There is still very little known about the life of Vivian Maier. What is known is that she was born in New York in 1926 and worked as a nanny for a family on Chicago’s North Shore during the 50s and 60s. Seemingly without a family of her own, the children she cared for eventually acted as caregivers for Maier herself in the autumn of her life. She took hundreds of thousands of photographs in her lifetime, but never shared them with anyone. Maier lost possession of her art when her storage locker was sold off for non-payment. She passed away in 2009 at the age of 83.

The Los Angeles Ghost Patrol is a paranormal investigation team focused on Southern California hauntings. The project came into our radar thanks to project producer Susan Bell, who has come up with a great Prezi presentation to describe exactly the Transmedia stratergy for LAGP. Among the platforms developed for the project include the web, film, TV and an ARG.

The Rising is an organization made up of both ordinary people & genetically unique warriors known as Seers. The Rising is dedicated to the preservation and advancement of human society, and the destruction of the Wraiths. The Rising came into our radar by creators Philip Gable and Lauren Scime from Witchfactory Productions. The driving platform for the projects is the book, which is currently available for purchase here.

GATES is a young man living a wretched existence in an isolated colony of humans. Deep within the caverns of an industrial mountain complex, his society is ruled by a totalitarian government called the ConGenement–who controls all facets of life. Gates came into our radar by creator Hal Hefner. The driving platform for the project is the web comic, which as of recently just wrapped up the first year of publication. The comic is being presented by Heavy Metal Magazine.

See April’s full list here (& Part 1 & 2):

http://thearrglingtonjump.com/blog/2012/01/26/a-year-in-showcases-part-3#

5 low-profile startups that could change the face of big data

By Derrick Harris Jan. 28, 2012, 3:00pm PT 7 Comments

Big data is hot, but infrastructure-level platforms such as Hadoop, which focus on storage and processing, still need help to take them into the mainstream. They need a killer app or two that will let companies analyze, visualize and act on all that data without hiring a team of Stanford Ph.Ds, or that will let developers write big-data apps without having to reinvent the wheel.

Here are five startups (in alphabetical order) either in stealth mode or just out of it that could help take Hadoop and its ilk to the promised land.

1. BloomReach

The stealth-mode BloomReach is taking a very targeted, very hands-free approach to big data for its customers. It’s offering a SaaS-based product that job listings say is for “helping leading online businesses uncover the highest quality, most relevant content sought by their consumers, when and where they want it.” Founded by a team with roots at Google, Cisco, Facebook and Yahoo, among other companies, BloomReach has, according to one estimate, about 160 customers — all of them among the top 10,000 websites, and most of them in the retail space. Among its core technologies and methods are Hadoop, Lucene, Monte Carlo simulations and large-scale image processing.

Excerpt from gigaom.com. Full post here:

http://gigaom.com/cloud/5-low-profile-startups-that-could-change-the-face-of-…

Excerpt from the full TechCrunch group:

“Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and YouTube need to develop marketing chops, and ways to communicate with audiences on a deep visceral level. They all have a huge and powerful opportunity to move audiences — an intimate, activated, one-to-one relationship with a person sitting just an arms length away from their computer screen; or on their couch with a brand-new jury rigged gadget, invested, motivated and ready to get their socks knocked-off. Instead, users are greeted with a miasma of cover art, lists of titles in all shapes and sizes and a search box — no communication, no connection.

How can digital entertainment services connect with audiences? Three easy steps, and a bonus feature:

1. People. Tech companies need to hire people to shine a light on the best stuff, and craft the stories that sell it to audiences (at least for now, until computers catch-up and develop wit, emotion, creativity the ability to write with heart). Some people call this curation. Others packaging and promotion.

2. Design. They need to create interfaces to capture audiences and connect to users.
Living, breathing beautiful displays that make you watch, and want to click.

3. Tools. Tech companies should leverage what their platforms do best — target, track and account — to deliver those stories to interested audiences en masse….”

January 27, 2012 | Posted by Tom Sakash

Our Sunday best: World’s first transmedia sculpture walk makes its home in Davis

Finley Fryer’s “Stan, the Submerging Man ” will be a “portal to another world” during the first-ever transmedia sculpture walk on Friday, Feb. 17. Fred Gladdis/Enterprise photo

Sorry, Mayor Bloomberg, but New York City won’t be the first city in the world to feature a transmedia walking tour through its busy streets. In a few short weeks, that honor will belong to Davis.

