DocBug

A study in CUTE! 

This should be interesting:

Designing Cute Interactive Media
in conjunction with The ACM conference on Designing Interactive Systems

Cuteness has an effective design philosophy that can be used in many areas to make emotionally engaging user interactive systems, as well as evaluate existing systems. Cuteness can also be included as an engineering design framework that can assist designers and engineers when creating engaging interactive systems that motivate the user in a happy, positive manner.

The main goal of this workshop is to provide designers with a better understanding of developing ways to enhance the positive experience and effectiveness of interactive media by utilizing the psychological and culturally developed effects of cuteness. We would also like to explore a range of interactive experiences involving the idea of cuteness and examine the related components. Based on these experiences, the next generation user interfaces can be built to take advantage of the cuteness factor and its unique effects on the experience which can establish and maintain more meaningful relationships with the users and encourage happiness, self confidence, motivate the user to action, and provide overall positive experiences.

Big meteor shower Sept 1st 2007 

This coming September 1st (Saturday of Labor Day weekend) at about 11:36 ± 20 minutes UT (4:36 am PDT) the Earth will be passing through the dust trail of Comet Kiess, the only known case of crossing the dust trail of a known long-period comet in our lifetime. It'll create an impressive meteor shower called the Aurigids, since the meteors will appear around the constellation Auriga. The shower will be visible from California, Oregon, Hawaii and the Eastern Pacific, with best viewing towards the East and NorthEast.

Wonder if it'd be visible from Black Rock City?

Event: Instructables show and tell, this Friday (Alameda) & Saturday (Boston) 

The Instructables Show and Tell (formerly Squid Labs Light Salon) is this Friday in Alameda and Saturday in Boston. Not sure if I'll be able to make it to this one but the last one I went to was a blast.

Event: Fire Arts Festival @ The Crucible, 7/12-16 

This Wednesday through Sunday at The Crucible in Oakland: The The 6th annual Fire Arts Festival.

Event: Christopher Allen and Michael Goldhaber at BayCHI 

Two talks that look interesting at BayCHI this Tuesday, July 11 at 7:30 at PARC in Palo Alto:

• The Dunbar Number, Unstructured Trust, and Why Groups Don't Scale, Christopher Allen, writer & columnist, Life With Alacrity

• The Real Nature of the Emerging Attention Economy: Seen As a New Level in the Massively Multiplayer Game Known as Western Culture, Michael H. Goldhaber

(Thanks to Perlick for the heads up.)

Event: Will Wright (with Brian Eno) at The Long Now 

For those in the Bay Area, Will Wright (creator of "Sim City" and the forthcoming "Spore") and Brian Eno (British musician) will be speaking at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco next Monday (June 26th) at 7pm as part of The Long Now Foundation's seminar series. Reservations are $8 ($10.50 after fees) from City Box Office, and are highly recommended because this will sell out fast.

(I just picked up my ticket — if you're going let me know and I'll keep an eye out for you.)

Negativland West Coast performances 

For those in the SF or LA area, Negativland is performing live in San Francisco on June 10th and two shows in LA on June 12th.

SF Bay Area Event: The History of the Future of the City 

If you're a SF Bay Area local, this Wednesday Joel Birnbaum (head of research at IBM in the 70s and HP in the 80s) will be speaking in Mountain View on The History of the Future of the City. I'd be going, but I'll be in Boston for the MIT Media Lab's Things That Think Spring Event.

(Thanks to Perlick for the heads-up...)

Talk: Matt Blaze on "Signaling Vulnerabilities in Law-Enforcement Wiretap Systems" 

For folks local to the Bay Area, Prof. Matt Blaze is speaking next week at Stanford on vulnerabilities in the systems currently being used by law enforcement for wiretapping. The talk is at 4:15PM next Wednesday, 3/8/06 at Stanford University's HP Auditorium, Gates Computer Science Building B01.

Signaling Vulnerabilities in Law-Enforcement Wiretap Systems
Matt Blaze, University of Pennsylvania

Telephone wiretap and dialed number recording systems are used by law enforcement and national security agencies to collect investigative intelligence and legal evidence. This talk will show how many of these systems are vulnerable to simple, unilateral countermeasures that allow wiretap targets to prevent their call audio from being recorded and/or cause false or inaccurate dialed digits and call activity to be logged. The countermeasures exploit the unprotected in-band signals passed between the telephone network and the collection system and are effective against many of the wiretapping technologies currently used by US law enforcement, including at least some ``CALEA'' systems. Possible remedies and workarounds will be proposed, and the broader implications of the security properties of these systems will be discussed.

A recent paper, as well as audio examples of several wiretapping countermeasures, can be found at http://www.crypto.com/papers/wiretapping/.

This is joint work with Micah Sherr, Eric Cronin, and Sandy Clark.

(Thanks to Mort for the link!)

Event: Douglas Hofstadter at Stanford 2/6/06 @7pm 

For you local folk, on Monday evening Douglas Hofstadter will be giving a special lecture at Stanford University on Analogy as the Core of Cognition. The event is free and open to the public. (Thanks to Perlick for the link.)

Update 2/7/06: Perlick and I both attended, and he posted a summary on his blog.

