5 Ways Wearable PVRs Will Change Your Life

Wearable personal video recorders, like this one advertised in a London Drug flyer, could go from simple gimmick to part of everyday life - for better and worse. Scan the QR code above for an eye-opening video on how this gadget works or click on the embedded video below.

The gates to the future can turn on small hinges. I spotted one of those hinges in a recent London Drugs flyer.

The Looxcie Bluetooth Video Camera is essentially a personal video recorder you wear on your ear. The camera looks like a typical bluetooth device. Press record once and you begin keeping a running video log of the last five hours of your day in real time. After five hours, it begins recording over the last unsaved portion of video. You manage your settings from an app on your Android or iPhone.

Gimmick or brainwave?
So what exactly does this mean? Well, if your daughter scores that winning goal or your son decides today is the day he'll take his first steps, you've got it on video - without ever pulling out your camcorder or smartphone or putting your eye to a viewfinder.

In fact, you can capture the last 30 seconds of any sudden event you witness and turn it into a separate video with just one on-the-fly click.

Gimmick, right? I mean who would really want to stockpile videos of everything they do throughout the day? You'd likely use this for short periods of time at family events and outings, your kids' games, and maybe to keep your hands free while you pull that fish out of the lake.

But here's why I think this little toy has the potential to dramatically affect our lives - maybe not right now, but as resolution and recording time expand - and attitudes toward privacy become even more liberal.

1) Many people - especially the young - are living their lives more transparently because of the social media that form such a huge part of their identity. As strange as it seems now, the idea of an always-on video journal would not be narcissistic, but simply a convenient way to record and ferret out daily gems from an otherwise unremarkable day. That means we will be in proximity to more video-obsessed folks around us and more opportunities to have our personal interactions captured close-up.

2) People will grow increasingly used to being videotaped in public. It already happens through closed circuit TV, municipal video cameras, built in cameras at bank machines, red-light cameras, and by hundreds of smartphones brandished at concerts, festivals and other public events - none of which we consent to be recorded by. Wide-spread adoption of wearable PVRs could mean that resistance to the idea of being recorded in public will at some point become, well...you know.

3) Traffic cops, parking commissioners, bank tellers and the kid handing you your order at the McDonald's drive-thru might all have bosses who would like to record their interactions with people - up close and personal - for training purposes, evaluation or legal use. Initially, there could be posted or verbal warnings about being recorded on video, but these would likely give way as wearable PVRs make more inroads into the public.

4) It could reach the point where wearable PVRs may be so widespread that the mere act of stepping out of your home will put you on the video record - not of some huge centralized agency, but by the dozens of people you interact with every day. This could push the boundaries of what's public and private into extremely uncomfortable territory. Would there be safe sanctuary for those who want to be free from the prying eyes of mobile videocams?



Already, we have to contend with the double-edged sword of citizen journalism. It can document and even foment revolution; chronicle the human and material devastation of a tornado, flood, nuclear incident; or even bring scene of a local car wreck onto our iPads. But this proliferation of video devices can also be extremely invasive. Ask anyone who's had to fight to remove their images from social networking sites like YouTube.

Also, video recording by private citizens has largely been a deliberate act until now. It involves making a decision to video, pulling your smartphone or Flip out, and recording the action. Because there's usually a viewfinder between you and your subject, it's usually obvious to onlookers that you are videotaping. Theoretically, at least they can remove themselves from your camera's immediate view.

5) None of this applies to wearable PVRs right now. They look like every other innocuous bluetooth device. There's not much to give away the fact that every movement of the wearer's head is grabbing whatever is in the field of vision - whether it's a prairie landscape or your personal interaction with the wearer.

Of course, these concerns could be overwrought. The wearable PVR could be a wash, a non-starting piece of technical ingenuity that doesn't find much use in daily life. But I remember seeing my first black and white video demonstration back in my twenties and wondering what kind of application it could ever have. Now I carry an iPhone for personal use, a Blackberry for work, and sometimes even my Flip - all of which I can use to record video.

If the idea of preserving large parts of your waking life on video does catch on, people will have to make peace with the fact that their lives may not be chronicled by Big Brother or any other surveillance-obsessed overseer. It could simply be captured by the dozens of people we come in contact with every day.

