/video

Project Natal: Real-Time Motion Capture for the Masses

guesswho@rizzn.com — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 01:48:32 PDT

There is some actual hot news coming out of the E3 conference today – a little something Microsoft has cooked up on the Xbox 360 platform called “Project Natal.”

The technology is being likened to both Minority Report as well as the “beginnings of SkyNet or The Matrix.” What is it?

It, essentially, is the continuation and evolution of technology I uncovered when I was at Mashable that allows gamers and computer users to interface with their machines without the aide of traditional input devices like keyboards, mice or controllers.

PrimeSense, as well as a few other less known companies, have been working at and achieving great success using cameras and other transparent input devices to motion capture what the user is doing, and translate that to useful inputs.

Project Natal tries to go a step further by also introducing limited voice recognition to augment game experience.

It’s heartwarming to see projects like this come to fruition after reporting on their laboratory and funding advancements over the years. The real question is whether it’ll work as advertised. This isn’t the first time that MoCap games have been introduced to the gaming public. Sean P. Aune mentioned to me earlier today that this sort of thing has already been in circulation out in Japan.

“I played something like it in Japan back in '04,” Sean told me. “It was a shooting game where you were a cop. Many Japanese laughed at the huge gaijain jumping all over the place and diving behind the imaginary blockades. Aside from that, the technology worked pretty well, actually.”

Of course, there are those that aren’t fans of Microsoft. I saw one tweet that said something along the lines of “if it were from any other company aside from Microsoft, I’d believe that it’d come out well formed and non-buggy.” I tend to be more positive. This tech has been developed at a number of companies concurrently, and is tested to the point where when I’ve spoken to VCs investing in it, they’ve bubbled over in excitement.

This will end up being a big win for Microsoft, I predict, and part of what is turning out to be a decent week in the press for the software giant.

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- mrh]

I Don't Want to Eat Generitech With You

guesswho@rizzn.com — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:17:08 PDT

Another online video conference that’s making headlines today but is scheduled to take place during NYC’s Internet Week is the Digital Content Newfronts.

They’ve made a splashier impression on me with a comedic video that’s circulating starring Emcees Jake and Emir.

There’s a smaller roster of leaders involved with this event: Current.tv’s Al Gore, Tom Green, Revision3, our own Daisy Whitney and College Humor’s Jake and Emir. This event seems a bit more centered around defining standards than meeting with potential advertisers, as there’s a schedule of speeches and panels, and no apparent time slated for meeting with new potential clients.

Still, quite an interesting set of developments, ones that we’ll be watching with intense interest.

MySpace Launching an Online Reality Series and a Marriage [New Media Minute]

guesswho@rizzn.com — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:11:57 PDT

Guess who’s getting married? One lucky engaged couple will be tying the knot and they’ll say their vows live online this summer. Hollywood production studio Endemol (producers of “Deal or No Deal”) has teamed up with MySpace to produce the online interactive reality series “Married on MySpace” kicking off this week on the site. The show, which will put the couple through their paces each before they say “I do” in August, also has a sponsor on board in Touchstone Pictures. For all the details on why this new Web show matters, check out this week’s New Media Minute. You’ll also learn about the video platform company TurnHere and why it’s doubling its business this year.

[Editor’s Note: Daisy Whitney, already quite well known at TVWeek for her New Media Minute, will be joining us here at SiliconANGLE and Beet.TV as her new homes and distribution partners for the show. Help us give Daisy a warm welcome to the team here at the Angle! -mrh]

@biz and @ev Go On the View

guesswho@rizzn.com — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:54:31 PDT

You are viewing a page meant mostly for machines to read - if you want the original article, click here for it and the video.

Twitter has been officially declared “off the market” today by Biz Stone during today’s appearance on what has been loosely termed “daytime talk show,” The View.

This follows a trail of red-hot rumors that all manner of large tech companies were in line to buy the company, ranging fromGoogle to Microsoft, and most recently Apple.

Adam Ostrow at Mashable claimed to not be surprised by the decree, but we are here at SiliconANGLE. It isn’t that we thought Apple and Twitter would be a great fit – that sort of acquisition makes little sense at all. That Twitter is taking itself off the market seems foolish for a number of reasons.

