Updates from November, 2012 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Amber Case
-
Amber Case
Crisis Commons/Hurricane Sandy and Wearable Computing Hackathon – Sunday, Nov 4th!
Join us on Sunday, Nov 4th at 10am at Geoloqi HQ for an all-day Crisis Commons and wearable computing hackathon! This two track hackathon has something for everyone, and we’re excited to host it at Geoloqi HQ!
It’s free! You can participate as an individual or a team. Breakfast and coffee will be available in the morning, and we’ll head to the food carts for lunch.
REGISTER HERE
About the Wearable Computing Hackathon
The wearable computing hackathon is for those comfortable with soldering and working with electronics.Bring your own equipment
Though we’ll have a Makey Makey, Lilypad Arduino, some soldering irons and other equipment, this hackathon theme is for those more familiar with electronics that have some of their own equipment. We recommend bringing a soldering iron and some kind of kit or electronic components and breadboards at the very least.
Don’t have your own electronic equipment? Join the Crisis Commons Hackathon! (See details below).
About the Crisis Commons Hackathon
Do you want to help with Sandy response? Come design, code, and learn with other people this weekend at CrisisCamp! CrisisCamps are hosted in a barcamp style where great minds come together to share their knowledge and expertise for social good.Come prepared:
If you’re a developer, make sure your programs are up to date. Learn how github works. Learn about potential projects at http://www.hurricanehackers.com/projects. There will also be talks by local Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) on how technology can be used (and not) in this situations. If you’re a designer or otherwise, come prepared with ideas and help create usable interfaces!This event is free and open to the public. You don’t have to be technical to volunteer time. Also, you may show up at anytime during the day for as long as you wish – although obviously we will get the most done with the most people there.
CrisisCamps this weekend
Portland, OR, in conjunction with CyborgCamp : http://portland.cyborgcamp.com/
Seattle, WA : http://sandycrisiscampsea.eventbrite.com
Don’t see your city listed? If you have a venue lined up, ping sandy@gwob.org and we’ll get you set up. Once venues are live, we’ll add them to this list.About CrisisCamp
CrisisCamp brings together domain experts, developers, and first responders around improving technology and practice for humanitarian crisis management and disaster relief. Each and every day, people across the world can find themselves in crisis. Whether it be for a day, a month or an area of social distress, we all have a common need to connect with loved ones, access information and offer assistance to others.
REGISTER HERE
Update: due to demand we opened an additional 20 slots!
Schedule
- Doors open at 10:00am with breakfast and coffee.
- Coding will stop at 5:30pm, and teams and individuals will demo their apps.
- Cleanup and after-events. Likely at the Lotus.
Location
Geoloqi HQ
920 SW 3rd Ave #400
Portland, OR 97204Who Should Attend?
Hardware hackers, Ruby, Python, PHP, web developers, coders, interaction designers, graphic designers and anyone who has a passion to code, hack or conceptualize applications that will free (or otherwise enhance) the accessibility and usefulness of government-shared data or wearable technology.
Although the sprint takes place on Nov 4th after CyborgCamp Portland, you don’t have to be attending the conference to join us.
Participation is free and open to anyone with an interest in design or coding… we just ask that you register in advance so we know how many we need to accommodate.
-
Amber Case
Adron Hall to speak on Coding Cyborg Clouds at CyborgCamp Portland 2012!
New Speaker!
We’re excited to announce that Adron Hall will be talking about Coding Cyborg Clouds at CyborgCamp Portland 2012!
What’s a Cyborg Cloud? You’ll simply have to attend and see!
Adron is also sponsoring CyborgCamp through his blog, Composite Code.
About Adron Hall
Adron is a jovial, TDD, BDD, get things done well, software architect, engineer, code monkey, coder, cloud advocate, distributed systems junkie. Adron’s brain runs the gamut of dev stacks from Ruby on Rails, Node.js and .NET. I’ll admit a favorite is JavaScript with a dose of Node.js these days. He’s passionate about devops and especially PaaS (Platform as a Service) Technologies. Adron loves to get involved in hackathons, user groups, and other tech community events.
