From Tupac to 'Gangster Arabi': Hip-Hop in the Middle East

Yuval Orr is dear to our hearts at the media lab. Not only was he a Selzter Grant awardee, but we've witnessed him work hard over the past years on an array of projects.

Check out a conversation he'll be presenting tomorrow called:
"From Tupac to 'Gangster Arabi': Hip-Hop in the Middle East"
Yuval Orr, C’11
...B.A. Candidate
Modern Middle Eastern Studies
College of Arts & Sciences

As change sweeps across the Middle East, the voices of the region's youth are beginning to be heard. Among the growing youth movements in the region is the hip-hop community, spanning from Morocco to Iran. These artists have adopted this musical form, and the cultural movement behind it, as a medium through which to construct and express their identity to their own communities and the rest of the world. The growing hip-hop scenes and movements in Morocco, Israel, and Palestine in particular represent a significant crossroad between an American art form and local traditions. Through hip-hop, artists across the region grapple with the weight of cultural convergences, from the foundational influences of Tupac Shakur to the contemporary image of the Gangster Arabi.

See the Facebook Event.

3D Images on the iPhone

We discovered (actually it was featured on Make:Blog and CNN) a really fun and groundbreaking app today for the iPhone. It is called Trimensional and it allows you to make a low quality 3d image using just the camera on your iPhone or iPad. This file can then be emailed as an actual 3d model file (which you could then print on a 3d printer) or as an animated gif. These are examples of images we took in the lab.

Here is a link to the app in the iTunes store and a video from the creator if you'd like some more details about the app. Feel free to try out the app on our iPad2 in the lab.

Philly Tech Week

Philly tech week begins April 25th! What's this, you ask?

Philly Tech Week a week-long celebration of technology and innovation in Philadelphia. The annual week of events is intended to grow the impact of this innovative region through programming focused on technology, collaboration and improving Philadelphia. The inaugural week takes place April 25th to April 30th and will feature events from partners like The Franklin Institute, Independents Hall and First Round Capital.

There are all sorts of really interesting events, I for one will be attending the Girl Geek dinner.

Philly Tech Week is being organized by Technically Philly, a news site that covers the people who use technology in Philadelphia.

New Projectors Added!

The lab has added two new Infocus IN-104 Projectors to its inventory. You can go to our equipment page here to make a reservation.

Richard Stallman Coming to Penn

Richard Stallman will be coming to Penn next Wednesday to give a talk.

Richard Stallman (rms) is the father of the GNU operating system and the Free Software Foundation and a key member of the hacker culture. He is one of the most infamous figures in the computer science world and one of the premier thinkers on digital ethics. Come hear him speak about Digital Inclusion at 4:30PM on Wednesday (the 20th) in Wu & Chen Auditorium.

He has received the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award, the EFF Pioneer award, a MacArthur Fellowship genius grant, as well as numerous honorary doctorates. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman for more information about him personally.

Space is limited, so please go to http://git.to/rms to RSVP (or to find out more details) if you would like to come.

Preserving Your Family Photographs

We all have photographs that document our family stories. Join us to learn how to preserve these photographic materials – from 19th century daguerreotypes to contemporary digital images. Barbara Lemmen, Senior Photograph Conservator at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts (CCAHA) in Philadelphia, will present an illustrated lecture which will cover how to handle, store, and display photographs. There will be time to view samples of various photographic processes as well as to inspect currently available long-term
storage systems.

Tuesday, April 26 5:30pm
Class of '55 Conference Room
Van Pelt Library

This lecture is free, but due to space limitations RSVP to Abby Eron at 215-545-0613 or aeron@ccaha.org by April 25, 2011

Planning your Documentary

We're very lucky to have Ellen Reynolds presenting this workshop on how to organize a long-term documentary video project. Ellen is the lab supervisor at the School of Design, and has taught film and video at both the University of the Arts and UPenn. She is also a filmmaker herself, specializing in documentary film.

She will discuss the optimal field package for your project, equipment purchases, editing options, planning for travel/shooting in challenging environments, and learning to shoot for the edit. She will provide examples of organizational aids, release forms, and timelines. Designed for undergraduates considering multimedia as part of a research project.

When: Wednesday, Apr 6, 03:30 -5:00pm
Where: Class of '55 Conference Room, Van Pelt Library, 2nd floor West. Moved to WIC Seminar Room, Van Pelt Library, 1st floor West.

Sign up on our website.

New, Dynamic Blog views for Blogger

Blogger now offers five dynamic views for its public blogs. These views are only accessible if allowed for by the blog author, although they seem to be permitted by default.

• Flipcard: available at [blogURL]/view/flipcard
• Mosaic: available at [blogURL]/view/mosaic
• Sidebar: available at [blogURL]/view/sidebar
• Snapshot: available at [blogURL]/view/snapshot
• Timeslide: available at [blogURL]/view/timeslide

As an example, the URL for accessing the Mosaic view for our own blog would be http://vitaledigitalmedialab.blogspot.com/view/mosaic.

Full details at http://goo.gl/DuVOK.

