Techno - FishbowlLA

Dude, Here’s Your App

Richard Horgan — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 07:00:25 +0000

The two stoners played by Ashton Kutcher and Sean William Scott in the 2000 movie Dude, Where’s My Car? would likely approve. It took 12 long years for someone to drop the comma and finally turn their titular movie question into an iPhone App.

That someone is 26-year-old Michigan native Mike Holp. Now living in Austin, Texas, he tells FishbowlLA there have been about 7,000 downloads of the free Dude Where’s My Car App since he launched four months ago. And yes, just like the movie and famous Seinfeld episode, it’s designed to help people who have forgotten where they parked their vehicle:

Who hasn’t lost their car in the parking lot? With this App, you will never lose your car again! All you have to remember to do is a drop a pin when you park. The App does all the rest!

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Journalism Site Checks In with LAT’s ‘Robot Reporters’

Richard Horgan — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 08:30:31 +0000

Sarah Marshall shares a couple of fascinating new examples at journalism.co.uk of the algorithm-assisted reporting being perfected at the LA Times under the watchful eye of database producer Ben Welsh (pictured).

The first is an early-morning Ken Schwencke-bylined item on February 1 about a 5.2 magnitude earthquake that hit SoCal. Even though the reporter was still in bed, he was first to the news:

“Ken wrote the algorithm that sits on top of earthquake notifications,” Welsh explained. “The structured data comes in and Ken has an algorithm that says if the earthquake is close to California and over a certain magnitude it is ‘news’.”

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William Shatner Goes Boldly Where Many Have Gone Before: The App Store

Richard Horgan — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 09:30:10 +0000

On the original Star Trek series, William Shatner as Captain Kirk would typically command crew members to set their phasers on “stun.” With his very first Smartphone App Shatoetry, the enterprising actor is offering purchasers the choice of two different modes.

Solo mode allows one person to slice and dice recorded Shatner words into a stream than can be shared via email and social media. Co-op Mode puts the creative exercise on a timer and enables users (“Shatoetists”) to co-create sampled phrases (“Shatisms”) with their online friends.

“People all over the world have been listening to my voice for so long, but they’ve only ever heard what I wanted to say,” explains master of shameless self-promotion Shatner. “This is one of the first Apps to extend a celebrity brand in such an interactive way. Every time I use it, I enjoy it more and more.”

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Tom Foremski: iPhone 5 Coverage Encapsulates Everything That is Wrong with Tech Journalism

Richard Horgan — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 18:00:47 +0000

The name Tom Foremski may not be immediately familiar beyond Silicon Valley, but he holds a rather remarkable distinction. He was the first reporter from a major daily newspaper to defect to the ranks of full-time blogging in 2004 when he left the Financial Times.

Foremski decries what passes these days for legitimate tech journalism. Although Fortune magazine for example sent five reporters to Apple’s big iPhone 5 announcement in San Francisco, he notes that the much bigger story was unfolding next door at the Intel Developer Conference. He says most tech journalists have become six-Web-items-a-day “product journalists,” celebrated for breaking product specs ahead of the mass-market consumer sales sheet:

Each time I write about the dull state of tech journalism I get a lot of support from readers. Much of it comes from the PR industry where there is a surprisingly large and passionate distaste for product journalism. It’s encouraging to know that there are many others fed up with the state of tech journalism today and that there’s support for change.

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George Takei Releases Ringtone to Support New Theatrical Venture

Pandora Young — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 12:29:55 +0000

George Takei is a lot of wonderful things: Sulu on the original Star Trek, unofficial king of Facebook, gay rights activist, and a delightfully catty queer with a tendency to purr in his rich baritone, “Oh Myyy…”

Now Takei is turning his catch phrase into a ringtone to benefit the new play “Allegiance,” a musical about the Japanese-American internment camps during World War II. The show, in which Takei stars, will open in September at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego.

The ringtone costs $1.50 and all proceeds benefit the theater, so it’s a pretty cheap way to support the arts. And it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than going to the theater – tickets for “Allegiance” start at $39.

