WillBurrus.com

Anyone who knows me know that I absolutely breathe music. I have been in a bunch of bands, have boxes of original arrangements, produced some great artists, and worked for a cool label for a while. I have a room full of instruments at home, and I walk around half of the day with my acoustic electric in my hand. (It helps me think). I often joke around about how technology was a natural progression for me as a musician, because of the math...

Anyways, this video below brought me great joy. During my production years, I was always behind some boards or in front of a screen, and I fell in love with the purity of sound and control that technology gave me with the music I was arranging. But, I many times felt inferior, because I could not figure out how to replicate that cleanliness on stage, without dragging a keyboard rig and gear on stage. Who wants to watch someone hunched over a bunch of keyboards right? (This was before I saw the Crystal Method actually do a show).

I am happy to say, this guy, Liam Finn, figured it out in an incredibly cool way. He plays riffs and loops them and essentially arranges his song right there on stage. And it sounds great! I am sure it is an organic process, i.e. he probably screws up from time to time, but imagine what comes out in a good show! Man, I am jealous that I didnt think of this first.

This here, is true 'Creative Technology'. Enjoy! 

Digital Lifestyle, Future Technology, Trendspotting liam finn

Another very well done presentation on the paradigm shift that technology is creating in our society and culture. Just watch. There is really nothing else to say.

 

Digital Lifestyle, Future Technology, Trendspotting

Something I have been particularly intrigued with lately is this technology called Augmented Reality.

Essentially, a program can augment the feed from a web cam with virtual objects and allow you to interact with them via gesture. Its kind of hard to explain, but if you look at some examples, such as the Star Trek movie promo at http://joinstarfleetacademy.com/discover, you will see what I mean. After toying with this, of course my brain went into overdrive on how it could be effectively used by a brand. (BTW, I have some great ideas...and I am playing with the toolkit....feel free to call if you would like to chat :-))

Well, I have now seen a GREAT practical example of the use of this technology with USPS of all places. Now, if you are not sure what box size to use for shipping, fire up your browser, point your webcam at your desk, project a virtual box on it, and slide your content into the box!

Props to AKQA for a sweet digital campaign with purpose.

Check out the demo video here :  http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=93786512351

or try the actual tool here :  https://www.prioritymail.com/simulator.asp

Digital Lifestyle, Future Technology, Interactive Marketing, Trendspotting augmented reality

The web is it's OS
All screens look into the One.
No bits will live outside the web.
To share is to gain.
Let the One read it.

Sounds creepy, almost cultish huh? And yet, Kevin Kelly, exec editor at Wired, is dead on. Check this out:

 

Digital Lifestyle, Future Technology, Semantic Web, Trendspotting

Calling this a 'sixth sense' is perfect and extremely accurate. I have envisioned a world approaching very quickly where metadata would be readily available at any given point. The irony is, I though the transaction for this metadata would occur in the cellphone. We'll not if the MIT guys have anything to do with it. Check this video out of a talk by Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry about their 'wearable tech' technology. It appears that the semantic web will not be in the browser after all!

Digital Lifestyle, Future Technology, Semantic Web, Trendspotting mit. ted, pranav mistry, pattie maes, sixth sense

Here is a system for you car built on an ODP (Ontology-Based Dialogue Platform) framework by SemVox called Babble Tunes. Imagine the possibilitites as this thing matures!

Digital Lifestyle, Future Technology, Semantic Web ontology, odp, semvox, babble tunes