As the video game industry continues to grow, Hollywood studios are capitalizing on this intellectual property (IP) success through film and television adaptations. Students from Heinz College’s Master of Entertainment Industry Management program sought to better understand the current market for these adaptations. In Part II, see what film and video game executives consider to make an adaptation successful. Additionally, through a survey of gamers and non-gamers, learn what potential audiences prefer to see.
Colonialism has consistently been a force in the global purview, including the technological space. In recent years, the expansion of artificial intelligence has vastly increased corporations’ global influence. As the world’s technologies continue to advance and innovate, individuals must keep a watchful eye on the ways in which digital colonialism might repeat harmful practices from the past.
Due to the popularity and booming business of video games, Hollywood studios have capitalized on popular game titles by developing new content based off of their intellectual property (IP). This study sets out to better understand video game IP’s impact on film and television markets and what specific elements might impact an adaptation’s success.
Sustainability and AI were at the forefront this year at the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) Future of Museums Summit. What role will museums play in creating climate-friendly communities? And how can AI be used to maximize efficiency, increase accessibility, and deepen engagement? Read key conference takeaways from Xueer Ho and Dr. Brett Ashley Crawford.
An overemphasis on data-driven work within the nonprofit sector has been shown to result in cycles of disempowerment, driven by third-party data demands of funding bodies.. This compounds due to the many market orientations nonprofits need to adopt, particularly prevalent among the arts. A key to navigating these markets and funder requirements lies in identifying a specific data culture best fit for your organization and investing in resources and training in order to achieve that framework sustainably.
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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Update on my previous post about the reCAPTCHA tool. I failed to mention that the creator of CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA is a professor here at Carnegie Mellon. Read more:
Latest weapon against spam also enlists computer users to assist the Internet Archive
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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:
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!
It is my pleasure to announce that ArtandCulture.com, a very cool Web site showcasing a wide array of artists and arts organizations, has joined the Technology in the Arts 2007 exhibitor fair. The preliminary plan is for the folks from ArtandCulture.com to set up an informational booth where artists can learn about the site, discuss the tool's many interactive features and future development plans and even add their own profiles.
Thank you in advance to ArtandCulture.com for taking part in our conference.
And can you think of a better Web address than that?
Technology in the Arts welcomes its latest supporter, Pittsburgh-based web hosting company, pair Networks. We are fortunate to include pair Networks as a Development level sponsor for the second year in a row. Please visit their Web site at pair.com for more information about their services.
Stay tuned for more sponsor announcements!
Special thanks to eTapestry for partnering with Technology in the Arts and reserving an exhibitor space. This fall, pencil time in your conference schedule to visit with a representative from eTapestry and learn more about their products and services. Better yet, click on their logo below to visit their Web site right now!
If Web 2.0 is about collaboration through online tools and and "the market as a conversation", then DonorsChoose.org is a shining example of Philanthropy 2.0. This innovative website connects public schools in need of resources with donors, who can fund any of the educational projects posted online. Requests for classroom range from pencils and paper to digital cameras and computers, and potential donors can search for projects by the school's geographic location, subject area, keyword, or amount of the funding request. In an age of charitable and corporate accounting scandals, the transparency of DonorsChoose.org is refreshing. After a proposal has been fully funded by one or more donors, the organization purchases the necessary items and ships them directly to the school. Donors then receive thank-you notes from students and teachers as well as an expenditure report so donors know their tax-deductible gifts were spent as intended.
But if 100% of the contribution goes directly to classroom materials, who funds the overhead expenses of DonorsChoose.org? According to a recent Slate.com article, 93% of donors elect to add 15% to their donation to cover operating expenses.
To date, DonorsChoose.org has raised more than $12 Million for students across the country, and has funded 3000 proposals for art and music classrooms. A quick search for the keyword "technology" in "art and music" subjects yielded 233 open proposals, including "Writing Pictorial Instructions For The Technology Center". In this proposal, a high school teacher requests funds for the materials needed for her students to create a manual for the school's technology center. The students will write a description of a task's step-by-step process, take a photograph of each step, and develop a PowerPoint presentation of the task for the teacher. The Technology teachers will use the work instructions to help teach new procedures to technology students.
With many grassroots arts organizations also struggling to purchase materials for administration, education, and community outreach, there is a clear need for a similar service to connect these organizations with potential donors. And indeed it may not be far behind. DonorsChoose.org has already inspired spin-off websites in China to find donors for small rural schools. Can arts managers work together to form a similar philanthropic network for the arts community?
