Simple Script

http://vimeo.com/2480904 I wrote the simple script below and once my friend recorded the audio he changed a few words to make it funnier. The script is short and simple. Short sentences that guide the call dialogue and asks most of the questions since its voice activated, we have to ask the questions not the callers. We have to anticipate the caller’s answers in order for the voice activated system to work. Check out the video to see. If the caller says something that we don’t put into the system then the call will hang up. I can help with the anticipated answers.

Below is the flyer I made in order to get callers for the script

I posted the flyers everywhere and caught people taking the numbers.

Half the World Will Use a Mobile Phone by 2009

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15674.php

A new market study from Portio Research predicts that 50% of the world’s population will be using a mobile phone by the end of 2009, and Africa now boasts the fastest growth rate in the world, forecast to add 265 million new mobile subscribers over the next 6 years. Among the top 25 growth markets ranking list (2006-2011) there are a few surprises. India wins the top spot, just ahead of China, and almost equally in 3rd place are Brazil, Indonesia and Nigeria, but the real surprises start in 6th place with the US mobile market tipped to grow by almost 66 million net additions from the start of 2006 to the end of 2011.

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This puts volume growth in the USA ahead of fast developing markets such as Pakistan, Mexico and the Ukraine. Russia is positioned lower than some may expect, in 11th place, below Iran and Bangladesh, while Japan appears in 18th place, with a predicted 14 million net subscriber additions by 2011, surprisingly placing above South Africa and Venezuela.

While Western Europe and the US will see 50%+ subscriber penetration of 3G by 2011, the Asia Pacific region will see only 35%, albeit with 1.06 billion subscribers by 2011, making this the largest regional 3G market in the world.

The number of mobile subscribers worldwide reached over 2 billion by the end of 2005, and is predicted to rise to 3.96 billion by 2011. The Asia Pacific Region will account for 50% of the total number of subscribers worldwide by the end of this decade with a staggering 1.067 billion subscribers shared between China and India alone, the world’s two biggest mobile markets.”

Posted to the site on 20th January 2006

Global Mobile Awards 2009

http://www.globalmobileawards.com/winners.shtml

Techno Textiles 2 by Marie O’Mahony

These are pictures I took when Marie O’Mahony presented her second book “Techno Textiles 2″ at Parsons.

Events & Exhibitions

Techno Textiles 2 – lecture by Marie O’Mahony

The advent of new and advanced technologies has had a dramatic impact on the world of textiles. Its influence can be seen in every area from fashion and product design to art and architecture. Highly engineered fibers and fabrics are allowing new structures to be produced with enhanced performance characteristics. New surface treatments are transforming the appearance, aesthetic and performance of fabrics. Digital advances are changing both the appearance and viewpoint of textiles, while new developments in electronics have opened up whole new areas of interactive art and design. The outcome is that we are seeing not only textile artists and designers reassessing fabric, but product designers, engineers and architects have come to regard the material in a new light.

Marie O’Mahony is an independent textile and technology consultant based in London. Her clients range from NIKE to Arts Council England to Zaha M Hadid and Hussein Chalayan. She has curated numerous exhibitions, including The Fabric of Fashion for the British Council and her books include TechnoTextiles, SportsTech and Cyborg – The Man Machine. Her most recent book titled TechnoTextiles 2 (coauthor) was published by Thames and Hudson last year. During August 2006 she is a visiting lecturer at UNSW COFA conducting workshops on ‘Camouflage’. Her visit to UNSW is supported by the Ove Arup Foundation.

Enquiries: Liz Williamson, School of Design Studies COFA, tel 9385 0610 or email Liz.Williamson@unsw.edu.au
Where: COFA Lecture Theatre EG02, Corner Greens Road (Gate 2) and Oxford Streets, Paddington NSW.
http://www.dhub.org/articles/742

Thesis | Design Question Map

Interview and Research 3

CECELIA RUBINEO, EUGENE LANG COLLEGE THE NEW SCHOOL FOR LIBERAL ARTS

Interview and Research 2

Improve Workshop | EUGENE LANG COLLEGE THE NEW SCHOOL FOR LIBERAL ARTS

Improve Workshop | EUGENE LANG COLLEGE THE NEW SCHOOL FOR LIBERAL ARTS

Interview and Research 1

Comedians promoting in Times Square

Every night as I walk through Times Square, I run into a dozen different comedy writers, comedians, show producers as well as just comedy show promoters. Their voices are louder than the cab horns, their faces and clothes are brighter than the massive billboards and thier pitch to invite you to thier show is more alluring than the ads in the stores. I usually just walk right by them but one day I decided to stop and talk to every person who asked me to come to their comedy show.

The picture above is of five guys I ran into. They captured my attention and told me why they were out there, why they were trying to get people to come to thier shows and why they love comedy so much.

(details of the interview coming soon)

The technology I use and the steps I take to realize this act…

1. iSpeak Widget to test out the pronunciation of the two character’s names
2. Voxeo (To write out the dialog for the comedy act)
3. Cell Phones (to call Pretiie Reddy and Aussim Bhutt and talk to them)
4. 

   G1 phone

   

   iPhone, BlackBerry Storm

5. Vimeo (To upload the user’s calls)
   

   I use Vimeo to upload the calls

6. Myspace (to show off the recorded calls and build a fan following)
   

   Aussim's Myspace page

re-visiting my abstract to guide my current thesis project…

* Motivation:
Assim Butt is a computer engineer by trade, a telephone operator by day and most impressively a comedian by night. I am doing my project about Assim’s dream to become a comedian in America and I am also documenting his journey along the way. Assim’s biggest goal is to not only make Americans laugh but also to shine light on the much talked about issue of outsourcing jobs to third world countries and how Americans may be able to get the jobs back, only if they are creative.

* Problem Statement:
The problem I am tackling is the fact that Assim is actually NOT real; in fact he is a character I made up for my own comedy routine. I am using CallXML 3.0 to script out the interaction between Assim and callers. I am also looking into Flash and xml, the Opera browser and its audio/video capabilities as well as various other audio software. My initial ideas is to not only to make people laugh but to take the old standup comedy routine with ventriloquist / puppets and refresh it with a new interactive/ animated character who has a mind of his own. I have done research on various voice xml software as well as comedy routines and find the simplicity of smaller scaled experiences extremely valuable. In this case, an interaction between a caller and my character (Assim) over the phone. I also want to see if this character works then in order to earn back some of the outsourced jobs, whether American’s need to learn to record their voices and get creative and make automated characters who answer calls from America.

* Approach:
My process includes various scripts written in both VoiceXml and CallXml that are uploaded to my school server and then called upon using Voxeo either from a regular telephone or Skype. I also recorded various audio files with both male and female voices to go long with my script and to make my character sound real. My most important variables are my narrative behind the whole project which is the act that Assim is an outsourced call operator working for a real estate brokerage company, he lives in Pakistan, and he dreams to become a comedian and move to America. I also focused on the software I used to realize my character as well as the flyers around town and online postings on craigslist.com I used to entice people to interact with my work.