Augmented Reality has become more than a buzzword. It represents the next step in human/computer interaction. Interfaces that were once solid have become liquid. With the iPhone, we have the ability to download software from the air. With augmented reality, the interface evaporates from the liquid state into the air as well. Bruce Sterling’s keynote at Layar is a helpful introduction to this field.

There have been a number of applications developed by various companies and individuals, but what’s being done in Portland? As it turns out, quite a lot. I’ve been running an unadvertised Augmented Reality meetup for the past few months (if you’re a developer or Interaction Designer interested in attending this group, comment below), and have found the Portland tech community to be a fertile ground or AR development.

Mobile Portland brings Augmented Reality to you

Starting Monday, you can learn more about what’s going on in Portland AR as well. There will be a meetup at AboutUs.org with two of Portland top AR developers. They’re great people and I highly recommend meeting them. The meeting starts at 6pm at AboutUs.org.

Event Overview

Imagine being able to use your phone to see what that IKEA couch you’ve been considering will look like in your living room. A far-fetched science fiction scenario? No, IKEA has already released an application like that in Europe.

Augmented reality is an exciting and emerging technology. Augmented reality take real life information–typically the video display of a phone–and overlays it with computer information. Augmented reality is something that is completely unique to mobile.

This month at Mobile Portland, we’re lucky to have two speakers who are early innovators in augmented reality. P. Mark Anderson is platform architect for Spot Metrix which provides an augmented reality library for iPhone called 3DAR. Tim Sears created Robotvision, one of the first augmented reality applications for iPhone.

Mark and Tim will share how people are using augmented reality, their experiences using augmented reality, and what the future holds for this new technology.

About the Speakers

P. Mark Anderson

P. Mark Anderson has 13 years experience developing interactive applications. After receiving a degree in Computer Science from University of Colorado in 1999 he started his career as a developer for Sun Microsystems.

In addition to creating several iPhone applications, Mr. Anderson moderates the Helpful iPhone Utilities open source project, as well as My Maps, an augmented reality iPhone app built on top of Google’s personalized mapping system.

Mr. Anderson is platform architect for the 3DAR augmented reality SDK. He enjoys working with both artists and developers, and occupies his spare time with watercolor painting, mountain biking, disc golf and mentoring.

Tim Sears

Tim Sears is a software engineer who works for PR firm Waggener Edstrom by day building web applications, by night creating location-based augmented reality experiences for the iPhone. He created Robotvision, a popular augmented reality browser, for the iPhone in 2009 and currently works with clients to build out mobile geolocation experiences in augmented reality.

His work in augmented reality and social media analytics has been featured in major publications such as ReadWriteWeb, TechCrunch and CNET, and has won several awards, including the International Business Awards Best New Product/Service of 2009 for twendz, a real-time Twitter sentiment analysis application.

Date

Monday, January 25, 2010 at 6:00pm

Location

AboutUs Offices
107 SE Washington St., Suite 520,
Portland, Oregon 97214

RSVP on Upcoming.org

Mobile Portland: Augmented Reality on Upcoming.org

Website:

MobilePortland.com

Great News! The next CyborgCamp will be in early May of 2010. That means its time to start planning!

This meeting is everyone’s chance to brainstorm on location ideas, sponsors and speakers. What kinds of topics are of interest to you? How has the idea of Cyborg evolved over the last year? What new kinds of technologies have arrived on the scene?

We’ll discuss volunteers and the wiki too. Come along, especially if you helped make CyborgCamp PDX ‘08 so excellent in the first place. Bring snacks and drinks to share with others.

This planning meeting will most likely be followed by general networking and fun at a local haunt.

RSVP on Upcoming.org

Where:

AboutUs.org

107 SE Washington Street, Suite 520
Portland Oregon 97214
United States

When:

Tuesday, January 19, 2010 from 7–9pm

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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.

CyborgCamp’s aim is to have many communication channels, such as Twitter, Flickr, UstreamTV, Video and Audio recordings and live chats displayed on the screen.
Why May 2010? In March 2010, CyborgCamp will make its way to Brazil and back before landing again in Portland, Oregon for its second year.