M2Z, an organization with a mission to provide 95% of the population with free access to broadband wireless internet connections, was featured in a cultural policy listserv to which I subscribe. The article, originally printed in Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, examines the pros and cons of allowing one company to undertake this endeavor. Please click the link below to read the full article:
http://www.diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_7086.shtml
If this initiative were to become a reality, I envision enormous impact on how the majority of the population receives information. If Americans are increasingly utilizing web based tools to stay informed, the amount of internet users could skyrocket. The only question I have, though, is how many people will actually get to use the service? One would speculate that this service assumes most of the population owns a computer.
Lately I’ve been experimenting with Ableton’s Live software, which allows me to create interesting arrangements, construct new pieces from scratch, and generally play with music. Live lets me lay down every single layer within a track… by myself… fast… with thousands of different sounds at my disposal. It’s fantastic. Best of all, the anal retentive freak in me is able to go back and revise music I record to make sure that in the “saved” version of the piece, I hit the note smack dab at the beginning of the third thirty-second of the beat, rather than the hairs-breadth off that I actually played. Far from weaning me off traditional music making, Live has deepened my respect and love for the craft of artistry. I find that when I’m fiddling around with the digital manifestation of the music, trying to bring down the volume on the pedal point tones, or simply arrange the notes into a harmonic minor scale with just the mouse, I’m incredibly impatient with a task that should just HAPPEN under my finger tips.
Don’t get me wrong. Technology is wonderful. With Photoshop I can manipulate my images without investing in a full dark-room setup. With Illustrator I can create versatile graphics that can be used just about anywhere. With Live I can be an entire orchestra without leaving my home. And technology is especially wonderful when it enhances rather than detracts from art. When it allows me to do things that aren’t otherwise feasible. When it lets me experience things I can’t normally access.
Like the use of technology in Lois Greenfield and the Australian Dance Theater’s new performance, Held. For this work, Greenfield photographs the dancers mid-movement and the images are instantly projected onto a screen. This is a perfect exemplification of the Technology in the Service of Art principle. Greenfield notes in the Telegraph that in these images “you are seeing something you couldn't without the benefit of the photograph. I capture 1/2,000th of a second and our brains can't register that. But we can see it on a picture."
Held uses technology to intensify our ability to cherish and appreciate the craft of the artists. It’s a beautiful marriage of media because it respects the strengths and limitations of every component involved, from the camera to the artists to the audience.
Recently, I was doing some research on a local emerging leader who I am nominating for an award. In my Internet search, I stumbled across a professional profile for her on an interesting site called ZoomInfo. According to their website, " ZoomInfo is a unique summarization search engine that finds, understands and saves useful information about people on the Web. The patented search technology continually scans millions of corporate Web sites, press releases, electronic news services, SEC filings and other online sources. Then, it intelligently compiles a concise summary about a specific individual or company." Of course, I had to search for myself - just to see what it would pull up. I was surprised to find seven listings for David Dombrosky. (Obviously, my name is not quite as singular as I thought it was.) Once I selected the profile I recognized to be my own, it was interesting to see both what was present in my profile and what was missing from it. While not everything was accurately described in my profile, the disparate pieces were pointing to the correct person - which is fascinating in and of itself. How did this site know to add these pieces of information to MY profile versus the other six guys listed in the search?
ZoomInfo gathers and conveys its information using proprietary Natural Language Selection, Artificial Intelligence Algorithms and Information Integration logic:
"Using Natural Language Extraction tools, our computers are able to read English sentences ("Steve Jobs co-founded Apple Computer with...") and understand what they mean. ZoomInfo then extracts relevant pieces of information about people, such as the companies they work for and their job titles.
Artificial Intelligence Algorithms allow our computers to analyze a Web site and extract information based on an understanding of how the Web site is constructed. ZoomInfo can deduce that a specific paragraph describes a company, or that a specific address contains the location of a company headquarters.
Once ZoomInfo extracts requested data, Information Integration logic then sifts through and organizes the data. Biographies of people found on various Web pages are assembled into summaries, and inconsistencies in the information are interpreted and resolved."
As I said before, the technology is not perfect. In that early version of my profile, the program misinterpreted NEA to stand for National Education Association. It also failed to correctly "understand" the nuances of my work. For example, it listed in my Employment section, "Coordinator of Operation Homecoming - National Education Association." In actuality, I coordinated logistics for the Operation Homecoming project created by the National Endowment for the Arts. Close - but not quite the same thing. The problem is that anyone using this site to find individual profiles will most likely take the profile at face value. Thankfully, ZoomInfo allows you to update your professional profile - free of charge. Here's what an updated profile looks like.
To my mind, ZoomInfo has the potential to become an amazing research tool. Want to find out more about a potential donor or board member? What about a panelist or subject of an interview? What if you need to find information on someone you are nominating for a award, but you don't want to ruin the surprise by asking them for their resume? There are a number of wonderful uses for this information -- provided that more people go to the site to update their information!
Hopefully, we will see a major marketing push from this site and others like it to maximize the potential for utilizing this technology.
