STEVE JOBS AND ME.

I've been waiting to do my next post to announce my next big project. This couldn't wait.

I thought about what I could say here that hasn't already been said by the millions of people who have paid their respects to Steve Jobs. And I realized it isn't really about saying something original but rather acknowledging the passing of a great man, getting this deep sadness out of my system and reminiscing about how he's completely influenced my perspective on everything. Everything.

I was fortunate to work with the agency that created all of Steve Jobs's iconic advertising work. Even though I didn't work directly with Steve, I saw a lot of his work take shape. From the ipod campaign to the "mac vs. pc" ads, you know the man had taste. He is one of the few clients who respected creativity and understood the value of creating a brand.

I believe this is the true secret behind Steve and Apple's genius. Their brand: humanizing technology. They believe in it down to their bones. You can see it in every mac, ipod, iphone, ipad. Steve was the one who made technology play time. If you've ever been to an Apple store, you understand. And regardless of how advanced their products are, Steve made it for accesible for everyone. How beautiful is that? Isn't that the most unselfish business decision you've ever heard?

And I think this is why his passing affects me so much. It is his genius that holds all my music, all my letters, all my photographs, all of me.

Anyway, I consider myself lucky. Once Steve left his post at Apple, I wrote him an email which I consider to be my goodbye:
To: sjobs@apple.com
Subject: Thanks
Hi Steve,
I just wanted to thank you for all the magic you've brought not just to Apple but to my home.
All the best man!
-d-

Paid my respects in the Apple Store, Beijing.
Thanks, Steve.

THE BEATLES ON ITUNES. FINALLY.

I had to write about this. I love it when two of my favorite things come together; in this case, the Beatles and Apple computers. The Beatles and Apple finally settled their differences. The Beatles albums are finally available 7 years after the iTunes store was launched. This is pretty exciting. I'm curious to see what kind of sales this will make. I think this is history in the making...at least in my history book. I had to take a screenshot of this. This won't be up for long.

HEAD-FI.

This is a real treat to write about. This is probably one of my oldest obsessions. Headphones. I take my music quite seriously so...I'll try not to sound too geeky.

I just picked up these bad ass headphones - the TMA-1 by AiAiAi (eye-eye-eye); a creative company from Denmark. In the world of architecture, graphic communications and industrial design, Denmark has a god given gift for brilliant design. The TMA-1 is no exception. It takes minimalism to the next level. I'm still looking for the logo! Where is it???

Headphones need days of burn-in time and out of the box, the AiAiAi's are okay. They're a little too bassy for my taste but quite fun to listen to. I'm hoping after a few days, they'll open up.

When it comes to the sound, I'm pretty serious. I'm comparing the AiAiAi to my AKG K701 and my Grados, which are both legendary. But we're comparing apples and oranges. The AKGs run at about 400 USD, however, the Grado SR60s only cost 80 bucks. The AiAiAi's were about 150 USD.

If you're serious about headphones, I'd go for the open-back headphones like the AKG K701. Huge soundstage, meaning it creates an environment around you. You feel the instruments separate from each other. You hear the imperfections. It's that accurate. Voices are elegant. Instruments are brilliant. It's a real pleasure to listen to music.

If you're on a tighter budget, go with the Grado SR80 or the SR60. With it's awesome performance, history and following, the Grados are nothing but legendary. They won't disappoint. Large soundstage, great bass response, crystal clear mids and highs. I love these headphones but unfortunately, very difficult to travel with.

[there used to be a photo of the MDR-7506 here but the "photographer" decided to claim their copyright. instead of giving this person the satisfaction of getting credit on this blog (which nobody even reads and doesn't make any money), i would rather remove the photo as suggested. this doesn't hurt the blog. the "photographer" is happy. everyone wins.]

I just remembered the last pair of headphones I own - the Sony V6 or MDR-7506. These are the industry standard. Radio Stations, sound studios, and film sets, they all carry the MDR-7506s. They're durable, sharp, accurate headphones. They run at about 100 bucks.

So where do that AiAiAi's stand? Well, so far so good. As for sound, they're okay. They have a monolithic presence. I saw them for the first time 4 months ago and finally gave in today. I'd pay 150 dollars just to display them in my house.

UNITING THE WORLD WITH U2ube.

For the first time, YouTube has teamed up with a band to, for lack of a better word "televise," a free concert. This was probably a huge step in music and technology and of course, there's only one band so ahead of the curve: U2. No doubt, with the success of this historic digital event, we will see start to see more concerts online.

The show started with a 30 minute countdown to U2's stage entrance. The growing anticipation, I must admit, definitely added to this virtual concert experience. And then voila, the show began. You probably forget immediately that you're watching it on the internet and believe me, it's something that you have to experience. I found myself singing along with Bono and if I had more space, I probably would've danced. And with all great concerts, I noticed the very familiar exhilaration of hearing great hits.