—

Questions? Contact Amber Case @caseorganic or MJ @mama_j.

You can also follow @cyborgcamp on Twitter for updates.

Last night, around 6 pm, an event at Substance brought together many members of the Portland design/creative/new media/innovative community. Those tags do not describe the types of people there, no do they describe how it was to be at the event. Why? Because I wasn’t able to make it.

I’m going to review the event anyway (or at least provide information for others who couldn’t make it), as well as use some great pictures taken by Haley Lovett. I’m including them here, so you can understand some semblance of the event.

Okay, so what is The New Communicators about?

According to a post on the Substance website, “New Communicators are compelled to engage in conversation. They stand taller and stride farther when traversing the current media landscape. They are a mixture of digital and analog. Their message is everything interactive. Everything transmissive. Communicating is a give-and-take, speaking-and-listening, and New Communicators utilize a mixture of new and traditional tools to share their point-of-view with the world. Evolving conversation, they share their ideas, their truths, their lives”.

The New Communicators Video

If you missed it, here’s a Q&A in digital video!

The New Communicators Q&A - September 1, 2009 from The New Communicators on Vimeo.

The gathering was “about the evolution of conversation: exploring the pathways through which an originator interacts with a receiver. These connections can be fulfilling and triumphant; the failures potentially tragic and illuminating. Regardless of the outcome, these experiences are relevant, useful and inspirational. They should be open, discussed and analyzed in the interest of understanding what it means to be a New Communicator”.

What Next?

From Wednesday, October 28th to Friday, October 30th, you’re invited to hold an event around the theme of Evolving Conversation and explore what it means to be a New Communicator. The intent is to curate events for specific time slots in the mornings (8am to 10am), afternoons (4pm to 6pm) and evenings (7pm to 9pm) across the city. However, if those time slots become filled and you still want to hold an event, we got you covered. Any individual, group or company who wants to be a part of the convergence is welcome to do so and we will promote your events on our web site. Although, get those ideas in early if you want top billing and mentions in press content.

Event Response:

There was a lot of buzz about The New Communicators on Twitter. Some of my favorites:

hillerns: I learned something important this evening. When you invite folks to engage, you begin by asking, “What do you think?” #thenewcom

momothemonster: Great conversations at #thenewcom meetup tonight. Consider my fires officially stoked.

ephanypdx: 2nd thing I learned at #thenewcom: exchanging contact info is so 2004. Now we just follow each other.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to hosting a session. Although I’m not sure on what yet. You can help me if you want by commenting below.

If that’s not enough for you, here’s a quick Q&A:

Who are you?

We are a group of like-minded individuals who believe the nature of conversation is evolving. It is our mission to illuminate this evolution, educate on how to traverse the new media landscape and inspire others to initiate conversations of their own.

What do you mean by “Conversations”?

Conversations are any kind of engagement in which thoughts are shared, ideas are exchanged and lives are changed. A Conversation is a dissemination of a point-of-view, a connection with an audience and a reciprocation to the originator. It is how we learn and grow.

What is a New Communicator?

Anyone who is compelled to engage in conversation by utilizing a mixture of new and traditional tools to share their point-of-view with the world.

Why are you doing this?

We want to seek out and share the stories of those who have found a way to break through to their audience in an authentic way using any medium, digital or otherwise. Too much emphasis is placed on the technology behind interaction, when it is the content and quality of the conversation that matters most.

How do you intend to make this happen?

We see our role as gracious facilitators providing an online space for participants to promote their gatherings, connect with collaborators and venues, and use our connections in the community to provide a context to share their experiences and promote their ideas.

Where is Substance Located?

Looking for 1551 SE Poplar? Here’s what it looks like from outside: http://twitpic.com/g5705

How Can I Participate?

Simply visit The New Communicators, or follow them on Twitter at @thenewcom, and the hashtag #thenewcom.

We’ve done a lot of things in Portland, but there is one type of event that’s been missed by many people. This camp ignores a significant chunk of the Portland Tech community. In other words…

We need a kids tech camp.

• Kids need to have a great place to meet each other and experience technology.
• Parents with kids should be able to bring their children to a networking event and get to know each other.
• The venue should be fun and educational. It should allow participation and activities for kids, so that parents can have an enjoyable time alongside them, or amongst themselves.

