Humorous name aside, the product looks to be a huge leap forward in the field of visual search � by which I mean, you point a camera at something and Google figures out what it is.
Here�s a little video explanation.
As the Tech Crunch article mentions, it�s somewhat similar to ShopSavvy. I�ve used the ShopSavvy demo video in my last couple of presentations, replacing another video I had been using of an iPhone app called Bionic Eye. That made me think of an earlier post of mine where I said:
This is a nice little app for what it does, but imagine what it�s going to evolve into: a portable heads-up display for everything. Yes, right now it lists restaurants, subway stations (in certain cities), and wifi hotspots, but it�s not that hard to extrapolate a few years into the future where this app � or something like it � connects you to all the available information about whatever you�re looking at.
It doesn�t really matter whether it�s on an iPhone-type device, or whether it�s mounted on your eyeglasses, it�s going to be with you effectively 24/7/365 (only �effectively� because you can still choose to turn it off), have 99% uptime, and is going to get better every hour of every day as more information is added to it. Practically every urban location will be geotagged and infotagged (think Google Street View on steroids), extending further and further beyond urban areas with each passing year. In fact, I imagine the app will evolve into a two-way app, with users adding to the database as they go about their daily routines, constantly adding more locations and more data to the database.
Perhaps a few more years down the road artificial intelligenceobject-recognition software will be embedded, maybe even with some simple sensors to analyze the material it�s looking at, so that the app will be able to peer into just about any object and return information about it�s chemical composition, various useful facts about it, and ways the object can be used.
A one-eyed San Francisco artist wants to replace her missing eye with a Web cam - and tech experts say it's possible.
. . . Mobile computing expert Roy Want told the Daily News the technology exists.
"It is possible to build a wireless camera with the dimensions of the eyeball," said Want, a senior principal engineer at Intel. "You can find spy cams or nanny cams designed to fit into inconspicuous places in the home."
Want said the camera, which would be encased in Vlach's prosthesis to avoid moisture, could link wirelessly to a smart phone.
The smart phone could send power to the camera wirelessly and relay the camera's video feed by cell phone network to another person, a TV studio or a computer.
In a world where eye cams are common, they might serve as a kind of computerized backup to people's memories, Want said.
"You'd never need to forget anything again," he said. "You'd never lose anything. You could ask it, 'Where was the last time I saw my keys?'"
Sounds like an early version of the EyeMagine to me . . .
Kidding. But in his latest Op-Ed piece he posits Steve Jobs going to GM and creating the iCar. If you think back to 2020 Vision, I had Apple teaming up with Google, creating the iMagine (and then the EyeMagine), and Google purchasing Ford and creating an electric car with wireless mesh capabilities. I decided to call that car the gCar, not the iCar as Friedman suggests, but I still want royalties.
And, looking back, do you remember who I had as President in 2018? As I said in that post, "I think this is a case of where the truth will end up being stranger than fiction." Umm, yep, I think that was an understatement.
This is an email "House, M.D." strike captain and Canadian Leonard Dick sent to his team today.
Subject: Guild-wide picket Thursday
As the twentieth century rambled into its final decade, this freshly minted MBA landed his first job in Hollywood as a finance executive at Disney. Heeding the lessons garnered at a cost of $60,000 for two years of tuition, room, and board, I invested in myself and purchased a chunk of shares of Disney stock (I also shrewdly bought Philip Morris stock two weeks before the federal courts, for the first time in forty years of class action suits against Big Tobacco, ruled in favor of the plaintiffs to the tune of $300 million).
Though I mothballed my 40-regular suits to become a writer of medical stories of an impeccable verisimilitude, I held on to those shares. I am an owner of Disney. On Thursday, February 6, I come full circle:
I am going to picket myself.
It's kinda poetic. You want a fair deal? I'm going to get you that deal. Because I'm going to get me to give you that deal. Bob Iger works for me. Tomorrow I'm going to march into his office and order him -- that's right, order him -- to give you that deal you've sweated for these last few months
But I need you to fend off the highly trained security guards who will try to assassinate me. Your absence on the picket line tomorrow could have dire consequences. Plus my mother's in town and it would be weird for her to be visiting if I were dead.
It's a Guild-wide picket. Other entertainment unions will be joining us. Info is below.
DISNEY STUDIOS Picketing Shifts: 8am-3pm (8-11, 10-1, 12-3) 500 S Buena Vista Street Burbank, California 91521 Parking Option: Neighborhood streets east of Disney (Parkside Dr.)
I will be pulling the 10-1 shift.
Please come. Give my mother's visit purpose.
Skate blades up!
Leonard Dick, Shareholder of The Walt Disney Company
Not that any kind of puppet video is really appropriate for work. Video written by Seth MacFarlane. Featuring Josh Radnor, Kat Foster, Nick Kroll, John Viener, Seth MacFarlane, and Erik Weiner. Directed by Bryan Carmel and Brendan Colthurst.