You can follow Adron at @adron on Twitter.
-
Amber Case
Community through Capitalism, a Personal Take on Cybernetic Management
New Speaker Announcement!
Portland Oregon’s Mike Merrill is a unique individual. He is the world’s only publicly traded person. What does this mean? It means that Mr. Merrill’s life is directed by his shareholders, and you can buy stock in him and vote on his future at http://kmikeym.com/. This means that his life and his life story is entangled in a cybernetic control loop of sorts. Because of this, Mr. Merrill will be giving a talk on Community through Capitalism, a Personal Take on Cybernetic Management.
Speech Overview
Norbert Wiener defined cybernetics as the study of regulation, control and communications in life forms and the machine. In a business context, such an approach helps managers understand and deal with complex situations. Mike Merrill argues that what works for business also works for the individual. He is a publicly-traded person that allows his shareholders to guide him through the complex situations in his own life. Complex personal decisions about things like procreation, professional affiliations, volunteer work, politics, and even his dating life are controlled by people who purchased a stake in his future.
About Mr. Merrill
Just as a person might say their parents want the best for them and are invested in their future, Mike Merrill’s parents are literally invested. As are co-workers, ex-girlfriends, and his community of friends and collaborators. And a handful of strangers. Mike Merrill has been a publicy-traded person since 2008 and a fan of applying the principles of business to his personal life since long before that. He is struggling to read Stafford Beer’s Cybernetics and Management writing up a Relationship Contract with the girl he is seeing.
Invest in Mr. Merrill!
You can invest in Mr. Merrill at http://kmikeym.com/ or follow him on Twitter at @kmikeym.
-
Amber Case
Kyle Drake – Bitcoin, the Cyberpunk Cryptocurrency Unconference Session
New Speaker Announcement!
We’re excited to have Geoloqi platform engineer Kyle Drake give a deep dive into Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies, and the past and future of money.
Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin is touted for its many improvements to traditional currency. It is easy to transfer, requires no central authority to administer, works across political boundaries, and is easy to use.
But beyond the practical niceties and technical implementation details is the true intention of its pseudonymous inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, who has now vanished and is unwilling to tell his story. Bitcoin is trying to solve a much larger problem: the flaws of present-day centralized currencies that lead to economic instability.
The Future of Cryptocurrencies and Money
But will it work? In this talk, Drake will demystify currency and delve into the fundamentals of economic exchange. I will discuss how currencies work, what gives them their value, some of their flaws, and how these flaws manifest themselves in our world. Drake will discuss how decentralized cryptocurrencies propose to solve these problems, the rearchitecture of our economic lives that would happen if we used them for everything, and their potential flaws.
About Kyle Drake
Kyle Drake is a platform engineer at Geoloqi, Inc. He’s into Startups, Software Engineering, Economics, Bitcoin, GIS, and Low Power Radio. Want to ask Kyle any questions before his talk? Follow him at @kyledrake or visit his website at http://kyledrake.net/.
-
Amber Case
Dann Stayskal and Jill Burrows to talk on Computer-Aided Synaesthesia
What’s it like to be Synaesthetic?
Dann Stayskal is polymodally synaesthetic. He sees sound and hears light (among other crossed modalities). Superpowers is an app he’s been kicking around for a few years: an app simulates for other people what it’s like to have this form of synaesthesia that unifies hearing and vision.
Programmed Synaesthesia
Using a camera and a microphone, Superpowers pulls in a/v data, cross-modulates it (thankfully Dann’s form of synaesthesia is fairly mathematically straightforward to model), then outputs it through a display and some speakers.
The purpose of this short 20 minute lightning talk will be to demonstrate how cyborg tech can bridge people’s sensory experience cross-modally.
Try it Out!