Twitter Responses:

• Irene_S: @caseorganic That’d be great! Having kids does cut into one’s networking time.
• harrisja: @caseorganic I completely agree! more kid friendly tech events FTW!
• smb: @caseorganic kids networking tech event would be awesome. What age ranges are you contemplating?
• petsaretalking: @caseorganic What an awesome idea!
• anitacochran: @caseorganic That sounds like fun, get any nibbles?
• LeStew: @caseorganic re: #childtech YES YES YES!!!!
• snelson: @caseorganic I’m in for planning… especially if at least some of program could be targeted at GIRLS and technology
• brampitoyo: @snelson @caseorganic I know that some robotic club are connected to DorkbotPDX, and they’re open for both girls and boys.
• neophiliac: @caseorganic sounds cool. I’ve been looking for an excuse to learn (Ruby) Shoes; it’s great for kids.
• MatthewStadler: @caseorganic Yes on all-ages tech event. Key is all-ages, not just “kids,”i.e., adults drink, swear, etc., alongside kids. Venue more Backspace than OMSI
• oleoptene: @caseorganic But kids tech event awesome idea we would totally get behind. Suggest kids take part in planning of it.
• oleoptene: @caseorganic Besides bringing older offspring to Ignite (they loved cyborg anthropology) we’ve talked kidcamp @ barcamp, facility a problem.
• kmcdade: @caseorganic I’m very interested in helping plan a kids event. Also, @kidtech seems like the name of someone’s account, so #childtech might work better.

Venue:

I agree with MatthewStadler that a venue more like Backspace than OMSI is needed. Also, Oleoptene’s dea of letting kids plan the event seems really fun. All ages seems nice — but probably not too young. The cut-off age could be 6, for instance.

Conclusion:

Seems like we have enough interest to proceeed. The question is of “how”. A date would be nice. Some time in Feburary would give us ample time to plan a half day of activities and little workshops, as well as secure a venue and funding (if needed), and to gather momentum. The only question I have is whether the event should be large or small.

Yep. So we need one of these events. Reply or contact me in some way (I’m @caseorganic on Twitter) if you’re interested in helping out. We can probably get a Wiki started and get the show on the road!

Dorkbot PDX is a Portland group that brings together an eclectic group of geniuses with a love of hacking technology. It is probably my favorite group here because of the energy and excitement that everyone has. Every time I go I gain a new respect and excitement for all things electronic. Everyone is brilliant, welcoming and always has something to say or work on.

Dorkbot meets twice a month at Lucky Lab NW (1945 NW Quimby). This week, about thirty people showed up to exchange ideas, inventions, and electrionic hacks. Here, my friend Mario Landau-Holdsworth is testing out a makeshift synthesizer using a Benito [designed and built by Don from dorkbot]. Alex Norman tells me that, “the Benito uses some i2c io expanders to scan the buttons and talks to the computer via midi over USB. It is controlling a step sequencer that I wrote using Pure Data and pdlua. It is triggering one shot samples.. I’m currently using drum samples”.

Ward Cunningham’s Dial-a-Door

“AboutUs CTO Ward Cunningham and his college roommate Rick Wartzok, had better than average audio/visual and beverage capability in their dorm room, at least for 1968. While happy to share with fellow residents, they then faced a dilemma. What about keys? They wanted some kind of combination lock that had a shared code that could be selectively enabled, and a longer, master code for private use. The solution was Dial-a-Door. Now its 2008, forty years later, Ward has located the mechanical technology that decoded the combination, restored it to working order, and prepared a display which he will present at the bi-weekly DorkbotPDX at the Lucky Lab in Northwest Portland,” says Mark Dilley on the AboutUs.org Blog.

More about Dial-a-Door

“I’ve written a web page describing my original application, Dial-a-Door”, says Ward Cunningham on the Dorkbot PDX blog. I found the SECODER that I spoke about last meeting. It was in the bottom of the wrong junk box with old antenna equipment, not old telephone equipment. My mechanically inclined friends helped me get it working again”.  More information is available on Ward Cunningham’s website: http://c2.com/~ward/Dial-a-Door.

