You could have communal art projects,  or art projects for the community. They could be dense and obscure  (hey, it’s art, nothing wrong with that!) or they could be simple and direct.  

You could have abstract projects,  such as a Mondrian-like grid in the sky that reflected traffic flow on the ground below.  Or a series of accumulations of small polygons that merely traveled about to in pleasing, ever-changing configurations like refugees from a Radiohead album cover.

Or you could go with more dramatic works.  A dragon that lives on the mountaintop and circles the valley from time to time,  guarding or perhaps merely observing the people below.   The dragon could still be a method of information-communication.   His flight pattern or disposition could indicate the state of the population he protects.  Or he could simply be an icon of his locale, a mascot or a symbol of community pride. 

You could also have more communal works.  Say a steampunkish zeppelin that allowed other individual works to orbit it.  Members of the community (which of course do not have to be geographically proximate) could devise the elements of the entourage and determine the way they interact, either on the basis of aesthetics or utility, or perhaps both.  The work would then represent a coming together of the locals, both literally and figuratively.

Another alternative- works that span the entire community area, but represent alterations to IRL that indicate group membership or presence.  Imagine small objects that individually simply add color or texture to a location, but when taken as an area-wide they whole comprise a symbol of a certain group. Think of each local “pixel” being part of a national flag when viewed from overhead, for example.

Which brings up the final point- viewpoints in AR do not necessarily have to be physical location of the viewer.  Since the Augmentations exist as digital data on a server, it’s possible to move the viewpoint and allow a variety of perspectives on the work. 

And the works can either coexist or only be visible on exclusive layers.  Any eventual common AR infrastructure will have to allow for layering, and the activation or deactivation of each layer.  If each work exists on its own layer, viewer can choose which they wish to experience. 

The idea of all this is to pull the experience of AR away from individuals perceiving Augmentations in isolation, and instead use AR to foster a sense of community, whatever sort of community that may be.

Expand the definition to include communities that follow various narratives (tv shows, novel series, films, etc), and it’s easy to see the next step of integrating augmented characters into a community.  Lestat roams your streets at night, that kind of thing.  Or characters from your own Canon In CC.

Many worlds can coexist with AR, it’s an interesting opportunity.

But they don’t have to. Not on the platforms with more sophisticated graphics capabilities. Since there are real, live 3D environments to work with, why can’t the interfaces be 3D animated? And if you’re going that far, why not animated characters?

Imagine a “house elf” AR app (with apologies to Ms. Rowling). Once it properly learned your home, it could serve as an assistant in locating items or managing devices. It could remember where your car keys were, if you remember to tell it (or locate them via rfid someday). Find DVDs on your shelf, monitor energy usage, provide reminders.

Oh sure, traditional handeld apps could do much of that, and basic AR interfaces could do more. But wouldn’t it all be a lot more fun (and thus appealing) if a character were attached to it? It’s easy to see licensed characters in the role.

Imagine a Rowling house elf padding around your home on your AR screen, directing you to a particular item. Or a vocal reminder the lawn sprinklers are about to activate. Or just providing entertainment via idle loops.

Better yet, imagine Clippy asking “It looks like you are trying to replace a live electrical fuse, would you like some help?” Ok, maybe not that one.

In any case, AR offers an opportunity to put personality into interfaces. It’s not hard to imagine expanding the concept to other arenas- city tour guides, car elves than monitor an auto’s systems, etc. Theme parks are ideal breeding grounds for this sort of thing. And eventually generic template characters could be developed for mass-marketing to small business such as shops or bars.

Some of this could happen today, some in a few years. It’s worth looking at now to see how the AR interface can be moved beyond the desktop idioms.

But let’s assume for a moment everything in the Milo demo was “real”, that it all was what it seemed to be. What’s the purpose of Milo? What’s the goal? What’s Milo meant to be?

Milo would seem to be a digital companion, a software entity that’s intended to interact, learn, and grow with the user. The software has the avatar of a human boy, which helps considerably in building the bond with the user. And the software itself seems to learn about its users and learns to interpret their moods and emotions.