Tickets go on sale for Burning Man 

For those of you who are "Definitely going to Burning Man" this year, tickets go on sale today at noon PST. (Thanks to Sarah for the reminder!)

Clay Shirky talk on "Making Digital Durable," Nov. 14th in SF 

For you Bay Area locals, this month's Long Now Foundation talk is Clay Shirky on Making Digital Durable: What Time Does to Categories. Monday, Nov 14th at 7:30pm at the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason (in San Francisco). A $10 donation is requested but not required.

Kurzweil & Vinge podcasts from Accelerating Change 2005 

Update: Podcasts for the Accelerating Change 2005 talks by both Ray Kurzweil and Vernor Vinge are now available as free Podcast downloads.

Accelerating Change 2005 audio files are up 

The audio archives for the Accelerating Change 2005 are now available from IT Conversations (all 25 sessions for $25 via PayPal), and will be published for free on the site at a rate of about one per week.. (They also have an RSS feed).

Update 10/30/2005: Podcasts for the Accelerating Change 2005 talks by both Ray Kurzweil and Vernor Vinge are now available as free Podcast downloads.

Happy Birthday EFF 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation just celebrated their 15th birthday this past weekend. I swear it seems like just yesterday when our biggest worries were 14-year-old hackers getting arrested and whether it was legal to export crypto. Since then we've seen the DMCA, RFID, UCITA, CALEA, CAPPS, FTAA and LBJ on the IRT.

Today we need groups like EFF more than ever — if you want to help build a cyberspace where freedom to speak, associate and create are protected and expected, please consider becoming a member.

Berkeley Juggling & Unicycle Festival (this weekend) 

This Friday through Sunday is the First Annual Berkeley Juggling and Unicycle Festival:

Now, rest assured, the title may say "Juggling and Unicycle", but this is an inclusive event — contact juggling, poi, staff twirling, bullwhips, plate spinning, devil sticks, cigar boxes, diabolo, yo-yos, and that funky thing that one guy does with the rubber chicken — all are welcome here.

Perfect! I've always wanted to learn rubber chicken...

(Thanks to Glitter Girl for the link...)

Digital Storytelling Festival in SF, Oct 7-9 

In a couple weeks is the Digital Storytelling Festival in San Francisco (October 7-9):

The Digital Storytelling Festival was founded in1995 as an annual gathering where professionals and enthusiasts who use technology to communicate and share stories gather to examine creative works and new concepts being used in areas of education, community building, business, personal and legacy storytelling, new media and entertainment.

The Digital Storytelling Festival is an intimate gathering that inspires its audience with new knowledge, ideas and a better understanding of how the traditional form of storytelling is changing through the use of technology.

The Festival aspires to promote and evolve the art and practice of Digital Storytelling and encourages community by the sharing of ideas and meaningful dialogue among all its participants.

Registration is $350 ($200 student). The event is sponsored by KQED Public Radio & TV and the KQED Digital Storytelling Initiative.

Bay Area event: two Ray Kurzweil talks 

Ray Kurzweil will be speaking about his new book, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, at two events in the San Francisco Bay Area next week:

• Thursday, Sept. 22nd at the SDForum at SAP in Palo Alto Registration at 6pm, lecture 7-8:30, $25 for non-members, $35 at the door)

• Friday, Sept. 23rd at the Long Now Seminar at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco. Doors open at 7, lecture at 7:30 with $10 suggested (but not required) donation.

(JD Lasica has a review of Ray's book over at New Media Musings.)

Jared Diamond speaking in San Francisco, July 15th 

Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies will be talking about his latest book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed at the Long Now seminar at Fort Mason, San Francisco, Friday July 15th at 7pm. $10 suggested donation. (Thanks to Quincy for the head-up!)

JD Lasica on NPUC 

JD Lasica was also at NPUC today, attending as an official "Citizen Journalist." His first write-up is posted over on the BayoSphere blog.

Update 7/12/05: He now has part 2 posted, including an interview with the workshop organizer Dan Russell. I also fixed the first link to point to his post rather than the XML feed.

Technorati tag: npuc2005

SDForum on AI in Computer Games 

For Bay Area locals, SDForum is hosting a forum on AI in Computer Games on the evening of Dec 8th at PARC. Panelists include Will Wright (creator of The Sims) and Damian Isla (lead AI programmer of Halo) among others. At $40 ($25 for members) it's pricy enough I won't be going, but should be interesting.

Doug Englebart talk tomorrow in Palo Alto 

For locals, Doug Englebart is speaking tomorrow at the Bay Area Future Salon at SAP in Palo Alto. (Thanks Perlick!)

Upcoming Bay Area events 

A few events around the SF Bay Area that I found interesting:

• Oct. 4th, San Jose: Dan Gillmor is giving a Commonwealth Club talk on The Emergence of Grassroots Journalism. [Dan Gillmor eJournal]
• Oct. 5-7, San Francisco: The Web2.0 Conference, addressing the theme of "The Web as Platform." Speakers include Mitch Kapor, Tim O'Reilly, and Jeff Bezos to name a few. [John Battelle's Searchblog]
• Nov. 5-7th, Palo Alto: Accelerating Change 2004 conference talking about "Physical Space, Virtual Space, and Interface," with speakers ranging from virtual-worlds developers to new-media prognosticators. [The Rantings of Eric Nehrlich]