On Justin.tv and Internet voyeurism
I’m kind of surprised to see such a huge following behind Justin.tv, where this guy wears a camera on his head 24/7 that streams video to the Web. Supposedly he’ll wear the camera until the day he dies, but I expect either a) He’ll develop such a creepy following that he’ll be forced to end the project early, or b) Fans of site will come to realize that the only thing more boring than going about their daily routine is watching someone else go about their daily routine. Haven’t we seen this bubble come and go already?
Besides Hollywood’s various interpretations of the trend like The Truman Show (1998) and Edtv (1999), there was a site called We Live in Public all the way back in 2000 (official site via the Internet Archive), an experimental art project that outfitted dot-com entrepreneur Josh Harris’ loft with dozens of webcams, including one in the toilet (ew). The project ultimately ended after Harris’ at-the-time girlfriend, Tanya Corrin, inevitably left him, and Harris suffered mental illness as a result of being in the public eye continuously for six months. Corrin summed up how the project impacted her life:
“Life under surveillance was making me jumpy. I started looking for hidden cameras in public places and friends’ apartments. I bought Mace and stopped answering the door. I began spending a lot of time outside the house, focusing on yoga and friends while maintaining the press schedule Josh had set up.”
While the idea of broadcasting your life on the Internet might seem far-fetched, many of us are essentially already taking part in the phenomenon with social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook. I think we’ll start seeing more and more of this as social networking becomes more pervasive, and more of our lives are shared (voluntarily, even) with the world.
Canadian telcos are (officially) ripping you off
You thought I was being dramatic when I commented on how archaic our wireless telecommunications providers are in Canada? Joey deVilla points to a study done of Canadian, US, and other telcos to compare how much it costs to send 500 MB of data:
This just days after the CWTA boasted results of a survey that claims that 82% of wireless users polled believe there “is enough or more than enough choice in the number of wireless service providers.” Sure, there’s enough choice, but all the choices are terrible, so what’s the point in having choices at all? Needless to say, I’m not looking forward to my first bill with Rogers after going a little crazy with my new Pearl this week. That’s it, I’m moving to New Zealand…
Naked & Angry
It’s not what you think it is. There’s already a huge community backing Threadless, a T-shirt/clothing store with designs created and voted on by its users. Once a design gets enough votes from the users, it goes into production and is put up for sale on the site. Naked & Angry is another project by skinnyCorp, the guys behind Threadless, and is doing for other products, including ties and wallpaper (so far), what Threadless did for clothing; User-generated content hitting the physical world.
Upcoming shows in TO I plan to see
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Air - May 5 @ Kool Haus
LCD Soundsystem - May 8 @ The Phoenix
Feist - May 25 @ Massey Hall
Madeleine Peyroux - June 13 @ Massey Hall
Daft Punk - August 5 @ International Centre
I’ve got some people in mind to see a few of these, but if you’re interested in seeing any of the above, let me know.
Joost
I just got into the beta for Joost last week, a new P2P IPTV application from the creators of Skype, and I’ve got to say it’s pretty slick. Great UI, nice quality content (near-HD), and best of all, it’s free.
Flickr Related Tag Browser
Continuing on my recent obsession with data visualization, here’s a great Flickr Related Tag Browser. Lots of visual goodness here.
1 Bloor St. to be “signature” for Toronto
The developers of 1 Bloor St. are hoping that it will “instantly become a recognizable symbol of Toronto and firmly establish its presence on the international stage.” 1 Bloor’s first four floors will be be host to a 120-room hotel, with the rest of the building dedicated to condos. The atrium of the building will also have a prominent retail space, as well as a restaurant and lounge. It’s great to see the city actively looking at rejuvenating this intersection, since this area of Yonge St. can be kind of touch and go.
derBauer design
derBauer is a German design company that does amazing Flash and UI work. The sound alone (5.1 surround sound, if I’m not mistaken) on this site will blow you away.
Recommended Listening: Karmacoda on the Chillcast
I’m a recent subscriber to The Chillcast by Anji Bee, and if you’re into downtempo music, I’d highly recommend her most recent podcast, the Karmacoda Feature. They’re a great ensemble from San Francisco, and I’ll definitely be buying some of their songs on iTunes.
Processing
Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and sound. It is used by students, artists, designers, architects, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production.
I came across Processing earlier last year after stumbling on a number of projects that were making use of it, including We Feel Fine and Universe, and hope to get in to tinkering with it at some point soon.
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Adam is a User Experience Specialist at IBM in Toronto and also produces content of all kinds around the Web.
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