Milo also seems designed to trigger nuturing responses in the user. Molyneux, Milo’s designer, has said that Milo simply won’t respond to abuse. If Milo only responds to positive behavior, will that encourage users to be positive and nuturing with him? Will it change the users? Bits such as the exchange about completing homework seem to indicate that’s the case. And don’t forget the whole drawing a fish bit is also related to helping Milo with his homework. You can easily see how this trick could be used to get kids to do their own projects, or to motivate adults with theirs (Milo: “I just can’t seem to get this pivot table right in this spreadsheet. How will I ever calculate EBITDA?”).

But beyond simple motivational tools, what can move software like Milo to be more than the latest digital pet and to something more like an actual companion? It’s not hard to imagine a next step of other special-purpose Milos, designed properly with enough affective computing tricks to address issues like social anxiety or mood issues.

The ultimate Milo, though, would be adaptive, reacting to all sorts of general-purpose needs of the users. A true digital companion would learn and grow with its users, reacting in many ways as a real-life friend would. The general outlines of such a design don’t seem too complicated. The devil, as always, will be in the details.

There are issues with this, of course. There’s potential of misuse, both by the users and by the developers. Imagine a cult leader companion, for example, preying on weaknesses and convincing users to send money somewhere (don’t think it won’t happen!). Or a companion that encouraged anti-social behavior, or one that demanded all the users time. Or even just a badly designed companion with harmful bugs.

There’s also the issue of people interacting more and more with software instead of actual people. Is that a good thing for society? Personally, I think that aspect is a bit of a moot point, since it seems inevitable. It seems to me the correct approach is to shape the interactions so that they are socially beneficial.

This can all seem pretty pie in the sky, but when you consider what exists today and what can be done with some basic tricks that obviate the need for genuine AI, it’s probably only a few years until these start to become practical questions. I’m somewhat surprised we aren’t already seeing some more sophisticated Facebook and Twitter bots playing the affective/emotional games.

Of course, it’s things like Milo’s eye contact and his vocal cues that really make the difference. Humans are simple animals on a basic emotional level, and once these basic computing interface tricks become widespread, we’re in for a whole new future.

The most common conceptions of AR applications thus far seem to be about data presentation. This makes sense as it’s a domain with clear value and with relatively clear implementation paths. There’s a good deal of sifting to do to find the data people want, but the how of the process is relatively straight-forward. We’ll see a lot of applications along these lines, and some may well change lives for the better.

There’s a subset of the data presentation applications that will be of particular interest, those that show and encourage social connections. Identifying who’s who and their relationships to each other has both commercial and societal value. There will be legal and ethical issues here, but demand will be high enough to make it worth working through them. Existing social networks should lead the way, if they have enough vision.

There’s also the gaming domain, and I have no doubt the game developers will charge head on into AR as quickly as they can. Transforming people’s environments into gaming arenas will have an irresistible appeal for many. There’s much promise in this area, and a great deal of fun to be had.

But what’s the flip side of that equation? It’s turning people’s games into their environments. And why stop there? Why not turn movies into people’s environments? Why not storytelling in general?

What if the characters of the story lived where you lived? If they experienced the things you experienced? How much more charged could the emotions of the story become? How much more tightly bound to the characters would you become?

One of the main purposes of creative projects is to alter the way people experience the world. What better way to do that than to alter the way people experience the world? Clever AR storytelling could shape experiences and places in ways that transformed the experiencer. New ways of seeing, new ways of knowing, new ways of being.

It’s a long road from here to there, but I do believe in the end it will be the artists who make the biggest impact with Augmented Reality tools. It’s really just a matter of time.

Wave is the next step in Google’s ongoing move towards development of collaborative tools, following on Google Apps, Calendar, etc. Those were the obvious first step, Wave is the next generation tool, bringing in real time conversation and extensibility. If Wave becomes a default part of the Apps package that Google offers, along with an easy migration path from gmail, it could see relatively quick adoption.

The extensibility of Wave is key- if something useful is missing from Wave, it can be added by the public rather than waiting on Google to add it. We can expect most major social applications to eventually supply Wave support of some kind. Alternatively, if there’s something Google does “wrong” in the basic Wave server, developers can “fix” the problem with their own custom development. For example, if Wave search is as poorly implemented as gmail search, a developer could provide a better search module (perhaps even using the Google Custom Search api!).

