environmental statement that is being proudly supported by the local Hackney Council, there is so far no mention of what will happen after the big unveiling, nor of the glue being used to hold every rolled-up paper in place or the plastic strips being used to bind each bundle- we can only assume that these are biodegradable and it has all been planned with the highest eco-morals. Otherwise isn’t it just a case of greenwashing for artistic purposes?

Visit The Newspaper House from Monday