Epub file creation

I recently created my first .epub file. This is a type of e-book file that can be read on Android devices, the Nook, Sony Reader, and portable Apple devices among others. The files are a little odd in the way they need to be formatted. Here are a few resources I found helpful when creating my first document.

http://calibre-ebook.com/
Calibre is a free and open source e-book library management application developed by users of e-books for users of e-books. This program allows you to convert between several different formats.

http://code.google.com/p/sigil/
Sigil is Google's free multi-platform WYSIWYG ebook editor.

Adobe TV ebook creation using InDesign
This is a link to a series of three videos on Adobe TV about ebook creation using InDesign. These are what I primarily used to get started, and they helped a lot, although you need a little bit of an InDesign background to get started. You also need to be using InDesign CS4 or CS5 to export the .epub file.

Stabilize with YouTube

Did you know that Youtube has a "stabilize" feature in it's video editing mode? I didn't. This is how it works.

It's pretty simple. I could imagine this being really helpful for videos shot with a phone that you don't want to have to import, edit, then export through an additional editing program.

iPad 2

Come try our brand new iPad 2! We already had an original iPad, so feel free to try them side-by-side to compare them. (The white one with the fancy lime green magnetic cover is the new one, and the black one is the original model.) We've already added the new GarageBand and iMovie, which are very cool to use. Let us know if there are specific apps you'd like to see and we'll do our best to install them for you to try. Enjoy!

showmypc.com

Do your parents ever call you up with mundane computer questions? Do you ever have a hard time walking them through something because they don't know what the "Desktop" is. Well your prayers for a simple solution have been answered. There have been many ways to remotely connect to a computer in the past, but showmypc.com is about the easiest one out there. This is a free service that allows you to connect to a pc, a mac, even devices running Android. Showmypc.com not only allows you to view other people's screen, but it allow you to control their computer remotely. It does have a slight delay, but it is completely functional for most needs.

Firefox 4 Released Today!

Mozilla Firefox 4 was released today. Check out the details and new features at http://www.tomsguide.com/us/mozilla-firefox-firefox-4,news-10563.html

Mozilla likely will start prompting Firefox 3.x users to update following the first major update, currently scheduled for some time in April.

Playstation Kinect Hacking

There has been a lot of enthusiasm in Techie/Hacker communities lately about Sony's Kinect device. The Kinect used a series of cameras to track figures in a room, turning people's bodies into video game controllers. So instead of pressing a button on a controller to kick a soccer ball in a game, you simply kick your foot and the game responds. Sony has had mixed feelings about people ripping open their hardware and using it for their own uses, but recently they have been more open to the idea. Most of the modified uses of the hardware use custom software, and are not reliant on the Playstation 3, as was the initial intent. Here is one of the more entertaining examples of this technology being put to use.



Check out http://kinecthacks.net/ for some more examples.

Capcom, Zynga, Sega Donate Game Profits to Japan Aid

Gaming companies Capcom, Sega, and Zynga have announced that they're donating the profits from games like Streetfighter IV, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 and Cityville to relief efforts for victims of the Japanese tsunami for the next week.

See details and links:
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/03/street-fighter-japan-donation/

Gadget Day this Friday

Come to our annual Gadget Day this Friday, March 18.

This year we'll be demonstrating a mixture of hardware (iPad 2.0, LiveScribe pens, Smart phones) and software (Evernote, Facetime).

For more information, including a detailed schedule, see:
http://wic.library.upenn.edu/wicshops/gadget03182011.html

Just Add Maggots

Come see Colette Copeland's new multimedia installation, "Just Add Maggot" at International House. The opening reception is tomorrow from 7-8pm. See you there!

Refreshing

We're in the process of refreshing all of the software on the lab workstations. This means we'll be wiping them clean and then reinstalling a fresh copy of everything. We'll be upgrading some software (Welcome to Microsoft Office 2011!), and we're also hoping that this will fix the occasional quirkiness we've experienced on certain machines in the lab.

If you want to get a head start on the new version of the machines, Ask the lab consultant to put you on workstation 4A or 5A, which have already gone through the process. Let us know of any questions you have or problems you encounter.

Dropbox Apps

If you follow this blog or have been to the media lab, then you probably know that we're fans of Dropbox. If that's a new term for you, Dropbox is a service that can seamlessly sync your files across multiple computers and also provides features like shared and public folders. This allows you to share/sync only the content you want to be synced with the other computer. Translation: Dropbox can act as a backup system for your files. You can also transfer larger media files using this service. You can sign up and immediately have 2GB worth of space for.....free. Zero dollars. Goodbye Yousendit, Zshare, and all those other annoying ad-heavy file sharing sites.

Here's a couple tips that can improve Dropbox's functionality. Well worth a gander.

iPad 2.0 details

Apple held their iPad 2 event yesterday, unveiling the new device. It has some spiffy new features:
-Front and Rear cameras for use with Facetime and recording HD video
-A slightly awkward looking, but impressively designed cover
-Integration of Photobooth, GargageBand, and iMovie (yeah... iMovie)
-A thinner, lighter frame
-More speed
-so on so forth

Check out Apple.com for all the details.

They have also reduced the price of the iPad 1.0 by a significant amount. You can check here at the Apple store to find the 16GB WiFi model starting at $350