It’s also important to note that Wave itself is essentially a set of open protocols, and that users are allowed to provide their own Wave servers. Indeed, it’s quite possible to develop custom extended servers. We will quickly see special-purpose Wave servers developed for a variety of custom needs.

There will probably even be custom Wave servers developed for transmedia campaigns. Since the basic technology is already highly social, collaborative, and real-time, it’s well suited for transmedia events. Twitter, Facebook, wikis, Youtube, blogs -they can all tie in or be replaced via Wave technology. All parts of the campaign could eventually be collected and centralized on a Wave. Games can be added, music could be added, maps, etc. And link friction (a measure of how easily a link can be spread) should be near zero, due to the real-time collaborative nature of a Wave.

There’s a lot of potential in Wave, can’t wait to see what happens when it’s released to the public!

But how much of what we think we see is what we’re actually seeing?

Let’s go through the video step by step.

First Claire says “Hi Milo, how are you doing?”  Milo stops swinging and walks to camera. What happens here? Milo’s voice recognition hears “Milo” and triggers Milo from the swinging loop to interact with the person. Milo walks towards portion of screen near Claire. Camera could be coordinating that move to that location. If more than one person was in the room, would Milo know where to go? Possibly, with voiceprint matched to facial recognition. There was also a cue icon on the screen that seemed to indicate what the user was to do to start the encounter.

Milo says “Hi Claire, are you ok?” Probably a canned response. Name based on voiceprint? Face? Scripted? How is “Claire” articulated? Prerecorded? Carefully built from phenomes? Milo’s voice in general for that matter.  “Are you ok?”  is a bit of an odd choice.  Was there some sort of stress detected in her voice.

Milo “You? Nervous?” Voice recognition? Milo’s face a little surprised. Eye contact is direct, camera tracking at work?

Claire, “This is the first time thousands of people are going to see this” Milo, “Thousands of people?”.  To me, the most suspicious part of the whole interaction. How is this accomplished? How does Milo identify the phrase to repeat? Voice emphasis from Claire? Again, how is the phrase articulated? Built from phenomes? How big is Milo’s vocabulary? What’s the icon on the screen indicating? It seems to be a microphone.

Milo’s eyes wander nervously. Why? Because thousands of people are watching? No way, too much cognition there, I don’t believe it. Reading Claire’s mood from face and voice cues and reflecting it? Possibly. Possibly.

“Let me beat you at football, that is if you finished your homework”. No reaction to “football”, which you’d sort of expect to be a keyword in a gaming system, if Milo is some sort of operating system interface anyway. He’s looking anxiously off to the side during this, possibly indicating the fishing activity he wants to get to?

“Homework” is a clear vocal keyword, triggering emotional cues from Milo expressing resentment at being reminded of his shirked responsibility. Possible that her scolding tone and “school projects” furthers the shame reaction from Milo.

Milo seems to be confessing while we can’t hear clearly under the narration.

Claire’s mention of “help” in a cheery way seems to trigger Milo’s own cheery response, though he immediately forgets the homework assignment and walks over to the pond. Proximity triggers pond-approach, or was this a plan all along?

Walking along the rocks seems pretty scripted, but note Claire’s turning to the side. Does this trigger camera to follow along as if she is walking beside him?

Milo sort of ignores her, says everything they need is there. Seems to go into brief idle mode until she says “let’s get started”, possible keyword.

Then the goggle tossing, which is brilliantly done with visual and aural cues. Notice the  “slapping” sound that catching the goggles makes.

Milo shows how to put goggles on, perhaps indicating the gesture that Natal will recognize for this action. If so, a nice subtly natural education of the user. Backed up by an icon at the bottom of the screen, somewhat clumsier.

Approach to the water is silent, nothing from Milo. Triggered by putting on goggles? Clearly some computational pausing here, then a version of Claire appears reflected in the water. Another small but brilliant cue. Possibly done via Natal’s skeletal model and then mapping colors via the camera?

The interaction with the water seems to be basic Natal. Track hand motions and animate based on that. Some prodding from Milo to push the user into further interaction.