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KCRW Launches Spotify App

Matthew Fleischer — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 15:04:17 +0000

KCRW is set to become the first American radio station to broadcast on Spotify. The station is taking its Music Mine iPad app and recreating it on Spotify. Instead of simply listening to KCRW music and having it disappear into the void, the Spotify app will allow fans to keep track of the music they hear and play it again whenever they please. The daily playlists of KCRW’s DJs will be available on demand, online.

“Spotify’s musical offerings are tremendous and as music consumers adapt this technology into their listening habit, KCRW will be right there offering a curated list of the best music from around the world,” says KCRW director of new media Anil Dewan.

KCRW would be the first station in the world to land on Spotify, but, we’re told, ze Germans beat them to it a few months ago.

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Typing Karaoke W-i-n-s Second Annual Hollywood Hack Day

Richard Horgan — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 09:00:53 +0000

It was quite the scene last night at io/LA, a new incubator and work-share space in the heart of Hollywood. Row upon row of tired young male programmers, putting the finishing touches on 48-hour works of wonder and then presenting their proofs-of-concept in front of a panel of well-qualified startup industry judges. All part of the close of the second annual installment of Hollywod Hack Day.

While visiting (and co-sponsor ineligible) east coast Tumblr programmer John Bunting got the crowd all worked up at one point with his hilarious Dancing Party Gifs, which strung together select motion grabs to a thumping soundtrack, the grand prize winner was Travis Chen with the clever game Typing Karaoke. Instead of belting out the words, users test their typing skills by trying to keep up on the keyboard and follow-along screen with song lyrics. Warning: “Call Me Maybe” is not for the faint of QWERTY heart.

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Aussie Reporter Admits to Wii Bit of E3 Conflict-of-Interest

Richard Horgan — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 09:30:38 +0000

Jonathan Ross and-or his Sydney Morning Herald editors get points for the funny Star Trek-wink headline topping a dispatch from E3 about the new Wii U console. The banner reads: “It’s a Nintendo Jim, But Not As We Know It.”

Not so enterprising is the fact that the company pretty much paid cash for those words. Per Ross’ article:

In the interests of the very fullest disclosure, I must say that I am here as a guest of Nintendo, a company whose products over the past 20 years I have loved and continue to feel great affection for…

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THR Tests Josh Flagg’s Star Maps App

Richard Horgan — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 10:15:18 +0000

For a Hollywood Reporter piece about Million Dollar Listing host Josh Flagg’s recently released Star Maps App, reporter Daniel Miller compared the 99-cent product’s data with that of a couple of the more conventional six-dollar paper products. Miller discovered that the westside mobility of past and present celebs can be a hazard of this specialized trade:

The comparison revealed that only a handful of about two dozen randomly selected notables were listed on all three products: Elvis Presley, Warren Beatty, Aaron Spelling and Frank Sinatra. And each map gave a different address for Sinatra and Beatty. Flagg and [Movie Star Homes and Notorious Crime Scenes publisher Marko] Joelson say their Sinatra and Beatty addresses are correct, though they concede the stars lived at multiple properties.

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Matt Stone, Trey Parker Still Chasing After Epic Video Game

Richard Horgan — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Will this be the year the co-creators of South Park finally manage to replicate their zany brand of comedy into a truly memorable video game? ABC News blogger Dan Milano seems to think the chances are good. after attending today’s XBox media briefing at E3.

Milano, the network’s social media editor, writes on the side about tech and video games. He notes that with The Stick of Truth “at last it seems that gamers are in for a South Park game with a scope as epic as 1999′s South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.”

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Putting Samuel L. Jackson’s Siri Ad to the Test

Richard Horgan — Fri, 25 May 2012 07:00:02 +0000

Boston-based comedian Paul Kafasis has shared a very funny post on his blog One Foot Tsunami. After endlessly watching the “Date Night” TV ad in which Samuel L. Jackson works with Siri to prepare a romantic evening of gazpacho consumption, he decided to cook up a real-world test.

