tracyswedlow's blog

AStoryBeforeBed.com (see a recent news story above) is an incredible find. The concept is simple: purchase a book for $6.99 and then read it via your Web cam as the pages turn. You can annotate the book, too!  Beautifully designed, the final file is saved on the site and then you can send it to your loved ones to view.

I heard about it because a friend of mine Oliver Chin, who has a children's book imprint called Immedium.com (and I edited a few books for him), uses this service to more widely make his books available.

I like to catch up with people in the industry from time to time and find out what they do in time not-obsessed with the trials and travails of the interactive TV industry. Here, we see Bill Niemeyer, ITV strategist and veteran numbers-cruncher, practicing his driving skills around the track.

Bill driving a (rented) Spec Miata race car at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma during an October 2009 Audi Club high performance driving school. This was his 10th track day weekend.

Verizon/Google Droid platform smartphone has a huge interactive digital signage piece in Times Square. You can also go on their Web page and see it streamed live here.

Or, just watch the YouTube video from VerizonWireless TV about it.

-- Tracy Swedlow, editor, [itvt]

Thanks to an [itvt] reader, Nadia Rodakowski, for sending the link to this new Twitter reality real-time show called "Who Is the Bald Guy!!"  The YouTube blurb says "The show takes place live online and let's the viewers decide what happens."  Looks like a mixture of reality and loosely scripted material. Reminds me of the old FX show called Todd TV, which I really miss.

Here is the link to the main page on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/whoisthebaldguy

Check out the video for the "NUDE IT" app on the iPhone. I can't believe that's true, but they did a good job at making it look real...

During our recent trip to the UK, the [itvt] editorial team shot a "Day in the Life of..." segment with Softel CEO, Sam Pemberton, at the company's headquarters in the Berkshire village of Pangbourne (near Reading). Softel offers a range of television products including solutions for interactive TV, opt cuing/ad insertion, subtitling and captioning.

Thanks again to the power of YouTube, you can see something amazing on demand as UGC.  -- Tracy swedlow

Found this great interactive TV ivideo series using YouTube annotations technologies made by Canadians, which claims to be the first interactive tennis lesson on YouTube. Tried it out and it's kind of weird and amazing and fun, if you're into tennis. Pretty well done when you consider that the creators (tennis pros) had to think through all the interactive options to make this work. I really give them credit for doing this and not making it cheezy.  -- Tracy Swedlow, [itvt]

Lori Schwartz, the well-loved and respected veteran in our industry (directs the Emerging Media Lab at Interpublic and this last year's winner of an [itvt] Leadership Award for Multiplatform and Interactive Television), has just given birth to a wonderful little girl named Sadie Bee!!  Here is a link to her Facebook page for more photos. Congratulations - Mazeltov!!!

I just couldn't resist. Beautifully done. Interactivity is at the end. It's about one of my favorite subjects: the Universe. Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking rap poetically to Glorious Dawn. -- Tracy Swedlow

I really like these. Imagine miniature story videos as well.  -- Tracy Swedlow

CLICK LINK ABOVE FOR VIDEO: Found this.  Perhaps we'll see video imagerly floating in mid-space someday.  I think so. Seems pretty logical. Now that we're seeing the emergence of augmented reality, why wouldn't we see holoreality? Video shouldn't need a 2D surface, per se. It just needs particles in the air. And, once we have video floating in mid-air, it should be interactive because it will be using geo-space location technology, which can be televised. What  happened to that company we used to cover in the early days of [itvt] that could send triggering information through the light of the TV screen to little toys you had in your room? -- Tracy Swedlow

Went to Cadbury World in Bourneville, England last week. Had a lot of fun. Ate too much chocolate because they give you all sorts of things for free and then there's the nice shop at the end and the tasting of molten chocolate.  This place is the inspiration for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. They have a full tour with a charming fun ride that will thrill your children (and yourself), if you're young at heart.

This is a video of Ivan Sutherland demonstrating his light Sketchpad back in 1963. Ivan Sutherland, for those of you who don't know, is one of the fathers of the Virtual Reality movement (note: I have to say "movement," because that's all it was as the industry floundered to some extent - I know - I saw it) as well as being an all around computer innovator in every way. This technology he displays is still exciting!  What happened to it?

Tracy Swedlow