Most importantly, Twitter needs the buzz. Aside from the hunt for the missing business model, one of the most enjoyable dances for the blogosphere is to matchmaker them up with a buyer.

Even more importantly, though, is that their star can only rise so much further before it starts to fall. Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook crew has seen a rapid decline in the public’s willingness to believe that the company is still worth upwards of $2 billion, let alone the $15 billion valuation they want us to believe.

SearchMe Rolls Out New Features at Ad:Tech SF 2009

guesswho@rizzn.com — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:04:33 PDT

My friends John Furrier and Nate D’amico from SiliconANGLE have been roaming the halls of Ad:Tech 2009, and one of the more interesting updates has been when Furrier caught up with John Galatea, the VP of SearchMe’s marketing and sales.

The video contains a few words on where SearchMe is going as well as some demonstration of SearchMe’s new integrated search results and iPhone application.

Download the MP4.
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Twittering From Outside the Matrix [Singularity]

guesswho@rizzn.com — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:21:39 PDT

You probably caught this story last night when the press release was issued – it first showed up at ReadWriteWeb, and then made the rounds on the gadget blogs today.

What it is, though, is the first and only system to allow someone to Tweet completely hands free. The interface functions by taking brain scan readings while the user stares at the letter on a screen. When the message is fully formed, they stare at the word “twit,” and it goes out to their Twitter account.

I do have some video I haven’t seen elsewhere that shows the system in action – it’s a bit slow, but surprisingly effective. I imagine as they refine the process, the accuracy and speed will increase, but for a proof of concept, it’s particularly interesting and worth a look.

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Are Ad Agencies on Course to Become PR Agencies?

guesswho@rizzn.com — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 22:51:24 PDT

Technology has brought about a great deal of convergence in not just formerly disparate areas of technology, but also formerly disparate disciplines of art, science and business. The many interesting conversations I got a chance to be a party to at SxSWi this year showed me nothing else if not that.

One of the first panels I attended was the panel on how the Minority Report was becoming reality, and I think that sort of became my lense for the remainder of the event. That panel talked about the convergence of humanity and technology. One of the immersive augmented reality programs became a foil for conversation on a panel I was later on with musician Peter Himmelman, when we talked about ways that he could perform live via the internet, yet still have a personal, live and two way feeling of connection with his viewers while he performed.

Something that I think I’ve seen coming for a while but first saw evidence of during SxSW was the convergence of PR and advertising. When I started putting together my personal sponsorship packages for SxSW, I described the services not just as a link and a graphic on my website to your site, but me acting as a bit of PR and consultant for those that gave me sponsorship.

I ran into Ernie Mosteller, a veep at Brunner Digital (an advertising agency), and the mode he was running in at SxSW perfectly mirrored what I was doing, and here he was working for major name clients like Zippo, the Art Institute, Tums and CES.

(Download the MP4 here)

The project they launched at SxSW, SmarterFaster, was used to chronicle this fusion of advertising, consulting and PR at SxSW, but continues as they try to merge the worlds of technical and creative work.

Brunner sent seven folks out to SxSW, and they all chronicled their experiences and discoveries there at the site as part of an ongoing conversation with their co-workers and clients and readers to further an understanding of the mechanics of marketing, advertising and existing as corporations in a social media world.

One of the topics we talked about in our podcast, Ernie touched on in one of his videos posted at SmarterFaster, which was some of the concepts of transparency that Tony Hsieh of Zappos talked about. The Brunner agency not only worked that convergence concept with their SmarterFaster blog, but were taking those ideas back to their clients.

While Ernie and Brunner (and I) are on the cutting edge here by routinely mixing these sorts of consulting activities to major clients, it’s something that’s quickly spreading not as a meme or fad, but as a natural evolution of corporate existence in the new media ecosphere.

Co-Working in Austin One Year Later [SxSW]

guesswho@rizzn.com — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:34:31 PDT

I’ve been fascinated with co-working since I heard about the revival of the concept during last year’s SummerMash tour-stop in Austin. As I’ve said many times, it reminds me of the geekhouses, a very popular concept from back during the first tech boom-bust cycle.Aaron Novak caught up with one of Conjunctured’s founders, John Erik, right as they were starting up and getting things underway.

During day four at SxSW, I caught up with the other Conjunctured founder Cesar Torres. He gave me his thoughts on how the concept has evolved over the past year and some of the cool concepts he’d taken away from SxSW this year.