Quick, Cheap FM Transmitter Tip for iPad

FM transmitters for iStuff can be pretty pricey, but they sure are handy for watching movies or listening to tunes from your iPad when you're on a road trip.

Since I wanted to pump some cool tunes through my car stereo yesterday, I ran into a London Drugs in Regina fully expecting to get hosed.

I skipped the usual $79 to $100+ name brands to see if I could find something reasonable.

I took a chance on a cheap off-brand transmitter for a miserly $35. It was meant for iPhone 3G/3Gs and older iPod Touches - and didn't say a word about iPad compatability. But it works brilliantly from almost any position in the car, doesn't need batteries and measures about 1" x 1.25".

Had we had one on our road trip to Edmonton in January, we could have untethered the iPad from the audio cord and spared the boys a lot of leaning forward from the backseats.

4 Great Resources for Learning Japanese from My 14-Year-Old

My 14-year-old son spends hours every day meticulously composing Japanese phrases in his notebook for fun.

He scans Twitter's short pithy messages in Japanese for reading practice, views his Facebook profile entirely in Japanese, pesters me to go to oriental food markets to buy junk food, and has appropriated our discount bin DVD of Ramen Girl to capture glimpses of Japan and listen to the dialogue.

In the words of an 80's hit by The Vapors, I fear he is turning Japanese - I really think so. This is on the heels of his successful self-initiated push to learn Spanish, last year, and his assiduous following of language hacker Irish Polyglot (@irishpolyglot) and his fluentin3months.com blog.

So, I asked him about the resources he uses most often. This is what he recommends for beginners like him.

1) jisho.org - Denshi Jisho is an awesome English-Japanese/Kanji dictionary. Kanji characters can be searched by radicals.

2) renshuu.org - Solid site for vocabulary, Kanji and grammar practice. Also has a library of useful grammar tips.

3) alljapaneseallthetime.com - Great blog written by Khatz (or Khatzumoto) an American who learned Japanese with digital flashcards, and by watching Japanese TV shows and listening to conversation.

4) Japanese My Way - An iPad app with flashcards, dictionary and tutorial videos.

Meaghan Smith Hits the 'Peg - Junos' Best New Artist in Town June 9

Ok, you're in for a treat as Meaghan Smith, Halifax's young, retro-styled crooner comes to crush it at at the West End Cultural Centre in Winnipeg, June 9.

The London, Ontario native snagged "best new artist" at the Junos in March and "pop album of the year" at the East Coast Music Awards back in April.

Smith has launched a North-American tour to showcase what the National Post called her "swingy, nostalgia-tinged, soft-pop," and promote her album The Crickets Orchestra. She will hit the 'Peg a week after her Provo, Utah gig and before a string of Canadian and U.S. dates.

Career as animator

But, and here's the cool part of Smith's journey to rising star status, no one in North America would have ever heard her great pipes had it not been for a change of direction a few years ago. You see, Smith was set for a career in animation - and a promising one at that. She credits her family's modest budget for her love of illustration and music.



"We couldn’t afford cable, so to avoid doing homework, I occupied myself with other activities, like drawing and singing. And with three (mostly fuzzy) TV channels to choose from, I ended up watching a lot of animated movies and old musicals. Some of my favorites were Calamity Jane, My Fair Lady, and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers."

You'll notice Smith's animation handiwork in some of her early videos, in her video biography, and by mousing over the banner on her website to conjure up what looks remarkably like a fluttering Twitter bird.

Eventually, Smith worked up the courage to put on "secret concerts for a few of my friends in the stairwell" of the animation building where she was studying. A sound engineer encouraged her to use the building's studios to record a demo and she began booking local gigs to gain confidence performing.

After graduating, Smith moved to Halifax, and worked for four years to raise $30,000 to cut a CD. She then spent two months on the streets of Toronto living on home-made vegetable soup and sleeping at Tim Horton's.

Finally, recognition

Smith's Omnichord-based remake of the Pixie's Here Comes Your Man for the soundtrack of the movie 500 Days of Summer got her the first big accolades and gave her some solid momentum.

She's still nowhere near a household name, but her recent awards are the foot in the door to North American consciousness. And with her clever writing, throwback rhythms, some stronger branding, and a few good tours, let's hope the Mormon girl with the velvet vocals can establish a big career for herself.