On Friday, Feb. 17, John Natsoulas, in collaboration with Monto H. Kumagai, a software developer, and Finley Fryer, a UC Davis graduate and local artist, will unveil the beginnings of a transmedia sculpture walk highlighting various pieces of artwork in key locations throughout downtown Davis.

The inaugural walk will take place at 4:30 p.m. that day, beginning at the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 First St.

Natsoulas said that besides “Stan, the Submerging Man,” which already is in place in front of the gallery, artwork is scheduled to be installed next week in front of the Davis Commons shopping center at First and E streets; at Dowling Properties at Third and D streets; at Davis Ace Housewares at Third and G streets; and in front of Ace Hardware in the 300 block of G Street.

“These are the first five that will be placed. We will place five more in the month of March,” Natsoulas said. “Our goal is to have at least 15 to 20 new sculptures up by the end of the year.”

read the full article here!:

http://www.davisenterprise.com/features/sunday-best/our-sunday-best-worlds-fi…

By Randy Astle in News
on Friday, January 27th, 2012

Excerpt:

“…All of this greatly expanded HBO’s audience for the new season, which reached 8.7 million viewers, and along the way hardcore fans were also offered a series of puzzles, embedded in each phase, that allowed them to advance along the “Maester’s Path” and unlock footage from the shows. The site is still live at http://themaesterspath.com and is well worth exploring. Social media was included throughout the campaign, and one important component of mastering the Maester’s Path was recruiting five other users.

Along the way Coulson learned several lessons he shared with us. Some include:

* In an increasingly digital world, physical objects can surprise and delight.

* Nothing creates story more evocatively than great actors.

* When world-building, define the experience as a story and you will find the story in the experience.

* Use live events to congregate communities.

* Use the community you’ve created to reach out and expand the community; deputize them by allowing them a creative role.

* Be like “old Lego,” which let users determine what to create out of their blocks, rather than “new Lego,” which predetermines what each set is designed to build. Create the materials and give users free range.

And finally:

* Everything you need to know about marketing you can learn from magicians, the technique they use to tell a story/perform a trick….”

Read the full post here for more details:

http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/news/2012/01/storycode-and-game-of-thrones/

Excerpt:

post by: Jacob Aron, technology reporter

“The MakerBot Replicator is the kind of personal 3D printer that could help with the Pirate Bay’s plans (Image: MakerBot Industries)

The Pirate Bay, one of the internet’s most well-known sites for downloading copyrighted material such as music, films and ebooks, has launched a new category of digital downloads: physical objects.

“Writing on the site’s blog, a Pirate Bayer calling himself WinstonQ2038 explained the thinking behind the new category: “We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles. Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical.”

“…Objects currently listed in the Physibles category include a 3D version of the Pirate Bay logo, a toy race car and a model robot. The latter two are potentially infringing versions of existing designs, but WinstonQ2038 claims the site has more egalitarian aims: “The benefit to society is huge. No more shipping huge amount of products around the world. No more shipping the broken products back. No more child labour. We’ll be able to print food for hungry people….”

Read the full post from the newscientist.com here:

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2012/01/filesharing-site-serves-…

January 27, 2012

On Transmedia and Education: A Conversation With Robot Heart Stories’ Jen Begeal and Inanimate Alice’s Laura Fleming (Part One)

This week, I want to showcase two innovative projects which seek to explore the intersections between transmedia storytelling, participatory culture, and education — Robot Heart Stories and Inanimate Alice. Here’s some background on the two projects, taken from their respective home pages:

Robot Hearts Stories is an experiential learning project that uses collaboration and creative problem solving to put education directly in the hands of students. This fall, two classrooms, a continent apart, will work together to get a lost robot home, and they will need your help… The experience begins when a robot crash lands in Montreal and must make her way to LA in order to find her space craft and return home. Two class rooms in underprivileged neighborhoods, one in Montreal (French speaking) and the other in LA (English speaking), will use math, science, history, geography and creative writing to help the robot make her way across North America. At the same time, Robot Hearts Stories extends beyond the classroom, as the project welcomes involvement from a global audience. We need participants of all ages to share their own passions in the form of a creative act involving a robot they can print, customize and document. For each photo or piece of art featuring the robot that is submitted, the “signal strength” of the robot grows stronger and helps her to get back home. Robot Heart Stories is the first in a trilogy of experiential learning projects from award winning storytelling pioneer Lance Weiler and creative producer Janine Saunders.

Robot Heart Stories from WorkBook Project on Vimeo.

Read the full interview here & watch for Part 2!:

http://henryjenkins.org/2012/01/on_transmedia_and_education.html