BittyBot

Along the way, I had the honor of meeting Monty Goodson of BittyBot. The name explains what he does — which is basically the manufacture of really tiny circuitboards that can be used to make really small robots. They were very, very small. The one pictured is actually larger than some of the others ones that he had with him.

If you like technology, I urge you to come out to Dorkbot and mingle with everyone. It’s a very low-key, wonderful environment where you can let your imagination and expertise run wild. And if you’re not familiar with what Dorkbot does, you might want to look into using the open source Arduino development and prototyping platform. There is an article on Arduino chips from Instructables here.

Dorkbot Resources

Thanks to Tempus Dictum and PNCA, Dorkbot has put together a series of workshops around the dorkbotpdx arduino kits (http://www.dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/dorkboard) called the “Arduino Cult Induction”.(http://www.dorkbotpdx.org/workshop/arduino/cult_induction_rev4).

We will have these workshops on the last Sunday of every month, probably alternating between the Cult Induction, a focused workshop and an Open Lab. The workshops cost ~$25 which includes the hardware being built. The open labs are free.

Schedule

30 NOV 2008 — Sound/Midi Workshop (~$25)

28 DEC 2008 — Open Lab (free)

———-

For more events, check out the AboutUs Portland Tech Events Page. You can also follow me on Twitter, or connect with other members of the Portland Tech Community on the AboutUs.org Portland Tech Twitter Page. You might also want to attend CyborgCamp, which will be happening on December 6th, 2008 at CubeSpace.

———

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist from Portland, Oregon. She likes attending events and studying the Portland Tech scene.

Unconferences are really good at collecting gobs of data, like Flickr photos, Tweets, and session notes.

Following Twitter conversation is simple by subscribing to Twitter feeds from search.twitter.com, but often event hashtags are unstandardized or misspelled. It’s always nicer to be able to subscribe for a single feed than a bunch of overlapping feeds. Additionally, there is often duplicate content.

There are also Flickr pictures involved, and it would be nice to be able to get get all of the updates from drop.io, Flickr, and Twitter in one feed, so that one can see how the event is progressing in real time.

So I did just that.

This Yahoo! Pipe for WhereCamp PDX grabs FlickrPhotos, the Google Map Location, drop.io session note updates, and Twitter Feeds.

Components used:

Sources (4)

flickr.com
api.flickr.com
twitter.com
search.twitter.com

Modules (4)

fetch
sort
union
flickr

An image of the Pipe’s Construction is here.

One of the great things about WhereCamp PDX is that you can E-mail session notes, pictures and other resources to a drop.io box. To do this, simply send an E-mail wherecamppdx@drop.io. You can see the drop.io inbox for session content here.

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Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and Social Media Consultant from Portland, Oreogn. You can follow her online at @caseorganic.

These are notes from the WhereCamp Portland morning session on dark content and the geoweb. It was led by Paul Bissett, CEO of WeoGeo. About 15 people were at the session, and brought up some very interesting points.

Event Summary:

What is the state of the Geoweb? One of the major problems is that relevant informaton is locked away from being indexed by search engines. We call this dark content because it is unlit and unsearchable.

How much dark content it out there?

~800 Terabytes of data is currently unsearchable online.

~91,000 Terabytes is inaccessible. It’s non-searched, non-indexed digital content.

What does that mean? It means that less than a percent of the digital knowledge we’ve collected and stored online is not availabile for our use.

That means there’s no indexing, no searching, and no synergistic use of that content because it’s not being indexed.

This makes it an enormous productivity sink to everyone involved to access, verify and collect data from the limited sources that are available. Only relatively ill-equipped, uninformed decisions can be made.

What can we do?

Things need to be indexed.

Say we want to buy a house, but we want to make sure we are purchasing a house in a safe area. You can look at a map that has earthquake zones, and one with tsunami zone, and you can even overlay all these maps to see intersections of data. Those are information layers.

But imagine doing that for every decision you make. Having layer maps for everything you do, and ever choice you make.
Now, this probably doesn’t matter as much if you’re making a decision about going to Starbucks, but when you’re deciding where to put a water purification plant, or a park or recreation system, it becomes very important.