You can grab the MP4 here.

PimpMyNews: Validating My Fragile Ego

guesswho@rizzn.com — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 17:13:29 PDT

One of the last interviews I conducted at SxSWi was with John Atkinson, Co-Founder and CEO of PimpMyNews, one of the first companies I did a full fledged review of during my tenure at Mashable.

We met by chance on the last day of SxSWi in the blogger lounge, and after he introduced himself to me as being from PimpMyNews, I was a little apprehensive since it wasn’t exactly a positive review (I think it was snarkily titled “PimpMyNews: Fun For 10 Minutes.”

Surprisingly, and this doesn’t happen often in this business, the negative points I brought up in my review were taken to heart and incorporated in further features in the app. From John’s posting at the company blog:

Mark’s review […] cited several positive features, but his "verdict" was that, without significant enhancements, people might not be able to listen to the service for an extended period of time.

If you keep up with this blog, or use PimpMyNews, you’ve probably noticed that we’ve released a constant stream of enhancements and new products over the past year. These enhancements are based on your feedback, and feedback from Mark, and other members of the press.

Here’s the interview we did over at the smoking lounge outside the blogger lounge. He shows off a few of the new PimpMyNews iPhone app features and talks about the future of the web app.

Download the MP4 here.

What has Transparency Gotten Us? How About Free and Cheap?

guesswho@rizzn.com — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:29:40 PDT

Today, Steven Hodson over at WinExtra challenges the norms of the social media-verse by encouraging a blogger who’s job it is to chronicle web startups not to be an early adopter.

I certainly am not King of the Internets, so I’m in no position to tell Steven or Svetlana the best way to do their jobs. There’s probably an interesting debate to be had as to whether it’s a desirable trait to be an early adopter in this business or not, but I’d rather focus on a statement that Steven made later on in the post:

Just what is all this transparency getting us anyway? Have we seen any great leaps forward in productivity? Are we actually improving the everyday lives of people with all this gushing about how social media is tearing down old businesses?

All we seem to be shown is really nothing more than a whole bunch of illusions of how conversations are going to change the world and yet I don’t see any changes just a lot of heartache’s across the board. Just where is this changing society and that the social media mavens say is happening?

This is a really great question, and there are a number of directions you can go with the answer. I’m going to choose the route of answering this that involves the business benefits.

Typically, we’re used to businesses that look for ways to cut costs and never pass those savings on to customers. Somehow, though, the Internet has created a culture of free. It’s generally considered undesirable (or at least uncool) for a company on the business to sell something.

This has created a world of slimmer than normal margins and economies that only exist in scale. It has created a need for social aspects to exist in everything. Transparency and social aspects of your apps are almost a requisite part of your marketing plan – most other forms of marketing are cost prohibitive for the types of apps and utilities we talk about daily.

What’s the benefit to the end user, though?

That one’s simple – sure, a lot of these utilities are completely unnecessary, but just like the groundbreaking apps I talked about at the Inquisitr from SxSW this year, we’re seeing things that aid our lives in ways that weren’t even possible years ago.

Would your paper and pencil ledger from yesteryear be able to tell you, in numbers of visits to the coffee shop, how much money you have left for the rest of the month? Could it magically leap off your desk at home and put this number in your pocked as you walk down the road, being tempted by the siren that is the corner coffee shop? No, but JustThrive can make those determinations and then send you a text message or email on demand letting you know just that (get MP4).

This is only one answer, and I know that if Michael Sean Wright or Marc Canter gets a crack at this answer, he’ll have a completely different set of reasons as to what it’s done to revolutionize our workflow and lives beyond giving us a set of buzzwords.

Corvida Raven’s SxSWi 2009 Day Five Summary

guesswho@rizzn.com — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 19:09:52 PDT

You didn’t hear much from me on Day Five of SxSWi, mostly because the time I usually reserved for my video wrap-up of the day was spent driving back to Dallas. I did, however, have time to sit and wrap up the event with SheGeek’s Corvida Raven.

We sat down at the goofily named but ornately adorned Pepsi Podcast Playground and talked about our experiences on the last day of SxSW.

Her main goal coming down was to network as well as appear on the panel “Can the Afrosphere Survive the Age of Obama?” She and I talked a little bit about that and the much better schwag she got from the event than I.

