Current — AMT Lab @ CMU

Brad Stephenson

A Good Cause

Today's post isn't arts-related, but all of us in the not-for-profit world are interested in supporting a good cause when we hear of one. Beth Kanter, fellow nonprofit technologist and author of Beth's Blog, asked me to share a link to an online campaign she's involved with, Route Out of Poverty for Cambodian Children.

Case Foundation, Parade Magazine and GlobalGiving are offering $50,000 to the campaign that can raise the most through unique donations will score 50 G's for their charity!

From Beth:

"Right now we're in second place with 7 more days to go.  I'm reaching out to my network to ask if they will blog or twitter about the campaign and ask their networks to contribute the minimum donation of $10. The contest ends on January 31."

Click here to read more about Route Out of Poverty and contribute now!

Fair Use and New Media

A new study by the Center for Social Media at American University examines user-generated content with respect to copyright issues. The study was conducted by Center director Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi, co-director of the law school’s Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property. The study shows that many online videos using copyrighted material could be protected under fair use policies.

Fair use, a hotly debated concept that lacks clear guidelines, allows for the quoting of copyrighted material without asking permission or paying royalties. The study warns that perfectly legal and valuable social commentary might be curbed by major content holders' (Sony, NBC, Viacom, etc.) new practices for controlling piracy.

The Center for Arts Management and Technology will feature an interview with the lead investigators of this study on episode 35 (scheduled for release on Friday, February 8, 2008) of its Technology in the Arts podcast.

Read the full study.

Convert PDFs to Word Documents

If you're like me, you cry when you watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Wait, that's not what I meant. Xtreme Makeover Bus driver... Move that bus!

I meant... If you're like me, it's often frustrating to try and edit a PDF document. The file type was created to facilitate the sharing of documents without causing formatting issues, and PDF editing has always been difficult for users.

Now, thanks to www.hellopdf.com, you can simply convert your PDFs into Word documents for free.

I've not yet used the tool, so I'm skeptical about its ability to carry my PDF formatting into the Word document without some corruption. I'd love to get some comments from those of you who try this tool.

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Let's Take a Moment to Mourn DRM

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According to an article in Business Week, Sony BMG Music Entertainment will start selling songs without copyright protection sometime this quarter, a move that will essentially kill the much-loathed digital rights management, or DRM. Basically, this means that songs you download through iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, or any other service will be completely unprotected.

Naturally, the catalyst for this move is money. A company would never do anything out of the goodness of its collective corporate heart. Sony and other labels realized that DRM was not only restricting the illegal distribution of music; it was also restricting the LEGAL distribution of music. With the canning of DRM, we should begin to see a plethora of new platforms for online music sales.

The irony in this story? Well, apparently the music industry is frustrated by Apple's pricing structure and wants a larger piece of the pie from music sales. The funny thing is that DRM was really what led to Apple's domination in the legal download market. When online music sales started to take off, the iPod was the dominant MP3 player on the marketplace (and still is, really, though there are more options now), and the only way you could buy and play protected music for the iPod was from Apple.

The only way for the music industry to cut into Apple's iTunes dominance is to offer unrestricted mp3 sales to retailers like Amazon.com, as MP3s can be played on any digital audio device.

What does this mean for the arts community? In my opinion, it won't make it less likely that an orchestra's performance will be shared illegally. However, it does level the playing field. If music executives - the people with money - have to deal with unrestricted audio being freely distributed, perhaps the strategies they devise to curb illegal activity will help to inform the nonprofit world.

In other words, we're all in the same boat, so the rowing should get a little easier for us artists.

Read the full Business Week article.

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Blogfather, We Salute You

As this is a blog, I thought it appropriate to point out that Monday was the 10-year anniversary of the term "weblog." The term was first coined on December 17, 1997, by Jorn Barger, an interesting character, to say the least. Barger is a thing of Internet lore, having spent time as a software programmer, a technology theorist and, most recently, a homeless drifter.

Here's a 2005 photo of Barger:

Eek. He may be a bit Charles Manson-esque, but he's the father of blogging, and he deserves some recognition this week.