I have a nice story from the line that will warm the heart:
We're at the CBS TV City main gate today, and it's raining, with big, slappy drops. There's maybe a dozen of us braving it out for The Cause, but only a couple umbrellas, meaning most of us are getting soaked. (Someone asked, "What's more unappealing than an unemployed writer? An unemployed wet writer.") Then a car drives up with a bag full of brand new rain ponchos. The guy handing them to our grateful selves says, "I'm a grip. So when you go back to work, just remember -- not all grips are dicks."
WGA Member Allison Abner, who helped organize the event wrote the following report:
The WGA had a great day in Washington yesterday. The event was hosted by Reps Nadler D-NY, Weiner D-NY, Schakowsky D-Ill, Watson D-CA. Each host put in a word in support of the striking writers and vowed to aid us should we need help with negotiations this go-round.
The highlight for Congressmen/women and their staffers was the standing-room only mock debate between the Daily Show and the Colbert Show writers. "Daily Show" writers Rob Kutner, Tim Carvell and Jason Ross represented the WGA. On the other side, in suits, was the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, played by "The Colbert Report" writers Michael Brumm, Peter Grosz and Tom Purcell. The debate was 'interrupted' by protesters (writers Kevin Blyer and Peter Gwinn) who were dragged out by WGAe President Michael Winship. It was every bit as smart as you'd expect from such incredible talent as these writers. And honestly, people walked away more informed than when they came in.
The goal in bringing this mock debate to Washington was to provide a national platform for our issues, to take it out of LA and NYC, and explain (in a fun and instructive way) why we're on strike. We got a ton of press (AP, Reuters, LA Times, Washington Post, Roll Call, Politico among them).
We (which includes WGA ex director Mona, assistant director Ann Tobac, our fabulous Washington point person Margaret Cone, and Sherry Goldman, our pr person out of east) also met with members of Congress on judiciary, labor, and telecommunications. We spoke to them about the state of negotiations, our hope that we'd reach a settlement soon. We also discussed issues like the importance of residuals -- both as a form of what I call R&D, which are scripts created outside of the development system such as Desperate Housewives, that we finance on our own dime; and as part of our expected income. We also discussed how residuals from writers are different than they are for directors, and how that affected the DGA deal.
But here's the interesting part -- and what will come to be the future direction we will have to take as writers: the issue of COPYRIGHT. When the WGA formed, we wrote away our Constitutional right to own our own material in exchange for residuals. By the way, we are the only writers in the WORLD in this situation. Like a novelist, songwriter, playwright -- the concept, the idea begins with us. We fill the blank page. And like any other artist who does the same thing in different form, we deserve the right to own our material.
The example I used was the trend among artists in the record industry, who are now licensing their masters back to the majors to exploit for a set number of years (generally 7), then rights revert back to us. I explained that many artists have made their pensions and most of their income on the latter portion of this deal. And for tv/screenwriters this would also hold true: who knew the A-Team would one day be available on DVD and itunes? And who knows what other uses there will be in the future?
Going forward into new media (internet, phones, something we haven't yet invented), we should lobby to retain our copyright. This is the third-rail of studio/WGA negociations, and if we don't work towards this, we will very possibly be out on the line again in another 3 years fighting to get paid another sliver for our work.
That being said, members said they would look into these issues, as they require legislation.
All in all, it was an incredible day on the Hill, except for the part where Disney's lobbyist was following us around, including to an event across town (where there were only 15 other people in the room!). And he was furiously taking notes without saying a word; if I get blacklisted, you'll know why. Also in attendance at the mock debate was Time-Warner's guy.
The studios are used to owning those halls, and never expected us to come there and be so high profile, not to mention successful. Hopefully this will be the start of a beautiful relationship between the WGA and the Hill.
Proving that walking the picket line stimulates your comic chops, the members of the Strike Club, formerly of Sony's Madison Gate and now keeping watch over the Galaxy Gate at Fox, offer up a short film that pokes a finger in the eye of the faceless congloms.
It's tragic when a dog runs away. It's even worse when a media mogul runs away. Back on December 7th, someone left the door open, and the moguls all dashed out of negotiations into the street and haven't been seen since.
Our friend "Rubber Poultry" designed a series of Missing Mogul posters to help us track them down. And a reward is offered! If anyone can lure these moguls back to the table, he or she will receive the respect and gratitude of the entire entertainment industry.
Our first poster features an old but loveable mutt, "Sumner."
The WGA waits by the negotiating table while the AMPTP is MIA. And the moguls couldn't be bothered to attend Wednesday's LA City Council meeting because they were flying off for their vacations. (from Strike Life)
Or... was it because they had some other, more important meeting to attend?
This animated comparison of how many nickels the conglomerates have made off of "new" media vs. how many nickels writers have made was sent to us by a mysterious supporter known as "Four Cent." Thanks for the hard work, FC.
Below is the latest Strike Life video, a series of improvised shorts performed by WGA members and produced by WGA members, Chris Nolan and Laurie Nolan. Since the internet is the center of the current WGA labor strike against the Alliance Of Motion Picture & Television Producers � what better place to tell our side of the story.