Superhuman will be demoed CyborgCamp on an Android device (or failing that, Dann’s laptop) paired with a head-mounted display. Come check it out! Until then, you can follow @danndalf and @jburrows.
-
Willow Bloo
DIY Cyborg Prize
Sensebridge wants to sponsor a $1000 prize for innovations in wearable “cyborg” devices. It would go to a new or pre-existing DIY electronics/software device which augments humans in some way. This session is to discuss the details of how exactly the contest should work: the rules.
Potential rules include: video submission requirements, working prototype requirements, Instructables requirements, writeup requirements, etc. What’s required, what’s optional, and what’s value add? Should there be money for second place? Different categories each with some prize money? Should people be able to vote on the coolest projects? (if so, is there good software to manage that?).
About Eric Boyd
Eric Boyd co-founded sensebridge.net and sensebridge.com, where he sells wearable electronic senses and electronic jewelry. Products include the North Paw, which is a compass anklet that vibrates to tell you where north is, and the Heart Spark, a pendant that flashes lights in time with your heart beat. Eric lives and works in Toronto, Canada.
-
Amber Case
Bret Burnhoft to Podcast CyborgCamp Portland 2012
We’re happy to announce that Bret Bernhoft will be podcasting CyborgCamp Portland 2012! If you’d like to do a quick recording with him, simply catch his attention at the conference! He’ll be putting all of the materials up on a special CyborgCamp media site after the conference is over.About Bret
Bret Bernhoft is a podcaster living in Portland Oregon. He started tinkering with media in 2007 as a hobby, but today it is a professional commitment. He is currently working on The Portland Media Documentary which tells the story of the changes in Portland Media between 2009 and 2011. For more information visit http://www.bretevan.com/.
-
Willow Bloo
The Future is Now: Ambient Location and the Future of the Interface
Wouldn’t it be nice if your colleague’s phone could SMS its location to you? If you know position and velocity, you know when they’ll arrive. The result: the interface disappears. No redundant actions or queries. The same software could turn your lights on as you approach the house. Or automatically “check in” to certain locations for you. Or leave a note for yourself the next time you’re at the store.In the presentation, Geoloqi founder Amber Case will highlight why developers of apps should look at what users want to do now, as well as what users want to do in the future, why social apps should try to mirror real-world relationships, why sharing should be about who you share with as well as how long you’re sharing, and why developers should think about how to make apps “ambient” and require less user interaction.
About Amber Case
Amber Case is a cyborg anthropologist studying the interaction between humans and technology. She is the founder of Geoloqi (geo-low-key), Inc., a company bringing the future of location to the world. She’s spoken at TED and around the world, and has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, WIRED and more.
-
Amber Case
Get ready for CyborgCamp Portland 2012! Nov 3rd from 9:30Am-6Pm
CyborgCamp is Back!
Our last event in 2010 was a big hit, and it’s time to do it again! This year’s CyborgCamp will be a full day of conference and unconference sessions, fun, food and great people together to talk about the future of humans and technology. Three scheduled speakers will give talks on biomedical engineering, cybernetic control systems and the stock market, and quantified self. The rest of the day will be unconference sessions. Full details will be announced soon!
What is CyborgCamp?
CyborgCamp is an unconference about the future of the relationship between humans and technology. We’ll discuss topics such as social media, design, code, inventions, web 2.0, twitter, the future of communication, cyborg technology, anthropology, psychology, and philosophy.
When?
CyborgCamp Portland 2012 will be from Saturday, November 3, 2012 from 9:30am–6pm (calagator link).
Location
Geoloqi HQ
920 SW 3rd Ave #400
Portland, Oregon 97204, US (map)Tickets Available Now!
http://cyborgcamp2012.eventbrite.com. Capacity is 60 at Geoloqi HQ.
Ticket Price
Event is $12 to cover breakfast and lunch. Scholarship tickets are available upon request.
Want to Speak, Volunteer or Sponsor?
Contact @caseorganic for more details and to volunteer, speak or sponsor.
