Caleb Booker

Click for the full-screen version

I was reminded recently that Twinity was in open beta, so I signed up and took another look. For those of you not familiar it’s a Second Life competitor that has some real potential.

You customize your avatar in much the same way (except that you can upload a picture of your face and map it quickly and easily) and you get a nice default selection of prefab faces/clothes/bodies just kicking around. The interface seems to be far easier than Second Life’s too, although to be fair I couldn’t figure out how to build.

One feature that was extra nice was the browser pane on the one wall. It was fully functional (I’m watching a YouTube video in the picture above), and I was able to interface with text fields as well as Flash controls.

That said, Twinity isn’t ready. It’s still very beta, and you’ll be dealing with oddities like disconnects and a glitchy file browser. Still, if you want to be way way WAY out on the edge, sign up today!

May 8th, 2008 | Category: new media, futurism | Comments (1)

Last night to my absolute joy I discovered that Draxtor Despres covered the vBusiness Expo:

More business than the Draxtor thinks - there is more business success in SL than the mainstream media thinks, heck, even premiere virtual journalist Draxtor Despres got it wrong last week with asserting non-profits are the only ones to gain traction in SL.

Having most of my life consumed with planning and organizing the vBusiness Expo for the past month, it’s nice to see it all summed up like this. The hype surrounding virtual worlds has been completely dead for some time, and what I think we accomplished with the vBusiness Expo was to demonstrate the simple, practical things that can be done with these platforms to enhance real-world business. No more marketing banter; just the straight facts.

I’m working on creating MP3s of the sessions right now. We’ll be releasing them to the public ASAP, and they’ll serve as a fantastic resource for all sorts of businesses wondering what in the world they would do with a world of their own.

May 1st, 2008 | Category: new media, content, hype, futurism, numbers | Leave a comment

More amazing work from Draxtor Despres:

Non Profit Commons: the Second Coming of SL - While corporations may be fleeing SL, the non-profits are coming in droves….One group in particular has set out to coordinate the efforts of over 60 socially active organizations from all over the globe. So: as the SL brand is still evolving, they might be at a short-term disadvantage compared to other virtual worlds built around already established brand names. But Draxtor Despres is hopeful and sees a future of more than just shopping.

Drax did a perfect job here as usual, but I just wanted to add one thing. I’ve ranted about this before, but I’ll say it again: the difference between a successful v-world build and a failure is in how well it services the community. It’s not about your product, it’s about YOUR GUESTS!

’nuff said.

April 23rd, 2008 | Category: art, new media, content, press, hype | Leave a comment

Original version of the animated feature film “We are the Strange” 88 minutes : Presented in Str8nime

Get the 2 DVD set here!
http://www.filmbaby.com/films/1961
or here
http://www.amazon.com/We-Are-Strange-M-dot/dp/B000V6LT8U

All other language versions here
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=1BD10C7B6DA3385E

Accolades and awards:
Sundance Film Festival Official Selection 2007
Golden Prize “Most Groundbreaking Film” Fantasia Film Festival Montreal 2007
Silver Prize “Best Animated Film” Fantasia Film Festival Montreal 2007
“Best Feature Film” HDFEST 2007
Director Selected “25 new faces of independent film” Filmmaker Magazine 2007

M dot Strange Film SkooL
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=16E6B479232C7529

Talk to other weirdo’s at the We are The Strange forum
http://wearethestrange.aceboard.com

Get involved with my next film here!
http://www.indiegogo.com/project/view/111

http://www.wearethestrange.com

==================

This looks great streamed through your Opera browser on the Wii!

Anyhow I’ve blogged about this one about a billion times now, but at long last here it is for you to watch, for free, for fun. If you feel like making your own cool “We Are The Strange” themed video, he’s made a ton of media and assets available for you to do so.

Buy a DVD. I think you’ll agree that there is nothing, absolutely NOTHING like this anywhere else! There is nothing stranger.

If you have watched this film in its entirety, your brain has now melted. Welcome to the New Media.

April 13th, 2008 | Category: art, new media, passion, content, writing | Comments (1)

Visit Mexico, Ruta Maya

Machinima by Kronos Kirkorian

Music by Dizzy Banjo

This is a fun promo put together for a Second Life® project from the Mexico Tourism Board. For those of you having gone through the experience of wandering Second Life not finding anything impressive, hopefully this will point you in the right direction. (Well, this and SL Things To Do.)

Kronos did an amazing job here, which is to be expected at this point. The first time I saw his work was in the hilarious skit “Lip Flap” which, if you haven’t seen it yet, you absolutely can’t miss. I had the good fortune to work with him on the original promo for the vBusiness Expo. We had four locations and I don’t even know how many actors, and he coordinated them all like a seasoned professional.