A 10-Point Flip Review for Beginners - As We Kiss It Goodbye

EXPERIMENTAL POP THAT ROCKS: I caught up with Matthew, Grant, Steven and Oliver of Behind Sapphire an hour or so before their March 29, 2011, gig at the Exchange Community Church in downtown Winnipeg. Missing is Lindsay. Video was taken with my Flip Ultra HD just before dusk, largely with available light through large windows.

Look, I'm in love with my Flip Ultra HD. Can you blame me?

Sure, Cisco killed this little one-function wonder this week just a month after I got mine. Guess they figured 15% growth wasn't good enough - or maybe they just weren't cool enough, I'm not sure. But I'm definitely in hello mode: and nowhere near abandoning it yet.

I heard about these simple camcorders from following teachers and PR people on Twitter. Grabbing quick interviews seemed so easy: get in close, push the big red button, get your subject to speak up, and voilá - clean, no frills video for your blog, website or social networks.

So, thanks to some Air Miles points that had been languishing in my account, I took delivery of this magical little machine about a month ago and have been testing it ever since.

I'm so impressed.

Oh, the Flip is not perfect. Plenty of nits to pick at a time when just about everyone can shoot video with their smartphones. But for someone wanting to cut his teeth on video, it's perfect enough.

Here are my observations on this hard-working gadget whose untimely demise won't keep me from enjoying it:

1) The first thing that strikes you is how a little box with no moving parts can deliver such great video. When you first flip the USB out and attach the the Flip to your computer, you can instantly appreciate the quality.

2) Natural light is by far what you want to shoot in. The colours are great and the images are sharp and clear. Life is good - and good lighting makes it even better.

3) Results in hotel lighting are a mixed bag. In dimly-lit rooms, you'll get results that are less focussed, grainy, and complexions turn ruddy. Brighter lighting in lobbies and hallways will alleviate some of this, but nothing comes close to the beauty of natural light.

4) Use the modest zoom sparingly. Image crispness drops off sharply on maximum.

5) If you're shooting very close - desktop stuff for example - the Flip's fixed focus will give you fuzzy results. (How's that for alliteration?) If you want to shoot a demo of an app on your iPhone or iPad, the blurriness is frustrating. The solution is to simply hold a decent magnifying glass in front of the lens. Graceless yes, but it works.

6) There is no direct jack for an external mike, so you're stuck with the one on the camera. But if you're interviewing subjects up close, the Flip balances the sound in front of and behind the camera rather well - much better than the iPhone's biased mike.

7) There are two workarounds for sound, though. One is to buy an external stereo mike that plugs into the bottom of your Flip. You can plug an external mike into that. The other is to buy the FreedomMIC from Scosche. This little beast plugs into the bottom as well, but receives sound from up to 100 ft. from its wireless lapel mike. The Freedom Mike is a bit of a unicorn, though. There was plenty of talk about them during a Sept. 10 newser last year, but no one has yet seen the mythical mike instore. Hmm, did they get wind of the Flip's impending demise?

8) I love the fact that there is no DVD to pop in. The Flipshare software is uploaded from the camera to your computer through the unit's USB. No need to carry around a charger either. Just plug the USB into your laptop or desktop.

9) As for juice, The Flip comes with a rechargeable battery pack, but in a pinch you can snap in three lithium AAAs - so practical.

10) The editor that comes with the Flip Share software is simple and limited. The titles, for example, are big and dumpy and the editing features are primitive. But the software does make it easy for you to upload your videos to social networks and share them with family and friends.

Even though I sense a more sophisticated around the corner for me, I'm still in the honeymoon phase with this simple, single-function gadget. Prices have already dropped on the website making them a great buy for beginners like me. And to supplement my baby steps in video with the Flip, I'll be buying Sony Vegas Movie Maker HD or Final Cut Express to cut my teeth on editing.

Hey, you can still learn a lot without breaking the bank, right?


Check out Behind Sapphire on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and iTunes.

Why I Can't Be Faithful to One Twitter App

I can't be faithful to just one Twitter app. Sure I can point to a favorite depending on the platform, but I would never stick with just one.