How do we do this?

The good thing is that ever since Google Earth launched, geography has become cool.
But it’s one thing to use the data, and another to contribute to it to make it more rich and usable.

The other problem is that most of these data sets are not text based. They require a series of information unwrapping protocols to dissect them into usable content.

You need the tools to be able to do this. You can find a file, but then you must also be able to get into it.

There are also decision processes surrounding that data. Each file is different, that’s why a lot of it stays in the dark. The processing systems become as important as the data when data is so seperate and stuck in silos.

There is no metadata standard/standards that would at least allow for cross indexing of different data and content. This is essential for the sharing of processing of data.

Existing metadata standards are cumbersome and there is limited motivation to use/decipher them.
There’s also the scalability of data sets. Large data sets are difficult to break down into usable chunks.

The openness of data is based on different cultures. Government data has a different culture around it than Myspace. One company has the right to create something, and it is very expensive to get access to it.

All data should be sharable — so that people can build upon each other’s work.

Resources:

You can find out more about WhereCamp Portland here.

—–

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and Social Media Consultant from Portland, Oregon. You can follow her online at @caseorganic.

I can’t say it enough - Portland’s Twitter community just keeps getting better and better. With it, everyone can meet great people and pool need resources. In just four days, we were able to raise over $400 for a new bike/laptop for @brampitoyo after his bike and laptop were stolen last week.

The following is the larger story:

————–

The First E-mail

Dear Members of the Extremely Awesome Portland Tech Community,

As you all know, Bram Pitoyo is one of the most involved and valued members of our community. He’s helped organized and implement a million events and made them excellent. And this week, he’s bringing us Lunch 2.0 at the Art Institute of Portland. More impressive is the fact that he bikes everywhere and still manages to make it to almost every tech event in town (and then still has the energy to live tweet and blog).

However Bram Pitoyo lost his bike on the Max last night. It was stolen while he was composing a blog post (the really cool one he’s about to release). This morning, @Mettadore direct messaged me and challenged me to $20 for the cause.

So, I agreed. I have $20 that says we can raise enough money to get Bram Pitoyo a new bike. Interested? Lets keep this on the low-down so that we can surprise him with it.

If you’d like to donate any amount, you can do it through PayPal caseorganic@gmail.com or just bring it by to Beer and Blog this week at the Green Dragon from 4-6 Pm.

Please forward this as necessary. I know I’m missing a lot of people (like @reidab and @billder) A lot of people know Bram. Direct message if possible through Twitter to keep it low key.

Hopefully we can raise enough money by the end of this week for him to get a bike light enough to commute with for the winter. Money is generally tight these days, so if you can’t contribute, don’t antagonize.

Sincerely,
Amber Case, et al.

—————-

The Second E-mail

Hey Everyone,

A tremendous thanks to those who’ve pitched into the Bram Pitoyo Bike Fund by Paypal already. We’re about halfway there to a new bike! This funding will probably really

Tomorrow is beer and blog. If you haven’t donated already, I’ll be collecting it at Beer and Blog before Bram’s presentation. I know money is generally tight these days, so if you can’t contribute, don’t antagonize.

After Bram makes his presentation, we’re going to be giving the bike fund to Bram. This way, he won’t know what’s coming.

If you’d like to donate any amount, you can do it through PayPal caseorganic@gmail.com or just bring it by to Beer and Blog this week at the Green Dragon from 4-6 Pm.

Please forward this as necessary. I know I’m missing a lot of people (like @reidab and @billder) A lot of people know Bram. Direct message if possible through Twitter to keep it low key.

Thanks so much!

Sincerely,
Amber Case, et al.

————-

The Results

The fundraising went very quickly. When Justin Kistner, founder of @beerandblog invited Bram to give a speech (slides and description are available here) during Friday’s event, I knew it would be the perfect time to follow it up by presenting him with the fund. It’s going to help a lot. It went brilliantly!