If you want to check out Barger's own blog, Robot Wisdom, visit www.robotwisdom.com. As Barger believes a blog should be more a history of Web travels than a journal, you'll notice that he comments very little and mostly offers up links.

And if you'd like to read more about Barger, visit his entry on Wikipedia. Remember, not everything on Wikipedia is true, so take the tales of Barger's travels and trials with a grain of salt.

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Wired's Geekipedia: Technology Defined

Tired of being the only one in the room who doesn't know Ajax from crowdsourcing? Now if anyone ever confounds you with a technology concept or buzzword, you can simply nod your head as if you know what they're talking about, excuse yourself to the restroom, and look it up using Wired's Geekipedia.

New entries are added all the time, and you can even suggest entries.

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The Next Generation of Market Research?

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A San Francisco company called Emsense claims to have technology that will monitor a person's reactions to visual and auditory stimuli, such as a TV commercial or video game. Basically, the test subject wears a headset that looks like the visor Geordi La Forge wore on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the device measures blink rate, breathing, skin temperature and head motion. Then the system's software analyzes the data and presents findings to the test administrator.

How useful would something like this be for arts organizations?

Since most arts ads are print based, the Emsense device wouldn't be very practical. However, imagine hooking up random ballet audience members and measuring their responses to a performance. Would funders be interested in how the 'Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies' cause a substantial elevation in skin temperature?

Maybe not. But it's always good to be aware of new possibilities.

Read the full article from Technology Review.

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Technology in the Arts: Post-Conference Wiki

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Elizabeth Perry, one of our Technology in the Arts 2007 presenters, was kind enough to set up a wiki site for post-conference discussion. You can access the wiki at http://tita.pbwiki.com/.

The site is public, and the password is tita2007.

Please post any interesting conference follow-up information. If you were a presenter this year, please also post a way for people to access your session content. A great way to do this is by using SlideShare. It's easy... and free!

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ajaxWindows: Web-Based Operating System

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ajaxWindows - Your Desktop Anywhere Small arts organizations frequently express to CAMT the need for document sharing on a shoestring budget, so an actual network of servers (or even a single server) typically isn't feasible. We often recommend online shared document solutions, such as Google Docs, that allow people to work collaboratively in a Web-based workspace.

ajaxWindows, designed by Ajax13, takes shared documentation one step further by providing an online operating system that mimics the functionality of Microsoft Windows. In fact, it mimics the software so well that I'll be surprised if no lawsuits are filed against Ajax13.

While the system has an extremely high "wow, you can do that all in a browser?" factor, the practicality is questionable. You can accomplish nearly everything ajaxWindows offers by using a combination of other online productivity tools.

Below is a video of ajaxWindows in action:

Online Videos by Veoh.comYou can also visit the ajaxWindows Web site to try a free demo.

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Collaborative Script Writing

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I recently stumbled upon one of the most exciting (to me, anyway) Web 2.0 endeavors ever to hit the Internet: Plotbot. Plotbot allows two or more users to work on a script collaboratively. It's designed for the screenplay format, but it could be used just as well for collaboration on a new stage play.

Beyond simply adding and editing scenes and other elements to the script, collaborators can comment on their partners' efforts, and the site's project pages allow for blog postings and document sharing. The project pages act as a dashboard, providing a great deal of useful information about each of your projects.

Plotbot's project page

The system's script-writing engine (powered by AJAX) streamlines the formatting of dialogue, action and sluglines. Here is the "Add an Element" tool: Add an Element to Your Script

And here is how a full scene page looks: Scene Page

As you can see, it's a very slick interface, and every line that is modified has information in the right margin about who made the modification and when. You can also roll a change back if you're unhappy with it.

One other cool and useful aspect -- Each of your projects gets its own RSS feed, so your collaborators can subscribe and get instant updates to their RSS readers when changes are made.

Best of all, the site is completely free. I'd urge anyone doing collaborative script writing to register and check it out.

Tux the Linux Penguin vs. Bill Gates

Can a little penguin destroy the Windows empire? (Photo Uncredited)

On one of our recent podcasts, we talked about Ubuntu, the Linux-based open source operating system. I recently discovered that Ubuntu is, in fact, the OS Dell and Lenovo are now offering as a Windows alternative.

