Off Topic: Reflecting on some of my top YouTube videos (includes video clips)

I rarely check the stats of my YouTube videos.  Today when I checked the stats, I was surprised to see that I have a nice following, without really trying.

I started uploading video clips to YouTube in 2006, to share vacation videos with family and friends.  This was before YouTube was bought out by Google. Nearly everything that I've "produced" myself was not done in HD. There were strict guidelines about the size of video uploads during the earlier years of YouTube, so my videos look pretty low-tech. Most are lightly edited, if at all.

I used YouTube to store a few video clips I made when I was taking computer courses (HCI, Ubicomp, etc.). Again, most of my video clips were less-than polished.

One of my secrets is that I do know how to produce/shoot/edit video.  This summer, I plan to re-do my most popular videos, and add some new ones that I'm sure my YouTube viewers will enjoy.

I have lots of HD video of vacations that I'd love to share! For now, take a look at my mostly low-def, low-tech "showcase":

Cute Kitty Video: My daughter's pets. I uploaded this for fun, and now it has over 210,000 views!


Monet's Gardens (no-music version)


Monet's Gardens, With Music (I added music from iMovie to the video after a request from a viewer.)


The following video one was taken by my younger daughter as we were driving to NYC in July of 2001, just two months before the 9/11/2001 tragedy. I was trying to figure out my route, my daughter was trying to capture video of the Twin Towers in the distance, and in the middle of it all, a huge plane flew across the highway.


My first attempt at a "travel" video clip:


Beach at St. Lucia
I have much better footage of this beach.


Cute Kitty Video: "Very Happy"
This is the "cute kitty" grown up a bit. The music is something that came with my Yamaha Motif keyboard. The "Very Happy" part of the music is a sampling from a voicemail message left to me by my daughter. This sample, among others, found a home in some music I composed/created but never quite finished.


This video was taken in Cozumel, just after the region experienced a devastating hurricane. I loved this music! The video was shot with my low-tech point-and shoot camera, and not edited, as you can see by the last frame of the video...


Labadie, Haiti:  We were on a cruise and Labadie was one of the ports.  This was taken before the earthquake.



I'm experimenting with "monetizing" some of my most popular YouTube videos. If you happen to see an ad related to any of my video clips on YouTube that is objectionable, please let me know.

2010 International Computer Music Conference in NY. I wish I could go!

I'm usually too busy during the last month or so of the school year to attend conferences.  One I'd really like to attend is the 2010 International Computer Music Conference in N.Y.  Music is an important component of interactive multimedia content, and new technologies have made things a lot easier for musicians who are technologically inclined.  Conferences like ICMC are a great way to see - and hear - what is going on.

Links:
ICMC Paper Schedule 
ICMC 2010 Poster/Demo Schedule
Thomas Erbe's ICMC Workshop:  Pure Data Object Programming
(see bio and plug below)

Intriguing Topics: 
"Gestural Shaping and Transformation in a Universal Space of Structure and Sound"
"SoundCatcher:  explorations in audio-looping and time-freezing using an open-air gestural controller"
"Sense/Stage - low cost, open source wireless sensor infrastructure for live performance and interactive, real-time environments"
"The Four M's:  Music, Mind, Motion, Machines"
"A Wireless, Real-time Social Music Performance System for Mobile Phones"
"Because we are all falling down: Physics, Gestures, and Relative Realities"
"Argos:  An open-source application for building multi-touch musical interfaces"
"Peacock: a non-haptic 3D performance interface"
"Head Tracking for 3D Audio using the Nintendo WII"
"The Avatar Initiative- An Interdisciplinary Approach to Digital Media Research and Education"
"Computer Controlled Video as a Multi-modal Interface in Live Acousmatic Music"
"The Machine Orchestra"
"Eye. Breathe. Music"
"Combining audiovisual mappings for 3D musical interaction"

ICMC Unconference Categories

PdBarCamp
Sensory Interaction in Composition and Performance
Language, Neurology, and Acoustics
Open Scores and Accessible, Consumer Devices
Issues in Computer Music Performance
Computer Music and Society:  Questions of Dissemination

Realistically,  I'd be happy with a bit more time to play my keyboard! 
(The very first class I took when I decided to return to school to take computer classes was computer music technology.)

My plug for Tom Erbe, from the ICMC website 

Instructor Bios:

"Tom Erbe has had an important role in American experimental and electronic music of the last 20 years. In addition to his pioneering and widely used program SoundHack, he has become one of the most sought after and respected sound engineers for contemporary music. In 2004 he rejoined the faculty of UCSD in the Department of Music and serves as Studio Director. Most recently Tom has released SoundHack Spectral Shapers, the first of a planned set of three plugin bundles to bring extreme spectral processing to the VST, AU and RTAS formats."

If you are thinking about experimenting with sound, Tom Erbe's SoundHack freeware is awesome. His spectral shapers are worth every penny.  (I used the +binaural filter to create a 3D effect of racing car sounds for one of the students I work with who has autism and loves racing cars.)