Is Milo’s response “They’re only fish” a response to Claire’s compliment? Impressive if so, implying vocal tonal cues and possibly vocal vocabulary, maybe expression recognition. But also possibly just canned.

Passing the pic into the screen is a simple but brilliantly immersive trick. Full points!

Milo seems to react to the color of the drawing? Again, simple but effective trick.

A goodbye script triggered by either vocal cues or body language. Nice touch of reminding of Mom’s birthday.

So overall there’s a lot that’s being accomplished by some basic tricks.  These tricks aren’t really “fake”, they’re just effective interactional cues.   Another layer seems to be accomplished via an Eliza like interface, though there’s some implied vocal analysis and synthesis I question.

And a great deal is accomplished just by affective computing- reading, responding to, and synthesizing vocal and kinesthetic emotional cues.

Is the system as intelligent as it’s read to be on a surface reading?  No, probably not.  But does it need to be that smart in order to be effective?  No, I don’t think so.  I think the basic tricks it seems to use are valid, and I think they can be quite powerful.

What we really need is more footage, of course!

Now imagine you were telling your story via user interaction with a persistent, learning, evolving character (like the dream version of the Natal Milo demo).  Say the character would always be interacting with the user, to the point that they were “living” the story together.

Your goal here would really be for the user to bond emotionally with the character.

If you form that bond strongly enough, you enlist the user as your advocate.

At some point the user would be bonded strongly enough to the character to insist that the character be available to them on all platforms.  They won’t accept less.  They’ll have to have it.  So new platforms will have to support your character.

It’s like the ultimate in brand loyalty.

This time around I’m looking at doing something a little different with it.  I’ve tried in the past to focus my blogs, and had several different sites with different focuses.   That didn’t really work for me, so this time around I’m going to just dump everything on here.

That means this will of necessity be an evolving blog, covering a rather eclectic range of topics.

I’ll continue to blog about nanobudget filmmaking, web series, transmedia, and so on.  And I’ll probably throw in some comments about the challenges of running a film festival.   But I’ll also include some of my other, more technical interests, such as computer programming, gaming, social media, location based computing, ubiquitous computing, augmented reality and so on.  And ideally I’ll post on where all these areas overlap!

We’ll see how it goes!

I don’t know about other BarCamps, but in LA the community core seems to be very hacker-based, in most senses of the word hacker. You know the Gibson quote “The street finds its own uses for things”? Well, BarCampLA is mostly made up of that street. People using technologies in ways that weren’t quite what they were designed for.

From Jay Bushman of the Loose-Fish Project telling stories via Twitter and Wikis to Dan Kaminsky breaking languages with language, from hi-rez cameras revealing the secret lives of automobile dashboards to genetic algorithms preparing to take over the world, BarCampers are finding new uses for lots of things.

Not to mention things like FlickrWall. Take a spare cell phone, combine with a prepaid sms card, a laptop, and a projector. Project the phone number on the wall and allow barcampers to text message Flickr tags to the system that then retrieves and projects images with those tags. Watch as people quickly try to wash out someone’s “goatse” tag with “puppies” or “unicorns”. It’s a lot more social than you’d think, with a fun ebb and flow.

This was my second BarCamp, and both times I’ve come out refreshed and inspired. Making new connections between various technologies and thinking up new possibilites. Sign me up for the next one, and I might even head down to San Diego for their BarCamp in May!

That’s what the digital revolution has finally brought to the media, a permanent state of No Permission. We don’t need it any more, we grant it to ourselves.

Thanks to low-cost cameras, affordable post-production software, and high-speed internet connection, any aspiring filmmaker can write, direct, edit, score, market and distribute anything they want. Features, series, short form. Documentary, comedy, action, animation, musical. Anything and everything, we can do it all, and all without having to ask anyone if they approve anywhere along the way.

It’s No Permission filmmaking, and that’s what this blog will focus on. Particularly on marketing and distribution opportunities, since those are the current big challenges to conquer and master for most DIY filmmakers today.

It’s an exciting time to be making movies, and this blog will bring stories of success and lessons of failure together to help improve the future of desktop filmmaking.

Digital Distribution | Filmmaking