Echofon
I love Echofon on the iPad because of the way it displays the lists of people I'm following and who are following me. People I follow are listed in alpha order making it easy to scroll through and find exactly who I'm looking for. My followers are listed chronologically. No other app presents this info better - it's a must see.

The whole Echofon experience is simple, easy, a pleasure to use - and I love the bright theme.

But I rarely use Echofon on my iPhone, though, because I just can't bump up the font size big enough for my tastes (can you please fix that, guys?). A larger font feels like my visual home, and Echofon just can't take me there on the iPhone.

TweetDeck

TweetDeck is awesome on my laptop and desktop, because I can run those great notifications in the background. It's the undisputed powerhouse when it comes to features and ideal for participating in #edchat and other education-related discussions. When you first graduate to TweetDeck it's pretty heady stuff seeing that flight deck with multiple columns and fancying yourself a power user.

On the iPad, though, TweetDeck takes much too long to load. I can't fit as many columns on it as on the desktop and I'm much more limited to the amount of tweets I can see at once.

TweetDeck for the iPhone is a complete wash for me. What it does so brilliantly on the laptop or desktop, just isn't possible on the smaller screen - so why bother?

Twitter

I love Twitter on my iPhone, and use it almost exclusively. I can kick the font size up, I feel comfortable with the pull-down-to-reload feature and I love the translation option which lets me follow Japanese speaking astronauts or tweets from Arab countries and actually find out what they're saying.

On the iPad, I don't know if it's Twitter's dark theme, the horizontal swiping or what, but it just doesn't turn my crank. I know I'm not alone in feeling that the iPad iteration wasn't as brilliant as the one for the iPhone.

And the Twitter desktop app? Despite the new look and functionality, it still remains the least efficient way to tweet. Its only value, in my books, is when demo-ing Twitter at workshops. There is little point using anything else because it really is the entry point for newbies and the interface most will use to start tweeting.

Switching Between Apps
That having been said, I have switched and will continue to switch between these apps depending on the need and the mood.

All of which has me worried about Twitter's objective of buying up the universe of third-party apps with which to tweet.

I don't want one app, built by one group of people, however brilliant, to be THE Twitter experience for me and the only tool I will ever be able to tweet with. I love the variation in looks, purpose and function.

After letting the genie - and the genius - out of the bottle by initially making the Twitter API open to everyone, why would you want to lock up all of that power and diversity and shove it back into just one container?

Mormon Mommy Blogs: Hip, Candid and Addictive?

Can you really get hooked on shiny, happy commentaries on Mormon motherhood and domestic bliss? Well, urban online mag Salon certainly thought so when it published Why I Can't Stop Reading Mormon Motherhood Blogs by Emily Matchar, a "young, feminist atheist" early this year.

As Matchar puts it, the appeal seems to go beyond the expected niche for these blogs.

"They're members of a large, close-knit network of Mormon lifestyle bloggers -- young stay-at-home-moms who blog about home and hearth, Latter-day Saint-style. From Rockstar Diaries (Naomi) to Underaged and Engaged (Stacie) to Nie Nie Dialogues (Stephanie) to Say Yes to Hoboken (Liz), Mormon lifestyle bloggers occupy their very own corner of the blogosphere.

"Their lives are nothing like mine -- I'm your standard-issue late-20-something childless over-educated atheist feminist -- yet I'm completely obsessed with their blogs. On an average day, I'll skim through a half-dozen Mormon blogs, looking at Polaroids of dogs in raincoats or kids in bow ties, reading gratitude lists, admiring sewing projects."

The creators of these blogs are Instagram-hip chroniclers of puking babies, doting husbands, harried shopping trips, forays into vintage fashions, and weekend DIY projects gone awry. But despite being a running log of domestic vicissitudes, these blogs are contemporary cool and some, like Nat the Fat Rat, are pretty darn candid.

And as one of Matchar's 464 commentors writes, "you are attracted to the positivity."

That positivity shines through even in the face of tremendous adversity, as in the case of Stephanie Nielson (below), who experienced a near-fatal plane crash and lived to blog about it and the struggles she faces raising her kids in the aftermath of severe burns. "I am Stephanie Nielson," she says. "And I am not my body."



Some may be uncomfortable with faith-based references mingling so casually in these posts. But as a blogger and a Mormon myself, I know that blogging is all about growth and personal development - and these women are writing what they know and blogging who they are.