People often ask about Linux and the move to open source, and I typically advise against it... at least in the current tech environment. While the open source model has its benefits, the most important being the leveraging of collective developer wisdom, there are also many pitfalls for the novice user.

When you buy your next computer and the sales rep or online form asks you, "Windows or Linux?," what will you choose?

The following article provides a few bullet points to consider before taking the open source OS leap:

Is it time to exit from Windows?

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Visit Dresden's Art Gallery in Second Life

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Not everyone can afford a trip to Dresden, Germany, but now anyone with a computer and a Second Life account can visit the city's famous art gallery. In June, a digital version of the entire building - 37,700 square feet and 750 paintings - was launched in the 3-D virtual world of Second Life.

My Second Life self viewing a painting in Dresden's gallery. (View Full Image)

Check out the full story and some images from WIRED.com.

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BOOKMARK ME: Database of Online Productivity Software

Here is an excellent database of Office 2.0 tools. "Office 2.0" is essentially a term describing the Web-based workspace that uses online tools such as customer relationship management, calendars and word processors.

The database is a great source of Office 2.0 toys, and everything can be sorted by name, vendor, reviews, user interface technology and Google page rank.

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Web 1.0 is so ten years ago...

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I happened upon a great blog entry on Slayerment.com about upgrading your Web site to Web 2.0. It provides 12 ways to move that pitiful static thing you created using a Geocities account back when Vanilla Ice was cool into an honest to goodness interactive online tool. Yes, "Web 2.0" is just one of those annoying buzz terms, but this entry is funny AND insightful, a great combination:

12 ways to turn your Web 1.0 site into a Web 2.0 site | Slayerment

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Keep Your Inbox Clean...

Here is a great presentation by Merlin Mann of the popular 43 Folders digital organization site on his Inbox Zero concepts. Basically, he discusses keeping your inbox completely clean by processing email in one of five ways: Delete, Delegate, Respond, Defer, or Do. It's a great method of dealing with email, and I encourage everyone to take 30 minutes to watch the main portion of his presentation.

reCAPTCHA: Stop Spam, Read Books

Recently I noticed that we had roughly 6,800 spam blog comments awaiting approval. As much as I'd like to read nearly 7,000 entries about Viagra and someone's dead Brazilian father who left them $2 million of which I can have half if I just help them access the money, I simply don't have that kind of time. So I've added a reCAPTCHA tool to our blog's comment area. reCAPTCHA is a variation on the common CAPTCHA tool, which helps Web forms distinguish between human users and computer users (a.k.a. spammers). You've encountered a CAPTCHA if you've seen something that looks like this on a Web site registration form:

CAPTCHA

Well, reCAPTCHA is similar except that when you enter these funky words into a reCAPTCHA module, you're helping to digitize books. According to the reCAPTCHA Web site, about 60 million CAPTCHA words are entered every day. Since computers have difficulty "reading" scanned text to make it truly digital, reCAPTCHA presents Web form users with two digital words - one it knows and one it needs your help with. It uses the one it knows to validate that you're a human user and the one it doesn't know to add a new digitized word to the book.

Visit this site for more information about how reCAPTCHA works, and click "Comments" below to try it out!

If you're coming to the conference...

...don't forget to join us as we kick things off on October 11 with a tour of two Pittsburgh arts organizations:

  • The Pittsburgh Glass Center - In honor of Pittsburgh's 2007 celebration of glass art (www.pittsburghcelebrates.org), we'll take a tour of this 16,000-square-foot glass art facility and be treated to a glass-blowing demonstration.
  • The Entertainment Technology Center - This state-of-the-art technology training center at Carnegie Mellon University offers a two-year Masters of Entertainment Technology degree, jointly conferred by Carnegie Mellon University's College of Fine Arts and School of Computer Science.

Pre-conference also includes the "Birds of a Feather" affinity dinner. Be sure to sign up for this fun-filled afternoon for only $50 when you complete your online conference registration.