This latest clip for Mexico shows off his editing talent. You’ll notice that it’s mostly stills, but hardly feels like a boring old slide-show. That’s not exactly an easy thing to pull off!

The whole thing is set against Dizzy Banjo’s soundtrack which, as usual, completely nails it. He did the soundtrack for the vBusiness Expo too, but you might also remember his name as being the audio architect behind the shockingly transcendent experience of Parsec. Here he is again, avoiding the pitfall of competing with the content and instead complimenting it to enhance the whole.

When I look at a clip like the one above, I’m reminded not just of good times and familiar faces, but of the incredibly talented professional artists that you run into around Second Life®. I count myself very lucky to have met folks like these, and might never have done so had we not all taken an interest in this bizarre virtual world experiment.

(Side note: speaking of Parsec, a special thanks to Eshi Otawara for creating the gorgeous build of Parsec that became my blog’s backdrop.)

April 12th, 2008 | Category: art, new media, passion | Leave a comment

It feels great to finally properly unleash this on the grid. When all was said and done, the official release of Zebra Corporate included:

• A 60-seat amphitheater
• A mini version of the 60-seat amphitheater
• A 120-seat amphitheater meant to straddle two sims
• A small office building
• A large office building
• A “galleria” (a curved building good for displaying content)
• A landscape pack that includes planters, outdoor furniture, and paths
• A desk bell that pages as many people as you like
• An object giver
• A drop box
• Zebra Presenter - a fully developed slideshow and video tool

The best part? It’s free! Take it, change it, remix it and hand out your new creations or even sell them if you like! It’s all under GPLv3, which is a license built specifically to promote open source and still keep the content useful.

Want your own copy? You can pick one up at Zebra HQ, or over on the SLExchange.

April 11th, 2008 | Category: customer service, passion, content | Leave a comment

“Invisible Threads”

10 Simple Steps to your very own Virtual Sweatshop with Telematic Manufacturing

Original Concept by Jeff Crouse & Stephanie Rothenberg

Video Directed by Annie Ok, Jeff Crouse & Stephanie Rothenberg

Machinima by Annie Ok

Live Footage by Stephanie Rothenberg & Broken Branchez Productions

Invisible Threads installation at New Frontier on Main at Sundance ‘08

Invisble Threads was made possible by the kind support of Eyebeam & Sundance

Large Format Printer provided courtesy of Hewlett Packard

Song by Kraftwerk

Second Life® and Linden Lab® are trademark of Linden Research, Inc®. Invisible Threads is not affiliated with or sponsored by Linden Research®.®®®®®®don’t sue me for mentioning you in a blog post Linden Lab®®®®®®®®®®

April 10th, 2008 | Category: art, new media | Comments (1)

I was spammed a press release for this 3D mouse demo, but the video was pretty cool so I decided not to be irritated. This mouse does everything with a very easy interface. Check it out:

Hooray for gadgets!

Forbes fed out the press release as if it’s a regular news article, so check it out if you want to read some ad copy on the mouse. Personally I don’t have a use for it, but it’s good to see experimentation continues. We’ve been working with the keyboard-and-mouse combination for so long we’re in danger of myopia when it comes to user interfaces.

April 3rd, 2008 | Category: press, hype | Leave a comment

Caught this bit of terror and horror from the Twitterstream, although I’m sorry I’ve since lost track of specifically from whom. YouTube description below:

New Media is the tipping point where Good finally beats Bad

About This Video: Gary Vaynerchuk sounds off for 120 seconds on The fact that our technology is moving so fast and it is actually helping one major thing, it is allowing good people to wine

By the way, I’m pretty sure “wine” is a typo on his part even if it is, ironically, appropriate.

Why is this the most horrific thing I’ve heard about since a soldier tossed a puppy off a cliff? I’ve blogged about this before under the context of Halloween and along the lines of deleting my old work, but it’s worth saying again.

The problem with people “knowing who you are” is that you’re constantly checking yourself for presentability and consistency. Over and over you clamp down on your creativity, restrict your passion, and censor your thoughts because the world is watching and you’re never, ever allowed to change. You are what the record says you are. There’s no escape, and to hell with what “feels right” for you at the moment.

It also means that, ironically, people will accuse you of being “fake” or “lying” if you try to grow or if, god forbid, you merely change your mind about something. Favor will be granted toward those who’ve been consistently pleasant. Mediocrity be praised!

Pretty soon, you’ll have to look like this to be trusted:

Oh wait, that’s already true and I kind of do look like that. Damn. We’re screwed.

I guess it’s true what they say: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

March 26th, 2008 | Category: new media, passion, censorship | Leave a comment