One Day On Earth - The World's Story is Yours to Tell

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Join us on 10.10.10 for an unprecedented event.

Every Nation, 24 hours, and You.

On October 10, 2010 (10.10.10), across the planet, documentary filmmakers, students, and inspired citizens will record the human experience over a 24-hour period and contribute their voice to the largest participatory media event in history.

Founded in 2008, ONE DAY ON EARTH is creating an online community, shared archive, and film. Together, we will showcase the amazing diversity, conflict, tragedy, and triumph that occur in one day. We invite you to join our international community of thousands of filmmakers, hundreds of schools, and dozens of non-profits, and contribute to this unique global mosaic. Through the One Day on Earth platform, we will establish a community that not only watches, but participates.

Slime is The Answer! TED Fellows 2009: Rachel Armstrong

Excerpt from wired.co.uk

"Dr Rachel Armstrong believes that biology could play a key part in building projects.

Armstrong teaches at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, where she is advocating a new approach to architecture – one that sees buildings becoming living things.

Key to Armstrong’s work are protocells – little cells of fat that can be sprayed on a building, creating a sort of frosting. These are designed to trap carbon dioxide and solidify it, turning it into solid pearls of calcium carbonate or biolime or mock rock. This coating will protect the building and even mend cracks.

These protocells could even be used to stop Venice sinking, says Armstrong. Her plan is that the cells would be programmed to solidify when they get to the bottom of the lagoon, shoring up the foundations of the buildings above and thereby supporting the sinking structures.

Working with Neil Spiller, a fellow professor at the Bartlett, Armstrong has named this new model and methodology "plectic systems architecture".

The idea doesn’t stop with protocells. Armstrong argues that slime mould – something we scrupulously scrub off surfaces – could be used instead of computers to map out cities and populations. Mould could power what she terms “material computers”, which could be used to “calculate” for example, the best pathways to construct in an environment."

Good post by Peter Kirwan: Love Google. Hate Facebook. Why?

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The problem with nudging:

By Peter Kirwan |01 October 2010

"Some companies do it less than others. Although I suspect it adopts a tougher stance with business customers, Google has remained a reluctant nudger in consumer markets. If you’re a fan, you probably believe that this is because the company goes with the grain, striving to do no evil. If you’re a sceptic, you’ll argue that Google’s approach to its users is made possible by a cash-generative advertising business. Either way, the interpretation is largely positive.

Aggressive nudging causes problems. As corporate self-interest becomes more important than user satisfaction, the nudging company’s approach to consumers becomes fragmented and incoherent.

Something like this, I suspect, happened to Windows during the past decade as Microsoft struggled to cope with the emergence of the web. The company’s vast promotional campaigns for Windows tended to focus as much on the company’s achievements as the benefits conferred upon users. The self-regarding nature of these campaigns told us something about the company’s attentuated links with its customers.

It’s time, I suspect, to ask a similar question about Facebook. Does Mark Zuckerberg understand that his company’s future increasingly depends not so much on its ability to churn out killer code, but on its ability to treat users right?

People aren’t stupid. Users who care about these things know what to expect from a company that has altered its privacy policies to suit itself on multiple occasions during the past five years. A few months ago, the Electronic Frontier Foundation asked its readers to coin neologisms for “the act of creating deliberately confusing jargon and user-interfaces which trick your users”. Here’s a selection of what came back: "Zuckermining", "Infozuckering", "Zuckerpunch", "Facebooking", "Facebaiting" and "Facebunk"."

Read the full post:

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-10/01/love-google-hate-facebook#

First-Ever Mixed Reality Comic Book Brings New Multi-Platform Detective Thriller 'Are You Awake' to Life

See more news releases in: New Products & Services

First-Ever Mixed Reality Comic Book Brings New Multi-Platform Detective Thriller "Are You Awake" to Life

Innovative smartphone app to be unveiled at New York Comic Con, launching a transmedia entertainment property with webseries, graphic novel, fashion line, digital music and more

NEW YORK, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire/ - The Dream Detective Media Properties Inc. today announced that Are You Awake, a compelling glamour-noir detective story with a vast transmedia twist, will be unveiled at New York Comic Con.

Very few entertainment properties have cast as wide a net as Are You Awake. Audiences will experience the story through live action webisodes, a first-ever "mixed reality" comic that comes to life with a smartphone application, a graphic novel, motion comic, original music and a new fashion line.

All elements of the transmedia property are based on Are You Awake, a throwback to classic detective thrillers, updated with a sexy, stylish edge. Elements of surrealism and the supernatural are interwoven throughout the story, which features artwork by DC and Marvel Comics legend Richard Pace.