It's been said that audience is essential for a blogger's growth. In that respect these women owe their audiences. And it's nice to know that their readers, even those that don't share their faith, are finding value in their work.

Is Everybody Happy? Manitoba's New Media Gurus Say 'Yes'

NMM: Funding Announced for a New Media Strategy from Handcraft on Vimeo.

Yes, Manitoba's new media industry is $433,000 happy after this Monday's announcement of a whack of funds to boost the profile of the province's interactive digital media firms around the globe. The announcement was made by Lynne Yelich, federal minister of state for Western Economic Diversification.

This video has the smooth production values you'd expect, Kevin Hnatiuk, executive director of New Media Manitoba is positively effusive, and a buoyant atmosphere prevails. You can even see United Way Winnipeg's social media guru Erica Glasier grabbing some video with her iPhone.

Oh, and in case you missed it, Erica and Kevin Glasier were responsible for the inspired design and quick turnaround on the Pray for Japan t-shirts that local HOT 103 personality Ace Burpee is currently hawking.

The flash of inspiration here? The shirt's QR code takes you directly to the Red Cross mobile donation site. Brilliant concept, worthy cause and only $20.

Roots and Technology - Relatively Speaking

Something big has been happening to me lately.

The desire to learn my family history is exerting a substantial pull on me. I find I'm being moved to get moving on a project which previously held little interest.

Now, I'm starting to discover some very cool things. And I'm also noticing that genealogy - the detective work of getting to know your bigger family who have already passed - is starting to make inroads even in popular culture.

NBC's Friday night line-up boasts "Who Do You Think You Are?" a co-production with ancestry.com that traces the family history of one celebrity. Each week, the guest celeb sets out on an journey that gradually reveals astonishing nuggets about the lives of the folks that populate their family tree.

Now the show originated in Britain years ago and spawned knock-offs in Canada, Australia and elsewhere. But our family came to it late with the U.S. product now in its second season.

So last week, we propped up the iPad at the dinner table to take our first look. The guest, 80's pop star Lionel Richie, was often startled at the unfolding developments - especially when he learned his great-great-grandfather was a white plantation owner.

But the show focused on his great-grandfather and pursued the circuitous trail of a man who was divorced by his decades younger bride for suspicious reasons. He was the presumed renegade that no-one in the family knew or talked about.

Ultimately, the reason for his two-year period of travel away from his wife was revealed to be his commitment to building a national fraternal organization for African-American men long before the American civil rights movement found its legs. The work and sacrifice Richie's ancestor lived was often poignant.

Who knew that genealogy could make such great TV?

Another discovery that had my mind chewing on possibilities was the fact that this past February in Salt Lake City, the RootsTech 2011 conference made its debut.

Even though I have barely dipped my toes in this work, RootsTech, co-sponsored by the good folks at FamilySearch, seems like a pretty powerful draw - one that melds my budding interest in family history with a full-blown love for all things tech. You can YouTube RootsTech to get an idea of the scope of the event. The 2012 date is February 2-4.

Funny that the stars align themselves the way they do sometimes, but another smallish thing that will help me get get my feet fully immersed in genealogy is that I bought, or got rather, a Flip Video camera (thank you Air Miles), that makes it duh simple to shoot decent HD video.

It struck me just a few days ago that I should fire up the Flip to record my dad's stories about his youthful flight from the Russians during WWII and get some of the dates, times and places that were important in his life. Naturally, I'll plumb his memory for names and birthplaces of relatives I need to research.

I must hustle on this project. My dad is 72. I need to ferret out and record those stories while his memory and health are still relatively strong.

My family means the world to me. And the prospect of researching my ancestors is one that has me itching to start. I want them to be real for me - for my kids. And the question that gets bigger for me each day is quite simple.

Just who are they anyway?

92 Crazy Good QR Slides that Will Blow Your Mind

Voir QR: The History, Use & Abuse of QR Codes

View more presentations from Tactica Interactive

I was floored when I discovered Erica Glasier: Oversocialized. This rich repository of posts on all things tech from the interactive/social media guru at United Way Winnipeg absolutely rocks. Check out this amazing slide deck on QR codes. Watch them full screen for maximum impact. Erica knows her stuff, I suspect, as few others do.