It was bad enough when Kafasis articulated to Siri the words, “Remind me to put the gazpacho on ice in an hour.” But things got really dicey when he then used a recording of Jackson mouthing the dialogue. Kafasis’ Siri responded with:

- Call Mirium Booksbaum
- Call Anna-Genelle Harev
- Call Ron Ridenhour

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Voice of San Diego Adds Monthly Print Magazine

Richard Horgan — Tue, 22 May 2012 18:10:31 +0000

Thanks to some financial assistance from The Knight Foundation and the technical transom of MagCloud, Voice of San Diego is heading in a very non-traditional digital media direction. The respected regional news source is adding a monthly print magazine.

Free to paying members as a perk and available for purchase to non-members, Voice of San Diego Monthly comes on the heels of the LA Times’ decision to shutter their Sunday magazine. Perhaps the paper can take a page from VoSD and consider re-upping the insert as a similar paywall subscriber benefit. From today’s Knight Foundation blog post by VoSD editor Scott Lewis:

When I discovered MagCloud, I got an idea and couldn’t shake it. Rather than let our stories sit on some virtual shelf, why not offer the chance for people to catch up? We floated the idea to Knight Foundation, which loved it and decided to help with the experiment by funding it.

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Gavin Newsom Promises a Technology-Driven Program

Richard Horgan — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 19:00:10 +0000

As the current Lieutenant Governor of California reminds at the top of his Hollywood Reporter mini-essay, he had his own radio show when he was the mayor of San Francisco. He says he loved how the broadcast allowed him to relay snippets of workplace conversation and that his return to the media airwaves via Current TV was borne largely out a desire to repeat that experience.

Since his radio days, Newsom has become a much bigger fan and proponent of technological innovation. Something he wants to use to shape his Current TV program The Gavin Newsom Show:

We don’t want this to just be a once-a-week show that’s repeated twice other days… We’re coming up with what I hope will be, in very innovative ways, the ability to reach a large audience and create an important feedback mechanism. Some of my friends in the technology world will come up with interesting, creative ways, and we will experiment with these.

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LA Startup Assignmint.com Promises to ‘Fix Freelancing’

Matthew Fleischer — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:48:32 +0000

Any of you freelancers out there ever get screwed out of a payment? We know we have. A new site, Assignmint.com, is promising to “fix freelancing.”

How exactly?

According to a recent writeup in Fast Company, the site will offer “a complete pitch-to-payment cloud workflow system for freelancers and their employers. It helps digitally manage work assignments, editorial calendars, invoices, pitches, expenses, contract information, and payment. Freelance journalists, meanwhile, will be able to have access to all their outstanding invoice and payment information in one place. The startup also plans to implement a clip and algorithm service to match freelancers with potential new clients.”

We spoke with one of Assignmint’s founders, former New York Press editor and recent LA transplant Jeff Koyen, who told us more about how the site will work.

“In short, as currently planned, the system will be free for all writers (and, in the future, any kind of freelancer). These are fully functioning accounts, no throttles, no limits. Freelancers can create, send and track pitches, create assignments from the ones that land, then track and manage these assignments all the way to the end. We’re also building editor-side tools — the same tools, in fact. Editors can filter and manage incoming pitches, issue assignments and then handle all related fulfillment (e.g. contracts and invoices) right from their dashboard. We’ll also have premium team editorial accounts that feature more workflow and sharing tools.”

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An Occupier’s Worst Nightmare: Forbes Launches Real-Time Billionaire Tracking

Richard Horgan — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 08:45:42 +0000

Assets check! Assets check!

That might be the new battle cry from the Occupy front in the face of a ridiculously humbling widget launched this week by Forbes – Real-Time Billionaires. Just as the name implies, the website is now tallying the aggregate hourly and daily value of stock market assets held by 50 of the world’s richest individuals.

Thanks to this new feature, it is now also possible at any given moment to confirm whether a certain Chinese mogul is living up to his prophetic name. We’re referring of course to Hong Kong high school dropout Lee Ka-shing.

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