+binaural

This filter places a sound at a specific position around the listener's head. Use it with a reverb to create a virtual environment. When used with it's LFO, +binaural can place various beats or parts of a loop in specific repeatable positions.

SOMEWHAT RELATED
When I get a moment, I'm reading my latest issue of IEEE Multimedia cover-to-cover:
Special Issue:  Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia


(The second class I took after I returned to school to take computer classes was Computer and Internet Multimedia.)

Preview: Update on Touch & Multitouch Technologies, Websites, and Touch-Interactive Multimedia Apps

It is about time for an update about touch/gesture- interactive technologies.

I've been researching the latest in "touch" screens and new developments in interactive multi-media content.  In just one year, a multitude of websites have been transformed from static to interactive. 

Although the initial objective for some of these websites was to optimize the interface and navigation for people accessing websites via touch-screen cell phones,  some are ideal for use on touch-enabled slates, the iPad, and even larger touch screen displays and surfaces.   

Convergence seems to be the buzz word of the day.   Interactive TV.  Game sets with Internet access.  Movies on your cell phone.  Touch screen Coke machines displaying movie trailers.  What's happening now, and what is next?

I welcome input from my readers in the form of links to websites, university labs with grad students and professors who are obsessed with emerging interactive technologies, proof-of-concept video clips, video clips of related technologies that are new-to-market, etc.   

I will add video clips to the following playlist:

My Post-Wimp Explorer's Club YouTube Playlist 

FYI: I'm also in the middle of writing a series of posts about 3D television technologies for the Innovative Interactivity blog, and welcome input from my readers about this topic.

RELATED (Previous posts)

More Multi-touch

Updated:  More News, Videos, and Links about Multi-touch and Screen Technologies  (Lots of stuff!)

Applications for touch, multi-touch, and gesture interaction:  What's Marching to Market?

(the above post includes links to various multi-touch developer kits and resources)

IntuiLab's Interfaces

SMART Technologies Acquires NextWindow

Ideum's GestureWorks vs. Adobe AIR2 and Flash Player comparison of multi-touch and gesture support

News from NUITEQ and 3M

A few things from LM3Labs

Updates about NextWindow and Stantum; Upcoming Emerging Displays Conference

Interactive Mobile Multimedia

Multi-touch Linux on a Stantum Slate PC & More (links to a nice overview about multi-touch interaction from ENAC)

Multimedia, Multi-touch, Gesture, and Interaction Resources (needs a little updating)

CNN's Interactive Map and Timeline of Iraq and Afghanistan Casualties "Home and Away"

Via Flowing Data and CNN

Nathan Yau, of Flowing Data, posted information and a link to CNN's interactive Casualties: Home and Away website. This website allows you to visually explore the casualty statistics of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, beginning with the first of the fallen in 2001. You can zoom into a region and see pictures and names of people.  The website provides a way for friends and family to share memories about their loved ones.

Home and Away also provides a "list view" option, shown in one of the pictures below.  Visitors to the site can sort by name or year of death.  Sliders on the map view provide a way of looking at the pattern of deaths over time.  It is sad, but this website makes us remember that war is real.  Deaths are not simply statistics.

CNN Afghanistan Crossroads Blog

Flowing Data
Home and Away

20 Educational (and free!) Multimedia Resources - via Innovative Interactivity Guest Blogger, Tim McLaughlin

Here is the link to the Innovative Interactivity blog post:

20 Educational (and free!) Multimedia Resources

Quick Post: Video- Electroactive Polymers (EAP) for a Robot Head; link to OpenMaterials.org

Electroactive Polymer Robot Head


For more information:  
Electroactive Polymers (EAP) as Artificial Muscles (EPAM) for Robotic Applications
Wikipedia:  Electroactive Polymers

Electroactive Polymers Robot "Flying Fish" Transparent Blimp

"The worldwide first EAP propelled airship was made at Empa in collaboration with aeroix GmbH and the Technical University of Berlin. This lighter-than-air vehicle with 8 m in length consists of a slightly pressurized Helium filled body of a biologically inspired form with Dielectric Elastomer (DE) actuators acting as muscles and deforming the body and tail fin in a fish-like manner."


I wonder if the Blimp's surface could be transformed for interactive ads....I'm sure someone is working on this now!

RELATED
OpenMaterials.org (This is a rabbit hole I'll need to explore further.)

"OpenMaterials is a research group dedicated to open investigation and experimentation with DIY production methods and uses of materials.

In the spirit of the open source software and hardware movements, we hope to promote materials to be researched and developed in a public, collaborative manner. We see materials as an open resource, and wish to establish an open process for exploring and sharing knowledge, techniques and applications related to materials science."

Smart & Adaptive Polymer Lab, University of Toronto

SOMEWHAT RELATED
Last night I dreamt about haptic touch-screen overlays... (IMT post from about a year ago that focuses on haptic/tactile feedback, electroactive polymers, and nano-materials.)

For a smile:  "Musical Heads" Watch the Neurosonics Audiomedical" video (via Chris O'Shea)