U2 is probably one of the only bands that can perform for about 2 hours, continuously playing hit after hit. They played such a beautiful and diverse set and as Bono put it "We've got old songs, new songs and songs we can hardly play."

This was truly the cheapest and one of the best concerts I've been to.

SHOOT YOUR OWN FILMS.

Red Rock Micro is a company that creates cinema rigs for DSLR cameras. It's not cheap but in relation to cinema rigs for film cameras, it's cheap. It'll set you back around USD 2500 for an extensive rig (the one above).

Red Rock Micro is also sponsoring a great DSLR film festival called dailyfilm and here's the site: http://www.dailyfilm.tv/festivals/dailyfilmtv-dslr-short-film-contest

The point of this is...anyone can do this.  Just do it.

Here are some more samples.

A NEW WAVE OF SHOOTING FILMS.

Welcome to a new age of digital films. I just got myself a Canon 5D mark II and it is...insane. I'm not gonna talk about the great images this thing produces at an astonishing 21.1 megapixels but rather its new feature: full HD video.

I must say, from what I've seen, this thing can compete with the best film cameras out there. I don't see a huge difference between the infamous Red Camera (http://www.red.com/) and the 5D mark II. The main problem with the 5D is image stability because of its light weight, unlike the Red Camera - you can buy stabilizers and rigs, etc.

In any case, here's a relatively cheap opportunity to start shooting your own films. Forget presenting storyboards, imagine presenting fully shot test commercials to clients. Have a look at these:

Canon 5D mark II - Commercial Shoot from Denver Riddle on Vimeo.


Mark II from Alex Delarge on Vimeo.


Tokyo Reality (Canon 5D MarkII) from Florent Porta on Vimeo.

THE DETAILS WE DON'T SEE.

It's the tiny details that make life exciting. All of these are shot with high speed cameras running at 10.000 frames per second.  You watch tv at 24 frames per second.

KAMKWAMBA. THE BOY WHO HARNESSED THE WIND.

At the age of 14, William Kamkwamba, born into poverty and famine in Malawi, built his family a windmill armed with nothing more than a book. He began collecting various materials such as plastic pipes, bicycle parts, from a scrapyard to build his wind machine. The town, including his mother, thought he was crazy. He now powers his entire village with electricity and supplies the people with water eliminating the drought problem that claimed the lives of so many.

Watch the videos below in sequence because it's incredible to see his progress over the years.

EXPLORING INNER AND OUTER SPACE.

http://spacecollective.org - this is a site dedicated to bringing the brightest minds together to shape the future of everything. Here you have a collection of scientists, teachers, students, anyone with significant knowledge in field of technology but specifically, inner and outer space. There's something humbling about the data you'll find here.

Below, I'm embedding their introductory video which should be more than enough to convince you to pay this site a visit. I suggest you watch the other episodes embedded on it.

THE SINGING, RINGING TREE.

This is one of the coolest art installations I've ever seen. It looks like some alien technology that was left behind in the middle of nowhere! There's not much information on it but from here's what I've gathered so far: The Singing Ringing Tree is designed by architects Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu. It's 3 meters tall made of steel pipes of varying lengths. The hollow steel pipes allow wind to pass through them creating this eerie but beautiful sound.

KINETIC SCULPTURES. WIND BEASTS.

Theo Jansen has been occupied trying to create new forms of life. Jansen has created skeletal systems that walk the earth, made from cheap plastic tubes and powered only by the wind. Over time, Jansen has evolved these beasts to adapt to harsh weather conditions. Eventually, Theo Jansen will free his sculptures in herds on beaches to live their own lives.

Beautiful.

THE XO LAPTOP.

Can a laptop change the world? This is genius. A laptop can now be purchased for the price of USD 100.  The creative organization behind this, the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child: http://laptop.org/en/index.shtml), claims that this is not a laptop project but rather and education project.  They believe that children do not lack the capability, only the opportunity and resources. The XO is the key. WOW.

MICROSOFT'S SEADRAGON AND PHOTOSYNTH.

Microsoft labs has revolutionized imagery through Seadragon and Photosynth. Don't ask me how it works but Seadragon has the capability of taking any image, no matter what size, on the internet and turns it into a hi-resolution image; allowing you to pan and zoom deep into the picture.

Photosynth takes any subject of choice, say the Eiffel Tower, and creates a 3D rendering of it through the compilation and stitching of available images on the internet! It's almost like piecing puzzle. What's even better is you can zoom into a portion and see the original image. It's hard to explain so have a look below at the images. It's quite amazing.

Start your own Seadragon now!

http://seadragon.com

http://photosynth.net/

BIG IDEA. CHEAP TO MAKE.

MIT students launch camera into space for only $148.