Download the MP4 or watch the video below.

A Rambling Day Four SxSWi Round-Up

guesswho@rizzn.com — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 08:14:34 PDT

I’m really getting into the groove here at SxSWi, and it’s coming up to the end.

Tomorrows a big day at the UStream studio. You should tune in for the whole thing, but if you must limit yourself to only a couple hours, start watching around 4 PM. You could win thousands of dollars.

The MP4

Here’s my second to last update from SxSWi. ENJOY!

Only Slightly Inhebriated SxSWi Day Three Update

guesswho@rizzn.com — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 01:37:12 PDT

I theoretically could do another really long blog post, and I probably will once I get home and have more than ten minute spurts of free time, but since the video update format worked so well for me last night, and I really could use the sleep, I’m just going to post another video wrapping up the day.

Grab the MP4 here.

Rizzn Wraps Up SxSWi Day Two

guesswho@rizzn.com — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:24:28 PDT

Due to incredible exhaustion, Rizzn wraps up his day two with a video update. Download the MP4 for the full update.

Rizzn Unpacks his Schwag Bag [sxsw]

guesswho@rizzn.com — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:18:18 PDT

I unpack my SchwagBag. I was slightly disappointed. Download the MP4 for the full deal.

Memetracker OneSpot Aggregates $4.5 Million

guesswho@rizzn.com — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:27:41 PST

Everyone in the blogosphere is fascinated with memetrackers. It’s one of the many ways we bloggers and online journalists use to quantify our worth and success in what we do.

Of course, the most successful memetrackers have tended to be closed sites like Blogrunner and Techmeme, and all the sister sites associated with that. It’s this that makes such an intriguing company to watch, and something that most bloggers would absolutely love to either try out or take a run at implementing it into their workflow.

That’s why it’s not surprising that OneSpot has taken a $4.2 million series A from Silver Creek Ventures (as well as Mike Maples and Pat Horner).

Subscribe to the Video feed here.
Download the MP4 directly.

The money is going to further develop the product and give them a runway towards profitability and growth, but the event served as a great launchpad for discussion last week when Matt Cohen was gracious enough to sit down and talk with me about link journalism, memetracking and the ideas of content creation versus content curation.

Matt and I had some great conversational threads in the interview (so much so, that we put off the actual discussion of the cash infusion until the end of the show). I could go through and catalog the discussion, but I’d rather you watch it with the thought in mind that Matt’s discussion on the aim of what he calls a “Pandora for content” has caused me to reconsider the long term plans for this site, with less of an emphasis on more writers and an additional emphasis on using his aggregation service to augment my own content creation.

Kindle 2.0: Is It the iPod for Books Yet? [video]

guesswho@rizzn.com — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:29:16 PST

As you probably know, the Kindle 2.0 pricing and such was released today by Amazon. Sean P Aune and I sat down to chat about some recent moves in the e-Book world and discuss the impact on the business.

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While I’m still excited to see advancements made in this business, I have a hard time seeing today’s release as the watershed event that’s going to lead us all into a brave new world of electronic books.

So often, the Kindle is regarded as the iPod for books, and the implication is that very soon, every Tom, Dick and Harry will be carrying around their Kindle with them, digitally turning the page while they’re driving and all that whatnot. The unfortunate truth is that the Kindle, nor any other eBook, offers the ability for any of us to save any money nor make any gains on the traditional book format.

Matthew Ingram was pointing out to us, as many other have recently, that something like two thirds of the cost of printed material actually goes to the printing costs, not the intellectual labor that went into creating the content.

During our conversation, I mentioned another anecdote that I think is pretty telling… a couple of days ago I was searching for a cheap used Kindle 1.0. I did a Google product search for a Kindle priced between $100 and $200, and all I found were Kindle books priced in that same range.

Where are my savings? What’s my incentive for this? The equipment is expensive, the books are expensive – why do I want this?

I say this as someone who’s worked on creating budget hardware and eInk technology before. This is something that can be done a whole lot cheaper. Many things need to change before the Kindle will become the cultural revolution that most people seem to be expecting.

PajamasMedia: WTF, Over?

guesswho@rizzn.com — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:15:51 PST

If you watched the tech news over the weekend, you probably read a bit about the death of the PajamasMedia blog advertising network.