Audiences around the world will get their first taste of this glamour-noir property via an upcoming webseries that features a "who's who" of genre entertainment: Ryan Robbins (Sanctuary, Stargate: Atlantis), Alana Husband (Intelligence, The L Word), Jessica Harmon (Battlestar Galactica: The Face of the Enemy) and Michael Eklund (Caprica, Shattered). The series trailer will be released online during New York Comic Con, at www.areyouawake.tv.

Are You Awake is decidedly "un-Hollywood" in its origins. The property was created by Keith Turner, a successful global investment banker and four-time nominee for Ernst and Young's "Entrepreneur of the Year" Award. Turner, also a published author, songwriter and radio host, is Executive Producer of Are You Awake and heads Dream Detective Media Properties.

"From a young age I've been fascinated by dreams and a voracious reader of detective novels, so I'm thrilled to see this series come to life," Turner said. "I wanted a fresh approach to unveiling this property and quite literally, we are reverse engineering the usual entertainment business model. That meant lining up distribution before shooting the live action, and producing many of the transmedia elements in advance."

He added, "We're engaging fans not only with great entertainment, but also by giving them an active role in future story and media development. Zeros 2 Heroes has helped us take the audience experience to a whole new level through the creative use of social media, mobile apps and unique concepts like a mixed reality comic."

The Are You Awake experience kicks off on October 8th at New York Comic Con, where an alternate reality game (ARG) will be launched with live actors portraying characters from the story. All 50,000 convention goers will be given a 32 page mixed reality comic which - when used in tandem with their smartphones - will allow them to help solve an online mystery. Are You Awake will be at the convention from Oct. 8-10.

"Are You Awake showcases an entirely new way to create entertainment properties that are destined for film or television," said Matt Toner, President of Zeros 2 Heroes Media. "Digital audience experiences allow producers like Keith to connect with fans by giving them multiple points of interaction with the story, the characters and the creators."

The Mixed Reality Comic

Through the magic of augmented reality technology, the comic book will initiate a multi-layered, interactive fan experience. Scanning the book with any smartphone will generate virtual images on fans' mobile displays, as well as play music and dialogue.

These clues will unlock riddles that provide even deeper layers of the story. They can also be used to acquire rewards on the Are You Awake social network, including unique avatars, the sound track and wallpapers for mobile devices and desktop computers.

Beyond New York Comic Con, fans can continue following the story and its characters through an extended alternate reality game on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube and other social media channels. This is intended not only to draw fans into the story, but also to allow producers to better understand which characters and story lines resonate with the audience.

Links to Are You Awake

More information on Are You Awake, including a trailer of the live action series and a nine-song soundtrack based on the series will be available at www.areyouawake.tv at the start of New York Comic Con on October 8th. For an electronic press kit, please visit www.areyouawake.tv/epk.zip.

About Dream Detective Media Properties

Dream Detective Media Properties Inc. develops and implements transmedia entertainment opportunities based on the glamour-noir detective story Are You Awake (www.areyouawake.tv). Based in Vancouver, the company seeks to deliver an exciting experience to fans worldwide through the web, social media, mobile smartphones, graphic novels, music, fashion and ultimately, television.

About Zeros 2 Heroes

Founded in 2006, Vancouver-based Zeros 2 Heroes Media Inc. (www.z2hmedia.com) is a social media company that seeks to engage the hearts, minds and keyboards of online fans. Z2H creates compelling and profitable genre entertainment properties that can be distributed as feature length films, television, videogames, original digital content or print. The company works with leading broadcasters, film producers, animation studios and game development companies to provide solutions that span platforms and audiences.

SOURCE Zeros 2 Heroes Media Inc.

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This is really exciting: Nobel Worthy: Best Graphene Close-Ups | Wired Science

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Mmm, Graphene Cake

Sorry diamond lovers, but graphene is the most awesome form of carbon out there. Evidence: Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, the two scientists who isolated one-atom-thick sheets of the stuff in 2004, won the Nobel Prize this morning -- netting themselves a pot of 10 million Swedish kroner (about $1.49 million).

Despite its razor-thin makeup, graphene is one of the strongest, lightest and most conductive materials known to humankind. It’s also 97.3 percent transparent, but looks really cool under powerful microscopes. We’ve corralled some of the best shots here, with a bonus video of graphene being punished by an electron beam.

Mmmm... Graphene Cake

Theoretical physicist Philip Russell Wallace predicted graphene’s existence in 1947, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that scientists began looking for it in earnest. Forty years later, researchers practically wrote off isolating single-layer graphene. If the hexagonal layers didn’t roll up into buckeyballs or nanotubes, so the thinking went, they’d disintegrate entirely.

Geim and Novoselov persisted, however, and figured out how to isolate it using objects common to any office: Scotch tape and graphite, which is found in pencil leads.

At the top-right of this image is a 10-micron-wide, 30-layer-thick slice of graphene sheets.

Image: Science

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