We raised $190 via. paypal before @beerandblog

John Metta
Marshall Kirkpatrick
Kevin Chen
Barry Cadish
Steve Gehlen
Allison McKeever
Betsy Richter
Amber Case
Mark Dilley

———————————–

We raised $195 during @beerandblog by cash and paypal

Nate Angell
Doc Normal
Dawn Foster
Justin Kistner
Kathleen McDade
Mark Colman
Derrek Wayne
Steven Walling
Carri Bugbee
Alex Williams
Todd Kenefsky will be donating a U Lock bike Lock.
Pete Forsyth

———————————–

We raised $80 after @beerandblog by Paypal

Todd Kalhar
Adam Duvander
Gary Walter
MaryEllen Hockensmith
Jean-Paul Voilleque
Marie Deatherage
Raymond King

——————————-

What Next?

Donations are still open. Simply Paypal caseorganic at gmail.com to donate. Your contact information will be listed here shortly. And if I missed anyone, let me know @caseorganic.

Thanks so much to the entire Portland Tech community for helping out. It’s been fantastic watching the support that’s been given to Bram! Hooray!

Beer and Blog is held every Friday from 4-6Pm at the
Green Dragon
928 SE 9th Ave
Portland, OR 97214
(503) 517-0606
And you can follow the Green Dragon on Twitter @greendragonpdx.

If you haven’t been before, please stop on by! It’ll be an awesome experience; we promise.

Portland’s group of tech and design innovators is one of the highest-ranked communities on Twitter. Those of us who’ve used the service have vastly expanded our friendships, happiness and experiences. A lot of us connect in real life on a regular basis because of Twitter. But I felt there was one very important thing missing.

You see, the majority of Portland Tech events happen in the evening.

So we had this one in the morning.

The event was arranged a few days before on Twitter, and, for fun, I made the breakfast meetup into an Upcoming event.

Initially, it was a meetup between @stevenwalling @hillerns @brampitoyo and I. Then @Kram and @lawduck joined in. Once the Upcoming event was posted more and more people began to RSVP. Then the article was “Floristed“, and this spurred additional RSVP’s.

I only expected a small party of people to be at Fuller’s, but when @brampitoyo, @neophillia and I walked in the door, we found that entire right side of the restaurant was taken up by Twitter people. In all, 11 Tweeple showed up, and we all had an amazing breakfast. It was especially exciting to meet @hillerns in Real Life for a longer amount of time than our brief encounter at Inverge.

Thanks to everyone who made it.

Want to know about more events like this one?

Saturday morning cartoons and sleep were replaced with a hundred bloggers at CubeSpace. We woke up collectively to a series of speeches, tips, and new friends we didn’t expect.

Like Lorelle VanFossen of Lorelle on WordPress. After showing a video, she suddenly appeared on the scene dressed as a “fairy blogmother”. She was charismatic, zany, and touching. And she woke us up. One of the best parts of her speech was when she told us about Glenda Watson Hyatt and her blog, Do It Myself.

The Left Thumb Blogger

Until hitting the publish button, E-mail had been my most effective means of communicating with the world. WordPress has given me a voice. Without my disability and speech impediment getting in the way. I can meet with people more effectively and in a different way than meeting people face to face.

People can already know me from the inside when they first meet me, so they are not taken aback by my disability.

However, meeting face-to-face may induced some apprehension in how to deal with Glenda-ish, my unique speech pattern caused by my cerebral palsy”…(read more on her blog).

After this, Lorelle pointed out the bottom line, that “that’s all we want, isn’t it? We just want to be heard”.

And with that, she waved her wand (literally, she had one) and told us that she’d be granting all of our wishes. Then she asked us to tell her our stories.There were many.

And afterwards, we all went outside and got our picture taken as a crowd. It was a great way to wake up in the morning.

That was just the first part, of course.

You can follow along too, if you’d like.

• Here’s an exhaustive custom RSS feed (which includes all Twitter feeds associated with #wordcamppdx, #wordcampdx, and #wcpdx and the Flickr stream),
• Flickr photo stream of  #wordcampdx
• The Live UStream Feed of the event.

If you haven’t met me, and I haven’t met you, I’d love to meet you at WordCamp Portland. I’m @caseorganic on Twitter and the words “Amber Case” are on my name badge. See you there!