I’m simply baffled by the inability to monetize blogs in the political blogosphere, and the sad state of affairs is that lib-bloggers are able to do it better than the conservative networks like PajamasMedia (though not by a whole lot – HuffPo just got into the black not long ago, and not by much).

My buddy Art sat down with me Monday to talk about this whole thing as we pointed out some of the inconsistencies in the rhetoric coming from Pajamas, and what we think their hurdles will be moving forward.

Look for more podcasts from me soon by subscribing here or download the MP4 here.

Sean P. Aune and Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins Talk Online Video and the Economy

guesswho@rizzn.com — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 01:17:27 PDT

I got to talking about Revision3's frankly very odd decision to lay off some big names today over at Mashable, and the real reasons behind it.

I don't find it odd simply because I'm a huge evangelist for online video (which I am), but because of a discussion that Sean and I had a week or two ago concerning the recession-resistence of online video advertising. The conversation never got to air on Mashable Conversations (for reasons that are ironical and humorous, but unfortunately not able to be discussed here), but it was so good I decided to re-air the discussion on my own podcast feed.

The discussion centered around a number of interesting positive indicators from the world of online video, but mainly this one I found over at 901am:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) released the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report covering the first six months and the second quarter of 2008.

Internet advertising revenues in the US for the first six months of 2008 were $11.5 billion, setting yet another new half-year record that represents a 15.2 percent increase over the first half of 2007. The second quarter of ’08 was up 12.8% over the same period of 2007 and showed a slight decline of 0.3% from the first quarter.

Search and Display-related advertising continue to set records. Search revenues totaled almost $5.1 billion for the first six months of 2008, up 24 percent from the $4.1 billion for the same period in 2007. Display-related advertising totaled close to $3.8 billion for first six months of 2008, compared to the $3.2 billion reported for the same period in 2007, showing about a 19% increase. Display-related advertising includes Display Banner ads, Rich Media, Digital Video, and Sponsorship.

The numbers are quite impressive, and the bottom line that Sean and I drove at during the show was that given the rise in utilization of the ad type, grabbing a chunk of that for big name producers shouldn't be a tough task.

If you produce any video at all (or have a brand capable of carrying online video), you need to sit in on our discussion.

You also need to subscribe to my video feed in iTunes or something. Why haven't you done that yet?

Project Wonderful - Your ad here, right now, for as low as $0.00

The Defeated Recession and Online Video

guesswho@rizzn.com — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:50:45 PDT

Monday, Sean and I chatted about the "great depression" and the effect on Online Video. The results may surprise you.

Plastilogic's New E-Reader

guesswho@rizzn.com — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 02:57:23 PDT

I don't do gadget reviews, generally.

This, though, is the coolest thing I've seen come out of DEMO or TC52 so far... It's the PlasticLogic thing from the DEMO conference. I wrote about it on Mashable last night, and I played you some stuff about it on my last podcast.

You have to see this particular demo video, though. They have a working prototype of the device, and it looks fantastic.

Get your MP4 link here.
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If you haven't read my Mashable article about it yet, read it keeping this demo in mind.

Video Bloggers have a Different Ethical Code

guesswho@rizzn.com — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 17:23:52 PDT

That's a slight exaggeration. Things are done a little differently with rich media. I'm not sure why it's acceptable for the audio or video podcast host to get paid for saying something, and it isn't acceptable to write it.

The fact is, though, is that we do this to confuse Allen Stern intentionally though.

Just kidding. It's always been done that way. More on the topic in my podcast today. Download the MP4 here. Subscribe to the feed here.

Nerdcore Nas and the Care-O-Bot

guesswho@rizzn.com — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:38:18 PDT

Hey folks. A quick weekend episode for your enjoyment. I'll have the MP3 feed going soon, but for now you're still stuck with the video only feed.

In this episode, I talk a bit about Nas, Nerdcore, MC Frontalot, Robbie the Robot and the new Care-O-Bot.

Get your MP4 link here.

This is a test post

guesswho@rizzn.com — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:33:57 PDT

This is a test post

Rizzn 02: BMW and the Sportka [pr]

guesswho@rizzn.com — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:38:23 PDT

This is my episode about BMW and the old Sportka.